NHER 63728 (Monument record) - ?Middle Bronze Age cremation burial and Roman and undated ditches

June to September 2018. Watching Brief.
Monitoring of topsoil stripping along route of Lound to Gorleston Water Pipeline.
Several features were recorded at this location, the most notable of which was a small pit containing a cremation burial. This burial was not associated with a pottery vessel and was identified as the remains of an adult human of indeterminate sex. Although this burial was not dated it is assumed to be Middle Bronze Age as two similar burials of this date were identified during the excavation of an area approximately 100m to the south (NHER 63598).
Intersecting east-to-west and north-to-south aligned ditches were also identified, the former of which produced a relatively large amount of Roman pottery (141 sherds). This conservative assemblage probably represents kitchen waste and is likely to date to the early to mid 2nd century AD. This Roman ditch is likely to correspond with one or both of a pair of similarly-aligned cropmarks mapped at this location. Although these cropmarks had been recorded as being part of a group thought to represent field boundaries of probable post-medieval date (NHER 45154) it is now clear that this feature at least represents an element of a much earlier field system.
The north-to-south aligned ditch was also associated with a previously recorded cropmark (NHER 45174) but unfortunately this feature produced no dating evidence and its stratigraphic relationship to the Roman ditch could not be confirmed.
Information from draft report. Final version awaited.
P. Watkins (HES), 17 October 2019.