Exploring Kent's Past

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Monument details

Summary

The late Bronze Age features comprised a rectangular posy-built structure, several ditches and gullies likely to have been enclosures or field boundaries of more than one phase, and a small number of pits. All of these have been assigned to the 11-8th century BC on the basis of the ceramic evidence.

Evidence of Bronze Age activity and possible settlement was uncovered and excavated on the site of the proposed tescos on Manston Road in Ramsgate. Features included an enclosure ditch, a rectangular posthole structure of late Bronze Age date (two phases of construction), further enclosure ditches,gullies, a pit and a likely quarry.Pottery was found in deposits as further evidence.

Monument Types

• ENCLOSED SETTLEMENT (Late Bronze Age - 1000 BC to 701 BC (at some time))
• POST BUILT STRUCTURE (Late Bronze Age - 1000 BC to 701 BC)

Associated Finds

• ANIMAL REMAINS (Late Bronze Age - 1000 BC to 701 BC)
• BURNT FLINT (Late Bronze Age - 1000 BC to 701 BC)
• CEREAL GRAIN (Late Bronze Age - 1000 BC to 701 BC)
• CORE (Late Bronze Age - 1000 BC to 701 BC)
• DEBITAGE (Late Bronze Age - 1000 BC to 701 BC)
• FLAKE (Late Bronze Age - 1000 BC to 701 BC)
• NON MARINE MOLLUSCA REMAINS (Late Bronze Age - 1000 BC to 701 BC)
• POTTERY ASSEMBLAGE (Late Bronze Age - 1000 BC to 701 BC)
• RETOUCHED FLAKE (Late Bronze Age - 1000 BC to 701 BC)

Full description

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(TR36175 66500) Bronze Age Enclosures, Structures and Evidence of Activity/Possible Occupation.

Features included an enclosure ditch (Ditch 229) in the extreme south western corner of the site orientated north-south. Also present was a rectangular posthole structure (Structure 191) with possibly two phases of construction. Finds from this dated the structure to the Late Bronze Age. Two further ditches (Ditch 91 and Ditch 230) which are likely to be contemporary, formed an enclosure and are of likely Late Bronze Age date due to finds found within both ditches. A further ditch (Ditch 231) is also likely contemporary with ditches 91 and 230 but formed a separate enclosure.Four gully type features were also excavated in addition to a quarry(Quarry 219) and a pit(Pit 212) with finds of pottery and flint in the pit and the quarry, and bone in the quarry. (1-2)
Two parallel curvilinear ditches, 175 and 231, lay to the north-east of the other Late Bronze Age ditches, and may have defined and enclosure lying mainly outside the limit of excavation to the east. (3)

Structure 191 was rectangular in plan and lay on the western edge of the excavation. The feature consisted of 22 circular or sub-cirular postholes, possible representing two phases of construction. No post holes were found to correspond with the line of 116, 132, 170, and 181/183. (3)

The Manston road site might best be interpreted as an open, domestic settlement, probably based on a mixed farming economy, which developed during a period of agricultural intensification, and it serves to strengthen an emphasis on the growing importance of the Wantsum Channel during the Late Bronze age.

<1> Wessex Archaeology, 1996, Tesco Site, Manston Road,Ramsgate, Kent, Draft Interim Notes (Unpublished document). SKE16009.

<2> Wessex Archaeology, 1995, Tesco Site, Manston Road, Ramsgate, Kent, Archaeological Evaluation (Unpublished document). SKE13312.

<3> Wessex Archaeology, 2009, A Late Bronze Age, Anglo-Saxon, And Medieval Settlement Site At Manston Road, Ramsgate in "Kentish Sites And Sites Of Kent A Miscellany of Of Four Archaeological Excavations." (Article in monograph). SKE16055.

Sources and further reading