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Excavations at Mucking

Volume 1: the site atlas

EnglishOHeritage

Archaeological Report no 20

Excavations at Mucking

Volume 1: the site atlas

Ann Clark

excavations by Margaret and Tom Jones

with contributions by J Bayley, J N Carreck, J P A Ette, C J Going, H Hamerow, E Healey, M U Jones, I H Longworth, G McDonnell, D N Riley, and F Talbott

English Heritage in association with

British Museum Press 1993

Contents

List of illustrations and tables ...................................... v

Foreword by I H Lougworlh ............................................ vi

Publisher's note ......................................... .... ...... ........... vii

1 Introduction .................................................. ............... I The archive ......... ............................................................... 1 Location ...... ................. ............................ ........................... 2 Acknowledgements ...................... ......... ........................... 5

2 Background by M U jones ........................................... 6 Introduction ....................................................................... 6 Tria I excavation ........ ...... .... ............................................... 6 Mechanical excavation and quarrying .......................... 6 Planning ............................................................................. 7 Excavation strategy .......................................................... 7 Geology, soils, and weather ........................ ................... . 7 Patterned ground ... ........................................................... 8 Acknowledgements .......................................................... 9

3 The excavation ........................................................... 11 Methods ............................................................................ 11 Plans .................................................................... .............. ll

4 Post-excavation .......................................................... 12 Mucking Post-excavation (M PX) ................................. 12 Post-excavation and publication (BM / EH) ................ 14 Conclusion ....................................................................... 17

List of illustrations and tables

Illustrations

1 Aerial photograph of cropmarks at the southern end of the site

2 Location map: A The site in its regional setting; B Detailed s ite location showing relief and other s ites in the vicinity

3 Geology map 4 Interim site plan with MPX feature names super·

imposed 5 Site plan showing extant tithe map ditches 6 Overall site plan showing excavated features

blacked in 7 Cropmark plan

v

5 Summary by pe riod ................................................. 18 Early prehistory by£ 1-lenley .......................................... 18 The Late Bronze Age by J P A Elle ............................... 18 The Iron AgebyC/ Goi11g .............................................. 19 The Roman period by C f Goi11g .................................... 20 1l1e early to middle Anglo-Saxon period by H 1-/nmerow .. 21 Middle Saxon, medieval, and later by C f Goi11g ........ 22

6 The Mucking cropmarks /1y D N Rilt•y .................. 23 Discovery and photography ......................................... 23 The plan ........................................................................... 23 Cropmarks and excavation results- the archaeo·

logical features ........................................................... 24 Cold climate patterned ground ......................... ........... 24

7 Specialist reports ...................................................... 26 The geology by f N Carreck ............................................ 26

The rock types by F Talbot/ ... .................................... 31 The slags and metallurgical residues by G McDo>~uell. 31 Non-ferrous metalwo rking finds by f Bayley .............. 34

8 Rad iocarbon da tes .................................................... 35

Append ix: a bib liography of publications o n Mucking up to 1989 .................................................. 37

Bi bl iography .................................. .............................. ... 39

lndex ............................................................ ..................... 40

Tables

Table 1 Geology Table 2 Total weight of each slag type Table 3 Concentration of slags Table 4 Single deposits of slag TableS Summary of s lag distributions by period

Foreword

By the close of th~ Mucking project some 45 acr~ of Essex country;•de had been explored and over 44,000 features had b<.>en examined and recorded. To present, but more importantly to interpret, the information '><l recovered, the fir.t and foremost task was to compile a detailed s ite plan. With this to hand, concentration and dispersa l, relation•hip and superimposition can be readily perceived. I I ere in the Mucking site atlas we ca n at last appreciate this vast 'multi-period pa li mpsest' in a ll its complexity. As an aid to research, the atlas wil l form an essential companion to all the forthcoming volumes in the ;cries as each in turn explores in detail the main aspects of the site.

Let us not underestimate the tasks which had to be performed to bring this \'Oiume to fruition. The field project alone had covered 13 years. Method' and strategies had to be developed to deal with problem<,,, they arose. An ever-changing army of volunteel"> and supervisors led inexorably to some variation in rL'Cor· ding methods and conventions. What today c.1n be recorded with relative ease using an Elta could only be achieved a t Mucking with the utmost diligence and d ifficulty. Much time a nd judgement has gone into verification and, where justified, reconciliation of the data recorded and, not surpris ingly, some adjustments

vi

were found to be nee~")'· After much thought, it '><.>emed best to present the "''ult., a'''" atla; of 25 sheets ba..ro on the original 100ft 'quare;. Inevitably, a few errors I!Seaped detection and could not be rectifil'd once the oheets had been printed . Those diocovered before th~ publication deadline are li>ted on pp vii- viii.

It seemed appropriate to include with this volu me a brief history both of the excava tions and of the suc­cessive phases in the post-excavation processing, together with sum mary accounts of the major periods of occupation which the excavation; have revealed. With these go a number of specialist reports which, b<.-cause of their gener,11 nature, ar~ be>t placed here rather th.1n in the forthcoming, pcriod-'>pt.'Cific, volumes.

To the dedicated work of \1argaret and Tom Jones who directed the project in the field, to the many spe­ci.llists and ,·oluntcers who ha\'C hclpt.>d to process the product of that project during the post-excavation phases, and to Ann Clark and the illustratof'> on whose shoulders the final burden of production was to fall, I record here my grateful thanks and .1dmiration.

I H Longworth MA PhD FSA Mucking Management Committee

Publisher's note

This first volume in the Mucking pu blication series, The sileatlas, will be follow~>d,also in 1993, by Volume 2, The Arrglo-Saxorr s<'lllemeul, by Helena Hamcrow. Fu tu re volumes will comprise reports on the Roman period by Chris Going, on aspects o f the prehistoric period by Elizabeth Hea ley and john Ette, and o n the Anglo­Saxon cemeteries by Sue Hirst and Dido Cla rk.

In addition to these publications, Ann Clark is pre­paring an introduction to the archive held in the British Museu m's stores.

The presentation and organisation of the report

The main author of the report is Ann Cla rk, and a ll sections not attributed to other au thors arc by her. The text was la rgely written in january 1991.

The appendix on p 37 consists of a full bibliogra phy of a ll publications relating to the Mucking excava tions u p to 1989,compiled by theexcavatorsand PM Ba rford. The b ibliography of references cited in this volume is to be found on p 39.

The method of presentation adopted for the sheets of site atlas plans is described on pp 15-17. The scale rule is to be found on the back cover of the printed volume, and the key to the plans is on the ins ide back cover. The site was recorded in imperial measurements~ which have been retained th roug hou t all volumes where they pertain to the p rimary site records, including the coor­dinates on the site atlas.

The drawing of the site atlas plans was completed in early 1991 and the sheets were printed in mid 1991. However, work o n interpreta tion of the phasing has continued since tha t time, and is avai l;~blc in the site archive. Later volumes in the series will, as far .-.s possible, incorpora te the most up-to-da te interpreta­tion.

The errata list below reflects the p roblems en­countered in preparing the site atlas for publication (see pp 15-17). The errors and omissions were noted during a rapid scan of the p lans und erta ken just before the publication deadline, and cannot be considered to be a compr!!hensiw list. A set of sit~ atlas plans incorpora­ting all the corrections listed below is available for consultation in the site archive.

Errata

The 100ft square on plan 19 (SW corner grid coordinate 1800N 300E) has been missing at least since the tra nsfer of the MPX a rchive to the British Museum. Thus d itch 10050 (1800N 370E) in the adjacent square to the sou th on p lan 16 is incomplete.

The whole of the cxcavaled box and its features (11900) a t 1705N 420E o n p lan 16 shou ld have been omitted. This box is shown in its correct position and at the correct orienta tion a little to the south at 1697N 420E.

A substantial part of GH 44 is missing from p lan 6; it lies at theedgeoftheexcavated a rea (770N 100E), is only pa rtly d rawn, and is labelled cut 13575. An edge of GH

vii

43 is also rnissing on plan 3 where it forms a junction with plan 7 at 250N 400E. A further discrepancy be­tween plans has been noted on plans 17 and 18: d itch 6281 has a but tend on p lan 17at 144SN 798E,and thesameditch appears on p lan 18with a butt end at 1446N802E.

PG 69 (15007; 1210N 640E)on plan 14 should be PC 68. Ditch 3996 (300N SOW) on plan 5 should be PC 13, as

it is on the adjacent p lan 2 to the south. Well 7'b' (2072; 195S 430E) on plan 1 should read

Well 7'c' The feature numbered 5795 (1()()2N 290E) on plan 10

should be 5794, as on the squnre to the south. The feature which crosses plans 13 and 17 (1400N

598E) bears two d ifferent numbers: 4084 on p lan 13and 7940 on plan 17. Likewise, pit 25163 (2400N 433E) on p lan 22 becomes 25240 on p lan 24.

Two post-bu i It structu res have erroneously acqu ired PHB numbers as if they were part of the series verified by 1-1 Hamerow (p 16) as Anglo-Saxon 'posthole build ­ings': PI IB 54 (me 10178, centred app roximately 1710N 710E> o n plan 17 and PII B 55 (310N 250E) on plan 3.

Six Anglo-Saxon bu ildi ngs included in Hame­row's series are unlabelled as such on the p lans, as follows:

1'1-IB 19 1260N lOOE PHB 23 1020N 550E PI-IB 29 2030N 1010E PHB 51 2460N 840E I'll B 52 2060N 900E I'HB 53 1040N 310E

p lan 12 p lan 11 plan 21 p lan 25 plan 21 plan 10

MPX identified 109 penannu la r gullies or round houses (PG/RH) of which 53 were 'u ncon tested'. The 'PC' label was retained for those with gu llies while 'RH' was applied to post-bu ilt round houses with no evidence o f a g ully. This series was extended to incorpora te featu res identified during the site atlas verification p rocedure. llowever, the following have not been labelled as PG/RH on the a tlas:

I'G 16,3286, 300N 120W, plan 2 Rl 1111, &179, fom1erly PC 22, ccntn.>d 33SN 240E, pk1n 3 PC 15, 14161, 305N 40W, p lan 5 PC 33, 4827, 530N 230E, plan 6 PG 34, 4829, 538N 225E, plan 6 I'G 37, 7990, 604N 205E, plan 6 PC 12, 1312, 290N 465E, plan 7 PC 35, 15732, 555N 565E, plan 8 PC 36, 9614, 607N 610E, plan 8 PC 38, 9618, 630N 620E, plan 8 PC 41,9182, 743N 707E, plan 8 PC 42, 9272, 765N 667E, plan 8 PC 43, 13100, 895N 453E, plan 10 RH 47, centred c 975N 265E, p lan 10 I'G 49,14414, 995N 280E, plan 10 PC 53,5808, 1070N 284E, plan 10 I'G 55, centred c 1063N 315E, plan 10 PC 57,5741, 1095N 305E, p lan 10 PC 54, 15228, 1044N 594E, p l<m 11

PC 60, 6456, II OON SOOE, plans II , 14 PC 59, 12480, 1118N 342E, plan 13 PC 61,58-18, IliON 285E, plan 13 PC 62, 5291, II OSN 267E, plan 13 PC 63,5303, 1110N 23JE, plan 13 PC 60,6456, 1110N 785E, plan 14 PC 95, 102().1, 1770N 558E, plan 17

In oddition, the large circular feature centred at ap­proximately 385N SOSE, plan 7, should have been labelled 'ENIGMA'; Kiln 2 on plan 7 should have been labelled 'a' at 323N 610E and 'b' at 318N 620E; and the soilmark on pla n 10 at 1000N 286E should have the number 14474.

Several la rge, unhachured featuresarcunnumbertod, as at 1360N 860E, plan 14. Some of these are T,.;t If ole<;, eg 2286N 950E, 2282N 953E, and 2239N 945E on plan 23,2005405Eon plan !,and the box at 185\: 80Eon plan 2. Other unnumbered or unnamed features at the edge<; of plans may be identified on the adjacent plan, cg ditch 4179(1260N 603E)on plan 14, which is in fact I'G 77 and is shown as such on the adjacent plan 13; similarly, the postholes at 1398N 655E on plan 14 arc part of I'IIB 6, me 7819, on the ad~1ccnt plan 17.

Occasional duplicate numbers occur on feature' crossing lOOft squares, eg g rave 1020 (1435N 600E) on p ion 17. These erro rs arc due to the late change in the formot o r the s ite atlas.

Transposition of dig its has occurred, eg ditch 25610 (2143N 800E) on plan 22 becomes 25601 on plan 23.

Illegibility ha; caused ditch 25284 on plan 24 to be mislabelled 25484 at 2547N 780E. However, thee"avatcd ditch 25770 (2400N 1().18E) on plan 23 become<; 1'25769 where it is a soumark on the adjacent plan 25. Thi' " technically correct, since 25769 represents the fill of 25770 and fill numbers are generally ascribed to sollmarks

viii

where the feature is not e"avated (p 16), although this ·~in fact a rather over-zealous apphc.lhon or the system.

Several numbered non-linear feature; do not have hachures, implying that they arc 'modem'. However, th1s lack of hachurcs m,1y in 'iOmc ca!>CS be incorrect. A number of Gru/Jc>11/riwsa have da .. hed edges, which in­dicates a lack or clarity in the soil mark at the surface; thc:.c edges shou ld have been hachured to indicate that the rcaturcs were CXCC1Viltcd. Many pitsl however, were only half-sectioned, and in thcs!' ca~cs the lack o r ha­chures will indicate this.

The change in the use oft he prl'fix 'me' is explained on p 16. The 'ground-level bu ildings' noted during MI'X ~hou ld have received me numbe,..,, as for example me 5896 (c 1350N 230E) and me 12661 (c 1345N 260El, both on plan 13, representing GLB 7/53 and GLB 6/42 respecth·ely. However, many othl',.., lack thl'ir identif­ying me prefix. eg thl' post hob at c 2015"l863E on plan 21, a..cribed GLB 7/52 in thl' MI'X oUCh I\ C, olnd those at c 232Z 916E on plan 23, a-;cribed GLB 5/33. The Ml'X criteria lor recognition oft hi'S!' fl'aturi'S were nowhere clearly stated, although, as noted on p 14, there was no time during the BM/EH proj<.'Ct for ~ystematic investi­gation or the secondary MI'X archive.

There are many omissions from thl' plans or infor­mation relating to various edges or clearing, excavation, or quarrying. While these arc not essential to the inter­pretation of the features, they do add a dimension to apprt'Ciating the circumstances or thl'cxcavation and its progrc~s. In some cases, such information ofkrs an exp lana tion lor gaps or blank ar!'M., <'S the gap between the conveyor belts on plan 10 a t r JOlON 240E, where thc~p.1cc was filled with a ramp, a note of which should havl' been inserted. For the most p.1rt the omissions are dates; where these e~ist, they .UI' av,lilabll' in the arch"·c, on the corrected vers•on or thl' site atlas plans.

1 Introduction

This volume is the first in a series which reports on the excavations (1965-1978) at Mucking, Essex (NCR: TQ 673803). ll1e unphased site plan (1 :180) is presented here as a s ite atlas on 25 sheets (plans 1- 25). This atlas gives the backdrop and context to the other reports and will form a cruda l source of reference for them. Covered in this vol­ume are the background to the excavations (by the excavator, M U jones), the post-<!xcavation phases, a sum­mary of the periods covered in hature volumes, and various specialist reports which are of a general nature and not necessarily period-specific (geology, slags, and fired clay, as well as cropmarks and a summary of the radiocarbon dates). In addition, the volume attempts to chart the chequered history of an excavation project span­ning some 25 years (divided here into the three distinct periods of excavation, post-excavation (MPX 1978-85; see p 12), and archive and publication (BM/ Eil project 1986-89; seep 14)). The period has seen considerable changes in excavation methods and post-excavation strategies, of many of which Mucking has been both a pioneer and a victim. This volume has been written after completion of the a rchive phase, but before completion of the specialist volumes.

Mucking represents the largest area excavated for the longest continuous period (from 1968), although its beginnings in 1965 were unexceptional. In an atmos­phere of burgeoning awareness of the potential threat to archaeologica l sites from gravel extraction, as eluci­dated by aerial photography, part of the Mucking crop mark first featured as a photograph (Fig 1) publish­ed by j K St joseph (1964, p i xxxvii b). Through the joint efforts of DG Macleod, then assistant curator of Prittle­well Priory Museum, Southcnd-on-Sea, and D A Wickham, chief librarian of Thurrock, some 40 acres of cropmark were proposed for scheduling under the Ancient Monuments Acts. At the instigation of S A Butcher and later j G Hurst (both then Assistant Inspec­tors of the Inspectorate of Ancient Monuments, Ministry of Public Building and Works), an eight-week exploratory excavation began in 1965 under the direc­tion of M U jones with W T jones acting as assistant director and photographer. The excavations continued for 12 years until 19n when they were substantially completed, a lthough some work on the quarry margins, peripheral to the main site, took place in the following year.

By the end of the excavation the site covered about 18.22 hectares (45 acres) and had established itself as a forerunner in the study of landscape archaeology. The excavators regularly submitted finds for the Exhibits a t the Ba llots of the Society of Antiquaries and reports for various annual excavation reviews. The Appendix (p 37), origina lly compiled by the excavators and P M Barford, consists of a separate bibliography of all Muck­ing publications up to c 1989. Mucking monopolised a local journal (forman/ of /Ire Tlwmx:k Locnl History Society (Pnrrornmn)) and featured in several conference papers. In 1970 the finds from six graves from Anglo-Saxon cemetery I were considered of sufficient national im­portance to be acquired by the British Muse um (registration nu mbers 1970,4-61/30, Graves 90, 92, 99, 102, 117, 120). The multinationa l team of excavators

1

(from as far afield as the Netherlands, Poland, Czecho­slovakia, the USA, and Australia) ensured Mucking an international reputation. Few at the time can have failed to hear of the 'multi-period palimpsest'.

The archive

The excavations undertaken on an unprecedented scale under resc-ue conditions produced a vast archive of materia], notably some six tonnes of ceretmics, from an estimated 44,000 features, together with records com­prising 363 s ite notebooks and some 5000 plans which are stored in the archaeological repository of the British Museum (Departments of Preh istoric and Romano­British Antiquities and Medieval and later Antiq­uities), currently at Blythe Road, London W14. Access can be gained by reference to the appropria te Depart­mental the Museum. Thestacksofdrawers,cupboards, and plan presses arc now the monoliths which repre­sent the Mucking landscape.

The va rious categories of finds were ascribed and separated during the excavation and immediate post­excavation period (referred to in this report as MPX; see p 12). Some categories or individual groups are being assessed and verified as part of the current publication process to produce specialist reports. The quantities, however, arc so great that no comprehensive evaluation has been possible and any work will be based, on the one hand, on the nature and reliability of contexts and, on the other, on the various sampling strategies appro­priate to the publication. It is not possible to be more specific at this stage.

The finds as acquired by the British Museum were generally d ivided by material type, with the exception of the grave assemblages. Pottery and ceramic material include: prehistoric pottery (ranging from Neol.ithic to Iron Age); Romano-British pottery including separate categories of material associated with the kilns and other types such as samian, mortaria, and amphorae; Anglo-Saxon settlement pottery from the Gruberrlriiuser (separated from that from other settlement contexts); a small quantity of medieval pottery; fired clay separated into types identified and devised by PM Barford (who has prepared a text for independent publication), which include a range of loomweights, spind lewhorls, oven fragments, perforated blocks, bclgic bricks, thin slabs, briq uettes, firebars, and structura l daub; metalworking debris includ ing mould wrap and mould fragments; in add ition, severa l thousand other fragments were deemed by MPX as too small for typological analysis (categorised as 'scrap'); tile and patterned wall daub were separated. Metalwork includes iron, copper alloy, coins (ranging from potins and various Roman denomi­nations to scenllns), and slag (see p31). Other categories include glass, charcoal and soil samples, stone, includ­ing flint, with its various tool types and debitage identified, and anima l and human bone (the survival of both of which was extremely poor). A basic list of all these finds (in some cases incomplete) is available in the form of print-out from the compu terisation phase of

2 EXCAVATIONS AT MUCKING: THE SITE ATLAS

Fig 1 Aerial photograph of cropmarks attl1e sou them end of the site (CUC AFK 8; Crown copyright)

MPX (seep 12). In addition there arc various notebook records of finds and pre-computer indexes. The field notebooks also conta in the notes of finds as they were excavated from the features.

The excavation archive represents the largest and most complex in terms of curation and conservation which the Museum has in its guardianship. The many periods it represents and the diversity of material and records require collaboration between several depart­mental interests. The long-term physical storage and conservation of such a range of artefacts alone pose considerable problems, not only in arranging suitable environments and storage methods for the different artefact types, but also in defining distinct/separate areas for curatorial responsibility while maintaining some archaeologica l integrity for the contexts from which the material derived. The first impact of the extent of this dilemma presented itself to the BM/EH project.

The logistics of working through the paper archive alone, together with the problems inherent in the record (outlined below), however, were sufficient to absorb the BM/EH team for the majority of its three-year pro­gramme. l·lencean integration of finds and records was barely begun, let alone any but the most basic phasing of the site.

The phasing of the site is currently being undertaken byCJ Going as a precursor to the work for the Romano­British and Iron Age volu mes. This entails an assessment based on the field notebook references to the finds from features (and perforce makes an assump­tion about the original identifications). Indeed, this is the only practica l method for elucidating as compre­hensive a view as possible of the various archaeological landscapes. The distinctive and readily definable fea­tures for the periods which have been investigated as part of the BM/EH project provided a first stepping s tone and, together with the phasing work, our percep­tion of how those fit within the palimpsest should be broadened so that the forthcoming volumes can be put into perspective by future research.

Location

The site lay above the 30m (100ft) contour of the Boyn II ill Terrace (the gr.wel from which has been extracted), occupying a strategic position overlooking the Thames estuary and close to what has been cited as one of the lowest natura l crossing points of the river (Fig 2a; M U jones 1973, 6). The complex geology is outlined in a separate report (p26), and M U jones discusses the local

a

* 8

'

INTRODUCTION

Colchester •

Chelmsford • - ' -~

'

3

0 Mites 30

0 Kms so

s

0

0

Fig 2 Location map: A Tl1e site in its regional selling; B Detailed site loeationsllowing relief and oilier sites in tile vicinity: 1 Mucking; 2 Nortll Ring; 3 Linford; 4 Rnin/Jow Wood; 5 Orsett 'Cock'; 6 Orsell causewayed enclosure; 7 Rectory Road, Orse/1; 8 Baker Street, Orsell; 9 Gun Hill, Tilbury

4 EXCAVATIONS AT MUCKING: THE SITE ATLAS

~Alluvium

rnnTITl] Blackheath lliJlilllj Beds

D Worked Out Area

I < • ] Brickearth

Woolwich Beds

Ell Flood Plain ~Gravel

•

Thanet Beds

•

Taplow Gravel

~Upper ~ Chalk

•

BoynHill Gravel

•

London Clay

Fig 3 Geology map, taken from the 1:50,000 Geological SurVf!lj Maps

geological and pedological conditions as they affected the excavation (p 7). On the 1:50,000 Geological Survey Maps (Fig 3) Mucking is at the junction of four plans (257, 258/259,271, 272); 258/259 is based on a survey of 1968 and 1971-2 while the others are based on surveys between 1903 and 1923. A small adjustment to the boundary in the area of Stanford Le Hope was made necessary by some discrepancy in the surveys. The soils are of the St Albans series (seep 7). The locally available brickearth and alluvial clay provided satisfactory sources for the manufacture of a range of ceramics, while flint from the gravel was of adequate quality for making tools. Unfortunately little can be ascertained with regard to the former environment as the acidity of the soil has led to poor bone survival and a sample of

pollen prepared to assess the potential of a programme of pollen analysis showed poor preservation (Greig 1981).

Other archaeological investigations in the immediate vicinity (Fig 2b) have produced evidence for the import­ance of this area for settlement over several millennia . Wilkinson (1988, 129) considers that it ' ... has one of the most extensively man-made landscapes of any part of Britain ... '. Sites 1-6 on Figure 2b all lie above the 30m contour on the same terrace. North Ring (Fig 2b, site 2) is a late Bronze Age earthwork only about 1km away from the Mucking South Rings (Fig 4); both are sur­rounded by archaeological evidence for a range of contemporary activities (Bond 1988). Linford (Fig 2b, site 3), less than 0.5km away, produced evidence from

INTRODUCTION 5

the early Iron Age to the Anglo-Saxon periods (Barton 1962). Rainbow Wood (Fig 2b, site4), about SOOm away from Mucking, produced a sma II cluster of I ron Age pits and postholes (Potter 1974). Within 2km to the west arc two sites (Fig 2b, sites 5 and 6): site 5 at Orsctt 'Cock' was a rectangular triple-ditched enclosure with occupa­tion from the middle Iron Age to the first century AD (Toller 1980), while less than SOOm to the south-south­west (Fig 2b, site6) is a causewaycd enclosure dating to the middle Neolithic. The same site also produced an early Iron Age assemblage from a possible small en­closed sett lement (Hedges and Buckley 1978) . Approximately 600m to the west of these sites at 36m OD is a small early Iron Age settlement at Rectory Road (Fig 2b, site 7). This is not on the Boyn Hill Terrace but on mixed deposits of the Tertiary Blackheath Beds (Wil ­kinson 1988, 11-13). The site at Baker Street, Orsett (Fig 2b, siteS), is on the Boyn Hill Terrace but below the 30m contour. It produced evidence of late Bronze Age settle­ment and some uncertainly dated occupation of the post-late Iron Age and post-Roman periods (Wilkinson 1988, 13-17). Gun Hill, Tilbury (Fig 2b, site 9), had evidence of Iron Age, Romano-British, and Anglo­Saxon occupation (Drury and Rodwcll1973).

