Between November 2006 and March 2007 the Cambridgeshire County Council Archaeological Field Unit (CAM ARC) carried out an archaeological excavation on the land at New Road, Chatteris. An evaluation conducted in 2006 had confirmed that the site had high archaeological potential and a condition was placed on planning consent requiring a scheme of archaeological work to be undertaken prior to any development. This specified the opening of two areas, covering a total of 0.7ha. Area A was situated to the north of the partition wall that subdivided the development area whilst Area B lay to its south. Evidence for human activity spanning the Mesolithic to medieval periods was recovered, although features directly associated with settlement appeared to date predominantly to the Iron Age and were concentrated toward the southern end of Area B. These comprised boundary ditches and gullies, pits and a very large number of postholes, some of which were concentrated into clusters that appeared to represent the sites of repeated construction, probably of fairly temporary structures. Three cremations dating to the Middle Bronze Age were recorded in Area A. Two inhumations, also recovered from Area A, were tentatively dated to the Roman period. A number of sherds of Saxon pottery were recorded across the site but of particular significance was the recovery of a sherd of imported North French Blackware. This is an extremely rare find in the county, with Chatteris being just the third site to produce such material. This pottery is thought to have had strong associations with the wine trade and it may therefore be that during this period Chatteris formed a staging post for travel and trade throughout the region.
Chris Thatcher (Tue,) studied this question.