2 weeks Ago By [email protected] (Chris Harby)
A series of archaeological digs around a major new pipeline have uncovered fascinating finds, spanning the prehistoric age through to Roman times. Sites near to the villages of Maxey and Etton were among 80 areas of excavation along the route of a 330km water pipeline from North Lincolnshire to Colchester, in Essex. The Strategic Pipeline Alliance (SPA) worked with water companies to lay the new pipe which will distribute water to areas of shortage and to pre-empt rising demand through climate change and bigger population.
Research revealed 80 sites would need excavation to either record and preserve important finds, or even divert the pipeline. In total 3,000 evaluation trenches were dug. “We had to take into consideration the potential impact on archaeological remains because when you’re putting a 330km pipe in the ground you’re going to hit archaeology at many points along the route,” said SPA lead archaeologist, Phillippa Adams.
Around 10 of these sites were along the Grantham to Peterborough stretch, including Etton and Maxey, the latter area having a proven track record of prehistoric finds. Finds at Etton were chiefly Roman, including high status pottery, such as a votive jug - a gift to a Roman god - and a near-complete urn. The discovery of a corn drier oven, a domestic oven, and enclosure ditches suggests a farming settlement.
“We don’t actually have any houses on the site - we seem to be just off the main focus of a settlement,” Phillippa explained. “We do have some quite high-status pottery which suggests there is some kind of house nearby, because you wouldn’t normally take your high status pot into the middle of nowhere and chuck it in a ditch.” Four different burial plots were found from that period, including a charnel pit which were used to deposit previously buried bones that had been dug up.
“The presence of the burials suggests further that this isn’t the centre of activity because you don’t tend to get Roman burials where people live. “The only things that we found within the burials were hobnails, suggesting that some were buried wearing their boots and were dressed for burial.” There was also evidence of iron age activity, possibly shortly before the arrival of the Romans in Britain in 43AD.
They included more ditches as well as - to the south of Etton - the edge of two roundhouses. The Etton excavations, carried out teams from York Archaeology, Oxford Archaeology and Pre-Construct Archaeology, were completed in 2023. More will be known when the final report is published next year.
“One of the research aims for the next stage of reporting is to find out a little bit more about who these people were,” Phillippa added. Over at Maxey, the historical scale was even broader, with finds from early prehistoric and neolithic times - around 4,000 years ago - through to the Roman period. “We got some absolutely beautiful flint finds,” said Phillippa.
“There’s an area of colluvium across the site and within that colluvium there was a lovely flint axe and some mesolithic blades - just absolutely stunning. “They’ve just been washed in, but they were absolutely beautiful finds and that does tie in with wider use of the Maxey landscape, certainly through the prehistoric period.” She added: “You don't tend to get settled sedentary communities in the mesolithic and early neolithic period.
“They tended to be seasonal occupation of sites, moving around the country dependent on various different factors - climate, where the livestock was, where the herds were for hunting. “So you don’t tend to get that many features associated, so it’s just really nice to have the finds to show that they were there.”.