Acknowledgements

Foremost are the excavators, Margaret and Tom jones, without whose unstinting devotion over 20 years these publications would not have been possible.

The followi ng acknowledgements complement those of Margaret Jones (p 9). It is not possible to give individual cred it to the thousands of people who have been involved in the project from its inception. Those who have made specific or specia list contributions will fea ture in the appropriate volumes in the series.

From the MPX years I would like to mention Jona­than Catton's outstanding dedication; he not only took part in the excava tions over many years and was res-ponsible for the salvage work on the quarry mar­gins, but was also the prehistorian and data manager duringMPX.

The work on Mucking was primarily financed by the Inspectorate of Ancient Monuments in the Department of the Environment (now English 1-!eritage). As inspec­tors, Sarnia Butcher and John Hurst were most closely involved with overseeing the excavation, while Sarnia Butcher had the unenviable task of monitoring progress

through MPX, with the assistance of her s taff, Alison Cook, Pamela Irving, Evelyn Palmer, and Margaret Wood, and Frank Gardiner of the Ancient Monuments Illustrators' Office.

I am especially grateful to Frank Gardiner, who has paliently guided many illustrators and has advised on all aspects of illustration and production, but cannot be held responsible for the final product. The site plans for the atlas were originally traced by Adrian Jarrett during MPX, and the corrections and additions were d rawn by Dawn Flower and George Taylor. George Taylor was responsible for a ll the ' last corrections', and for produc­ing the final site atlas plans and the overall plan (Fig 6). Roger jones, formerly of the Ancient Monuments La­boratory, has given advice and offered technical expertise in a ll computer matters; his training of staff and instant support made computerisation of the con­text data du ring the BM/EH phase possible. Thanks are a lso due to Val Horsier who, as a 'late arrival' to the project, has seen this volume through its final editing and production.

I would like to thank all those who took part, in whatever capacity, in the final (BM/EH) phase of post­excavation and publica tion work, in particular the British Museum Assistants from both the departments involved (Prehistoric and Romano-British, and Medie­val and La ter), especially Bob Bai ley. Of the team members and volunteers I would like to thank the following: Lucy Churchill, Dido Clark, Jon Ett6, Jill Guthrie, Ben Hall, David Jennings (for his work on the slag contexts), Neil McCain, Alison Mills, Kate Morton, Marina Papa, Alison Taylor, Steve Trow, Brian Weight­man, Sarah Wild, and jenny Woolmer. To the main period specialists who have been involved as part of the corporate effort I extend my warmest thanks for their cooperation and forbearance: )on Ette, Helena Hame­row, Elizabeth Hea ley, Sue Hirst, and Chris Going.

The long-suffering members of the BM/EH Manage­ment Committee- Sarnia Butcher, john Cherry, john I lurst, Stephen Johnson, Jan Longworth, and Leslie Websler - have advised throughout the final s tages.

I owe a special debt of gratitude to all my family and friends who have been so supportive, especially: my mother; Margaret Wood, for her brilliantly incisive comments on an early draft; john B.urett, Sarah Wil­liams, and Leo Biek; Peter, who typed long into the night and patiently offered sustained moral support at all times; and finally Christopher, for whom Mucking has become synonymous with motherhood.

2 Background

by M U jones

Introduction

The following account of aspects of the background to the Mucking excavation to accompany the site atlas has been assembled after the transfer of the finds and archi ve from Thurrock Local History Museum to the British Museum. Thurrock provided premises and a base, plus the usc of services such as copying, through· out the eight years of excavation processing. The material was then transferred to the British Museum.

Initial interest in St joseph's classic photograph (1964) of the Mucking cropmarks discovered during research flights in 1959 focused on what was believed might be a Noohthic hcnge. The excavation wa' -ct up initially to investigate this monument (since named the South Rings, Fig 4) in its setting. It was decided to hold a trial exc.wation in order to gain familiarity with the terrain. The 'hengc' itself, not reached until1966, turnt'<l out to be a late Bronze Age earthwork in a land-cape containing a long settlement range from prehi.,toric to Anglo-Saxon. The aim of the excavation consequently veered from the investigation of a specific feature to the rescue of a multi·period landscape.

In the 1960s the archaeology of cropmMks wa< at· tracting much attention.ln 1960 the Royal Commis.,ion on r!istorical Monuments (England) had published a survey of the ~ituation (RCHM(E) 1960), which sug· gested that cropmark sites could be handled by exca,•ating those features which could be classified by shape. llowe\·er, the writer had already experienced gravel pit archaeology at lechladc, Glos, and Stanton Low, Bucks. Morphological criteria alone were con· sidered unreliable and this hardly seemed the right course to follow at Mucking. The 1955 exc.wation in the adjoining (Linford) quarry (Barton 1962) was not the result of cropmark> but of the finding of prehi,toric pottery on quarry spoilheaps by loca l schoolboy' (Thurrock Museum Ace no 649). The discovcrie; in· eluded rare Anglo-Saxon features and finds from w hat was the first Essex settlement to be shown on the Or<l· nance Survey Map of Britain in the Dark A!\cS (1966).

Gravel had been quarried in Orsctt quarry since the 1940s. The method still followed in 1965 used a dr.1gline which stood on the working face. Its metallic -crccch dominated the next 13 years. This dug topsoil, .,Ub'<>il, and any ·~il' patches and threw them evenly O\'Cr thl' quarry noor up to 8m below, ready for reinstatement when quarryong ceased . The underlying gravel w." next fed into a hopper supplying an electrically dnven conveyor. Thb led to the washing and grading pl.lnt, about a quarter of a mile (400m) away on the E."t Tilbury Road (known locally as Buckingham !I ill Ro.1<1 or Buckman's llill Road), w hich ran from the Al3 to East Ti lbury. Gravel was also loaded on to Iorrie" to supplement the hopper's capacity, and for direct sale~.

•'B horizon' and 'B/C horizon' arc elsewhere in tl* vol· umc referred to as 'ploughsoil' a nd 'subsoil' rc-.jX'Ctiwly.

Trial excavation

The trial excavation took place a longside the ro..1d, in an area about 400x200m. This was made available follow· ing the 1965 harvest and contained cropmarks of a complex of what seemed to be pennnnu lor gu llies rep­resenting round houses and rela ted compounds (the ABC enclosures, Fig 4, site atlas plans 2 and 5). An unexpected discovery was a mixed inhumation/crema· lion Romano-British cemetery within the largest compound (RB Cern I, Fig 4). As wa., the usual practice in the 1960s, labour and equipment were supplied by the local Superintendent of Works. Following the writer's experience at Lcchlade a box scraper had been ordered . Howe,•er.onc Wclsnot available,lnd an unsuit­able front-loading Droll was sent on;tcad. To avoid excess compaction, scraping wa> kept to the B horizon. • This proved satisfactory in the first experimental area, ~ince the professional labourers were easily capable of the extensive hand-clearing then required. However, when using student labour, scraping over most of the ; itc was aimed at a lower level, at the B/C horizon.• Labou r comprised a gang of up to five experienced workmen~ who were accustomed to tearn piecework. They were excellent at site clearing following topsoil removal, but less adaptable on fine work using trowels. !'Ianning and recording were carried out by a small team of archaeological student>.

The results of this trial excavation, together with quarrying methods and needs on the one hand and the ,w,1ilable archaeological resources (notably labour) on the other, determined exca,•ation strategy. Working so close to the quarry face created an early problem: the lack of fixed points. The telegraph poles along East Tilbury Ro..1d had r('Cently lx.>cn resiled, while the crop­mark area was virtually without hedges. This problem was met by basing the trial excav,ltion grid on a plough furrow cut in the stubble by the fanner, T Lindsay of Walton llall Fa rm, to mark out the next quarry intake. Because the best stance for p lann ing soi hna rks is facing north, th~ first grid coordinates were read from left to right giving nominal North and Ea>t readings.

Mechanical excavation and quarrying

Rescue archaeology in a gravel pit w.1~ in the 1960s a question of opportunism. The then Momstry of Public Building and Works had intended to ;chedule the crop­mark area, but this was n o t done. Successful archacologic.ll oper.1tions therefore had to depend on const.1nt adjustments to fit the way the quarry worked ,1nd the demands of its personnel, which were in turn affected by such imponder.1blcs as required outputs, the thickness of the gravel, and the we,lther. It had been pu~5tiblc to organise the trial cxcClvalion in an area clear of quarrying. Thereafter it was a constant s truggle to k<'<'P ahead - a battle not a lway; successful, as is

BACKGROUND 7

rcnected in the many gaps in the site plan up to the 5001\ grid line (Fig 4, stte atlas plans 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, and the southern end of plan 6), including spaces within the South Rmg; d1tchcs and some of the interior of enclo­sures RBI and RBII (Fig 4), which must explain in some degree the virtual absence of posthole structures.

Following new management by Hoveringham Gra­vels Ltd, and their greatly increased output, tracked vehicles towing box scrapers (graders) were intro­duced. They were used for the South Rings areas and for the bulk of subsequent work. Because some control of topsoil remova l was essential if shallower fea tu res were to survive, it became standard practice that some, if not all, of the costs of scraping were borne by the excavation. This made possible the choice of a smaller machine, when available, and also supervision of the direction and depth of scraping as well as control of routl'S by which the topsoil was con,•eyed from the site to the quarry noor. Air photographs helped to select routes with fewer cropmarks (M U jones 1974, pi xx1x), but no accurate plot of these was then available (p 23).

The conveyor ;y;tem consisted of several length; of rubber belting connected by hoppers. The length which directly concerned the excavation was that which ter· minated on the quarry face. As the face receded thb length was swung round to make a new strip of gravel accessible. It follows that the g round between this belt and the face was ou t of bounds, though there were several dr.1matic last-minute efforts, with the cooper­ation of quarry staff, to complete excava tion o n the wrong side of the belt. Gmbenlmus 105 (site a tlas plan 13, 1216N 365E) with its noor carpeted with pottery sherds and raw clay loom weights could not be dug in haste, while final work on a prototype kiln (Kiln 22, site atlas plan 12, 11551\ 195E)disclosed that it had been dug p.utly through a prehistoric burial (786) in a planked coffin. Another mstance of cooperation occurred when a fixed length of belt laid unwittingly across Anglo­Saxon Cemetery I (Fig 4, site atlas plan 12) was raised to allow excavation beneath it.

Planning

Ideally, any excavation grid -especially of land>cape sites- should conform to the National Grid. Ho\vcvcr, it was not at rir~t forcs~n how extensive the excavation would prove to be. The Mucking grid lines were 19' ca;t of OS grid north. I lowcvcr, 1966 brought the problem of extending the grid, bearing in mind that quarrying had cut off the exc.wation area from its one fixed pomt. This problem was soh·ed by the timely assistance of j Webb, memberofThurrock Local History Society, who had access to appropriate equipment- theodolite and 500ft steel tapes. S.1ck readings were taken along the plough furrow ba;c line as far as the road hedge, where it was possible to place a fixed point. The excavated grid gave 'south' readings, south of the northing zero grid line, and 'west' readings, west of the casting zero grid line (see Fig 4 and p 11). As each excavation area bl'Ca mc available, betwccll harvest and qua rrying, enough new basic points were created to carry the grid eventua lly across 3000ft (c 915m). Using diagonal checks, wooden

pegs were set out at 50ft (IS.24ml intervals. When the ground was cleared ready for excavation each SOft square was covered by a lOft (3.05m) interval grid m.uked by labelled 6in n.lils. A temporary baseline was thrown off the site grid at about 2000N SOOE (site atlas plan 20). This was needed to plan features exposed by machine scraping of an area it had been decided to abandon, which lay north-west of a wooded area (05 parcel no 2265) on the west edge of the site, and was consequently out of sight. The grid was a lso extended to include the North Ring.

Provisional site p lans were produced at interva ls, to illustrate interim reports. The first was a sketch of the cropmarks in relation to the Linford Quarry site in 1968 (jones el a/ 1968, fig 3) by J Webb. Then it became possible for photographic reductions of 1:60 site plans to be made by the then DoE photographic dep.utmcnt at a scale of 1:750. Although these were on paper and therefore not precise, they were amalg.lmated to create site plans (Jones and jones 1974, fig I; M U jones 1974, fig 2). In 1978 the plan was updated and anomalies which existed in some of the first areas were adjusted by T Westwood of RCHM(E) Air Photographs Unit. In 1980 he produced a ver;ion showing the site grid (100ft squares) on stable film, which has been used as a base plan for Figure 4. The final stage was to have been an editing of feature plans (usually at 1: 12) on to film versions of each 100ft square plan to make up the site atlas, beginning with the last areas to be planned. This wa~ barely begun before the transfer to the British Mu· :,cum.

Excavation strategy

Ther!'was no organised fieldwalkingsurvey.l fowever, the writer walked the cropmark areas and adjacent slop..>s after ploughing and potato ridging. Finds of any period were extremely rare and were mostly nints. As ,, check on possible loss of finds, a control area about 16m square within Anglo-Saxon Cemetery II was dug by hand from thestubble.ltshowed that cremation pots had already lost their rims. Two GmiN!nhliuSI!r (GH 81, site atlas p lan 21,2055N 905E, and Gll82, s ite atlas plan 23, 2135N 990E; see back cover photograph) were a lso dug by hand. No finds or soil mark~ were seen until the level o( gravel was reached. However, during top­soil/subsoil remova l by box )Craper, a concentration of nints was found. They suggested a possible knapping noor (site atlas plan 17, square 1700N SOOE), near GH 124. In general, however, archaeological evidence did not appear until the B/C hori.ton.

Geology, soils, and weather (Fig 3)

The grology is discussed elsewhere in this report (J N Carreck, p 26) and the soils are the subject of a separate report by 1-t Keeley (1972). They are considered here only in terms of their direct cfk'Ct on the excava tion. Since there were very few structures using imported materia l - nint nodules, clay, and chalk- Mucking was virtua lly a soil site. Excavation was concerned with three >ubsoils:

8 EXCAVATIONS AT MUCKING: THE SITE ATLAS

1 The gravel itself, as thick as 8m, down to the point where it disappeared on the lower slopes.

2 Fine-grained Thanet Sand underlying the gravel, which acted as an aquifer causing damp patches to appear along the terrace slopes. One such patch is indicated by the herringbone pattern of modern land drains at 600N 700E (site atlas plan 8). Thanet Sand was encountered in the shafts of Romano­British wells and in the lower fills of some features along the east terrace slopes, notably the north-east corner of the North Enclosure (Fig 4).

3 Brickearth deposits overlying the gravel on the eroded terrace slopes. This was a structureless silt which quarrying avoided. It did not produce crop­marks. The aerial photograph (CUC air photograph BJC 78 in M U Jones 1974, pi xxvii) shows very clearly how the 'tongues' of brickearth (illustrating the partially fluviatile nature of this silt) cloaked the cropmarks. It had been hoped that any excavation of this close textured subsoil might yield more structural detail than was usual in gravel features, but this was not the case.

Excavation took place almost entirely on gravel, within the 100ft contour. The gravel consisted of heavy, loose sand and rounded flint pebbles, which drained very rapidly. Of his land on the gravel terrace the farmer, T Lindsay, remarked that crop failures were frequent, and his best crop was growing cropmarks for archaeolog­ists! Kohlrabi had been grown there, but since the war there had been a monoculture of barley with the excep­tion of an area of lucerne.

The tithe rna of 1846 shows a dozen rectangular or strip fields (Fig ~ but these had been combined into field OS parcel no 5044 (163 acres), which extended to Walton Hall Road, and into OS parcel no 5580 (16 acres), now part of Blue House Farm at TQ 682809. Postwar farming on land without hedges provided near ideal conditions for extensive cropmarks. However, several factors meant that these cropmarks were not so easy to recognise, excavate, and record. Firstly, mechanical clearing above such a loose gravel demanded close supervision since many features were shallow. Sec­ondly, excavation was much influenced by the weather. In dry conditions colour contrasts were diminished and the fills of features tended to shrink in area. Some diggers cleaned the sides of pits etc so vigorously that they overscraped them. In the drought of 1976, an ex­ceptionally strong wind devil sucked up clouds of sand and even finds trays from the excavation. The ditch fill of Barrow 5 (which had produced a vague cropmark) could not at first be seen since it had dried to a mono­chrome with the adjacent gravel. Good soil definition occurred when frozen fills were thawing out. Thirdly, since the gravel/ sand ratio was not uniform, its charac­teristics influenced the fills of features . In areas of larger pebbles, for instance, the fills of deeper ditches had a loose central primary fill, where the heavier pebbles had rolled furthest down from the bank. Furthermore, the roundness of the pebbles tended to prevent them from stratifying along angles of rest. This made sections dif­ficult to interpret and draw. Finally, many cropmarks

were not caused by archaeological features but by pat­terned ground (see below).

During the first summer water was brought to the site (by the local fire brigade on a practice run), and stored in an excavated ditch trench. For a time the only water was that brought in containers. Then T Lindsay allowed water to be piped over 500m from Walton Hall Farm. This availability of water proved to be a major factor in handling archaeological features.

The general extent of excavation was determined by the cropmark area. Initially, the shallow gravel along the east terrace slopes, of which much was covered by brickearth, was left unquarried, and a quarry road ran along it. But as the thick gravel deposits became ex­hausted these shallow margins were dug out. Rescue along the margins brought to light some notable addi­tions to the site plan, mostly Romano-British in date: the remaining length of the southern arm of the North Enclosure (Fig 4), ditches extending down the slope, wells, a fourth Romano-British cemetery (Fig 4), a Ro­mano-British stone coffin burial (W T Jones 1979), and Barrow 4. This certainly suggests, if it cannot prove, that the main area of at any rate Romano-British and Anglo­Saxon settlement must have lain on more fertile land further down the terrace slopes.

Patterned ground

Periglacial features (Jones et a/1968, 228-30; M U Jones 1974, 187) assumed many forms on the Mucking gravel and would have made an interesting study by them­selves. Those which were most clearly defined contained a 'fill' of yellowish brown silt resembling brickearth. An early example which looked like a circu­lar pit was machine sectioned and referred to J N Carreck (seep 29). Another, also round, with a gravel core, contained a Neolithic sherd in its late fill. A section showed a silt fill which diminished to a point. An irregular feature (1004, site atlas plan 16, 1775N 210E), in an area which was mostly abandoned, produced many flints. It was possibly caused by a blown-over tree which left a hollow where the root ball had been. This would have made a sheltered spot for flint knapping. Linear and reticulated patterned ground was quite rare, although one example even showed ditch-like sections.

Since artefacts, notably flints, but occasionally sherds, were often found in the top few inches of peri­glacial features, the simplest way to determine their origin was to excavate at least the top level; from c 900N periglacial features were planned, a procedure which helped considerably in their interpretation. As well as pit and gully-like shapes the plan demonstrated that arcs and even rings were typical (M U Jones 1974, fig 3).

Patterned ground was of concern, not only during excavation but also in interpreting cropmarks in areas still to be excavated or abandoned. Of the latter, the most significant was the area lying between the trial excavation and 1000N lOOW (Figs 4 and 7, and p 24). Cropmarks had consistently reflected dense occupation extending north-west from the South Rings. So when the quarry foreman, R Lanham, offered to move the working face to allow more excavation time, it seemed a simple alternative between identifiable ditches, pits,

BACKCROU:-..1) 9

round house gullies, and Grul,•u/t,,,...., and an isolated cnd~urc in an area of small, scattcn.xt indctcrntinatc cropmarb. Unfortunately, >Orne of lht-..e must ha\'e been graves of Anglo-Saxon Cemetery I.

Acknowledgements

How to thank the thousands of ~ople who took part in the Mud.mg excavation and the ,t,ut of po>t-.,xcava­tion (\IPXl? And how to •'"<'" mdividual contnbulions? Many are already ammortalised as a posthole scthng, a length of ditch, a roundhouse, or a pottery kiln. It would be rash to t.•mb.uk on a list of name>, although il few arc already publi,hed in interim reports. Clearly this is " situat ion which computers should have handled. So, since an attempt at trad itional ncknowlcdgmcnt would have rc~ulh .. "l(j in many om­ission>, I must begin with an .1pology for the inevitable gop;, and then go on to thank contributors in groups. The rongeof these groups, incidcnl,lllv, iiJu,trates how vefb.c.lhlc in their contclcts e\.cavahon din..'C'tors must be.

From the initial decision to follow the trial cxc,wa­tion, employing professional labour<.'rs, with student e\cavators, come the need toesloblbh a comp. From the beginning local bodies - Council, Mu'>!'um, Society -were supportive (Essex County Council had not then, in t966, set up its Archaeology St.'Clion). Memorable g ifts for the comp included:

a bt.'<.htead for the camp organi><'r

dt.-clo. bl.1nlo.ets from discontinut."<l crui-c liners

a worn-out lorry which madl~ a ~plcndid dormitory

help from Venture Scouts in puttang up site huts to frt.'C diggers (at that time very thin on the ground) to dig

a conlroclors' pensioned-off hut which :.erved until the cxce~vation ended as cook hou ... l', mess hut, ilnd ~heltcr for Vilri(.~ activitic:-,

regular 'upplics from their chorit1 .1llocations from loc.1l finn' m.1nufacturing n1.uganneand detergents

p.1anhng a water t~rak black to ab:.orb heat .1nd so \\\lmllb contents for a w,ltcrin); CM\ -.,hower; etc, etc

II ere I mtl'•t ilCknow1cdgc the ~liCCl• ...... ion of cook/excel• Villors (the best were from th'-· US/\) whO!tC arrival ill breaks with fresh bread (co len with pc.1nut butter ond honey) j., a vivid rncmory.

At lh<.' mmp sitdon the quMry floor) official bodies who might h.we invoked >tringent rc'gul,llion.> and frownl"<l at <,(l Bohemian a sclllemcnl '"'teod took a helpful hnt.•. So did the landowner- (the tnastccs of Surndge 01'pl)<.,ll' ltd), who abo pre-cntt'<.l the finds. So did: the farm tenant, the late Tom I and say of Walton II all Farm; W Morant, the farm nMnogl'r of Blue House Farm; the gravel extractors (llowringhaan Gravels Ltd) and their :.t,aff; the earthmoving conl r<~rtors; and the Army, whose 'aid to the local community' took the form of to~oil removal and a 1ft intcrvcl l contour survl'y of the silt.•.

The \lo-cum helped wath local contacts and best of all offert.'<.l 'torage, at first in Tilbury (where a flood encrtl.lChl'<l on some finds bow,) and then in Crays' new library / museum complex. Thi"""' b.1ckcd up by 1oM" ond use of equipment - typewriters, copying machin<'S, etc - and new lighting on the sixth floor, when~ excavation finds and matt\rials were stored with­out chorge right through to the end of the exca,•ation, .1nd when~ post-excavation (MPX) began in what was b)• then extremely cram pt.'<! .1Ccommodalion.

\<luclo.ing sp.1nned three metamorphoses of wh.1t is now English Heritage, though ~rsonnel changes were few. Reay Robertson-M.Kkay (for the prehistoric pcriod), S.1rnia Butcher (for Romano-British), and john llu.-t (for post-Roman) maintained their support for what hod bt.-come to many" white elephant of a rescue excavat ion. As government allocations led to improved n.·~uc excavation grants~ it w,'\s possible to employ more 'ite ossislants. However, they ~lso h~d to cope with an .1hvays increasing demand for gravel, espe­ca.lll) for local road building. and an always decreasing depth of the gra,·ellaye..,. Too late to affect the rescue ~\Ccl\'4\tion was the acccpt,lnceof the underlying Thanel S.1nd (pr<'''iously neglected) for some constnaction worJ....

A very much appreciated annovotion allowed the cxr.wotion directors (the writer ond W T jones) to do s~lb of work in London free from site distractions, which facilitott.'<.l contacts with lo boratory and drawing office ,raff and allowed the production of interim re­port-, pion,, etc. One outcome, "'sembled at short not ace, w,1s the production of choptcr6 in R«fllf nrclrne­''''~"·tli<'te<Tmfious iu £urdJ'<' Uont."> and jones 1975).

FinMacial ;upport from other official bodies must al"<l be acknowledged: Tho rrock Di<.tricl Council, Essex County Council, the British \<lu~eum, ond the Society of AntiquMiCS. The British Museum helped too with the queue for conservation, a> abo did the Netherlands Sta le Service, who must be thanked in addition for the gift of Dutch sand shoveb which made light work of Mucking nint /gravel.

