Description
Book SynopsisIn the late 2000s, the development of the country’s biggest glasshouse complex by Fresca Group Ltd at Monkton Road Farm on Isle of Thanet led to one of the largest open area excavations ever conducted in Kent. The development covered 90 hectares (about 220 acres) of previously open agricultural land, including the building of seven industrial scale greenhouses, a packhouse, a research and education centre and associated roads, drainage and other infrastructure, and considerable remodelling of the existing landscape, through cut and fill works to create the eight flat platforms. Kent County Council Heritage Group stipulated that those areas about to be reduced should be subjected to comprehensive archaeological investigation. This lavishly illustrated and approachable book presents a description of the superb archaeology uncovered as a result, 6000 years of farming, everyday life and ritual, from some of the earliest farmers in the British Isles, to Copper and Bronze Age burials and monuments, prehistoric and Romano-British landscapes, Anglo-Saxons and hitherto completely unknown agglomeration of medieval settlement covering the entire site, complete with mysterious underground chambers. These buildings and farmsteads fell out of use and disappeared from memory hundreds of years before the hilltop agrarian site came to be characterised by lonely seamarks to guide post-medieval mariners, and finally the location of occasional Second World War installations.
Table of ContentsChapter 1:from about 6000 years ago Earliest Neolithic pits Pit cluster on Plateau 8 More pits and placed deposits An early Neolithic structure Chapter 2:from about 4500 years ago Late Neolithic pits Beaker period/early Bronze Age pits The barrow on Plateau 3 The southern barrow on Plateau 6 Further beaker burials across the site A Beaker period burial group Barrows on Plateau 7 Burials The barrow on Plateau 8 Pond barrow Burial G2000 The northern barrow on Plateau 6 The Plateau 2 barrows Chapter 3:from about 3750 years ago Early ditches, tracks and enclosures Middle to late Bronze Age Trackways, fi elds, settlement and ritual on the northern plateaus The southern settlement and fields Chapter 4:from about 2500 years ago The settlement from about 550–400 BC The eastern area The extension of the western settlement The western settlement from about 400–300 BC Particular traditions Foundation of an eastern cemetery Burials focused on the old quarry Further activity on the eastern side of the plateau The middle Iron Age ditches around the western settlement area The western settlement from about 300–150 BC The western settlement from about 150–100 BC The middle to late Iron Age cemetery on the eastern side of the plateau Late Iron Age settlement on the western side of Plateau 8: the end of an era Chapter 5:from about 2000 years ago The western side of Plateau 8, c 50 BC–1 BC From c 1 BC–AD 50 Early to mid Romano-British burials on the western side of Plateau 8 A rural building Late Romano-British cremation burials Quarries Finds evidence of the later Romano-British? Chapter 6:from about 1500 years ago The sunken featured buildings Other features Chapter 7:from about 1000 years ago The northern plateaus Northern settlement on Plateau 1, c 1050–1275 Early enclosure Later enclosure Central settlement on Plateau 1, c 1050–1250 Early enclosures Later enclosures Settlement on Plateau 2, c 1050–1275 Early enclosures Later enclosures Isolated structure on the east side of Plateau 3 Western settlement on Plateau 4, c 1050–1200 Early enclosures Later enclosure Eastern settlement on Plateau 4, c 1050–1250 Early enclosure Later enclosure Western settlement on Plateau 1, c 1075–1325 South-western sites, c 1150–1250 Eastern settlement on Plateau 5, c 1200–1350 Early enclosure Later enclosure South-eastern settlement on Plateau 5, c 1200–1350 Early enclosures Later enclosures Eastern settlement on Plateau 6, c 1200–1325 Early enclosure Later enclosure The Seamark trackway: at the southern end of Plateau 6 Chapter 8:from about 500 years ago The early post-medieval period, c1550–1750 c 1750–1922 Second World War The people of Thanet Earth Explore further The team
