Land East of Memorial Hall, Brundall, Norfolk: Post-Excavation Assessment and Updated Project Design

The excavation area comprised an area of approximately 0.47ha, focused on Early Neolithic features identified in Trenches 33, 34 and 35. The investigation identified intermittent prehistoric activity in the form of five Early Neolithic pit clusters scattered across the excavation area in the northeastern corner of the site. It is notable that the activity was focussed on a possible spring that upwelled in the western part of the excavation area. Radiocarbon dates obtained from samples taken from three of the pits closely dates the activity at Brundall to a few years either side of 3647 cal BC. One small cluster was located in the northwest corner of the excavation area, the pits yielding a large assemblage of Early Neolithic pottery sherds and worked flint. Another pit cluster was found in the central part of the site and consisted of five elongated, shallow pits, all containing medium-sized lithic assemblages broadly dating to the same period. To the south of this was another cluster of elongated pits, largely devoid of finds but providing evidence for small-scale extraction activity. However, near these features was also a larger, deeper, steep-sided pit which had been partly excavated during the trial trenching, which contained a large quantity of Early Neolithic flint-working waste related to all stages of the blade-based reduction sequence. Two further small clusters were discovered, in the southeast and southwest corners of the excavation area. The latter included another large, steep-sided pit, from which sizeable assemblages of Early Neolithic pottery sherds and worked flint were retrieved. Two clusters of postholes, the remains of small, post-built structures, were also investigated. These are probably contemporary with the Early Neolithic pitting activity and support the interpretation of the site as being that of a small, temporary encampment dating to this period. The recovery of two fragments of a saddle quern provides further evidence for domestic activity on the site during the Early Neolithic period. Remnants of an early Roman field boundary, which yielded a small assemblage of pottery dated to between the mid-1st to 2nd century AD, was also investigated, along with a later field boundary of medieval or post-medieval date.