Aport from the continu,ll nt.'<.xl for conservation, m<"tly of gra,·e goods, some rt'<lucsts for scientific t>.1clo.-up from the Ancient \tonuments Laboratory were m,adc There were SC\'eral attempt' at im~ge enhance­m~nl: an ultra-l·iolcl 1.1mp w~> ;hone on body 'ill1<1udh.'s ,11 night (beneath a blonlo.et), a plastic cast of ,, ..,ilhouette was attemptL-'<i~ .1nd chemical sprays on a Gmb,•,/rnus noor would, it"'·" hoped, de,•elop traces of timber. Soil was analysed and pollen identified, advice on pcrigl;~cial fciltUrl"S wa:, obt.1incc.L ilnd a phosphate Mlrvt•y of the slopes below the excavated site wa~ undL•rtakl'n. Thcrmo-couplt.~ were loaned for a trial J...1ln firing. Resistivity survt.>y., were made in the area of Anglo-S.>xon cemetery I for the more rapid recognition <lf gr.w,-.. St'Cds preserved m the cl.w of Saxon pots and 111 ,, Romano-British corndricr were identified. Scien­tific contributions included ,111im,1l bone reports, while tlw I'•"""'"" Edwards Mu>Cum con<,(>lidoted a deposit of rc'<.t tll't'r antlers and loonc'<.l .1 member of Stoff to proet..,, queried finds of >lone. Sewr.al thousand char­<"O.ll idL~ntiricC~tions were m\ldC~ ,1 nd their distribution later m.lppt.•d by digit,, I plottrr. l',llaeomagnetic and rtldll)('iltbon date:-, \\'l~r~ obtainl'd.

10 E\C\\ ·\TIO'\SAT\It;CI,"(, TIIESITEATI A'>

A.r photograph' of the cropmarks, m<,..tly from the Cambridge Uniwr;ity Collection and the Air Photo­graphs Unit of RCI I M (I'), were of cour.c the foundation Of theexcavationand Wl'Tl•in COil~tant li"-C for reference. Photographs of the "<til~ under excav,ltion were also taken by local flier-: Aerofilms of Gr."·'· Southcnd Air Photography, and J P J C.1tton.

And now to the group which dc<ier\ <"the principal acknowledgement: the excavators thcm~lw.,, without whose labour the cropmark picture would un­doubtedly have remained a latent image (though a few significant find'> might have escaped dllmage during I heir journey along the quarry conveyor, and 'urfaced 10 join the thousand' or unprovenancro find' in British archaeology). \1eg.l-c,c.w,ltions like \1ucking were products as much of,, definite ethos of .,tudents of the 1960:, .1nd 197(}, a' thev were the outcome of aopmark photography. For rno.,l p.ulicipanb \1ud.ing w,l> pri-

m.lftly an l>ducationCll l'\JX'Tience. The .,•gnific,1ncc of thi.., 1.1bour force (the writer"~ first experience with ~tu­dcnt excavators t'll ,,,~ .. t') w.-h brought horn..:o with a thud in 1977 (lhc final ve.lr), which coincided wilh v.1c,1tion a1lowancl""' t~nd Manpow('r S.C.rvict'"' Com­mi"ion proj«ts. II had "'"" lx-come evid~nt-when an oiJu,lr,lled leiter to Tiro• Tmu.._ in 1966 yicldro one digger

th.ll British uni\er..illl" were unlikely to produce the numbc,..., needed. Copying a Welsh hengc c,c,wation, ow..,cas recnoitmcnt began in Czechoslovakia. By the mid 1970s, student' from .1nywhere between Alaska tlnd Australia evidently found Mucking e1 convenient b,,.,., from which to explore the British ),Je,, And,,. far •" 'taff were conn•rnc'<.l, \1ucking provid<'<l nursery ,)Of""> for a number who .1rc now part of lhl' Mcharo­logoc.ll cstablbhmcnl; one mighl mention the \'i<l~Dirl'CtOr of the Jn,lltute of the History of Cultur.ll \1alcn,,l in Poland ... !

3 The excavation

In total, some 5000 students and volunteers excavated at Mucking. From 1968 work continued all through the year. As M U jones has noted (p 8), winter cond itions were more suited to the recognition of soi lmarks. The ephemeral nature of these is exemplified by a section of ditch only being clearly visible for five minutes during six weeks' intensive work on one part of the site. The Notes for excnl!fltors (held in the archive) exhort the dig­gers to the challenge of '100% rescue'. M U jones (1974, 186) rated their success as 75%. It is not clear, however, how much evidence was lost in the mechanical strip­ping of the ploughsoil and subsoil made necessary by the pressu res of quarrying (Anon 1966). M U jones considered (1974, 193) that 'the modern surface is taken as approximating to the ancient', at least on the rnorc level areas of terrace. However, the eroded terrace slopes to the east produced only traces of comparatively substantial features, for example GI-l 114 (site a tlas plan 14, 1210N902E) which was only a fewmillimetresdeep. tt has been estimated tha t a depth of some 300-450mm was removed by mechanical scraping. Deep steam ploughing during the 1920s and 1930s may have removed some of the occupation evidence. Yet ' ... su r­faces ad~1cent to Saxon hu ts li ttered with bones and broken pottery' were recorded (M U jones 1975/6, 35). M U jones has noted (p 7) that field walking and a tria l area dug by hand from the topsoil added little informa­tion. In an adjacent area on the A 13 and M25 rescue excavations Wilkinson (1988, 6) also found fieldwalk­ing results diS<lppointing and little was visible until the stripping of the topsoil.

Methods

This account of cxc<1vation methods is in part a sum­mary .. sometimes verbatim, of Noh-s for excnttators and Nott•s for site nssistmrts (copies in the archive). It is presented here to elucida te something of the strategy and to demonstrate the divergence between these in­structions and their interpretation as practised in the field (p 15).

The excava tion progressed broad ly from the sou th end of the site to the north. The surface which presented itself to the excavators was cleared w ith a fork and shovel (or hoe). Where appropria te, soilmarks were brushed around their perimeter to avoid smearing and to clarify their shapes in plan. There were considerable

11

problems in clearly defining the soilmarks so that 'sometimes it is necessary to resurface more than once for a feature to show' (Notes for cxcnvnlors). The methods of excavation owe much to Du tch sand techniques 'where the natural is excavated along with archaeologi· cal featu res ... to elucida te d ifferent features .. .' Oones et n/1968, 229). The importance of soilmark plotting was considered paramount as 'a good deal of interpretation can be attempted a t the soil mark stage. Overlapping soihnarks and pebble lines demonstrate stratification much more reliably than sections cut through g ravelly fills' (ibid, 229).

The features thus identified were 'marked out' and excavation proceeded in horizontal levels (or spits) of variable depth depending 'on the feature and time available' (Not<'S forexcnzmtors). These were usually 3, 6, or9 inches (76, 152, 229mm) to enable 'd ifferences in fill to be seen and plotted in plan' (Notes for excnvntors).

Each marked ou t excavation trench was ascribed coord inates, whether a box la id out across a d itch, a quadrant, or half o f a non· lincilr feature such as a pit or Gru/lerrlrnrrs. Any archaeologica l layers or features subsequently encountered in the excava tion were to be simi larly referenced with coordinates. Finds were to be separated for each level within each iden tifying coordinate. The coordina tes are given as northings (or south ings, where the grid (p 7) was extended beyond the zero line) and castings (or westings), ie in the opposite manner to OS g rid references. In add i­tion, certain features, enclosures, and the cemeteries were given identifying prefixes and numbered ser­ially (see p 12). Some of these identifications have turned ou t to be erroneous, but they have become a useful shorthand and Figure4 shows those most com­monly used.

Plans

Plans of the cleared soilrnark surface included the posi­tions of trenches, the relationships of soihnarks, and the labelling of natura l features. These were produced for each of the 100ft (30.5m) site grid squ~r()S at a scale of 1:60. Diagnostic finds werea lsoplotted where possible. Any excavated features were denoted by hachu rt'S and any apparently blank areas were noted as hDving no soilmark visible. ln addition, feature plans at 1:12 were mndc.

4 Post-excavation

This can be divided into two distinct eras. The first (sec below) followed on immedia tely from the end of the excavation in 1977 until1985. It was based a t Thurrock Museum, under the direction of the excavator, and is referred to as MPX- an acronym for Mucking Post-ex­cavation. The second (p 14), from February 1986 until March 1989, was under the aegis of a joint British Mu­seum and English Heritage (Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England) Management Committee (here referred to as BM/EH) under the di­rection of Ann Clark.

Mucking Post-excavation (MPX)

Some preliminary processing took place while the ex­cavation was in progress and during intervals in it. From 1977 efforts were being made towards completing the outstanding washing and marking of the finds, and a card index recording features by type and location had been tried ou t but not continued. Ca talogues of specific finds and dossiers of typed-up notebook entries for certain feature types were produced. In add ition to those features numbered on site further classes were numbered each in its own series, giving the following as individ ually identified features: g raves (whether in­humations or cremations) (GR/CREM); barrows; round houses or penannular gullies (RH/PG); ground level or posthole bu ildings (GLB/PHB); CruiN'nhiiuser (GH); wells; kilns; corndriers (CD).

Most effort was directed towards producing a com· puterised archive (see below). This required the input of specialist skills in identifying objects and at least 30 people had an involvement in dealing with objects alone. An enormous conservation programme under· taken by the Ancient Monuments I...'boratory (ch iefly by Glynis Edwards) during the excavation and after­wards is still in progress. The plans of the 100ft site grid squares were traced on to fi1m with a view to publica­tion.

Many researchers were attracted to MPX for the quantity and d iversity of materia l which the site pro­vided. Severa l were already acknowledged specialists in their chosen field of study. For others Mucking went some way to launching them in their careers. The thick correspondence files and records of visitors in the archive arc ample ev idence. Suffice it to say, the specialist reports which appear in this and forthcoming volumes represent only a fraction of the work under­taken.

Computerisation of the archive

Although computers were widely used in archaeology during the 1970s, most of the g rowth in computer ap­plications has taken place in the last decade. In 1978 Mucking became a forerunner in the field. It was seen to have sufficiently exciting potentia l to attract the in­terest of Dr I Graham as part of a resea rch project on handling data in the humanities for the British Libra ry. Dr Gra ham developed a system written in Assembly

12

language to run on a Zilog Development System (on loan from the Institute of Archaeology, London). On completion of the project in 1979, the Zilog was with­drawn. A year elapsed until, in 1980, MPX acquired a Midas 3. This was an carl)' Z80 based microcomputer with a 64K memory and twin 8-inch 484K floppy disk drives, running the CP /M1.4 opera ting system. It was considered to be one of the most advanced microcom­puters of the time. In order to maximise its use the Midas was modified to become two computers, each with a 64K memory.

During 1980 and 1981 j Moffett developed the data capture system as part of a sand wich course (School of Archaeological Science, University of Bradford). The original system had to be rewritten initia lly in 8080 Assembly language and then Z80 to run on the Midas 3. In collaboration with M U jones, J Moffett identified various requirements for data entry which resu lted in the development of the 'question source file' (QSF). This was later referred to as 'data definition files' (Catton et a/1982).

TheQSFs had to be designed to be input by inexperi­enced staff and to be comprehensible to them. They comprised a series of questions with a range of accept­able answers. A series of self-explanatory keywords was used. Three ca tegories of da ta relating to features, documentation, and artefacts, and totalling in excess of 10 megabytes, were input. The majority of the data related to the artefacts. 'The aim was to be comprehens­ive yet succinct, always bearing future analysis in mind' (Catton et a/1982, 40). In an attempt to be objective, it was hoped that a classification of artefact types would 'emerge from the database'. In some cases the special­ists themselves designed QSFs for their own data. In other cases QSFs were designed to record, it was hoped, every possible analytical contingency. However, it should be sa id that for most specialists this was their first experience of computerisation. The recording was very detailed; for example, there were up to 79 ques­tions for a single shcrd or sherd g roup of Anglo-Saxon pottery. Such detailed recording was bound to obscu re any broad patterns and was input in many cases with­out any clear view about retrieval. There were problems in the degree of subjecti ve judgement required to answer some questions and a lack of definition of am­biguous terminology. All this gave inconsisten t responses.

For the J'nost part, where retrieval was envisaged, it took the form of a variety of programs written by Mof­fett as part of a research project (Moffett 1983) for the development of excavation databases on a Midas 3HD, using the CP /M2.2 operating system. Although never consolidated into a single data manipulation program, these produced histograms, barcharts, and distribution plots (M U jones 1985) for a t-louston DMP-6 digital plotter. Distribution plots became an integral part of the publication strategy so that it was envisaged tha t 'to a large extent this treatment (dot distributions) will take the place of vertical s tratigra phy' (Catton et n/ 1982, 36).

For Mucking, Level Ill (Frere report 1975) and the computerised archive became synonymous. However,

I'OST-EXCAVATIO' 13

since th mceplion th<' computing h.1d lx-en one element of a -;erie-. of research projects, managed at Grays by a self-trainc>d member of M PX ~ta ff U C.1tton) whose main brief wa<,officially an analysis of the prehistoric pottery, and input IMgely by part-lim('rs. In 1984 the then In­spectorate o f Ancient Monuments of the Department o f the Environme nt recognised thenc~d for some full-time computcrexpcrtiseand appointc>d S Pi<'rpoinl. His brief was to provide retrieval and fct>dback as required to MPX. This entailed the transfer of data from Midas 3 to a PDP II / 73 running Microsoft Xeni\ version 2.9 oper­ating ;y.,tem where it could be lo.ldt>d mto lnformix, a relational datab.1se management 'Y"Iem.

By 1985allthccomputcrcxpcrlisc had departed, and little had been achieved towards fulfilling M U jones's hope ' that archaeologists will have ll'S" need to be ar­ticulate in the literary sense when there is a machine which will make the data self-explanatory' (Catto n et at 1982, 43). Although it had been L'Stabli'>hed at an early stage that below 5<7r- was an acceptable error rate, no comprehensive assessment had lx-cn made. By 1985 this had <.e\'cral dimensions: input errof'; errors in editing files already input; errors in am,llgamating files; and finally errof' in the transfer procl'S' between different media and systems.

Moffett u~ed the experience of th<' Mucking compu­terised da ta to epitom ise 'Thl' Dc•ep Thought Syndrome' where ' the comp uter is fed masses and maS>l's of da ta in the great hope thai when TilE bu tton is pr('>st'<.l a report will appear out of thi n air' (Moffett 1989). The error rate, while po»ibly not great in per­ccnt,lgc terms, was such that sub~"tlU~nt lllilnipulation prO\' l'<i e~tremely difficult, if not tmpossible. Se,·eral spcciali~t requirements had to 1>;, ab.1ndoned. These requtrements had become an essential part of the post­excavation and publication programme and so fundamental s trategies had to be reconsidered. It sccmc>d that many artefact specialbt; had been Sl>duced by the 'number-crunching' potential which computeri­sation had offered. Given the brief to produce catalogues rnisouurt'S in fu lfilment of the requirements of the Frere report, it i'o un;urprising that the temptation to concen­trate efforts on quantification of wide-ranging attributl'S took precedence on~r ,,n elucidation of the archal'\llogteal contexts. For the pui'J'O'C'> of publica­tion, the data input between 1978 and 1985 ha,·e been largely dl-emed, as Moffett ha; ;o c.lndtdly said 091>'9, 13), 'an accident of history'. In tlu~ end Moffett felt (pers romm) thnt'thccomputcrwas mon.:oof ., hindr.1ncc than a help to the publication of the s ite of Mucking'.

There ;~rc, however, two notablt•t•xccptions. Firstly, following an itrduous period of verifying and ed iting, H Hamerow was able to utilise 'ome of the Anglo­Sa\on pottery data (Hamerow 1993; volume 2 of this seril~). Sl>condly, retrie,·al from the 8-inch noppy disks of the notebook and plan inde\l'S wa' p.utlally succes~>­ful following painstaking editing of field delimiters and other anomalil"> by R jones (formerly of the AM Lab). This produced a printout which w,,, '''>entia! to the con tcxting process undertaken from 198(> to 1989.

As a coda to this, the British Museum, on acquiring the Mucking archive, was keen to employ its GOS sys­tem '' powcr£ul hierarchical dat.1b;hc which makes po;;,ible the detailed recording of individua l objects.

Thts w,1s being used as an adJUnct to the registration prOC'l~S but WOUld have had :,cvcrc restrictions in tenn~ of ordering the archive which entailed the elucidation of interrelationships bctwt"en c(ln tcxts and asscmb­IJgc-.. Finally, ilftcr much discu:,~ion and almost a year into the project, a To rch computer running Jnformix as a relation~ I database was installed. The context records prim~rily holding cross·rcfcrcnccs between features .1nd their documentation have been input. Thanks to not inconsiderable efforts bv R jon<"> these data can now be read on the new British Mu.cum Prime system, but whcthcr they can be restored to their full relational capacity will be left for the future to establish.

The end of MPX

Mucking fell within the golden decade of a rchaeology. The birth o( Rescue in 1971 was a response to an C\ptn'lt•nticll increase in plough damage and threats to urb.ln, motorway, and mineral extraction sites leading to arch.1eological exca\'ations, together with an urgent nt'<.>d to add rcss the problem> of po;t~xcavation and publication. The exca\'ations at Mucking were of some "' years' standing and the frb>an caused by the dis­cowrie,, particularly the Anglo-Saxon cemetery and settlement, was felt throughout the archaeological community both in Bri t~ in and abroad . The following stoction' reveal the extent to which Mucking on the one h,ulll evolved with the chang,., in policies and controls ,u1ll on the other su(ferl-d some dctrimental effects as an ,1nachronism. The Frere report (1975) placed an obligation on l'xca,•ators to make a'·ailable the totality of evidence. A;h,.sbecn noted, forMPX, J...e,·ellll (the ordered archive) came to 'ignify the computcri!.<.>d data. To comply with U.•vcl IV (publication), in 'ovcmber 1976 M U jones produced an impressi,•e draft for the 'definitive report', compri,ingn compendious li;t of finds and features relat­ing to 'Successive Human Land>eapcs'. Each period was to be produced as a sep.1rate fascicu I c.

A nl>ed for tighter managerial control of a rchaeologi­cal proj<.-ct' was reflected in the publication of the Cunliff.:> report (1983). In the following year, 1984, the B..1CUog Working Party of the Dtrectorate of Ancient \lonumcntsand Historic Buildtngs (DAM liB), Depart­ment of the Environment (()of.), was sel up (chairman - 13 W Cunliffe; members - 1 II Longworth, P J Fowler buccc•l>ded by the late A Carter), SA Butcher, and j G llurst) to facilitate the publicat ion or the public availa­bi lity o f govemment-sponsorcd prc-1973 excavations. DAMII B had invested at least £:85,000 in the excavation­s a t Mucking (records for funding and supply of n1.1tcrials were not comprehenstvc). By March 1982 the ""t of po,t-exca,•ation work wa' t'>timated as £157,000 ,1nd bv December 1985 the total cost to DAMHB ,lmomit,>d to some £25.1,000. In addition were the ser­\'icl"> pro,·tded primarily by thc Ancient Monuments lllu,tr.ltors, who undertook thcdrawingofhundredsof finds, ,1nd staff of the Ancient Monuments Labora tory who, in ,1dd ition to the conscrv«tion programme al­re,ldy ment ioned (pp 9, 12), provided rad iocarbon, environmC'ntal, and technic,ll ~crviccs. Funding frorn oth,•r sources has not been spccific>d (but see M U jones'' acknowledgements <p 9)).

14 EXCA VATIO~S AT MUCKI1\C TilE SITE ATLAS

There was growing dissa tisfilction among the mem­bers of the Backlog Working Party at the extent of progress after some seven yea I'!. of MPX. This led to a polarisation of views between the excavator and the Backlog Working Party which ga,·e rise to the threat of termina ting MPX. In May 1982 M U jones rou;cd all those who had patro nised Mucki ng with a widely cir­culated supplication extolling the s ite's unpara lleled results. This won a short-lived reprieve until the follow­ing year when key members of staff were contracted directly by the ln~pectorate to complete specific pieces of work. onctheless, MPX struggled on, with increas­ing dependence on the M,>npower Services Commission, until late in 1985.

Erratic and inadequa te fund ing accounted for great difficu lties in maintaining a team with sufficient exper­tise tllrough the MPX yeats. Thurrock Borough Council provided invaluable premises for MPX, as they had done during the excavation. llowever, by present standards the accommodation could not but f,lll far short o f the area needed for such a vast archive, and it is to the cred it of a ll those who worked there that they coped with such cramped conditions.

Post-excavation and publication (BM!EH)

Introduction

In june 1985 the \ilucking Management Commottl'C (] Cherry (BM), I I I Longworth (BM), SA Butcher (El-l), and j G Hurst (EH)) was set up to implement the rec­ommendations o f the Backlog Working Party. English l leritage undertook to p rovide a grant for the llritish Museum toappointa p roject tcamoffour(one manager and thrce project assistants) who were to haw 'the task of preparing the ordered archive on the British \ilu-.cum and devising and implementing a publication rc-.carch design'. In addition, the British Museum wou ld cont rib­u te to the team two members o f their staff (Museum Assistants), one from each of the two department<, with curatorial responsibility for the archive- the Depart­ment of Prehostoric and Romano- British Antiquities and the Dep.utment of Medieval.1nd Later Antiquotit'S. The p roject was to be based on extremely sp.1cious ac­commodation «t il British Museum outstation ilnd wa~ to run fo r two years. In February 1986 the team manager and museum as~istants began work. Two of the three members of the project team were finally in po<,t m june of the same year. The delayed appo•ntment of the team allowed for adjustment to the programme, so that in practice the project was extended to March 1989. With the re tirement of J G Hurst in August 1987 and S A Bu tcher in March 1988, thecompo;ition of the Commit­tee altered to include j S johnson (El-l) and L Web~tcr (8M).

Initially the funding agrced by the Backlog Working Party was to be £113,500. Thi~ figure was revi<,<'() in August 1986 to g ive a fu rther £71,000 to cover .1ddi­liona l s ta ff costs which had not been foreseen a t the outset. The tota l figure was to include the payment of all p roject staff and specialists. In February 1988 a fur-

ther £102,015 was allocated for certain selected specialist work and to cover further unforeseen increases in salary and ft'C rates. £40,000 was also earmarked for publication cost:.. In june 1989, after the formal end of the project, a joint appro.lCh was m.1de by the British Museum and English Heritage to Treasury for a further £46,000 to en­able specialist work to continue into 1992. Welcome though it was,eachchangcin funding had implications for pL1m1ing which could not always be predicted.

Constraints

The limited timesca le and resources necessitated a strin­gent and rigorous approach in order to satisfy the dua l brief of o rdering the archi ve and achieving publicatio n. For the British Museum, on the one hand, an ordered archive was an essential prerequisite to registration, in fulfilment of their accountability to the Trustees for all item'> in their collections. For English lleritage, on the other hand, there was anced to d ischarge responsibility for publication of the s ite.

In con trast to the comprehensive appro.1eh to pub­lishing an evolving landscape which M U jones had outlined in 1976, this project had to be sclecti,·e. Fur­thermore, in conflict with the recommomdations of the Frere (1975) and Cunliffe (1983) reports, which set down guidelines for post-excavation procedures, the ordering of the a rchi ve and publication clements had to proceed in tandem iftheobjectives were to be achieved. At the outset it was hoped that much of the pre-existing worl., both th.1t undertaken at MPX and that of the specialists, could be incorporated. However, it soon became apparent for a number of reasons outlined in the previous sections that a new approach to catalo­gui ng the archi ve would have to be sought. Initia lly, the Briti~h Museum had appointed a part-time archivist, M Bruce-:'viitford, to deal with compiling an index of the documentcltion and ~•tc records. This work was a~1n· dont>d owing to the clear need for an integrated approach to the finds and records. In practice, the vast seconda ry a rchi ve p roduced by MPX wa; not investi­gated ;ystematically.

Ordering the archive

Ord!.'ring the archive concentrated on producing a defini­tive >itc plan (the atlas a> presented here). Most specialists who had worked on the proj<.'Ct weredc~ling with various cia~~ of material isolated from their contexts. AU were clamounng for context information. A~outlined above (p 11 ), a ~mgle feature or context could h.we had sewral coord mates ascribed to each portion. Although the system was designed to maximi~ the potential for analysing d istribu lions of materia I, it produced an exceptional mom­ber of coord inates in feet and inches (each with a susceptibility for trans~ition of digits). It fragmented features and archaeological conteJ.ts, and was cumber­some for ready reference. At the start of the project it was recognised that there was an urgent need to cross­reference plans and notebooks and then to ascribe the new context numbers to the finds. The fir•t two stages arc complete, but it is estimated that only a third of the 1.7 million finds have been put into conte't.

POST-EXCAVATION 15

Tostre~mline the system a series of context numbers w~sgenerated. These were applied to a ll fea tures bigger than abou t 2ft (600mm) in diameter unless such small features taken together formed part of an obvious s truc­ture iden ti fied du ring the excava tion or MPX. 'Multicut' (me) and 'multifill' (mf) numbers were allo­cated to these features.

