PCAS Archaeology Ltd was commissioned to undertake a scheme of intrusive archaeological evaluation on land south of North Kelsey Road, Caistor, where mineral extraction is proposed. The site lies in an area rich with evidence of prehistoric activity. Scatters of worked Mesolithic - Bronze Age flints have been recovered from both within and around the site, with investigations associated with quarrying immediately west of the current site recording late Iron Age ring gullies and a roughly contemporary enclosures that are projected to extend into the site. Geophysical survey of the site identified a complex of anomalies in the south-east corner, possibly defined within an enclosure, that were provisionally interpreted as prehistoric settlement activity. Twenty-one trenches were opened using a 360� excavator fitted with a smooth blade, all measuring 50.00x1.80m. The trenches were evenly spread across the site, whose area is estimated as 5.75 hectare, to provide a representative sample as well as to investigate the geophysical survey results. The excavated trenches have revealed a series of features in the south-eastern corner of the site, corresponding with area where the geophysical survey recorded a complex of anomalies and where cropmarks had suggested the presence of enclosures. Dating evidence recovered from features in Trenches 19 and 20 suggest an occupation in the Iron Age, possibly towards the end of the period. The corner of what could be an Iron Age rectangular enclosure was identified in Trench 19, as well as a possible undated small ring ditch, truncated by later features, which suggests multiple occupation phases. Although these were not detected by the geophysical survey a series of rectangular and circular anomalies in the space between Trench 19 and Trench 21 could indicate that other similar features were present. An E-W oriented ditch was exposed in Trench 19, which produced an Iron Age potsherd and cut an earlier ditch with the same orientation, probably also dating to the Iron Age, although an earlier chronology cannot be excluded. No dating evidence was recovered from three parallel ESE-WNW oriented ditches, two of which detected by the geophysical survey, whose relationship with the Iron Age ditches could not be established. The ditch exposed in Trench 12 corresponds rather precisely to a linear anomaly in the geophysical survey. Conversely, the NW-SE oriented ditch exposed in Trench 20 had not been detected: this ditch did not seem to continue as far as Trench 18 and likely terminated in the space between the two trenches. Contrary to expectations, very little evidence was recorded in the southwestern part of the site in the area adjacent to the site where an enhanced watching brief had previously identified a sequence of undated and Late Iron Age features. Although showing different orientations, the only features that could possibly be related to the evidence recorded in the watching brief are the ditches and terminus identified in Trench 17. A single NE-SW oriented ditch was encountered near the northern end of the site in Trenches 1 and 2. The presence of Victorian pottery and post-medieval bricks recovered from its fills suggest a relatively recent date.
Elisa Vecchi (Mon,) studied this question.