Exploring Kent's Past

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Monument details

Summary

Middle-Late Bronze Age circular ditched enclosure containing cremation

graves or pyre refuse pits, postholes, and associated pottery in the ditch fill.

Monument Types

• DITCHED ENCLOSURE (Middle Bronze Age - 1600 BC to 1001 BC) + Sci.Date

Associated Finds

• BURNT FLINT (Prehistoric - 500000 BC? to 42 AD?)
• CREMATION (Early Bronze Age to Early Iron Age - 2350 BC to 401 BC)
• WORKED FLINT (Bronze Age - 2350 BC? to 701 BC?)
• POTTERY ASSEMBLAGE (Middle Bronze Age to Early Iron Age - 1600 BC to 401 BC) + Sci.Date

Full description

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The 120m diameter hill-top enclosure was 4.5-5.5m wide and 1.6m deep (from the stripped ground level), with steep sides (in places with a step on the outer side) and a flat base (Plates 1–4). No entrance to the enclosure has been found, but one could lie along the unexposed western side (1).

The presence of a large, contemporary, oval ditched feature (Enclosure B) in the eastern part of the enclosure (as recorded in the previous phases of work) strongly suggests that there was no internal bank, and the symmetrical filling of the circular enclosure ditch also gives no indication of a bank, either inside or outside (1).

Although the ditch contained little pottery, several large Middle-Late Bronze Age sherds were recovered from the base of slot 472, one of which had a carbonised deposit on its interior surface yielding a 14C-date of 1540-1120 BC cal BC (at 95% certainty). The upper ditch fill also contained occasional Late Bronze Age sherds (1).

The enclosure contained a mixture of cremation/pyre refuse pits and post holes. Five probable cremation burials were present (2).

Wessex Archaeology, 2000, Kingsborough Farm Eastchurch, Isle of Sheppey, Kent. Phase 1 Stage 2 Archaeological Excavation: Summary Report (Unpublished document). SKE12298.

Wessex Archaeology, 2002, Kingsborough Manor Development, Eastchurch, Isle of Sheppey, kent. Watching Briefs, Evaluation, and Phase 1, Stage 2 Excavation: Assessment Report and proposals for Post-Excavation Analyses and Publication (Unpublished document). SKE12297.

<1> Wessex Archaeology, 2008, Kingsborough Manor, Phase 3 Stages 1 and 2, Eastchurch, Isle of Sheppey, Kent (Unpublished document). SKE31436.

<2> Archaeology South-East, 2000, Archaeological investigations at Kingsborough Farm, Eastchurch, Isle of Sheppey, Kent: Post-Excavation Assessment and Draft Proposals for Future Work (Unpublished document). SKE12602.

Sources and further reading