A form was designed by STrow to record the context numbers (cu ts and fills), references to any relevant site notebooks or plans, and ~ny stratigraphic rel~tionships.

This information was input on to a relational database (sec p 13). Each feature was to be given a 'cut' number and fill numbers appropriate to any identifiable strati­g raphic layers. In practice the meaningful ascription of fill numbers was fraught with difficulties. The archaeo­logical layers, clearly visible on the section drawings, were rarely defined, despite the instructions to excava­tors and site assista nts to record them along with the excavation levels (or spits). Thus where levels cut across d ifferent layers the latter were difficult to reference. However, most features of any depth displayed pri­mary, secondary, and tertiary fills in the section drawings. In an attempt to overcome the difficulties of recording fills an arbitrary exped ient measure was ta ken to ascribe three context numbers to the fills. The hope was that it would be possible to elucidate and refine the fill nu mbers a t the stage of putting material into context.

Two examples serve to demonstrate the solutions provided. The first concerns the Grubmlziiuserfor which fills were clearly visible in the sections. llowevcr, II Hamerow (1993) demonstrated that the pattern ing which she identified in the ceramics transcended Grube11lziiuser fills. All finds from each of these features were therefore treated as one context, and to conform with this treatment only one number was given to the fills of each Grubeulznus. The second example perta ins to the South Rings. Most levels cut across several layers but, by careful measurement of the lcvclsilgainst draw­ings of the nearest available section fo r a g iven excavation box, the context or range of contexts could be isolated. It was fou nd that, by using several section drawings in collaboration, an average depth for the fi lls could be ascertai ned for those areas lacking sections. This was a painstaking assessment applied wih extreme caution and corroborated by further information from the finds bags which was not obtainable from other records. In this case some of the finds were in fact separated by fill.

Elsewhere on the site the instances \vhcrc archaeo­logical layers had been isolated were in the minority and the problems were exacerbated where an excava­t ion box con tai ned several features or recu ts not apparent in the soilmark. In these cases one coordinate and level cou ld not only relate lo several layers in a feature, but also to several features. Given these prob­lems. in retrospect the task wou ld ha,•e been simplified by ascribing single numbers to each feature and only elaborating as necessary where the records (often en­hanced by information on finds bags) cou ld cla rify the relationship between levels and layers.

By present-day s tanda rds the on-site record ing was inadequate. There was no description g iven of the cuts and the description of the fills generally only appcMed

on keys to section drawings which va ried from brief statements to idiosyncratic descriptions of texture and colour. The terminology used in these was not stand­ardised. This caused particular problems when attempts were made to relate independently excavated portions of a single feature. In extreme cases it has been difficult to relate and interpret layers even across a single baulk. The corollary is that descriptions given of the sections in the forthcoming volumes have replicated the original description, however cumbersome.

Considering the number of personnel who were in­volved in recording during the excavation, it is not surprising that so many problems came to light. These included illegible handwriting, transposition of coord i­nates (or the digits within them), conflicting notebook and plan/section information, and inconsistent use of symbols on the plan. For some features there was no apparent notebook record and for others there were only drawings. The sca le of the problems undoubtedly reflects the scale of the excavation and the rescue con­ditions under wh ich it opera ted. Excavators and Spc"cialists alike must be fami1iar with them. However, in a smaller-scale excavation discrepancies can be more readily resolved on site or in the period immediately following the excavation.

The 'contexting' of the site proved a much more time-consuming task than anticipated. A single feature could be rt'COrdcd on several plans and in several note­books, without following any logical sequence. The index by 100ft square to plans and notebooks, produced from the MPX computerised data, was by no means compre­hensive and new references were constantly discovered. It c.1nnot be over-emphasised that the production of a definiti ve site plan, backed by full documentation of the paper archive (both as a manual and computerised rec­ord), has been an outstanding achievement within the 31 months' active life of this project.

Site atlas

The MPX tracings of the 100ft square field plans (each referred to by its south-west corner g rid coord inate) form the basis of the 25 site plans presented with this volume. As inherited, these lacked any featu re numbers. Only linear features. with the exception of the 'modern' d itches (see below), had hachures. Even with such a relatively dea r and simple form of presentation, the excavators had recognised the need for publication of such a vast plan in atlas format. Dyelines of these squares were used as worki ng copies for the editing and amendment which formed an integral part of the con­texting process <see above). With the exception of the burials (see below), the numbers alongside features arc the 'cut' context numbers. Initially some attempt was made to ascribe batches of numbers to dffferent areas of the site, with the lowest nu mbers at the sou th end of the site and the highest at the north end. This was in an attempt to follow the general trend of the excavation. In practice, however, as the batches of numbers allocated to each of the four areas became exhausted, consider­able intermix ing of the o riginal sequences occurred, a lthough some evidence of sequence progressing from south to north can be seen.

16 EXCAVATIONS AT MUCKING: THE SITE ATLAS

Numbers prefixed with an 'F' pertain to apparently unexcavated soilmarks or those subsequently designated 'natural'. The ·p in this case relates to the 'fill', since many yielded finds during the initial scraping of areas of the gravel surface. Initially, there was sornc confusion over the use of the 'me' prefix (see above). The original inten· tion was that it should be used only for groups of postholes which had been identified as plausible struc· tures in the field or during MPX. Some of the BM/EH team, however, saw it as a means of isolating any recog­nisable posthole structures. Attempts were made to eliminate such later interpretations, but this may not have been comprehensively achieved. The prefiX 'recut' has also been added to reflect evidence from section drawings or field notes. While every effort was made to check for consistency in application of these prefixes, some errors are bound to have occurred.

Towards the beginning of the BM/EH project it was decided to superimpose all conveyor belts, quarry edges, edges of excavation, and edges of clearing. This was in an attempt to give a visual impression of the dynamics of the excavation. In several instances these edges account for truncated features and discrepancies. A notable example of a staggered join between two sections of a ditch excavated over a period of five years can be seen on site atlas plan 4 (65N 520E;ditch 296 was excavated in 1973 and the same ditch (3005) was exca­vated in 1978). It is hoped that the various edges give some indication as to which areas were cleared. Where the records specify that adequate clearance or excava­tion was not possible, this has been noted.

Owing to the problems of identifying features in the brickearth (p 8), this has been traced on to the sile p lan where it has been noted in the original records. Simi· larly, natural features probably of periglacial origin (sec jones (p 8), Riley (p 24), Carreck (p 30)) have been p lotted. A section line or an excavati011 box generally indicate those which have been excavated.

The numbers on the site atlas, w ith the exception of the graves, are the cut numbers from the contexting process. The burial numbers for both cremations and inhumations are shown in italics to distil1guish them from the context numbers. Context numbers for all these features can be found in the archive, but for the sake of simplicity and consistency with other published references, burial num· bers have been retained. In addition, all features serially numbered on site, or during MPX, have been labelled. One exception is the 'ground-level' (or 'poslhole') buildil1gs. These acquired a complex series of numbers duril1g MPX (prefixed GLB). All structures distin&'•ished in this way have been given multicut (me) numbers (but see the errata Iiston pp vii-viii). However, since only a selection of them have been confirmed by 1-1 Hamerow as Anglo-Saxon 'posthole buildings', only those verified for the Anglo· Saxon settlement report have been labelled as 'posthole buildu1gs' in the PHB prefixed S<.'<)uence of numbers (see below).

Where no stratigraphic relationship of two cross-cut· ting features is stated in the record, none is shown on plan. It was, however, impossible to check every in· stance, and subsequent specialist work may reverse this. A dashed line indicates a soilmark or uncertain edge, and is also used where the top of a feature did not appear as a soilmark on the cleared surface but only at

lower levels. Where the location, size, or orientation of (I feature is<'mbiguous,a question mark is placed inside it. The sa me symbol has been used where a section line is uncertainly located. The original drawings had two symbols which became inconsistently applied. These were a dashed line to indicate 'an indistinct soil mark' and aligned question marks to represent 'uncertain soil­mark'. While every effort was made to clarify the distinction between these to give only one level of un· certainty, it has not always been possible.

Many features have been ascribed 'modern' in the field records. However, clear definition of this was not found in the archive. It was assumed that the so-called 'modern' features were a meaningful group, and so they have been distinctively represented without ha · churcs (as in the archive) even where excavated. The excavator has subsequently defined these as shallow with a distinctive dark, loose, smelly fill and occasional modern find s. An indication of the excavated portions is given by the baulk and/ or section lines. The arrange· ment of some ditches (as noted o n p 8, 9218, site atlas plan 8, 600N 700E) wou ld lead one to believe that they are recent field drainage ditches. Others appear on the nineteenth-century Tithe Map, but whether they owe their orig in to earlier land boundaries is at present uncertain. Figure 5, taken from the Tithe Map, shows that the field boundaries existing at that time do not appear to respect earlier ditches. The area of the exca· vations falls within Wilkinson's sub-region 5 of randomly-aligned fields (1988, 120, figs 95, 96). It is also cited, from Domesday sources, as an area of moderate woodland . Although Anglo-Saxon Cemetery II broadly respects pre-existing Roman ditches, the latter had silted up by this time or may not have been main­tained.

As the complexily of the site records unfolded, so aspirations for I he site atlas developed. The aim was to produce an unphased s ite plan which gave as much information as possible, not only about the archaeology but also aboul the excavation and the problems inher­ent in the records. An effort was therefore made to indicate the precise extent of the excavation. This meant that hachures had to be applied to a II excavated features large enough to take them (with the exception of the graves, 'modern' ditches, and 'natural features').

Since publication of the atlas was centra l to the pro· ject, all decisions and draught ing had to evolve alongside the processing of the records. What has re· suited, therefore, emerged in a piecemeal fashion with considerable backtracking. In addition, several differ­ent illustrators were involved in drawing the site atlas, and a late decision, after the formal cessation of the project, to change the format of the presentation (sec below) enta iled many last·minutc corrections. lncon· sistencies and errors were discovered at a late stage, by which time resources were not available to make cor­rections. Visually most striking are the differing sizes of symbols for quarry edges and conveyor belts and the fact that some of the labelling of non-archaeological features dominates the plans unduly. Other inconsist· encies include discrepancies in the sizes of features which received hachures a nd, more important, om· issions or variances of feature numbers across plans or 1OOft squares.

POST-EXCA V AT!ON 17

The north point as shown in the plan is Ordnance Survey grid north which is 19 ° west of Mucking grid north. True north is 2 ° west of Ordnance Survey grid north and magnetic north is T to the west of true north at the time of the excavation (the writer is grateful to 0 Barraclough, Geomagnetic Research Group, for this in­formation relating to the years of excavation).

Presentation

The publication of some 241 squares drawn at a scale of 1:60 posed considerable problems. If features and num­bers were to remain legible, no overall site plan on a single sheet would be possible. At 1:480 the overall plan measures 1.86x0.90m. Although this is an excellent scale for studying the spatial patterning of the features it precludes any lettering or numbering. Ideally, such a plan should have been produced together with the atlas, but this would have involved redrawing the site atlas in its final form without numbers and other sym­bols, and this was beyond the resources of the project.

The original format of the atlas was to have been pairs of 100ft squares on A3 sheets, bound loose-leaf. The schema for these pairs was rigidly adhered to throughout the project. After the end of the project, a new format was instigated by English Heritage, and the problem of executing this fell toG Taylor.

The result gives 25 Al or A2 plans at a scale of 1:180; a scale rule is provided (on the back cover) for ease of reference. The schematic plan of the site on each sheet shows which squares are covered on that plan. How­ever, the fact that the original squares were not true is made clear by this mosaic. The misalignment of the intermediate lOft (3m) grid lines shows this, as does the staggered joining of features across squares. The stretching of the original graph paper and of the dyelines which formed working copies, and the possible distortion introduced by photographic reduc­tion (ITEC), have all contributed to what is estimated as a 5% margin of error. In addition, during the BM /EH project, successive corrections to the same feature on tracing film resulted in a loss of definition and accu­racy. G Taylor has matched the squares to produce a 'best fit' and it is a tribute to his meticulous work that the plans have a coherence.

The reduced squares were mounted on board and it was proposed that any corrections would be made directly on to the bromides, which would then be sent for production as camera-ready copy. However, the

fragile nature of the artwork meant that the boards could not be subjected to much handling, and there was little opportunity for checking. Proofs were not pro­duced and by this time the project had been disbanded for some time, with the consequence that there were no personnel who had long-term knowledge of the history of the project and the problems encountered in produc­ing the site atlas. The long errata list on pp vii-viii is the result oflast-minute checking, and is presented with the intention of covering all actual errors or types or error noticed at this late stage.

Site plan (Fig 6)

The plan was produced from photographic bromides of the 100ft squares reduced to 1:250. This scale was an early attempt to provide the plan at a more useable decimal scale. However, subsequent reductions reverted to a duodecimal system in order to facilitate archive work in imperial measurements. The bromides were made up into a mosaic of the whole site and reduced to 1:480. At this stage the excavated features were blacked in to give some impression of the com­pleteness of excavation. It was not possible at that stage or scale to specify internal areas of the excavation which were incompletely investigated. The plan was then re­duced to fit an A3 page.

Conclusion

In a short introductory text which pre-empts the phasing and specialist work, it is difficult to do justice to such a vast, multi-period site. However, the definition of the contexts and the site atlas, as published here, should give a sound basis for future investigation of the landscapes which the excavations have disclosed. In addition, Muck­ing will undoubtedly remain a landmark in the evolution of the discipline. The significance of this can only now begin to emerge as we become more introspective, retro­spective, and self-critical about the techniques we use, both for researching the archaeological resource and for the management of projects.

It is hoped that this series of volumes will attract researchers to continue the work on the archive with the aim of filling the many gaps and ultimately of realising the site's full potential and giving it the prominence due to it in this region of national archaeological importance (Wilkinson 1988).

5 Summary by period

Sine~ much of the work le~ding tow~rds publication i• still in progress, it is not possible to give a comprehens­ive ov~rview nor to present, as had b~'Cn hoped, p hase plans. To some extent what is presented here reflects the deficiencies in funding (sec p 14). The summaries have been kindly provided by specialists still working on the material. Work on the Anglo-S.lXon cemeteries, now p.1rt of an ongoing programme undertaken by S liirst and 0 Clark, is not sufficiently advanced to allow the contribution of a summary to thb volume.

Early prehistory

by£ HeniL>y

Although Palaeolithic finds arc well known elsewhere on the Boyn Hill Terrace (Wymer 191!0), at Mucking there were no clearly identifiable tool forms and only a few rolled artefacts are tentahvl'ly a-.cribed to the Pala~ olithic. Evidence of MesolithiC activity is almost a; sp.usc,and nothing that is certainly Mesolithic has been found ;, situ, although the prcscncl' of a tranche! axe, some microliths, and the usc of a blade technology demonstrate that there was some activity here. The nature of this must be assessed in relation to other riverine areas (Wilkinson and Murphy 1986; Frome 1976).

By the Neolithic period thcr<• i' more concrete evi­dence of activity, with thl' occurrence of ceramics, lithics, and pits, often with d1scretc distributions. "'in~ tN'n catalogued early Neolithic (Mildenhall Style) shcrds were recovered a~ well a., a number of body shcrd~. Of particular interest arc thre>e pits (11636, site atla> plan 17, 1727N 776E; 6349, ;,itc atlas plan 18, 1514N 821E; 6342, site atlas plan 18, 1578N 835E) w hich also had associated lithic assemblage-s, and one of these (11636) had an axe polishing stone. The full extent of the sp.1tial distribution is difficult to e..tablish.

Later Neolithic activity ;., bc•tter documented and defined. One unstratified shcrd is of Peterborough trad1hon C\lortlake Style). The ""' of the pottery is GrO(l\'cd Ware. The Groo,·ed W.uc was found in rela­tively large quantitie;, 111 ,, limited area (th<' south-western corner of plan 17) in 13 features which all seem to have been contempor.>ry. There was only one shcrd residual in a later pit out:,idc this e1 rca. In one feature there seems to have been il deliberate deposit of pottery. The lithics associated with the Grooved Ware arc fairly typical of domestic assemblage., and are quite different from the Earlier Nrolithic, showing less core prep.1ration, more irregular do,...,) scarring. and le<>s bladl~hke proportions. It b intcfl..,hng to note the con­sistent uS(' of good quality Omt for retouched pien" (Manley and Healey 1982). One p1t (623-1, site atlas pl.1n 17, I 52 IN 558EJ also produced,, ><lndstone rubber.

Tile beaker presence is more v,1ricd: one burial (137, site atlas plan 7, 207N 448EJ with a silhouette showing flexed knees had a complete corded beaker and 11 barbed and tanged arrowhead>, perhaps from a quiver. Finds of multiple arrowhc.lds .ue a relatil•cly

IX

rare phenomenon. The rest of the beaker pottery ~'Cill> to represent a doml'stic assemblage and provides an opportu nity to consider associa ted lithic indu str il's in these contexts. Although broad ly contemporary, the distributions of the Grooved Ware and Beaker pottery are mutually exclusive. The other burial (786, site atlas plan 12, 1152'11 192E) is more hkely to be Early Bron'e Age. The barrows or ring dltche-, (Fig 4, 1-7), though somewhat ambiguous, were probably in use at about this hme. The Middle Bron/e Age activity, clearly represented by ceramics some of which were found in 'clay pits' (eg 25539, site alias plan 23, 2289N 950E, and 25748, site atlas plan 23, 2392N 940E), also pro­duced some idiosyncratic Oint. In general, however, it is not easy to identify the associated lithic industries of this period.

The Late Bronze Age

by I P A Ette

The Late Bronze Age period b dominated by the South Rings enclosure (Fig 4, site atlas plan 3). Origina lly lcrm~>d 'mini-hillfort', this type of e nclosure has more rl'Cently become known as the Springfield Type, based on the contemporay Springfield Lyons site located fur­ther to the north in EsS('' (h'>e\ County Council1977).

The construction of the South Rings heralded a sig­mficant change in the 1.1nd-.c.1pe. The pr~existmg \<IIddle BronLe Age rectangular field systems wer~ super.eded by a single ma.sh'c double-ditched enclo­sure ;,uperimposed upon the south-westernmost identifiable field. The cJrlicr Middle Bronze Age fc~­turcs are dated by Dcvercl-Rimbury style ccr~mics of south Essex (Brown forthcoming, in the prehistoric vol­ume in this series) and a flint a'scmblage.

The South Rings enclo'u rc held an unparallclk>d 'tr,>tegic location in terms of it' potential for controlling b<.lth east-west riverine route-.. .1long thE.' Ril'er Thames and north-south land routl"' at thE.' highest prachc~l cm»ing point of the Thame" between Essex and north Kent. It is therefore lilcl)· to h.wc exercised signific~nt control. not onJy O\'C'r its immediate area but over a much wider region, including the Thames valley and extending to the continent. Tr,ldc may h~ve been ba,cd on the control of salt manuf~clurcand distribution from tlw ~djacent salt m~rshcs.

The enclosure comprb<'<l two concentric ditchc' wh1ch measured -lm wide by 15m dt'Cp and some 75m mm,n.imum external diml-.n..,ion~~ enclosing an area of 0..1-1 h.l. The m.1teri~l from t h<...e ditches was used to form,, box-rE.'wtted bani.. structu~, prob.1bly topped by ,, p.11i;,.1de. The main Cl'id<•ncc for internal emb.lnk­m~nh to the inner and outer ring~ was provided by the •"ymmctrical patterning of thc ..ccondary ditch fiJI,, Th<•cnclosureditches were in terruptE.'d by two opposed Cl\tr,,ncc~. the larger of which, loc{1ted to the east, fca­tur<'<l complex entrance buildings with evidence for 'ide dhlmbcrs and gate "tlructurt'~.

SUMMARY BY PERIOD 19

A slightly offset circu Jar gulley o r slot (PC 5, site atlas plan 3, centred c 195N 237E), some 12m in diameter, comprised the principal internal s tructure of the enclo­sure. Unsystematic clearance of the interior prevented detailed analysis of the central building or the identi fi­cation of further build ings, although a number of fou r­and six-post settings suggested the presence of add i­tional structural remains. Activity withi n the enclosure is largely attested by a number of pits and postholes, some of which, sealed beneath the upcast banks, are thought to date to earlier periods of activity.

Rescue excavations began on the South Rings in September 1966 and continued on an nd l10c basis until the spring of 1968. The excavation resulted in there­covery of a nearly complete plan of the enclosure, although only parts were fully clea red for recording and some features were only p<1 rtially excavated. As this was an area which was excavated at an early stage, it suffered particularly from haphazard recording and inadequate labou r resourcing.

Excavation d id produce a large assemblage of Late Bronze Age ceramics. Associated artefacts include fired-clay loomweights, fire bars, and briquetage, as well as small assemblages of flin t and bone, the latter suggesting a partly pastoral economy. Other signi ficant finds include bronze artefacts, crucible mould frag­ments, and metalworking debris indicating industria l production.

Deposition of human cranial fragments and quern s tones in the primary fills of the main entrance tenni­na ls suggests that the site may have served a multiplicity of functions, both secular and sacred, the bounda ries of which may not have been clear within Late Bronze Age society.

The South Rings formed only a part of the Late Bronze Age landscape. A cluster of three post-built round house s tructures is located to the north-east (all on site atlas plan 23: RH107, 2305N 958E; RHlOS, 2325N 950E; RH109, 2390N 930E) which, with other pit and posthole concentra tions, suggests wider occupation of the Boyn Hill terrace in the Late Bronze Age period. To comply with restrictions imposed on the BM/ EH post­excava tion project, analysis has concentrated on the South Rings enclosure, although the broader landscape will be considered in more genera l terms.

Ten years after the South Rings excavations a second smaller circular enclosure, the North Ring, located lkm to the north, was excavated by D Bond for the Central Excavation Unit (Bond 1988). Rad iocarbon dates indi­cate that the North Ring was not contemporary but more recent in date, suggesting a shift of focus to an­other s trategic point overlooking the Mucking Creek.

The lack of evidence for recutting of its circular d it­ches suggests tha t, after a period of s ilting, an extensive bu rning horizon, and infilling, the South Rings enclo­sure was effectively no longe r function ing as a landscape feature. By the late Iron Age period the d it­ches had been filled in to the extent that they were overlain by four round house structur<.'s (all on site atlas plan 3: PGs 6, 7, and 8, 240N lSOE; PG 10, 260N 240E).

The Iron Age

by C J Going

With the abandonment of the South Rings in the later Bronze Age, the intensity of settlement appears to dim­inish. By contrast with the la ter Bronze Age, settlement focus in the latter half of the first millennium BC shifted to the north end of the site, to the North Enclosure, a uni va lla tc, tra pezoidal-shaped earthwork approaching 1 ha in area . It had a single entrance on the western side. The north-east corner was d ivided off by a substantial ditch which enclosed the remains of a circular structure. A north-east to south-west trending d itch at the North Enclosure corner (6021 e tc, site a tlas plan 17, c 1620N 720E) ext<.'nded from its sou th-west corner, running across the site at approximately the break of slope. Towards the end of the midd le Iron Age an open scttlc­m<.'nt of round houses covered much of the western (level) part of the site. Associated with them was a substantial number of four-, six-, and nine-post struc­tu res, si ted for the most part on the north-west (upslope) side of the large north-cast to south-west trend ing d itch. Most of the c 110 round houses exca­vated appea r to have been constructed in open land, although a few of them appear to be associa ted with enclosu res (eg PG 65,sitc atlas plan 13, 1160N 310E;also ditches 10020/ 10022/ 10026, site atlas plan 16, centred c 1630N 360E). In the la ter Iron Age two, possibly three, more nucleated settlements developed. First to be exca­vated was a series of small earthwork enclosures (the ABC enclosures, Fig 4), sited at the south-western end of the terrace (3908/ 14007, site atlas plans 2 and 5, centred c300N IOOW;3994, site atlas plan 2,c 250N SOW; 3/ 17/ 112, site atlas plan 2, centred c l OON OE). Some 275m further to the north-east, on the west<.'rn site mar­g ins, a series of further enclosures and round houses was constructed (the 'Banjo' settlement, Fig 4; site atlas plans 10, 12, and 13). To the south-east, towards the south-eastern site margins, was evidence of another settlement (western part, site atlas plan 7), but excava­tion here was carried out under salvage conditions and what remained was very sparsely planned and difficult to in terpret.

During the mid to late first century BC an imposing rnultiva11atc earthwork was constructed over the South Rings, to the east of the ABC enclosures. The earthwork (RBI, Fig 4, 159; s ite atlas plans 2, 3, and 6) measured some90x65m, with a single, western entrance(siteatlas plan 3, centred 335N 130E). Aga in, the recording in the interior of this earthwork was largely St:'llvagc and, while some traces of occupation were noted, li ttle is known of the internal layout of this substantial and imposing stmcture.

