It's hoped a book on the findings of 6000 years of unearthed West Deeping heritage will be put together

Evidence of settlement and agriculture use has been found

Author: Aaliyah DublinPublished 20th Oct 2024

Archaeologists say a book on the findings of the dig of a quarry in West Deeping is the next step.

After Unearthing six thousand years of West Deeping heritage, evidence of settlement and agriculture has been found along with features from the Bronze Age, Iron Age, and the Romano-British, Early Medieval and post-Medieval periods.

Investigations of the quarry near Stamford have been underway since the 1990’s when aerial photography, geophysical surveys and field walking indicated the site would contain archaeological features of interest.

A team of archaeologists from the Cambridge Archaeological Unit began their excavation of the 55 hectares site in 2007, before gravel extraction started ten years later.

Evidence from the Neolithic period right up to modern times has been found, including quarry pits, burials containing military issue metal ornaments and large stone-lined postholes from major building activity.

Hannah Barrett, a Project Officer for the Cambridge Archaeological Unit, said:

"The whole area of rural Lincolnshire now is just these quiet, loud fields. They have been ploughed fields for about 1500 years. But just beneath the surface is all of this activity that was going on for thousands of years before that."

"We're still researching the material. Then the next kind of two or three years as we bring it all together into a book, we'll be able to do more exhibitions and more talks to people and keep them up to date with our research because this is their heritage.

"It's their landscape so it is really important."

"My favourite find from the site was this Roman shrine marker."

"I think sometimes people think archaeologists find stuff like that all the time, but I'll probably never find something like that ever again in my in my life."

"Just from one thing you've got an idea of what these people were like, but also who they're connected to."

"I think the best thing about This site is we haven't just got a site from one period."

"We haven't just got a Neolithic site or a Bronze Age site or a Roman site."

"We really have archaeology spanning 6000 years and every single aspect is is really interesting in its own right."

The first exhibition of some of the finds took place in the West Deeping Village Hall on Saturday 19th October.

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