2019 Excavations within Hanson's Over/Needingworth Quarry. The Long Home Drove Sites

Specific methodologies for the palaeochannel investigations, the two excavated barrows and the Woodmass are detailed below in the relevant sections; otherwise, the standard methodology followed that applied in previous excavations (e.g. Tabor et al. 2016; Neil & Evans 2019). Equally, the specific methodologies directed towards the programme's palaeoenvironmental and geoarchaeological recording are detailed by Machicado in the report. Systematic stripping of the excavation areas was undertaken using 360� tracked excavators, the peat overburden and subsoil being removed and transported off-site by dumper truck in order to expose the top of the natural (gravel) and expose any underlying archaeology. Both contour survey and planning were carried out by the CAU Survey Team using GPS prior to the manual excavation of individual features, and subsequently their recording and re-survey by GPS. All of the archaeological features encountered were excavated: linear ditches were sampled at approximately 10m intervals by means of standard 1m slots, whilst discrete features (e.g. postholes and pits) were 50% excavated and, occasionally, 100% excavated for the recovery of finds. The CAU extensive recording system, was employed throughout with sections drawn at 1:10 scale. Environmental bulk samples were taken from pit or ditch fills containing organic deposits, whilst monolith samples were taken from sections containing waterlogged organic material suitable for pollen and seed preservation and for the recovery of mollusc and microfossil evidence. The Cambridge Archaeological Unit's 2019 investigations undertaken as part of the fifth mitigation phase of Hanson's Over/Needingworth quarry. Straddling the Long Holme Drove, the investigation area comprised a 4.52ha area on the eastern side of the River Ouse to the south and southwest of the recently completed CAU investigations alongside the former basin of Willingham Mere. Excavations were undertaken in three areas defined by previous evaluations (Evans and Webley 2003, Vander Linden and Evans 2007; Tabor and Evans 2012). The easternmost, Area C (0.65ha), targeted a round barrow (Barrow 19), which was only the initial exposure of the quarry's larger Phase V.1 excavation-area, and which was then expanded in the following year (2020). Two further areas to the west/northwest, Areas D (1.74ha) and E (0.76ha), encompassed parts of two palaeochannels (Channels I and VIII) - both former courses of the Ouse - either side of a gravel spit (Figs. 1-6). Within these areas, two main features of interest were exposed, one a further round barrow (Barrow 21), the other a dense deposit of waterlogged wood dated to the Middle Bronze Age located within Channel I. Finally, the results of archaeological monitoring of the excavation of the 2019 Quarry Diversion Ditch, and of further areas of stripping undertaken during 2019 (totalling 1.37ha; Fig. 3, Areas F-H), are also included in this report.