Concentrations of bu rials were found in six regions. On the western site margins, to the south-west of Anglo-Saxon Cemetery I, a small cremation cemetery was<.'stablished ina small rectangu lar earthwork enclo­sure, measuring c 18x22m with a single entrance to the south-west (6773, site a tlas plans 9 and 12). To the north-west of the 'Banjo' settlement, a small cemetery of inhumation buria ls was established alongside one of its ditches (5663, site a tlas plan 12, c 1320N 150E), while

20 EXCAVATIONS AT MIXKI'\G: THE SITE ATLAS

to lhl'l'a\t two ;mall groups of square-ditched barrow' ron1.1imng cremation burials of thl' first century BC werl'al\0 recordl'<l (burials JOJO-JOJ3,sitt>atl,,. plan 14, ~ 13-10'-1 610E; cndo.,ures 15060, 15058, 15067, and 15069, ~itc alia; plan II, c 1000~ SOOEl.

Thl' most C\tcn;ivc cemetery lay to tht> north·l'a'>t of RBI. lll'rl' an uncndo>l'<l cremation cemetery cont.,in· ing ,,t lea'>! 30 buria ls was found and excava ll'<.l hitc atlas planS, buria ls centred on600N 450E). Thl'rl' were undoubted ly more, but overscraping rl'mowd much t>vidl'nCl'. Mo;t of the burials were small unurnl'<l crt.'· mations, and few of them contained g rave good;. Finally, therl' was a .catter of burials in the vicinity of tht> ABC l'ndo;ures (site atlas plan 5, c 300N 130W).

The 'Banjo' ;cttlement has a complex con,truct ion,,l history. Ocrupation in this area of tht> site la:.ted up to the time of the Roman conquest or shortly after. It i' unlikely to ha\'l' bl-cn the only settlement nudeu,, how­ever, which remained in usc until the Roman pcm>d

The Roman period

by C I Goiug

During the Roman era both the pattern of settlement and the agricultur,,llandscape in which it was 'et wen: changed. Soon after the conquest period tht> landscapl' was parcelled up in a series of ditchl'd endo;ures, ap· part>ntly initially based on the lengthy north·ea't to sou th·wt'St trending d itch (see above) which linkl•d th<• North Enclosure wit h the later Iron Age earthwork, RBI (Fig 4, 159). The earliest Roman enclosure; (all on"'"' atlas plan 6: 1446, 4876/1886, ct>ntred c 5701\ 300F.; 1444/1890, centred ~ 670N 390E) formed, w1th ,, -en<-. ofbro.'d gore> and drovcways, thearablt>of ,, farmste,,d centred on the Double Ditched Enclosure (DD Enc, Fig 4; sit<' atlas plan' 10, 11, 13, and Hl. In add11lon to thi' agriculturalland;capc,the hillside bee,, me thl' foCl" of industrial acllviti~ ~uch as metalworking and pottery production.

Evidence of Roman settlement appears to have bl•en in two regions -on the south-eastern s ite margins to till' t>ast of Rill (159), and roug hly in the centre of the ,ite. llcrca farmstead (Fig 4, DD Enc; site atlas plans 10, 11, and 14), ~I in ~ dilched enclosure (6398) 111ca:.uring <" 130x90m~ Wit:,c>.cavatcd in itscntircty. ln its initi.11 form the cnclo~urc had an interna l bank, indicated by inll'r­ruptions in the intl'rnal ditches. Initially it had two cntran«~. one on the south side and one on ib north­Wl'St corner. A ditch crossed this, proiMbly ,,cling •" ,, sump (438-1, .,1te atla' plan 10, 955N -l-ISE). but thi' wa' subsequently blod.l>d off by a recut, lt>aving as tho.' princ1p..'l entrancl' a timber-flanked gateway '<'t in lhl• east s1de.

The main \'nclo-ure was subdivided b1• a ditch run· ning north·w<<sl to south-east (15052/15226, 'ite ''''·" plan II, c 1090N SlOE to lOOON 720E) with a 'inglc, roughly central c.,usewayed entrance close to an initi,,l well (Well4, site alia~ plan 11 , JOSON 630El. The ~ou th·

ern subdivi>ion was it•elf split into two roughly equ.11 parts by a second internal ditch (4441 /15194), ag,, in w ith a cau scwayl'<l access (site atlas p lan 11, 1005N 615E). A tongue of brickearth extended into thi'> pMt or

the site, making the recognition of f\',,tur<<s difficult. As ,, result, internal features were "'J'c'N' "'k1\'C for a ~ond well (We116, 15-152/15-150, Slte,ltl,,_ pl.,n 11,9-15:\ NOEl. A corner of the h·cstcm c,ubdi\'i..,ion "'•'' ~l aside for a 'mall ditchc>d cemetery (cemetery 11, 'It<' atlas plans 10 ,md 11, c 1050;\1 500El, established clo;c to the ><1uar~~ ditched barrows of the later 1 ron Age, and utilising their common northern boundarie~ ,,s ih northern edge. It, too, was embanked, the upc.'>t being di;tributed bl~ tween the mou nds o f tht• b~rrow., thcm~lves. The burials in the cemetery were t1hnost ('Xd us.ivcly crcma· lions of the Flavian to later Anton inc periods, a lthough thl'rc were one or two later inhum«tion buriills.

The northern p..1rt or the cnclo;url' was agai n sub­dividl'<l, this time by a fence line (me 15048, ~ite a tlas plan 14, centred c 1165N 650El, ru1111mg roughly paral· lei with the eastern and we>tern .,idl~ of the t>nclosure. Further post lines (4200, me 15048agam), notl'<i running p..u,,lld with the northern and e."tern ditchl>d bound· ""Y (6398), possibly delimit a gardl'n.

The principal buildings of the f,,rrn,tl'ad were ~t in the north-eastern p..1rt of the encl~ure. These com· prbed an aisled building, mea'>uring -ome 17x6m, which probably formed the main dwl.'lling C.ite atlas p lan II, centr<-d 1095N 655El. O ther build ings include a grMlary constructl'<l on a found,,tion of five ;leeper beams (site atlas plan 14, centred c 1199N 710E), a rt.:'ct.:mgular structure surrounded by rm oval·cndcd possible eav<'sdrip gu lly (site at las plan 14, centred c 1190N 760El, togelh<'r with a fragmentary rectangular s ll.'cper·beam s tructure (site a tlas pl.1n 14, c 1147N 790E). There was little evidence of stone or till' construe· lion, a nd the curving lin<' of thl' eave;drip gully 'urrounding the building noted above 'uggl'St' that it w,1~ thatched.

While this settlement app<'a"' to have de,·eloped towards the end of the fi,...t Cl'ntury AD, II> period of occupancy is uncertclin; burnt dcbr1o, rctrlC\'l"<i from Well 4 ~trongly suggl'Sh that the m.1in building was dl<stroyed by firl' some time toward' the end of the 'econd century o r early in the th ird. Th,,t Well 4 had gonl' out of usc by this tim<' i'> cl<•ar from the fact that it '"' d been substantially backfilled before the burnt d e­brb "''''placed in it. 1t is pos;ibll', then, that by the l'nd of the second century the mciO>tlfe w,)> largely use<.i for ,,gricultural, and not do mestic, purpo>c>.

The lack of la ter domestic evidence on the site as a whole i!', noteworthy a nd .,uggc ... b that during the la ter l~ornan period the site WClS given over to .1griculture. T lw farmstead enclosure was <'nlarg<'<l by the cutting of a ditch (6287), which surYivt'S on the Wl-.1, '>Quth, and '><>uthem part of the ea't side. Th" wa; fl'CUt at least once, but there is little e,·idenceof ach\'111' mthe interior of the enclo,ure. llowc\'Cr, ccmctcr\ 11 contmued to be u .... >d. Among the later inhum,,tion.bun,,h bone (888, 'itl' atl.b plan10, 10901'\ 493El d,,t,lblc to the middle or 1,1ter fourth centurv AD bv the inclu.,.on of a bossed 'Rorn~1no-Saxon' pOttery v~ ... 'CI. The grcl\'l" wa!) cut into the by now largely infilk'<.i ditch (631/!l).

Ebcwhcreon the s ite, ~cttlcmcnt evidence i~ tantalis­inHIY elu!)ive. At its sou th end, Cc1~l or endu~urc ditch I ~\1 (Rl31), a re a number of ; ubdividcd l'llclosu rl's which .1ppeM to denote some form of settk•ml'lll, but theexca· \'t1t ion here approached ..,.,(vclgc cond ition~. tlnd this,

SUMMARY llY I'FRIOD 21

together with thl' rathl'r fugiti,·e nature of the evid~ncl' unco\'ered, makl"> interpretation difficult in thl' ex· treme. Debri., of building was reco,'t'rro, principilll}' from a 'ulxt,,ntoal pond-like feature (15852, Site atla<. plan 7, centred 385N 505E), much of which was burnt. There seem~ little doubt that there were ~me add•· tiona I buildmg~ in thi' area of the site.

Together with the agricultural usc of the landscap<• there was a disp<>rsro industry producing pottery. The l'arliest of the 23 recognised kilns date to the eMly Roman period (l'g Kilns 18 and 20, site atlas plan 10, 1040N 1070E, IOOSN 235E), but six are fully Romanised, both in their production technology and in their reper· toire of products. Most of these kilns were in field ditches, but one, Kiln 4 (site atlas plan 6, 750N 370E), was built in a 'mall mclosure (8964/8969) and may ha''" been con>tructcd in a ;helter of some kind. Its products date to tht.'later "-'COnd/early third centunt.., AD, and >InCl.' 1ts enclosurl' cuts ditch 144-14 (at 710. 383E), a ditch di\'1ding two of these small rectangular enclosure> of early Roman date, it is clear that tht~ had been allowed to ,;It up by thl'n.

L.'ter Roman <;<>ttlement evidence is surprbingly slight. Some timl' in the later third or early fourth cen· turies AD Iron Age earthwork enclosu re 3908/14007 (site atlas plans 2 and 5), which forml'd part of the so-called ABC compll'x at thl' extreme sou th-western end of the site, began to be reused as a cemetery, but it; 60 or so inhumation burials ca nnot be closely dalt'<l owing to their genl'ral lack of grave goods. On the l'astern margins of the s ite Cemetery IV (site atlas plan 8, centred 565N 740E) also contains a number of burial; which arc datable to the fourth century, eg 1086. Con· temporary settlement evidence is rare, however, .1nd difficult to t..,tabl.-h with confidence. A search w,>s therefore mad<' for concentrations of material whiCh might be dated to thl' p<»t mid fourth cmtury. Whill' this did rewal a number of features which might be datable to the l.ltl'r fourth rentury and after, it suggt..,tt-d that fourth-rentury activity on the site, with thl' t•xa•p­tion of the ceml'tt'ric>, was almost wholly agricultural.

TI1is activity appears to have included the remodcll· ing of thcditchtod fit'ld systt'm by throwing together thl' earlier land parcels into a series of larger field> (d itch 8315/4794 and recut 4797, s ite atlas plan 6). How long this phase of activity lasted is nnt entirely clear. Cr· ramicsch.udctcrbticof the later fourth century in Fsscx, principally O~fordshirc oxid ised wares and late ;hell · tempered pottery, arc rtostricted to a thin scatter across the >au them p.ut of thl' sill', but significantly they tend only to occur 1n JI'\'I'J<; 0-1 of the later ditch fills. IVh1le these arc not neci.'S.o;.uily true stratigraphic levels, thl')' make it clear that cwn thl' later agricultural ditchi'S h.1d siltt-d up to ,, considerable degree by this time. It ,.,, therefore, hard to rt"oi't the conclusion that the l,,nd· scape was effectively a,~ri dt-s.•rti by the later fourth century, and that the princip.'l activity was the rontinutod usc of cemcteril'!. I, IV, and to a lesser extent II (Fig 4).

This suggests that the settlement focus in the later first to second Cl'nturies had moved away from the >ill• by the third Cl'nt ury, and that the s ite was effectivl'ly an agricultural landscap<> in the third and t.'arly fourth Cl'nturies. By the later fourth century the landscape itself w.>s no longer being maintained; ditche<. wl're

being allowed to silt up, and the J,,ck of maintenance stnmgly 'uggests th.'t the landscap<> wa., being rc­turn<-d to scrub or rough grazmg.

This r,,i<;('S important question; about the signific· ance of thl' placing of the Sa~on scttlcml'nt at this site. If the landscape was in effect semi·<ll'rclict, having been dett'riorating since the later fourth century, the incom· ing Saxons would have found themselves on a land '>Cap<' which had been allowed to return to scrub for a substantial period, perhap; ,,, little as 50, but probably more like 75 years.

The early to middle Anglo-Saxon period

ily/1 Hnmrraw

\lucking provided the first opportunoty to e\c,w,,te an Anglo-S."on Sl'ttleml'nt and a5sociat<'<l burials simul­tanl'OU<ly. Anglo-Saxon Cl'ml'tl'ry II (s1te atlas plans 6, 8, 10, and 11) was a mixed cemetery rontaining c 274 inhumations and c 480 cremations, while Anglo-Saxon ct'metl'ry I (sill' atlas plan 12) was,, ;maller inhumation cemetery, rontaining up to 62 gr.wt'!., the western extent of which is unknown. The sett lement comprised a t least 53 posthole buildings and 203 ;,unken huts (Cru/~·11· lollu<I'T) and is the most extensive early Anglo-Saxon st•tt ll'ment excavated to date. The metalwork and coin evid ence from the settlement s uggests uninterrupted occupation from the first half of the fifth century to the b<'ginning of the eighth century.

The ceramic evidence, taken together with certain chronologically diagnostic metalwork and glass, pro­ndco; thl' kl'y to the spah,,l and chronological tlcvelopment of the settlement.

Roughly four broad phases of settlement were ident· tfit-d. The initial phase, consistong of c 77 Crul't•u/Otluser and ,,t le,,st two posthole buildings, was relatively dl'n'l'. In the shth century the mam focus of occup.,tion <hofted northward. This wa; ;maller (r 13 Crul .. ulriiuser and 8 posthole buildings), moredbper;,ed,and possibly 'hortcr·lived. The third phase shifted further to the north·east and was again relatively dense (c 55 Grulll'll· ltlitN'r and c 20 posthole building;,), with some ,, lig nment of buildings apparent. In the course of the seventh century the settlement (r 54 Grttlwlllrliu<er and 23 po'thole bu ildings) became wi<My di'l')('rst'<l and shifted .1way from the edge of the terrae!'.

Mucking i> thus best describlod a' a shifting hamlet, at timt"> p<>rhaps more than one. The layout of the *tth.~mcnt lacks any clear plan~ or large ~central~ build· 1ng,, in apparent contra~t to the social hierarchy e\'idcnced in the Anglo-S.non remctenes.

The "''idl'nce r<:>garding the ongm' of thl' Anglo­S.1Xon 'l'ttlement, and p.uticularly for the presence of Germanic {tlt~lrrati, is inconclus•ve, though the hypo­thl"'is remains plausible. Despite apparent continuity of land U'l' from the Romano-British period, there is no clear evidence for socio-economic continuity or for the inti'gration of the Romano-British and Anglo-Saxon communities. T he Roman ditches had largely s ilted up by the timl' of Anglo-Saxon settlement though some, at lcc1St, rcm;tincd visible and served a~ bound;nics (sec bdow).

22 EXCAVATIONS AT MUCKING: TilE SITE ATLAS

Middle Saxon, medieval, and later

by C f Goi11g

During the middle Saxon period the settlement density on the Mucking ridge d iminished g reatly, and some time after the seventh-dghth centuries the site was abandoned as a settlement and reverted principally to agriculture. Of this agricu ltural landscape some obser­vations are clearly required . In the early post-Roman era some, at least, of the surviving Romano· British and prehistoric earthworks continued to serve as boun­daries (Roman d itches 6287 and 9110, site atlas plans 11 and 8, for example, delimit Saxon cemetery II). But at some lime during the post-Roman period a field system which bears little relationship to its predecessor was laid out (d itches 5532,5534,5536,5538,5542,5639,5871, 5900, 5994/5938, 6209, and 6228/6290, site atlas plans 12, 13,and 15-17).

Of these d itches two (5516/5639 and 5938/6118) ap­pear to respect GH 86 and PHB 1. This suggests contemporaneity with some parts a t least of the Saxon scttlcrncnt and implies, therefore, an origin in the middle Saxon period.

The succeeding field system, which eventually em­braced the entire ridge, probably evolved piecemeal from the middle Saxon system. Its principal elements arc probably of Saxo-Norman or later date. One of these, the much-recu t ditch 10397, clearly cuts across Saxon postholebuildings(eg PHB8and32)and GH 167

and 172, and thus postda tes them. This latter field sys­tem, part of the arable of Walton lla ll and adjacent farms, appears to have endured, with a number of n1odifica tions, until well into the nintcenth century. when surviving elements of it were planned for the tithe map (Fig 5). Comparison of the system with this map shows thai by this time the process of fie ld amalgama­tion was well advanced. Further nlapping in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries shows the pro­cess of field enlargement continuing, and by the mid twentieth century clements o nly of its principal boun­daries remained in conjunction w ith a number of entirely recent field boundaries.

Set within this system of fields and enclosures were a number of bu ildings and structures, the most obvious being a post-base windmill (9479, site atlas plans 8 and 11, centred c 802N 661E), sited in the south-eastern corner of the field enclosed by ditches 5048 and 9'172. This structure is unlikely to have been earlier than I he later twelflh-thirteenthcenturies AD, and pottery from the terminal arms suggests that it was dismantled in the fiftcenlh-sixtccnth centuries. Further to the north are the postholes of an aisled barn (site atlas plan 11, ceo­Ired 1080N 650E) which, while il is of possible Roman date (no medieval pottery was noted from the posthole fills), may belong, in view of its alignment with ditch 6569, to lhe medieval period.

Within the field system a few isolated features were fou nd and excavated. The most characteristic were a number of sheep or other animal burials. T hese arc not closely datable but arc probably recent and represent the burials of diseased livestock.

6 The Mucking cropmarks

by D N Riley

Discovery and photography

The earliest air photograph showing cropmarks at Mucking appears to be a high level vertical view of the area taken by a German aircraft of the Luftwaffe in 1943. This photograph, however, only shows a few small and indistinct marks. The importance of the cropmarks at the site was first realised when Professor J K St Joseph photographed them on 16 June 1959, after which Muck­ing was included in the flying programme of the Cambridge University Committee for Aerial Photo­graphy every year except two (1963 and 1968) until 1975. One of the 1961 photographs was reproduced in the first of St Joseph's long series of articles in Antiquity entitled 'Air reconnaissance: recent results' (St Joseph 1964). The site was also recorded during flights made by J N Hampton for the Air Photography Unit of the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (Eng­land) (RCHM(E)) between 1971 and 1977, and by others, including J P J Catton. In total well over 400 archaeological air photographs were taken (see, for example, Fig 1). Although the majority were oblique views, a small number of verticals were also taken from the Cambridge aircraft. In most cases the photographs show cropmarks, though soilmarks are also recorded on areas of gravel that were stripped of surface soil before gravel extraction from the pit that eventually engulfed the whole site, and some photographs record the progress of the excavation.

The prominent cropmarks at the southern end of the site, the South Rings and the surrounding features, were only photographed on five occasions when they were showingwell(16June1959,12and 14June1961, 14June 1962, and 18 June 1966), but they were then so distinct and detailed that it is unlikely that much more would have been recorded by a longer and more intensive aerial investigation. At the northern end of the site, distinct marks were photographed in 1970, 1972, 1973, and 1975.

In the central part of the site the cropmarks give much less information. For some years part of the land was temporarily under grass, in which marks de­veloped only above a few major archaeological features. When the area was under barley, however, well-defined cropmarks were seen.

The interest roused by the Cambridge discovery and photography of the cropmarks was the stimulus that caused the commencement of excavation on a large scale on the site. While the work was in progress, photo­graphs then guided the excavation of the major archaeological features, though, as will be seen, they gave very little assistance on minor features such as the multitude of small pits and postholes. The excavation would have been helped even more if a plan of the site or part of it, like that given here, could have been provided before work commenced.

23

The plan (Fig 7)

Most of the cropmarks at Mucking were in a single hedge less field, and the many photographs taken at low level from the Cambridge and RCHM(E) aircraft in­clude few of the reference points identifiable both on the ground and on a large scale map that are necessary as the foundation of a site plan. Fortunately, a series of overlapping vertical photographs taken from a high level by the RAF in April and May 1969 cover much more ground than the low level views and record the positions of many landmarks. Four stereo pairs from these high level vertical photographs were set up on an analytical plotting apparatus at the Air Photography Unit of the RCHM(E), and a 1:2500 plan of the site was prepared. The photographs show a long strip of bare gravel (A-H on Fig 7) on which soilmarks give the positions of archaeological features that had previously caused the formation of cropmarks. A few cropmarks are also seen at N. The plan gives the position of the soilmarks and the few cropmarks to an accuracy in the order of ±0.5mm at this scale, or about ±1m at ground scale.

This plan and some of the low level oblique photo­graphs made possible the selection of a number of reference points between A and Hat positions on the cropmarks identifiable on the 1:2500 plan of the corre­sponding soilmarks. All was then ready for the preparation of plans from the obliques, which was done at the Air Photography Unit with the aid of a microcom­puter using the AERIAL program written at the School of Archaeological Sciences, University of Bradford (Haigh 1989) . None of the low level photographs showed more than a part of the very large site, so 11 were selected (Cambridge VW 37, 43, 64; YG 64; ADI 20, 25; AFK 8; BBS 67, 70; RCHM(E) TQ 6780 / 33/344, TQ 6780 / 47 / 263), from which individual plans at a scale of 1:1250 were produced. Each plan included the National Grid, drawn in 100m squares.

In the final stage, the drawing reproduced on Figure 7 was made by combining the individual plans. It was found that there was good agreement between overlap­ping plans from different photographs of the southern part of the site, where the ground was fairly level and the reference points extended over a long strip of land. Various plans of the northern end of the site were also in reasonable agreement in an area close to the reference points based on cropmarks near Non Figure 7, but there were some discrepancies in the centre of the site ap­proximately between F and M, where there was a lack of reference points and some unevenness in the ground. It was necessary to make a best fit between several individual drawings of this area. Despite these prob­lems the end result was a very satisfactory plan of the cropmarks. Figure 7 is to be found on the fold-out sheet facing p 17.

24 £XCAVATIO~'$Al MUCKil'G:TI IESITEATLAS

Cropmarks and excavation results­the archaeolog ical features

Particularly al lhc southern end of the site, lhc crop­marks at Mucking must be among the clearest ever recorded. The dbtinct marks were all in barley growing on thin ;oi l (a brown earth of theSt Albans series) .1bove gravel, conditions which are well known to favour the development o f cropmarks. At the eastern edge of the site, however, the gravel was overlain by brickearth, on which cropma rks did not appear, as is normally tlwca;,c on clayey ~oi ls. A darker tone on the photographs shows where the b.uley was growing above brick· earth.

The findings of a previous study of the cropm.uks in a sample area, the "lorth Enclosure, have already lx'Cn published (Riley 1987, 9:>-S).ln this report lhedi~tinct· ness of the cropmarks was compared with the fillmg;, and the dimensions of the archaeological feature- that had caused them. Loam-filled ditches wen~ found to have caused more distinct marks than those with gra· velly filling, and the wider and deeper ditchc-and pit;, to have caused more distinct marks than the narrower or shallower ones. Those less than O.Sm acros<, rarl'ly ct1uscd mark~, and ~ma11 features, such as nearly ,111 the postho lcs, were therefore not seen. These conclu;.ions were in accordance with experience gil incd by cxcava· tors a t mar1y gmvcl s ites, though never put into writing. There was o ne su rprise: although the fill ing;, of the Crul>ellhll'u<t•r were relatively sha llow (abou t 0.1 5-0A5m below the surface or the gravel), they were often ;,hown by very di.,tinct marks. The cause of this wa; evidently the prcscnce or a b.lS.ll layer of ash and charco.11, lx'­causeaboveother Gru,...lllutuserfrom which the ash .1nd charco.1l were absent there were only faint marl.,, gl\'· ing confirmation of the importance of this compon~nt of the filhngs.

Many other pomts arise when a comparison is mad~ of the cropmark plan (Fig 7) with the rc-ult' of the excavation. A few comments are gi'''"" below on m.1t· ters or genera l interest:

a) The cropmarks were very thoroughly investigated by the cxca\'ation. The only notable items on Figur~

7 which were evidently caused by man·madc r.,,,. turl"S1 but were not investigated, arc parts of cnclo· sure B and a few lengths of ditch ncar the South Ring~. At D are two unexcavated curviline,H rc,l· tures, but it IS not possible from inspection of thl' photographs to be sure whether they were of pen· glacial or human origin.

b) Little of the land towards the west side of ftgurc 7 wa~excavatl"<i, but it is unlikely that any sub-,tclntt,ll archaeological features were missed, bccau..c in th" area there were very few cropmarks indicating ancient ditch(~. There were, however, a gn.•at num· ber of cropmarks in the form of small ned,, and patches, most of which were apparently cau;,cd by natura l phenomena (see below). Figure 7 only shows them in a small rectangular sample Ml'a (K), but they a l'>o occurred over most o f the re-t nf tlw site.

c) The plan shows the deep d1tchc"> or all the major enclosures on the site, though some ,lrc mromplete. In contrast, only about 20"f of over 100 excavated round houses are indicated b)· the nngs or parts of rings formed abov<' their shallow gullies (cf M U joncs 1979, 69). Four of the ;,even Bron/<' Age b.u· rows arc shown by ring ditchc,.

d) Various gaps in the cropmar~> indicated the en· tranccs o f the enclosures, though it may be noted that nodefinitcgapcould besc.-n in the marksabov.­the narrow north-w.-st entrance through the oute r ditch o f the South Rings.

c) Grul~·11lliiuscr were shown by large dark spots, which tended to have a d1~tmct outline and a ;lightly oblong shape, though ;,orne were less defi­nite and could have been due to large pits. A well (F) in the large double d1tched enclosure was also marked by a large dark ;,pot. The cropmark plan (which was made with onlv occas1onal reference to the e>.cavation plan) gh·cs ihe '>Ill.., or about 80~ of the 213 Grubt'11lriiuS<'rexca\'ated.

