Earith Bulwark Investigations, Ouse Washland Archaelogy. Excavation Report No. 1

Abstract

Three trenches covering an area of 350.2sqm were opened in the environs of Earith’s Civil War earthworks known as the Bulwark. Positioned upon a gravel terrace of the Wash, and set between the Old and New Bedford Levels that connect with the River Ouse, the surrounding landscape is archaeologically sensitive, with extensive prehistoric and Roman sites having been excavated to the north and south of the project area. Quarrying identified in two trenches immediately south of the Bulwark may hold some broad contemporary connection to Civil War activities, with 17th century pottery coming from one of these. A geophysical survey mapped a broad but discrete distribution of this quarried area. The trenches were opened across the distinct landfall of a terrace edge that was thought to have once framed a former channel of the River Ouse. A full sequence of sediment deposits was recorded from the later Holocene to the historic era. Items of Mesolithic to Middle Iron Age attribution dominated the finds recovered from these trenches, predominantly coming from sealed ‘buried soil’ contexts as well as a ditch dated to the latter of this time frame. These important findings are comparable to the Over/Needginworth and Colne Fen landscapes nearby, with the northward extension of the former’s Mesolithic landscape being of particular significance. The potential for an early waterlogged organic sequence was clearly identified in one of the trenches in which the edge of a former course of the River Ouse was encountered. A third trench was positioned north of the Bulwark to investigate a raised linear anomaly thought to represent the course of the Roman Car Dyke. This was found to be a silt and alluvium filled roddon that passed through a deflated boggy environment, and although no sign of the dyke was forthcoming this may have been either removed or obscured by a later channel broadly following the West Wash flood deposits.