() Th.- only posthol.-s giwn on the• pl.1n a rc the two 'four posters' at C, C'. More would prob.1bly have lx'Cn identified if they had not been camouflaged by the flecks and small patches of probable natural orig in. It may be added that, while most postholes were probably too small to produce marks, it is always more difficult to interpret features marked by spots than by lincs on air photogr.1phs.

g) The small flecks of prob.1ble natur.1lorigin were also ,, source of confusion when exammmg the sites of cemeteries at 8, E, and K, but 11 M>t>med certain that some small but well defined ;,pot> at 8 and E gavl' lhl' positions of gravl">. At K, the marks on the cemetery site could possibly h.we mdicatl>d gra,·cs, but were more dif(icult to interpret.

Cold climate patterned ground

Many marks of apparently rM tur.11 origin have been mentioned. In add ition to the fleck> and other small rnarks, and the dark ar('as of crop ovt..•r the bricke<1rth, there were various lines which joint..-d to (orm irregular networks or polygons. The lattt•r were typical of those cau"->d by frost cracks or icc wt'<.lgc ca<,t' (Wilson 1982, 148), natural features in the gr.wcl, which were formed during periods of intense cold. They haw not been mduded in the drawing. ·

The small flecks and patchl.., ,·aric'<l m shape. Some \\'Crt• crt~ent·shaJX-"d and a fC"w W('r'C .,mall ring~. Some could h.we been cau;,cd by man·made ptt.., but it is \'Jrtutllly certain that most w~rc natura l in their origin, caused by an extremely cold cl1m,1tc. They h,we not bt.'Crt drawn except in a Tl\('tilnglc (K) on Figure 7, and even here many of the flecks had to be omitted because they were faint and indeterminate.

Dr J N Carrcck, who examined -,cctions visible in gravd workings adjacent to the .,He CC'Irly in 1966, re-­porkd thcll while the lower lclycr) wen.• lx'<lded rh•er

THE MUCKI'G CROI'\.1ARKS 25

gravel, the u ppcr layers were mainly soliOuct ion gra ' 'el, formed during a period of cold climate during the Pleistocene. In many places he observed pockets of red loam in the soliOuction gravel, probably surface ma­terial that had been included in the gravel under conditions of alternating freeze and thaw (see p 29). Many of them probably caused mark~ to form in crops. Simi lar inclusions of yellowish silt in the gravel were very frequently encountered by the e~cavators, who had to e\amine all to make sure that they were not of archaeological importance (M U }one< 1974, 187).

Acknowledgements

I am grateful toM U jones for much advice, during both my first investigation of the Mucking site in 1981 and my second in 1989. The cropmark plan was produced with generous help from the Royal Commission on llistorical Monuments (England), supplied by R Featherstone, V E P Fenner, and C A Carter.

7 Specialist reports

The geology

by J N Cnrreck

Outline of the geology of the Mucking district

Introduction

This i\ composed essentially of the Upper Chalk over­lain by the oldest Tertiary dcpo'>it;, the Palaeocene sediments, below Lower Eocene beds, then by Plcb­toccnc deposits, the youngest of which, the 'Flood Plain' Terrace and Trail, descend to present river level and below, beneath the Holocene alluvium (Dines a nd Edmunds 1925; King and Oakley 1936).

Stratigraphy

The sequence of deposits m th" d1strict, although only p.utly exposed by erosion and quarrying. is set out in Table I (Whitaker 1889; Sherlock 1960), but many a>­pects of the Pleistocene succession arc very controversial (Zeuncr 1959).

The llolocene alluvium con~ist;, of nuviatile toes­tuarine ma rsh clays, shell marl, three ma in pea t beds, some sand, and basal gravel, l.lid down in temperate tlimatic environments from the Boreal phase to the present. Its thickness reachl'!> c I 2- 15m at Tilbury Fort, and at least 16m at Thames lla\'en, increasing in tht> mid·river bed and down the t.~tuarJ where it mcrgt.~ into manne sediments.

The Trail deposits of the l...ht Glaciation are poorly bedded, ill-sorted sludge accumula tions of confused clay,s.1nd, and gravel, up toe 3m in thickness, owing to soliOuction inn s ubarctic climate m the periglacial :trca south of the Ouctuating icc shL~t. They mantle theTa­plow and Flood Plain TcrraCL">, invade the upper part; of their deposits, giving ri;,e to fro1cn ground struc­tures, p.1rticularly round Gray;,, and descend into the Buried Channel in association with the latter terrace deposits.

The Flood Plain Terrace dcpo:.1tS consist of water­lind gravels, Sc1nds, and br1ckcarths, seen ~om Low Str~t and East Tilbu ry to Gob1ons and Muckmg Ford, lying on a terrace bench cu t in the Thane! S.1nds at c 0 to ·3m OD, and their upper ;,urface mn reach a hc1ght of c 5-Sm or more, whi lst they a iM> pass down into the Buried Channel beneath the Trail. In this d istrict the Channel reaches depths of r ·21 to 30m, increasing greatly further down the l~tu.lry.

The Tap low Terrace de~il\ arc well bedded s.1nd~. gravel;,, and brickearths rc'!>hng on a bench at c 8-9m OD, eroded in the Chalk and Thane! S.1nd round Gray;,. They rest against the bluff cut mtho"'-' formations and rise to c 12- lSm. In places they O\•erlie the Coombe Rock, confused chalk rubble and mMI with Tertiary debris, formed by solinuction on the C halk outcro p in a similar manner to the Trail. The Coombe d eposit occurs p.1rticularly at West Thurrock and Stifford, and extends to ncar East Tilbury.

2o

The 13oyn Hill Terrace deposits arc com pose-d of gravel-,, sands, and loams, r~ting round Orsett on a bench of Thanet Sand ,,t r 21 - 30m. At Hornchurch and Upminster, Essex, and Swan..combe, Kent, they con tam '>lxiimcntary, metamorphiC, .1nd igneous erratic' of ..out hem and wc;tcm origm (8.1den-Powell 1951). At the two adjacent Esse• locahlle\ they o,·erlie Lower Chalky Boulder Clay contammg many such erratic-.. The\C terrace deposits at Chad we liSt Mary, Orsctt,and Mucki ng have yielded many Middle Acheulian artl~ f.1cts comparable with tho;,c in the well-documente-d Middle Gravels in that Terrace, of lloxnian age, at Swan..combe (Roe 1968, 58, 64, 65). At Mucking ,,nd other localities the river gravel\ arc overla in by solinuc­tion (trail) deposits probably equivalent to the uppermost deposits at B.1mfield pit, Swanscombe.

The LowerChalkv Boulder Clay forms thcsurfaccof much of <oOuth Essex' north of a hnc which in thisdistnct pas,es through Havcring-attc-Sower, Upminster, Brentwood, and Billericay, except where removed br. valley erosion, and there i;,a small area at L.1ngdon I Iii . This g lacial clay, bluish grey with contained sand and nu1Ch chalk debris, lllso contains m;tny crra tics includ· i ng ;,orne o f Jurassic rocks, o lder sediments, vein quart,, and metamorphic and ignL'Ol" rocks. It reaches 11m in thicknC'>S at some localilil"> inthb district.

The Glacial Gra,·cls underlie the boulder clay ,md con'i't of poorly bedded, un..orted, mainly Oint grawl, -..1nd, and loam. They cont.>ln many erratics denn'<l from the boulder day, v.1rying from small pebble. to boulders sometimes up to 0.3m in length. These dc­p<l'il' attain a thicknL">\ of up to 2.5m near Colchester.

The Pebble Gravel, a variant of the Plateau Gravel>, b mainly composed of Tcrti.uy flint pebbles with some quar!L pebbles, chert, and ;,and ;,tonc d ebris, in a s.1ndy matrix, most probably derived from the Lower Grc-cn­.,and. In some part;, of the Raleigh Hills and at lla,•cring-atte-Bower it owrliL"> 8.1gshot Beds. It occu~"> between Great Warleigh.1nd Brentwood abo\'e London Clay, and at Hockley Wood n~ar Rayleigh it O\'crlic;~n erosion ~urface of that format1on al c 53m OD, rises to c 63m OD, and contain; nearly 10"f of Lower Grccns.1nd d~bris. Its relationship to the Plateau Gravels of the Sw,1nscombcdistrict b unccrlilin.

The Bagshot Beds arc m.1rincsands, finegroincd .1111.1 often current bedded with thin clay intercalation;, and pt>bble beds. At Brentwood tlli~Y arc c I 1-12m thick, at L.1ngdon Hill up to c 10m, and the s.1me at Billcricay.

Tht>Claygate Bl'<h arc l'wnly bedded pale clay, S.ln<l. ,1nd l0c1m with fern1ginou., concretions, of marine origm. Their thicknL,.,, v.uil"> from c 12m at Brentwood to c 4m at R,wleigh.

The London Clay coiN'!' of bluish grey, marme clay~ with ~ptarian nudulco, of argillaceous limc::,lonc, r 137m in thickne>s at Brentwood. Its southern bound­ary here runs through Stifford, Orsctt, Horndon on the I !ill, a nd Stanford lc I lope.

The Blackheath Bed;, .1re m.ui ne s.1nds with abun­d.mt nint pebbles, and rnoiJu,C.lll shells in place;, in the

SPECIALIST REPORTS 27

Table 1 The sequence of deposits

Periods Stages Deposits

Holocene Flandrian, Alluvium of the Thames, its tributaries, marshes and estuary Post-Glacial

late Pleistocene

Devensian (Weichselian)

Solifluction deposits equivalent to the Slades Green Trai l, Erith, Kent; Buried Channel complex; 'Flood Plain' Terrace deposits

Glaciation lpswichian (Eemian)

'Taplow' Terrace deposits, some above coombe rock of the Baker's Hole Coombe Rock cold phase (type locality, North fleet, Kent)

Interglacial Wolstonian (Saalian)

Essex solifluction gravels equivalent to the Upper Gravel, and Upper loam of Barnfield Pit, Swanscombe, Kent

Glaciation

Middle Pleistocene

Hoxnian (Holsteinian)

'Boyn Hill' Terrace deposits, approximating to the Middle Gravels sequence of Barnfield Pit

Interglacial Anglian lower Chalky Boulder Clay; Glacial Gravels (Elsterian) Glaciation

lower Pleistocene ? Pebble Gravel; Plateau Gravels of the Swanscombe outlier

lower Eocene Cutsian? lower Bagshot Beds, c 3-10m in thickness; Claygate Beds, c 4-12 m in thickness

Ypresian london Clay, c 115-lSOm in thickness

Palaeocene Sparnacian Blackheath Beds, c 6-15m in thickness; Woolwich Beds, c 6-l7m in thickness

Thanetian Thane! sands, c 9-27m in thickness

Upper Cretaceous Senonian Upper Chalk, M coranguinum Zone, c 60m in thickness

Orsett neighbourhood, where they are of uncertain thickness owing to often being indistinguishable from the Basement Bed of the london Clay.

The Woolwich Beds consist of thin beds of estuarine to freshwater clay, rich in molluscan shells, and sand, and usually more marine grey sand with small flint pebbles forming the base. They are exposed at Mucking Heath, and vary in thickness from 10m at Mucking Ford to 17m at Rom ford and 22m at Brentwood. Most of the numeroussarsens found in the loc.1l Pleistocene gravels appear to have been derived from silicified parts of the sands.

TheThanetSandsare fine grained marine sands, po le grey to yellowish and buff in colour, with c 0.3m at the base being tinted g reen by iron silicate(glauconite) and filled with green coated flints, the Buill-lead Bed. These beds arc 14-15m in thickness at Grays and Romford, 20m at Brentwood, and 14m at Mucking Ford. In the 1960s they were worked commercia lly in a pit adjoining the Mucking archaeological sites.

The Upper Chalk ou tcrops in the Mucking district as fairly soft, white, blocky chalk of high purity containing many la rge fl int nodules in layers with tabular flint bands. It belongs only to the upper part of the Micrnslt•r cornuguim1111 Zone and is visible in quarries ncar Grays and in the low cliffs above the marshes at East Tilbury, lying at c 150m below the su rf~cc~ t 1...'11)\don (la indon) and c 10m below a t Mucking Ford.

Structure

The Chalk and lower Tertiary beds, beneath the Pleis­tocene deposits, underlie the whole area, being part of the southern limb of the mid-Tertiary l ondon Basin syncline. There local folds superimposed upon the main syncline include the anticline bring ing the chalk suffi­ciently high to outcrop from Purfleet to Ti lbury Marshes. The higher beds of chalk were removed by erosion in Lower Tertia r)' times and here Jhcy form an irregu lar surface beneath the Thane! Sands.

landscape evolution

There is much evidence to indicate that in ea rly Pleis to­cene times forerunners of the present Thames and Sur­rey area ri vers Mole and Wcy becan1e confluent, flowing from south-west of the site of london north­eastward into the Hcrtfordshire area, then eastward through the Essex area and the North Sea region. This ri,•cr system evidently laid down a series of deposits collectively known as Plateau Gravels. Through this period and the later Pleistocene a number of advances of the Arctic ice sheets brought vast accumulations of boulder cloy and g lacial gravel into the Essex area. During the periodic g lacio I retreats the area underwent climatic changes th rough subarctic to temperate in the

28 EXCAVATIONS AT M UCKINC: THE SITE ATLAS

intergl~ci~ls. After the early Pleistocene the pr<">Cnt course of the Thames was slowlv established, and on the south-ca~t Essex shore of itS estuary local rivers were developed, those in this neighbourhood being ultimately the lngrebourne near Rainham, the \>tar Dyke nearPurflcet,and the Crouch at Burnham. Owing to successively lower Pleis tocene sea levels the down­ward sequence of river terraces was formed, culminating in the Buried Channel complex descending to -30m OD and more, during the Last Glaciation. After its dose about 10,000 years before the present, disap­pearance of the ice sheets with release of vast quanti ties of melt water led to the Flandrian Transgression, a rise in sea level to that of the present in the estuary with considerable deposition of estuarine sediments, includ­ing those of the m~rshes of Holocene age, still in process of accumulation (Devoy 1980).

Thus the Chalk and Lower Tertiary beds have been eroded by the Thames from the early Pleistocene on­ward, giving rise to the broad valley passing former river cliffs still visible at Woolwich, Swanscombe, and East Tilbury, flanking areas of marsh land. Temporary halts in the deposition of sediment resulted in surfaces developing tree growth, and later flooding, which led to the form~tion of peat beds which were later buried by marsh day. The three main peat beds occur ncar Gravesend, the lower and middle being probably of la te Mesolithic and Neolithic age. and the highest, a t c 2.0-2.7m below the present alluvium surface, forming a human occupation level in the Roman period (Spur­rell1889).

Late Pleis tocene Boyn Hill terrace gravels, Orsett

Hoveringham's gravel and sand workings at I foford Road, near Mucking, Essex, were examined in Janu~ry and April1966. The account was edited from direct tape recordings and was revised in March 1989.

Extensive sections showed a thick, well bedded series of true river terrace gravels, with traces of pa le sand probably of the Thanet Sand, Lower Tertiary, in the base of the pit. Some sections at the top of thegr.1vcls exhibited s trong evidence that solifluction in a perigla­cial environment had modified the fluviatile gravels or deposited sludged gravel and clay above them. These upper deposits are seemingly connected with fro1en ground polygons visible as farm cropmarks on air photographs in and adjoining the Mucking archaeo­logical sites. In the 1970s there was a Thanet S.1nd quarry close by, showing deep gravel-filled channels cut in the S.1nd.

Fluviatile gravels

Sectious uuder 1/oford Laue

These showed a thickness of only c 1.8m of deposits, the bose being hidden by ta lus. The upper part wa~ of ill-sorted, poorly bedded gravel, clearly due to solifluc­tion, but the lower was a river deposit, va rying through reddish, s tony, sandy loam, fairly well bedded loamy sand with pebbles, to nearly stoneless, dark ochreous

loam, becoming more stony below. Th1s was better bedded, showing layers of pebbly lo.1m contrasting with more sandy layers. Occasional large flints of sul>­angular shape occurred, and a thid.n~ of 0.9m of the pebbly seams with long flat pebbles lying scattered hori;ontally. Layers between the reddish lo.1ms were sandy and more yellowish or dark yellowish brown.

The junction between the solifluction deposits and the river g ravels was fa irly horizontal, except at one point where a solifluction festoon penetrated the la tter deposits. Nearby these consis ted of well bedded loam, with alternate sandy and clayey divisions, quite thin with few stones. The junction of the soli fluction and river deposits was clearly marked. The river gravel below was reddish brown, argillaceous loam with few pebbles and intervening light yellowish sand and many small pebbles. No disturbance was seen at any point. Occasional sarsen boulders occurred, the two largest being nearly spherical; one was c O.Sm in length, 0.4m in width, and 0.3m in height, well rounded and not mc1mmillatcd, while the other was flat, c O.lm in ,.,,ridth and length, and c0.6m in height, slightly mammillated. These were of quartzitic sandstone enclosing some no­dular limonitic ironstone. They were not iu situ but lay ncar the washing pLmt at the northern end of the workings.

Material seen at the wasl1ing plaut

The coarsest stone heap from the gravel screening ma· chine showed almost entirely flint, consisting of many well rounded pebbles of Lower Tertiary type,subangu­lar flint, occasional red stained ('jaspcriscd') Oint pebbles, and subangular reddish pink, quartzitic sand· stone. About 50% of the stones were Lower Tertiary flint pebbles, the rest subangular and frequently angular, apart from those broken durmg screening. Some ma­terial in the screened gravel had prob.1bly come from the solifluction deposit, which may be expected to be of purely local origin.

5<-ction on the east em side of tl•e flit

In a section about 6m in depth solifluction grovel was >CCn, but abou t 2.4m below the ground surface a current bedded s.1nd appea red fairly suddenly beneath, con­sisting of a lternations of brown loamy s.1nd and yellow sand, both lo.1my and s.1ndy parts with few pebbles. Nearby, the lower hal£ of a secti011 about 4.5m in depth consisted of very well current bt.'Clded s.1nd, yellow generally but with manganese hydroxide stains on foreset planes and sometimes small pebbles set along hori;ontal planes.

Just beyond the end of the conveyor belt nearest the archaeological site the operator of the mechanical exca­vator said that he had just recently found two large bou lders, which were still in the gravel face there. M U Jones said that there was another, a s.1rsen bou ldcrlying in the water on the pit floor close by, and there in a dry part was an angu larsarsenc0.9m in length and 0.3m in depth as fa r as was visible, and c 0.7m in width at one end. It was of grey quartzitic s.1ndstone weathered to a reddish brown. On the pit noor, abou t 0.3m above water level, lying abou t 0.6m apart, were two sarscns or two fragments of one. Each appeared to be abou t 0.6m in

SPECIALIST REPORTS 29

height but may have been much larger if followed into the current bedded, pale pebbly sand from which they projected in the section.

Solifluction gravels

Sectious 1111der Hoford I.Jwe

In the main old workings the slight gravel sections on the western face showed a depth of only about 1.8m, the base being obscured, of fine flint gravel, poorly sorted, ofsubangular and angular flints, many Tertiary pebbles whose long axes were frequently nearly vertical, and others set at all angles with few or no signs of bedd ing. This only seemed to apply to the top 0.9m or 1.2m of gravel and the base looked very like a solifluction fes­toon. Nearly a ll the Tertiary flint pebbles were set nearly vertically, forming a downward loop, and beneath was only loamy brown sand with apparently very few pebbles. The matrix between the stones from top to bottom, however, seemed to be the same brownish loam. The solifluction gravel contained Tertiary pebbles of all sizes up to 40mm, often set nearly vertically, as were some subangular flints. Other constituents were at various angles. Low in the section, however, the pebbles seemed quite well bedded, so indicated a nor­mal river gravel.

Nearer the archaeological excavations these features were much more clearly seen. Approximately 0.9m of loamy brown sand, packed with Tertiary flint pebbles and angular and subangular flints, very poorly sorted with no apparent bedding and long axes at a ll angles, was present. This deposit was of a pale buff colour in contrast to the brownish loamy river gravels with yel­lowish sandy partings, seen below.

In another section of the solifluction deposits nearly all the elongated pebbles were set vertically. At yet another location the long axes of pebbles were so often set vertically that many lay parallel to each other in rows.

This was clear evidence of periglacial conditions af­fecting the pre-existing river terrace deposits.

Sectiou outlle enstem side of tile pit

In a section about 6m in depth, beneath the soil, fairly fine gravel with many Tertiary pebbles, occasionally up to about 0.1 m in length, occurred. The matrix was yel­lowish brown loamy sand and the pebbles were very poorly sorted, lying at various angles, occasionally ver­tica ll y, so this was evidently the same solifluction gravel as before but probably about 1.5m in thickness.

In the cutting for the conveyor belt on the eastern face, the upper half of the section showed a reddish brown stony loam with Tertiary pebbles and some sub­angular flint pebbles, sweeping down in the form of downwardly directed contortions quite clearly and suddenly distinguished from the underlying river gra­vel. Further contortions, of sinuous form, were seen nearest the archaeological site, and others extended about 4m to the south. In particular, a very sinuous, almost recumbent fold with reddish argillaceous loam on each side of it was seen, showing the pebbles set along the contortions with red loam above and below. This was typical trail but the only example of a very

considerable fold seen by the writer in this pit, although it appeared to be only c 0.2m in height and c 0.4m in width, but was probably elongated laterally to a greater extent, both in its upper and lower limb. It resembled some seen in glacially contorted deposits of Pleistocene age in Cambridgeshire.

The pits filled with red loam

The foreman at the washing plant s.1id that he and his men often found clay-filled gulleys or channels in the gravels, and M U )ones had reported the presence of such structures to the writer. It was thought that these cou ld be of archaeologica I significance. On April11966, on the eastern face of the new workings, a pit filled with pebbly red loam, exposed by a mechanical excavator to a depth of 0.4m, was examined. The deposit on each side was pale buff to ochreous sand with some pebbles, but the line of contact at the sides of the red loam infilling was quite stony. At one side the long axes of the Tertiary flint pebble-s were set at a high angle, par­allel with each o ther. The width of the pocket of loam was c l.Sm at the base, just above the floor of tlw active workings. The contrast between the argillacc'<'U> infill­ing and the sand on each side was con~idt.•r.lhh.· .1nd fairly sudden. The width of this infilling inl"rc'<"'c'<.i to c 3m immediately below the subsoil, where' it i<mned a feature wlth a transverse se<:tion apparently ~ernicircu­lar or perhaps elliptical, but probably in f~•t circular. This probably produced a cropmark, visible to air photography, on the farmland above.

Elsewhere on the eastern side of the workings close to the conveyor belt an apparently basin-shaped de­pression was seen, about 3.6m in width, but the base of this hollow was not clearly seen. The filling appeared to be more stony in the lower part but only a depth of I m was visible. Its sides sloped gently inward.

Close to the archaeological site the excavator oper­ator said that he had recently left a patch of reddish clayey loam on the floor of the workings, that had filled some form of cavity. The writer examined the remains of this pocket. It was at least 1.2m in width and con­sisted of mottled grey to buff to reddish brown argillaceous loam with Tertiary pebbles and some sub­angular pieces of flint, as before. This was evidently very similar to other pockets seen in the face of the workings. The writer cou ld sec no other trace of such a pocket on the pit floor.

In thcfarther workings near the wood on the eastern side of the pit the section was rather inaccessible and degraded. A red loam mass, although its actual shape was not clearly seen, appeared to occupy a depression or hollow about 1.8-2.1m in width, the upper 0.6m being obscured by weathering and plant growth, so there was probably about 1.3m in depth of red l0<1m. Below it was norma I, very pebbly gravel, and just to the south, close to the top of the section, was current bedded gravel, and then again below the pebbly gravel was more current bedded gravel. It was thus fairly certa in that the whole section was in river gravel except for the loam-filled depression.

The reddish loam filling the pockets appeared to be a distinct solifluction deposit, seemingly later than the tr.1ilcd gravel that invaded the river gravel.

30 EXCAVATIO'-:S AT \1LCK1l':C:THF SITE ATLAS

Cropmarks seen on the adjacent farm land

On th~ aar photographs pro,•ided by :1-ll.J Jont.., there" a rath~r ob<;curc "''tern of reticulate line-; and other dark markmg,, niry suggesth·e of cold clim.liC p.11 terno:>d ground of tundra polygon type as ob-.t•rn-d on thcSe,·crn M.lm Terrace, ascribed to the last Gl.lci.liiOn, a l Kiddcrmin,ter, Worccstcrshirc (Shollon 1962; Wl"-1 1977), and at Box'>tead, Essex (French 1976, 2.17, fig 12.5). The present writer has been unable to determine any certain relationship o f the loam-filled pils in lh~ Muck­ing gravels to these structu res seen above 0 11 tlw farmland. Such ;mall loam infillings could only appear in the photographs as very small dark spots, and I he large scale polygonal outlines shown as cropmark' would be the ~urface manifestation of ''ertical s truc­tun~' 'ccn in the upper part of the gra,,eJ,, The loam-filled pit; or involutions may p.1ss upward into fro/en ground polygons but there is no clear mdic.1toon (French 1976, 229). The contortions in the Muckmg gra\·~ls d~flbed above did not appear to be conn<'Cil'<l with any such fcalun>s but would be difficult lo dct<'Cl. The abundant dark spolsseen in one photograph do not display linear arrangement across the ground surf,,cc but from the road, passing eastward immediately north of thcarchacologic,,l features causing crop marks on the south, a bell of polygonal markings, in placl"l of <]Uite wide dark line~. runs in a straight line eastward then fades away. There i~ no visible connection bctwl'Cn th~ polygonal markings and the dark spots. Some other parts of th~ photograph show reticulate polygonal ! i ncs much~~~ di,tinctly.

Conclusions

Th~ abo\'C evidence indicates that the ri,•cr gra"d' assigned by the Geological Survey to the Boyn IIIII Terrace ar~ overlain by solifluction gravel (lr.lill f,..,. tooned into their upper surface by " L1te Plei,toccne glacial advance. Cylind rica l or basin-shaped d<~ pr~ion> in the upper surface of these river gravel• arc filled with a stony reddish loam, apparently as d ig ila­tions from abov~. This appears to be of later age than tho tr~iled g ravQI. The loam is probably a decalcified solifluction dcpo'il formerly overlying the trailed gr.l­vel, and may well have o riginally occurr~d ,,_ a continuou; sheet on the relatively flat surfac~ of the ground above over a wide area. VI U Jonc-; reported a similardepo;it recently cleared from thcarchacologicill site, and noted apparent tongues of brickearth seen"' dark ma<scs inaar photographs. It is possible, howel'cr, that these may be the upper margin of dcpo;il> at the top of il lower terrace series, resting against the bluff between the Boyn Hill and Tap low Terrace bcnch~-

Thc traill'Cl gravel overlying and invading the Boyn Hill Terrace river gravel may well beconlemporant'<m'> with the Upper Gravel of Swanscombc, Kent, now correlated with the S.1alian Glaciation. The red lo.1m apparently penetrated both these grovels, and so was su~quenl to the solifluction phase that produced the trailed gravel. It was probably formed during the s.1me glaciation, bu t on~ must consider the cold pha<,es rt'-

sponsible for the Coombe Rock on the Chalk outcrop and lh~ later trail that descends 11110 the Bun<'<~ Ch.mnel.

'Jo Palaeolithic implement' nor Plc~>locene ,,nim.ll remains ha,·c been found 111 lhl"-C work111gs to the knowll'<ige of the workm~n. M U Jon,.,, .md the writer. The gravels and lo.1n1S arc prolMbly ,,II dec.llcified. Middle Acheulian hand a\l"'o«n.~, however, known from pit' at the s.1me level in grav~ls nMppt•d a> belonging lo this terrace at Mucking, On-ell, ,,nd Chadwell St Mary, comparable with those found in the Middle Gra­vels, of Hoxnian llllcrglacial age, al Swanscombe (Roe 1968, 58, 64, 65). Despite the la rg~ nu mber and variety of far travelled constituent> of the terrace gravels of Boyn ll illorslightlyearlicrageal Dartford I Ieath, Kent, and to a lesser extent at Swanscombe, the writer could nol detect any erralics in the prl">cnt quarry. Evidently the gravels there were formed from purely local sources wpar,,ted from entry of erratic- into the district at th,ll lime. At this pit the surface of th<' t('rr.lCe deposits lies bctwt'Cn 33m OD on the north .1nd 29.4m 00 on the '>OUih, ,md thev consist of about 2.4m of solifluction gr.wel overlying about 3.bm of the nwr gr.wel, so the terrace bench, not clearly ,.i,ible in the gra,·el pit, must lie at about26.7- 2.1.4m OD. At Swanscombe the terrace bench lies at c 33-22.5m OD (Dine' 1'1 n/1938, 2.1).

II appears that the loam-filled pil' wcr~ formed dur­ing a glacial phase >Ub>cqucnl to the lloxnia n illtcrglacia l, in the region of permafrost to the >Outh of an icc sheet. During times of I haw, when I he underlying river gravels were S."ltur(ltCd with melt water, it is prob-­able that the red loam was inlrudl'<.i downward into the more fluid, waterlogged p.lTIS by gravity, aided by cryogenic movement du~ toalt~rnalmg freeze and thaw Judged by the vertical orientation of long axes of pebbles at the sides of the loam infillings.

If the red loam possessed a greater average density or loading relative to that of th~ gravels beneath, it would have given rise to gra\•ity controlk'<l downward digitations or involutions into them during successil•c periods of seasonal melting of icc pT<~nt in the gravels.

These columns of lo.1m appc.u to have approxi­m.ltely circ-ular transverse ~ction~ t1nd t«pcr upward, judged in particular by the example clearly seen ill w rtical section on April1. They appear to agree most closely in form with pocket or p lug in volutions (French 1976, 42. 43, 229, fig 12.2) which, however, ~re con­~idcred to have originated by upwt~rd n1ovcment of m,\terial from b~low, lh~convcrs('of I he apparent mode of origin oft he Mucking e'amplc-;. Unfortunately there is no general agreement among specia lists as to the prl'Cise origins of such structurt"S ~n m a wide variety o( ~ituations.

Thcsolifluctiongravcls~xhibot the typical features of traol ,,nd were doubt!~ accumulated as a sludge of pebbles, sand, and clay that slowly mo,•ed downhill, dragging up and contorting the '>Odden ri\'Cr gravel below into complex forms. Such contorted deposits a re commonly seen above terrace dcpo~its in this area, typically on the Boyn I-I ill Terrace a t Clapton, north-cast London (Whitak~r 1889,406,407, figs 75, 76). There the contorted trai l also forms downwMd invo lutio ns, closely resembling those in this Mucking pit, sugges­ting that the contortions and loam-filled cavities here may, in fact, only be variants of on~ dcpo~it; but lhc

SPECIALIST REPORTS 31

matter is uncertain . Trail, probably of a later date, over­lies Taplow Terrace deposits a t and near IIford and Grays, Essex.

The rock types

by FTalbotl

(revised 19.2.1989 by J N Carreck)

It must be stressed that quantitative analysis was not available for this study because of the lack of computer services.

This report deals with rock types used as artefacts and others showing no sign of human usc. Most of the stone from this excavation was referred to the writer, with the exception of lavas, flint, and chalk, though a 5<1mplc selection of these rock types was examined ""ithe the aim of ascertaining source areas (see below).

The rocks utilised comprised sandstone (sili­ceous/sarsen, calcareous, and fe ldspathic), grit (including Millstone Grit), flint conglomerate, quart­zite, and g reensand . Sarsen stone was the most utilised rock type, which is to be expected as it is found rather commonly in the area. It is derived from local Palae­ocene arenaceous beds, genera lly the Woolwich Beds as around Orsctt village. Sarscns posed the problem of natural surfaces looking as though they had been ground; in such cases other signs of utilisation were looked for before classifying the object as an artefact.

A large proportion of the other rock types used for artefacts may have had a common source in the glacial g ravels of north Essex; and a small amount of sand­stone, apparently from the Triassic Bunter pebble beds of the Midlands, was used for whetstones, probably because of its smooth surface.

Hertfo rdshire conglomerate ('pudding stone') was also used in small amounts for querns. It has two like I)• sources, one as concretionary masses in Woolwich Beds at local sites along the Mar Dyke at Avclcy, the other again in the glacial gravels of north Essex. It is probable that both sources were used; rocks from the latter may well have been brought to Mucking by trading and the conglomerate is likely to have been part of this. Other rock types used as artefacts and likely to have their source in glacial gmvels arc quartzite, Millstone Grit, and do lerite. The first two were utilised in fai rly la rge quantities. The g recns.1nd and calcareous s.1ndstone both probably came from the Lower Greensand of Kent.

Not all of the large amounts of stone extracted from the excavations had been used for artefacts; the utilised rocks were also found unutilised, and in addition the following unutilised rocks were identified: limestone, Kentish Rag from the Lower Grccns.1nd, phosphatic nodules, chert, septaria, jasperised flint, and slate. It is likely that the sources for this non-utilised material are localised gravel deposits, although other sources arc listed below.

Both dolerite and slate could have originated in the glacial gravels, and jaspcrised flin t occurs in many Pleistocene gravels in this d istrict. Chert occurred in fair quantities and most probably came from the local Boyn Hill Terrace gravels, derived from the Lower Green-

sand of Kent or Surrey, but it does occur in the Pebble Gravels of which the nearest occurrences are at Have­ring-atte-Bower and the Langdon (Laindon) 1-lills. Septarian nodu les are easily obta inable from the Lon­don Clay, which outcrops Jess than lkm north of the site. Small pieces of jurassic limestone cou ld be from glacial deposits, but closely resemble the oolitic lime­stone, probably from an ou tcrop in Oxfordshire, of which a coffin found here was constructed. Phosphatic nodules are from Lower Pleistocene Crag deposits, or the Gault in East Anglia, Kent, or Surrey. Kentish Rag cou ld only ha ve come from the Hythc Beds of the Lower Greensand of Kent, the nearest part of its outcrop being in the Sevenoaks-Maidstone d istrict.

The last three rock types are volcanic la va, chalk, and fl int. The nearest Chalk outcrops at Grays and East Tilbury, as well as the North Downs round Gravesend, Kent. All true flint origina tes in its upper parts, but chalk in derived form is widespread in Pleistocene boulder days in Essex, and flint is the main constituent of the Thames terrace g ravels and g lacial g ravels of north em Essex. Bas.1ltic lava was used chiefly for rotary qucrns found here, but not for sadd le querns, and three types, Andernach, Mayen, and Niedermendig, arc rep­resented, imported from Germany. Not all lava fragments, however, showed utilisation.

The slags and metallurgical residues

by G McOOilllell

Introduction

In total,365kgof slags and residues were recovered . The details of their classification and analyses a re discussed in McDonnell (forthcoming). The classification was based on morphological criteria, and the weight of each slag type from each area/context was recorded. The slags and residues were divided into d iagnostic and non-diagnostic grou ps. The former arc slags that are products of an ironworking process, wh ile the latter group may have derived from any high tempera ture activity. In some instances they can be assumed to have derived from an ironworking process, by association with diagnostic residues.

The total weight of each slag type is given in Table 2, and the diagnostic slags are grouped according to pro­cess. The shorthand nomenclature for each slag or residue type is also given. In this table and throughout the report the Dense Iron Silicate slag (DIS) has been identified as a smelting slag. Detailed chemical analysis and examination of its distribution cast some doubt on this interpretation (McDonnell forthcom ing). The ab­sence of well-dated, large deposits of this slag means that it docs not figure significantly in this report. The material classed as 'other' included charcoal and coal fragments etc.

Table 2 also g ives the total amount of each slag type tha t was included in the large concentrations (see below) and the isolated single large deposits (p33). It is also calculated as a percentage of the total of each type. This demonstrates that less than half the smelting tap slag and the dense iron silicate slag was present in the

32 EXCAVATIONS AT MUCKING: THE SITE ATLAS

Table 2 Total weight of each slag type

Total co,ctr~tratio,. % Wtight wtight

(kg) (kg)

Diagnostic slags Snrtlth•g slags Tap slag (TSL) 13.100 5.424 41 Slag block (SLB) 93.685 62.045 66 Dense Iron Silicate slag (DIS) 23.368 7.603 32 Smithing slags Hearth bottom (HBM) 69.003 40.103 58 Smithing slag lumps (SSL) 115.443 70.532 61 Hammer scale (present?) 0.012 Cinder (CKR) 13.304 7.682 58

Non·diagnostic slags Hearth/Furnace lining (HLN) 22.271 13.462 60 Fuel Ash Slag (FA$) 14.984 5.626 37 Other 4.585 1.410 31

TOTAL 369.755

identified concentra tions. In particular, over 4kg of the DIS was from isolated find spots. The slag blocks were all represented (66%) in identified contexts, but this is because they tended to occur in l~rgc lumps, thus caus­ing the deposits readily to exceed the min imum quantity for analysis. About 60% of both types of smi­thing slag were p resent in the identified concentrations. The hearth or furnace lining was a lso well represented but less than 40% of the two other non-diagnostic s lags were in the identified concentrations.

Table 3 Concentrations of slags

Concentration Site atlas Nort/11 Nortli2 number plan

1 1 -228 -230 2 3 160 188 3 2 190 200 4 2 230 242 5 3 297 303 6 7 353 353 7 7 375 382 8 3, 6 393 410 9 7 449 449

10 6 725 726 11 6 755 770 12 10 840 910

13 10 903 907 14 10 930 942

15 11 1041 1053 16 21 1898 1903 17 20, 22 2095 2106 18 22 2140 2148 19 25 2445 2455 20 25 2490 2500

The spatial analysis is therefore based on a signifi­cant percentage of the total weight of slags recovered from the excavations. This is particularly valid for the cxamin~tion of ironworking residues, because where there has been a significant amount of activity, cg a small rura l 'smithy' or the smelting of orcs that arc poorer than aoout 90% iron oxide, iro n s lags are gener­ated as a waste by-product. They tend to be dumped into pits or o ne length of d itch, rather than thinly spread across~ site. The distribution can be radically altered either by later disturbance or by the use of s lags for cobbling or hard-core. The examination of these d is­tributions assumes that they can be considered to be representative of the usc o f iron working techniques at Mucking.

Spatial distribution of the slags

Determination of g.roups

The concentrations were determined by examination of quantities grea ter than lkg. The area around such points (in terms of northi ng and easting coordinates) were examined for s lag, and extended accord ingly. In general s lag concentrations occurred in large features, eg ditches. The absence of 'floor levels' and 'working surfaces' prohibited the identification of working areas.

Distributions

The areas are given as spreads, ie readings North!, North2 by East! and East2. Negative values indicate

Eastl East2

345 356 135 155 80 100

-75 -81 271 265 447 447 715 725 145 155 575 575 110 115 90 110

140 210

219 219 165 169

622 642 968 979 635 775 780 786 915 922 960 980

Total weight (kg)

3.9 12.2 16.4 5.2 28 3.0 5.2 1.9 2.3 1.9

26.8 50.8

8.4 2.9

13.0 6.7 9.9

10.2 12.8 21.8

Date

R-B ? Late R-B/ A-S Late R-B/ A-S ? ? A-S R-B/ A-S ? (GH 42) A-S (GH 44/45)A-S R-B 1st cent AD & A-S ?A-S R-B 1st cent AD? (Well 4) R-B (GH 129) A-S (GH 173) lA? (GH 179) A-S (GH 196) A-S (GH 202) A-S

SPECIALIST REPORTS 33

Table 4 Single deposits of slag (weight in kg)

Site atlas North East Context plan

2 250 -40 ?3994 5 350 -152 14129

10 818 272 6050 10 820 396 12327 11 950 750 13 1247 447 8840 16 1797 373 10050 20 1853 481 GH 98

sou things and westings respectively (p 7). A full listing is given in Table 3. The more detailed discussion of the contexts which have been dated will be given in the forthcoming period volumes. There were also some large individual s lag pieces, mostly examples of SLB, which gave 'apparent' high slag concentrations; these arc examined separately.

Isolated single deposits of large quan tities of slag

T here were eight deposits of single lumps or slag. They are possibly significant because of the presence of slag blocks, which by definition may occur as single lumps. These data arc presented in Table 4.

The occurrence of the different types of slag (slag block, Dense Iron Silica te, and hearth bottom) as large single deposits is as expected. There is very little dating evidence for any of the deposits, and given their isola· tion any assoc iated evid ence must be treated cautiously. The best dated slag block is the largest found in pit 8840 (1247N 447E), the pit which cut a d itch (8838) and which was a lso cut by a Grubt•nlmus (GH 106). It can therefore be argued that the slag is Anglo-Saxon or later. The o nly other dating is for the block found at 250N 40W, which was probably from a ditch (3994) that can be definitely dated as post-Roman. The large hearth bottom from CH 98 could be dated to the Anglo-Saxon period, but it may also have been reused as is suggested for the hearth bottoms found in CH 42 (concentration 10). The Dense Iron Silicate was dated by association with the nint gritted ware (cu t 10050). Th is pottery is dated from late Bronze Age to late Iron Age, and cou ld therefore date this slag to the Iron Age. It also occurred in association with a slag block (350N 152W), which wou ld suggest an Anglo-Saxon date.

Conclusions

In genera l the slags and residues arc not well datt-d, nor can they be dated on morphological grounds, with the exception of the s lag blocks (SLBs). The problem is further confused by the probability of slags from earlit•r periods being redeposited in later features. The large deposits of slag are derived from ' large' features, eg ditches and Cmlwulliiusa, which probably puts a bias on the interpretation. H can be assumed that on most settlement sites dated to the (late) Iron Age or Ia ter some

Weight Type

2.100 SLB 1.200 SLB 1.500 DIS 1.875 SLB 1.000 DIS 5.000 SLB 1.650 DIS 1.300 HBM

Date

Post-R ? ?

? ?

A-S? lA? A-S

Comment

also DIS (0.345) also fired clay no other finds unstratified

smithing activity would have been carried out. There­fore the recovery of small amounts of smithing slag is expected. The type or smithing would inOuence the quantity and d istribution of the slag. Ckcasional small­sca le activity may be ct~rricd out at any suitable place, rather than at a permanent 'smithy'. In such instances the slag would occur in sma ll quantities and would be widely distributed, which would not allow it to be isolated and identified in the general multi-period spread of s lags that is present at Mucking.

The quantities of slag ascribed to each period are given in Table 5; these amounts exclude the isolated finds discussed above. Smithing was ca rried out in the Iron Age and Romano-British periods, and both smelt­ing and smithing debris in the Iron Age context is very low and would normally be ignored as 'background' level. It must only be interpreted as evidence for smi­thing having been carried ou t in this period. The presence of smelting slag in the Romano-British period is doubtful si nce one lump was a fragment of slag block recovered from an area where there was Anglo-Saxon smelting. The evidence for ironworking is s trongest in the Anglo-Saxon period. There is an indication of con· tinu ity from the Romano-British period (concentration 12). The total amou nt of slag recovered from the whole site is not as great as might be expected. This is probably due to the sampling strategy and because large features, in which the slag was concentrated, were not fully excavated.

Table 5 Summary of slag distributions by period

Pfriod Smdt1ng DIS Smithi"g Non·diagnostic slags slags slags/residues

Iron Age 0.085 1.223 0.510 Romano-British 0.040 0.780 29.183 3.222 Anglo· Saxon 39.544 2.040 40,067 7.769

34 EXCAVATIONS AT MUCKING: THE SITE ATLAS

Non-ferrous metalworking finds

by I Bayley

There is evidence o f Bronze Age bro nze casting a t both North and South Rings. At the former s ite one crucible and four mould fragments and some scrap metal were found (Bond 1988), while the latter p roduced a further seven mould fragments o f comparable type (1 09N 281 E, 120N 230E, 159N 260E, 268N 206E, 380N lOOE) and a La te Bronze Age copper ingot (1 1 ON 335E).

Contexts da ted to the Iro n Age produced fourfurther clay mould fragments. Three are from object moulds (2057N 652E, 2077N 651 E, 2085N 680E) but one is an incomplete ingot mou ld with traces o f silver and gold on it (236N 167E); the metal had probably been melted in the mould. A crucible of ty pical Iron Age form (301 N 53W) which had been used to melt bro nze was a lso found, as well as four further fragments of s imilar form, also with traces of bronze (1835N 845E, 2085N 680E) (M U Jo nes 1980, fig 2).

Saxon Grube11lliirtser produced the mating fragmen ts of a piece mould for a square-headed brooch from GH

109 (1040N 650E) (Webster in l lamerow 1993), as well as two other less diagnostic mould fragments (234N 387E, 1481 N 695E), two crucible or mould fragments (2260N 900E, 2265N 896E), and a rim sherd from a definite crucible (1687N 474E). This had been used to melt gu nmetal (a copper-tin-zinc alloy) and had an added outer layer which stood p roud of the rim, sug­gesting it had conti nued upwards to form a lid . Crucibles o f this form a re known from midd le Saxon s ites in northern England and fro mea rlier sites in Wales and Scotland (Bayley 1991).

Two fu rther crucible sherds (1444N 623E, 2047N 673E), one possible mould fragment (1491N 680E), and a p iece of hea rth lini ng with traces of copper and tin (2106N 676E) came from contexts tha t were unda ted.

The quan tity of non-ferrous meta lworking finds is not large and they show no close spa tial clustering, which suggests that they are chance su rviva ls of what must o nce have been la rger g roups of similar materia l. The existence of non-ferrous meta lworking finds a t a l­most a ll per iods o f set tlement a t Mucking is unexpected, but the fragmen tary nature of the finds and their low frequency may explain why s imilar evidence has not been fou nd in excavations of comparable sites where smaller areas have been examined.

8 Radiocarbon dates

The results are presented in chronologica l order from the old.-st to the most recent. They have been calibrated according to the Stuiver and Pearson high precision curve (1986). The Ancient Monuments Laboratory (AML) number is included . The charcoal was identified by C A Keepax.

1 HAR-450 (submitted 10.10.73) AML-727181-786, charcoal: combined sample of partially humified oak From a planked coffin in Grave 786 (site atlas plan 12; 1152N 193El 3580±90 BP, Del C13 -23.4%/10 Calibrated date: one s ig ma 2115-1780 cal BC; two sigma 2195- 1695 ca l BC

2 HAR-2342 (submitted 1.6.77) AML-776304,charcoa l From the primary fill of Barrow 5 (site atlas plan 23; 2267N 1034El 3290±80 BP, Del C13 -24.4%/ 10 Ca librated date: one sigma 1680-1510 cal BC; two s ig ma 1750-1420 cal BC

3 HAR-2340 (submitted 1.6.77) AML-776303, charcoal From the primary ditch fill of Barrow 5, associated with Ardleigh-typepottery (site atlas plan 23; 2269N 1030E) 3210±80 BP, Del C13 -23.3%/10 Calibrated date: one sigma 1600-1420 cal BC; two sigma 1680-1315 cal BC

4 HA R-2339 (submitted 1.6.m AML-776301, charcoa l From Barrow 3 ditch fill which had no archaeologi­cally datable materia l (site atlas plan 21; 1962N 1075El 3100±90 BP, Del C13 - 24.8%/10 Ca libra ted date: one sigma 1495-1265 cal BC; two s igma 1590-11 OS cal BC

5 1-IAR-2343 (submitted 1.6.77) AML-776302, charcoa l dust From a pit (25131) which contained calcined flint; the pit cu t the silted ditch of Barrow 4 (site atlas plan 23;2172N 1175El 2980±100 BP, Del C13 -25.0%/ 10 Calibrated date: one sigma 1395-1040 cal BC; two sigma 1450- 920 cal BC

6 HAR-2337 (submitted 1.6.77) AML-776299, charcoal; carbonised twig From a pit (25487; cut by GH 187) which produced a good pottery assemblage (site atlas plan 23; 2295N 899'6"El 2929±130 BP, Del C13 -25.6%/10 Ca librated date: one sigma 1375-930 cal BC; two sigma 1450-820 ca I BC

7 HAR· 1708 (submitted 27.5.76)

35

AML-750430, c harcoal; twiggy Quercus sp and Populus sp from large timbers From the primary s ilts of the South Rings outer ditch (310; site atlas plan 3; 140N 340'9"E) 2810±70 BP, Del C13 -25.1%/10 Cal ibrated date: one s igma 1045- 900 cal BC; two sigma 1250-820 cal BC

8 HAR-1630 (submitted 27.5.76) AM L-750426, charcoal; mainly Quercus sp and Alnus sp From the secondary silts of the South Rings inner ditch (303; site a tlas p lan 3; 144N 293El 2790±90 BP, Del C13 -25.3%/10 Ca libra ted date: one sigma 1045-840 ca l BC; two sigma 1256-800 ca I BC

9 HAR· 1634 (submitted 27.5.76) AML-750431, charcoal; Quercus sp and Salix sp From the primary s il ts of the Sou th Rings outer d i tch (310; site atlas plan 3; 165N 345E) 2770±110 BP, Del C13 -25.7%/10 Ca libra ted date: one s igma 1040-820 cal BC; two s ig ma 1260-790 ca l BC

10 HAR-2338 (submitted 1.6.77) AML-776300, ca rbonised gra in and ?other seeds From a storage pit containing a group of pottery which may range from the Middle Bronze Age to the earliest Iron Age (25564; site atlas plan 23; 2243N lOOSE) 2360±70 BP, Del C13 - 21.4%/10 Ca libra ted date: one sigma 515-390 ca l BC; two sigma 765-255 cal BC

11 HAR-1633 (submitted 27.5.76) AML-750429, charcoal; la rge timbers and branches of Quercus sp From a charred post butt of a rectangular s ix-post structure (10226; site atlas p lan 17; 1749N 587E) 2090±70 BP, Del C13 - 23.6%/10 Ca libra ted date: one sigma 195-35 cal BC; two s igma 365 cal BC- cal AD 60

12 HAR-1632 (submitted 27.5.76) AML-750428, charcoal; large timbers and branches of Quercus sp From a charred post butt of a nine-post rectangular structure (site atlas plan 13; 1309N 5 14'5"E) 2020±70 BP, Del C13 - 24.5%/10 Calibrated date: one sigma 110 cal BC- cal AD 60; two s igma 200 cal BC- cal AD 120

13 IIAR-2344 (submitted 1.6.m AM L-776227, charcoal and charcoal d u st From the ash layer of an Anglo-Saxon hearth (11640) cu t into the Roman turfline of a 2m deep ditch (site atlas plan 17; 1751 N 768E) 1400±80 BP, Del C13 - 25.7%/10 Calibr.1ted date: one s igma cal AD 595-675; two sigma cal AD 460-780

EXCAVATIONS AT MUCKING: THE SITE ATLAS

14 HAR-451 (submitted 10.10.73) AML-731273, wood From Grave 871, Anglo-Saxon Cemetery II (site atlas plan II; 830N 584E) 1390±80 BP, Del C13 -25.0%/ 10 Calibrated date: one s igma ca l AD 600-675; two sigma cal AD 530-780

15 HAR-2341 (submitted 1.6.77) AML-776298, charcoal From charred timbers in the fill of Anglo-Saxon GH 115 (site a tlas p lan 14; 1330N 660E) 1480±70 BP, Del Cl3 - 25.2%/10 Calibrated da te: one sigma cal AD 555-643; two sigma ca l AD 420-670

Appendix: a bibliography of publications on Mucking up to 1989

Alvey, B,and Moffett,j, 1985 l ia rd copy gr.lphtc di:,play:, for tlrdtotc--ologists, L.tmdou Ardml'OI, 5, 4Q-6

Auon ... 1966 R..'lCC to win ~IS of clncient sites, l/r( Timt'$, Mel)' 29 --, 1975 Unstr.ltiJied, £s."t':r Ardlflt'OI Nr<t~. 53, 25 --. 1978 Uncovered - ,1 rolre g limpS4:' of the p;tst, Daily f.tJn·t~o:.

Novemlx-r 18 Astor, M, 1979 Titc hedgcs and woods of Mucking.} nwrmc:k t.oml

Hisl Soc (l'auoram.n), 22,59-66 Barton, K J, 1962 Scttlc•ncJ\tS of the Iron Age Mld 1>,1gan Saxon

periods at Linford, EsS('x, Tm11.; £.;~·x i\rdtMol Soc, 3 st•r, 1(2), 57-IQ.l

Bond, 0, 1978 North Rin,g, Muddng, f_..,scx ...• Pmr Pr.•lliM ~'N". 44,4-17 --. 1988 Excav,ltion Jt th(' North Rin,g, Mucking, F-cose>., f.tJ ... t A us·

linn Arcllnrl'l, 43 Brown, T, 1976 Th(' r-.·lucking exc._w,ltion, Pwull,June30, 11 97 Bull M, 1973 TI1e origin of the n~m~ Waltnn·~ Hall in Mucking. I

TlmmJt'k UJt'al Hi::.t S<Jt' (l'mrorrmur), 16,53-9 Cauon.j P j,jont'S, M U,and Moff~tt.J C, 1982 The 19fJb-78Muckmg

exC<'lv,uion d.Jl,l b.lSC", in Ccm'l'utcr tll'l'licnti(m:> in ardmt"t.li(":>tY 1981 (eds I C r,lham and E WOOb), 36-13

CB/\, 1981 1\r(/ul'('f.l{o~vin Bntaitt 1980,60--1, l,.ondon --, 19$2 Archnt"VIil,{;, iu Britt! itt 1981, 53--l, l.(lndon --,1983 Arclm't'c>IOSYiuBritnin 1981.55, London --, 198-1 i\rclllf('C.>Ios._vmBntniu J98J,(J6, London Couchman, C (ed). 1977 Exc.w,ltions in Es54.'x in I <176, £$.."'t'X Arflmt•ol

H1~1,9, 101 -- (ed), 1978 Exc,wJtions in Essex in 1977, 1:$-.... '.r Ardmt'IJII ll :>t, 10,

2-16 Essex Archat"'I Soc, 1978 l'ouery from th~ Mucking exc.watinn!>

196$-197$. Exposition of pottery from E~:,.ex, 23~ptembcr Evi:ri'>n, V I, 1968 Quoit brooch style buckles, Atttiq J, 48,231- -16 Gelling.. M, 1976 The plac-e· names of the Muckillg al'('.l, J TlwmK"k

Ltxdl His! Soc Wnnorama), 19,7-20 C(.)()Ciburn, R (ed), 1976 Rom<ln Brit..lin in 1975, Hntnnma, 7, .J.I-1 Cr,lham ... I, 1982 Analysis o f finds from arch<leologi('al sit(':,, Timt":>

£dur Suwl. 25 june Cl'('ig, J R A, 1981 A pollen spt'tlrum from Murkiux. unpubl Ancient

Monument$ Laborat<>ry rep, no 3555 Haigh. j G 6, Kisch, B. and Jmws, M U, 1983 Computt.'1' pint and

excavated reality, in Tllr iml1flCI c>fnt·rial ft'COilllfli-saucrcmnrcltflt"'IIJSy (ed CS Maxweii),CBA RC!> Rep, 49,85-91, London

Hamcrow, li, 1987 A•\gJo·Saxol\ :,.ettlemenl pottery ,lnd ~p.lli.l l d('· velopment at M\•cking, Essex, Bt' riclllt'lt ROB, 37, 24~73

--, 1988 Mucking: the Anglo-S<lxon ~ettl~nwnt. Curr Arclllltt>l, 111, 12!1-31

lll'aley. E. and Catto n. J P J, 1983 Lithic:, and computC'rs, I itl1i~. 4, ~7

t-luggins, Jl j,l985 Saxon build ing m(','\SUr('m('nts, inC<Iflllllll('rnJIJ'Il­caltom ;, ardure'l?los.,y1983 ('-->d J C O l laigh), 10.1-10, London

johns, C, and Jont~. M U, I (/76 A Roman day st,ltuC'Ue o( Moll'S (rom Mucking, Essex, Aut•q 1. 56, 24~7. pi X Lilla

jones, M U, 1967 Mucking. Essex, [xttnvrti<m:: 1\mttt Rt'l' 1966,5, 10, 14, pi ll, HMSO

--, 1968..-. A thO\IS.1nd ye.lrs ofThurrock's P~"t.ITimmJCk tcl(ttl I fi:'-1 Sol'(Pmwrama,, 11,33-45

--, 19681> Mucking. £xromli<m:;Amm Re111%7, 8, 14, 19, pill, HMSO --, 1%9 Muckillg, 1\rdmrol rxrmwliott:o 1968, 9, 15, 21, cover,

IIMSO --, 19703 Some finds from the Mucking ('xcavation.s, I Tlmmrl

Ltxol Hi:U Soc Wauorama), 13, 3244 --. l970b Mucking. At'('lutrol rxcnmti<llr$ 1969,8, 16, 27, l-IM SO --, 1Cf7 1a Mucking, Arclurc'l?l t'XttWtttimt~ 1970,8, 17, 27, HMSO --. 1971b 11lC' Mudi•tg c ropmark sitC's: ,, progrt""SS note, I T/mmrl

Local Hi~t Soc (Pmwmma), 14, 33-7 --, !Cf72.-. Mucking. Arclutt'{)/ t'.\tttmtimt:' 1971,9, 18, 27, HMSO --. l(/72b The Mucking, Essex, cropm.1rk sites, £s."t'X J, 7(3), 65-7(> --, IC'fl"k Potters g raffiti from Mucking. E:-.sex, A11tiq /, 52, 335 --, J9nd Ma~ 1-lnd Mucking,/ Tlwrrock LJt'•ll Hi:>l $(1( Wmwrnmn),

15, 2()-9 --, 1973.1 An clnrient l,lndSCtlJX' palimpsest 3t Mucking, fN•r Ar­

clrnt•o/ 1 fist, 5, 6-12 --, 1973b Muck ing, C."::t'.l Ardu&.'OI Nt'1t':', 44, 15- 18 --. 197Jc Mucki•'S· Ar(llneul rxmlvtlt(»t$ 1972, 29, -13, 7-1. pi Ill,

HMSO

37

--, 1974,l E"c.w,ltions ,1t Mucking, E:t:tex: a :,('C()nd int...rirn report, A11tiq J, 54, 183-99

--, 1974b Mucking, Arrltn.'lll .~xanwlimr<: l9iJ, 23, 4J, 75. pi Ill, liMSO

--, 1 97~1 A day piece-mould of the .\.figr~lt ion l'eriod from Muck­ing. E.-.:.cx, Allliq J, 55,407-8

--, 1975b A poltt•r':, tnurnettenf the E.lrly Iron Age from M\•cking, E~::.l'", Autiq J, 55, 408-9

--, 1975c ?Woolcomb wamlen; from Mucking, £s..<>ex, Auliq J, 55, <II

--, 1975d .. .and diggers young. Curr Arclttrc•ol, S, 382 --. 1975c Tribute to th(' pig. E.ssrx Artltnt-.>1 Nt"'t':', 51,9-10 --, 1975f Mucking, Ardtnt'OI t'.l:rfll'l'lliOII!> 197-1, 21. 44, 85. cover,

HMSO --, 1975-g The Mucking <-xcavation~ 1974,/ Tlmrf(t(k IMaf I ti:ol ~'N"

~l'mroramn), 18, 32-41 --, 1975/(, Tht.•Muckingexcav.ltion~ 1975,/Timrrork l..ocnt Hi::.t 54:'N"

~Pauoromn), 19, 32 .. 9 --, 197(,.-. Mucking.. i\rrltnc'c?l t'Xrnmti.m:o: 1975, 36, 58, 90, HMSO --. 1976b c,,t lxmcs at Muckillg. Es..;.,.•x 1\r(lmt"ol Nt"l.t'io, 57,25 --, 19'i6c I low the dt.•ph.mb got to Mucki1\g, Essrx Af(/mrol Nt'1.t"5,

57,25 --, 1977,1 Met,lllurgic.ll finds from a multi-prriod ~ettlemt.•nt at

Muckin~. E~~cx, in A:O:JN'<I:> of rorly mt•tallurgy, con!C'I'('nce p t()(tl('d· ings reprinted 1981 as Brit MusOcc.ls Pub 17, 117-20

--. l(/77b Prehi~toric S.Jit t"'quip•ne-nt from <'I pit at Mucking. EsSt-x_. 1\ntit] /. 57, 317- 19

--, 1977<: ThC' Mucking ('\:c;,w,1tions 1976,} Tlmmx:k Local Hii-l Soc (PIIItt)rama,, 20, 34-43

--. 197S.l l~oughground, le<'hdale .lnd Mucking. Essex.. in Early lautf aflotmeul iu tltt' Brttish l:o=lt":' (eds H C Bowt.•n and P J Fowler), llAR, 48, 171-3,0.ford

--. 1978b M\tCking ('>.C~w,ltion, £$.."t'X 1\rt'lrllt'c?l Nt'tt":', 62, 15-16 --, 1978c OieSicdlung Mucking in Essex, in 5afll'5t'nlilld Augt>/snclt$('11

(C't1 C AhrC'ns), Helms·Muse·um Public,ltion, 32.413-22, Hamburg --, 19i8d The M\ICkii'S exc(wations 1977. I Tltumxk Local Hi$1 SCK

(PmwramnJ, 22, 48- 58 --. 1979,, Mucking. Essex: tllC' l'(',llity ~nC"ath thC' cropmarks. At·

rilll Arflmt'l)/, 4, 65-75 --, 1979b A cruciJI cropm.uk ,,t Mucking.. Essex, At•rial Ardmrol, 4,

84-7 --. 1979c S..lxon Mucking- ,1 post-<"xc,w~ltion note, in Arrgfo·Saxon

l'lmfil":oo mtrrt"llllt'Ytl<tsYmtd hiM(1ry, 1, BAR, 72, 21 -37, Oxford --. 1979d TC'"til(' imprC'Ssion on •' Rom,lnO'"British shC'rd from

Mucking. E~::.c", Autiq J, 59(2), 413 --. 19i'9e S.lM.lll s\lnken huts: problems o( inte rp ret.ltion. Ardrnrol

/, 136,53-9 --. 19i9f Tht> MtiCking. E!>sex.cropmark sites 197S,j Thumxk Ltxtrl

Hi$1 Soc ( l'mrornmaJ, 22, suppl --. 1979g Mucking post-exc.w.1tiol\ 1979, J l'lmrmck l...ornl Hh;.t $(1(

(Paumama), 23, 47-57 --. l980.l Muddng Jnd the ('.;uly S.;~xon rurJI settlement in Essex,

in 1\rc/lae~~c•sv iu f>>c·.r to AD 1500 (cd DG 6ucklcyl, CM Res Rep, 34,$2-6, London

--. 19$0b Of !>nail~ - and :.nd hou~.os - and hnt en~:, bun!), I TlmrfO(k Locnl Hist StJt' (Pmwromn), 24,48-51

--. 1982 jottings from Mucking po~H·xcavation. J TlmrnJt'k L(l(a/ Hi$1 $(1( (l'mwrnmn), 25,24-33

--. 1983 Early S.1s01\ S('ltltrn('nt fi1\dS, Mt·•1ic'lV11 t\rflrnt\1/, 27, 141-J --. 1985.1 Ct•rc~oll.,,lt Mucking./ Tlmrr«k L'N"al Hi::.t StJt' (Pmwmmn),

27, 13-19 --. 19S5b COin put('r gr~lphics ,,1\d ai'C'haeology, I 11mmJt'k Loc11l

Hf,.t Sc~e·(PmwrnmaJ, 27,20-1 Jnm-s, M U, ,,nd Bond, D. 1980 Late r Bronze Ag(' scttleOlC'nt at

Mucking, E..«sex, in S.·ttlc•mc•ut nwl :ooeit'ly iutlw Briti$/llnlt•r 8rouu Ast· (~.-xh J Barrett cmd R Br.ld lt:'y). BAR, 83, 471-82, Oxford

jones, M U, .md C.llton, J, 1971 CropmMks rt"'Cordt"'CI in 1970, J Timrm('k l..O(a/ Hi:ol S<l( (Pmmmmn), 14,38-12

jmws, M U, Evison, V I. and Myrc~. J N L.1968 C ropmark sites nt Mucking, E!>~X. Auliq J, 48,210-30

jont--s, M U, ,lltd jonC'S, W T, 197J Tile Mucking ('xc,w,ltions 1(/72, 1 11mrrock Local Hi:>l $(1( (l'mmranur), 16,32-3

--, .md --. 1974,, The Mucking e:\C."l\·atioi\S: the inte-rim p la n 1965-1973.1 Tlwrr(l(k LciCnf Hisl Soc (f1mwrnmn), 16, Jl-9

38 £XCA VATIONS AT MUCK INC: THE SITE ATLAS

--, .lnd --, 1974b t\n E.uly S.'txon 1.1nds<:.1pe .1t M\ICking, £ssex, in Angl(J..Sa:rmt st'ltlemmt and landscape (eel T Rc)w)cy). BAR, 6, 2o-35, Oxford

--,and--, 1975 The crop mark site$ at Mucking, Es:,ex, England, in Reuut arcltm'OI08icnl t'mwattQII~ m Europr {ed R 6nu:e-Mitford), 133-87, London

Jones. M U, and 1-luggin$, P J, 1975 Archaoology in El>!>ex 1973-4, Es..~.'C Arcllarol News. 50

Jones, M U, Myres, J N L., and Evison VI, 1969 Saxon pottery from a hut at Mucking.. &·richtm ROB, 19, 145-56

jones, M U, 31\d Rodwell, W j, 1973 Rom.tlno-British pottery kilns at Mucking. EsSfx Arclmt"'I Hist, 5, 13-47

jones, W T, 1979J A Rom.-.no·British stone roHin buri,ll at Muck ins, I nmrrock L«al Hist Soc (Panorama], 22, 26-30

--. 1979b The Mucking windmill,/ Timrrock Local Hist Soc Wmur rama), 23, 42-6

--, 1980 Early Saxon cemeteries in Essex, in Artlrtrt'Ciogy ;, Essrx to AD 1500 (ed DC Bucklcy),CBA Res Rep,34, 87-95, london

--, 1982 Window to eternity, I Tlmrrock f.iJ(nfl li:>.t $()( (PnmmmmJ. 25,75-6

jones. W T, and Rigold, 5 E, 19n A group of 'primary sct•nttns' frmn Mucking. Essex,Autiq }, 57,321-2

Keeley. H C, 1972 Muckiug, ESS4·:r- s.oils, unpubl Ancient tvlonumcnll> L1boratory rep. no 1670

Moffett,) C, 1984 Report on the current stat\ISOf Muckingexc.wation data,lnst Archaeol. 28 june, Lond<m

l(od\'~o•ell, W J, 1982 11le production (lnd distribution of pottery and tiles in the territory of the Trinovantt.'S, [s~·x ArtiiJtt'OI Hi:;t, 14, 15-76

Selkirk, A, 1915 Mucking: the $-:1xon cemete-ri~. C~trr Ardmool, 50, 73-80

St joseph. J K. 196-t Air rcconncliS<10C(>: recent re,ults, A11tiquity, 38, 217- 18, pi xxxvii b

Web:;ter, L (cd), 19n Mt'<licvdl Brit-ain in 1971, prc-<onqu~t. Mtriit'· l'tll Ardu~t"'O, 16, 153

-- (tod), 1973 Mediev.11 Britain in 1972, pl1.'+ctmqucst. Mtrlit'tnl Arc/m('(l/, 17, 142

-- (00), 1974 MOOiC'\•,11 Brit,1il\ in 1973, pre-conquest, Mt'tlit'tYll Arclwrol, 18, 175

-- (ed). 1977 MediC'\•al Britain in 1975. pr<"-ronquest. Mt'rlit'tYil Arclwrol, 21, 206-7

-- (ed), 1978 Medie'\'c11 Britain in 19n, pre-conquest, Ml"tlil'ftll

Arcllaeol, 22, 143 Wilson, 0 M (ed), 1967 Medieval Britain in 1966, pre-conquest, M~··

di~'l'l11 Arclraool, 11,264- 5 -- (ed). 1968 Medie'\•,ll Britain in 1967, pre-ronq\ll'St, Mt'rlh'tnl

Arclzaeol, 12.157 -- (00), 1969 MediC'\•,11 8rit.1in in 1968, pre-conquest, Mt'tlit'TYII

Arcltarol, 13,231-2 -- (t.>d), 1970 Medieval Britain in 1969, pre--conquest, Mt'l1it'tYil

Ardmrol, 14s 155-6 -- (00), 1971 Ml'(liC'\•,11 Brit.1in in 1970, pre--conquest, Mt'tlit't~l

Ardmrol, 1Ss 12-1-5 Wilson. 0 R (edt 1966 Roman Britain in 1965,/ Roman 5«, 56,210.

pi Xl.l --(cd), 1967 Roman Britain in 1966, I Rmnan Soc, 57. 190 --(edt 1968 Ro1nan Brit.lin i1\ 1967./IWmall Soc, 58, 197 --(cd). 1969 Roman Brit.1in in 1968,/ Roma11 Stud, 59, 224, pi XV --(edt t9n Roman Brit.lin in 1971, Brilmwia, 3, 334-5 -- (cd). 1973 Roman Britain in t9n, Britannia. 4. 305 -- (edt 1974 Roman Britain in 1973, Brilmmia, 5, 442 -- (00), 1975 Roman 6riMin in 1974, Brilnmrin, 6, 264-5

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desk·top systems, in ComJmler Of1JIIicntious ami qumJtitntkr mttltMs iuarchnt'YJIOj!.!l ((.'(!~ S Rahtz. ;-md J Richarcb), BAR, S548, 111 - 19

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llt>dges, J 0, and Buckley. D C, 1978 F...xca\'ation at a Nt..'(llithic c.1usewJycd enclosure, Orsett, Essex, 1975. l'r(l( Prdmt $(1(, 43, 219-308

Jones, M U. 1973 An Jncient l.mdsc.1pe p.1li•"psc-st at Mucking, [5..."t".'l: Arclmt'OI Hist, 5, 6-12

--, 1974 Exc,w.-ltions ,1t ~hacking. Essex: •• ):o('Cond inkrim r~port, Aul1q /,54, 183-99

--,1975/6 Tile Mucki•lgexc.lv.ltitml:o 1975, J Tlmrt(l('k LJt'tlll ti:ol S11a' lPmwrnmn), 19, 32-9

--, 1979 1\.hacking, Esse': the rc~,Jity bent~·"" th~crt>pm.u-k. ... Aaial Artlmt't,lt),l{_l{, 4, 65-75

--, 1980 Met,lllurgic~'l (iJ\d:, from ,1 multi·pcriod :o.cttlcm('nt ,\1 Mucking, Essex, in A"J'<'t'l:' of t'11rl,ll mt•tnllurglf (00 W A Oddy). BM Occ.-.:;. r .. p. 17, ~mdon

--. 1985 Comput('rgr.•phin..lnd clrCho-wulo)o;y.} TlmmJt'k l,t"t:tlt tfl:-1

39

Stl( !Pmwrmmf), 27, 20 .. 1 Jc.u\t'l>, M U, Evi~m. V t and Myres, j N 1..,196$ Croprn . .1rk sites tit

Mucking. E..••N'X, J\uttq /. 48, 21Q-30 Jon.,.--:;., ~·1 U, ,1nd Jo•\c:,., \V T. 197-1 llu~ Mucking e"c.-.wations: the

int~rim plan 1965-1973,/ TllllfffiC:k Local Hi:i-1 $(1(, 17,31- 9 --•• 1nd -, 1975 Thl'cropmarksites,H Mucking. Essex. England,

in R~Yt'lll fm'htlt't)lt),\!tfnl t'XCIJi.l(ltioll:> ill Eurollt" (cd R Brucc·Mitford), 133-87, London

Jonl'!,, W T, 1'179 A Romano·Oritish stone roffin buri,\1 at ,\1ucking./ 11mrrtX'k l,tl(n/ Hi~l 5(1( (PmmrnmnJ, 22, 2~30

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King, W6K .• 1nd Oakley, K 1', 1936 The 1 1lcistocenesum~ion in the low~r fh1rb of tht.• Tham~ Valley, Pmc Prt-llist $<1(, 2, 52- 76

McDonnell. G, forthrom i•lS Tilt' Mufkiug 5lngs. Ancient Monuments L1bor.1tory r~p

~1anlcv, J, and lle.1lev, E, 1982 Exc.n\Hions al Hc1tdre Rhuddlan: the Mt:.;olith1c finds, Artltrlt't'l Cnmlwu.;i~. 131, 18-48

.V1offctt, J C. 1983 Th(' gt~n('1',1lion of archaoologic.lll'x<'.wation com· puter dati\b."l~~.Hul/ tn~t Arcltnt'QI, 19, 127-46

--. 1989 Computer perception~ in archaeology 1: the Deep ·rh(lUght Syndrome, Arcllflt't)/ C<mwuting News.l, 20, 11- 16

Ordn.1nce Survey, 1966 Map t)[ Britniu in Ilk' DtiTk A,~e~ Potll.'f', T Vl, 197-1 An Iron Age site .11 R,,inbow Wood, ThurTOCk,

b~t'\, [:>:::.·x Ardl(/t'VI Hi:-1, 6, 1- 12 RCIIM(E). 1%0 A IINJtll'r of lime, HMSO, londun Riley, 0 i", 1987 Air piN.,I<'Xrdl111ytrml nrdwt'nltJS.I/, London Roe, 0 A, 1968 A gnuUn•r of Britl4t Lcnn·rnmf Midfllt• Pnfnt'(}/ithir ;;ilt'!>,

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Sun't'.lfCB, 3 edn, L :mdon Shutton, F \\', 1%2 The phy .. k.11 background o( (kit,lin in the Pleis·

tocene, A•ft' S<i, 19, 193-206 Spurrell, F C J, 1889 On thE." ~t\lary of the 'l'hJmt""S and ib alluvium~

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Index

by Cherry Lavell

Abbreviations have been used for Neolithic (Neo), Bronze Age (BA), late Bronze Age (L8A), Romano-British (RB). and Anglo­Sa.xon(A$) entries. i!igures t-3aresignalled by the page numbers OJ\ which they OCCtJr, hcnC't' 2 (Fig) tncans the figure on page 2. Likewise 33 (Tab) means the table on page 33. The throw--out figures (Figs 4-7) h(we their figure numbers added, as (Fig 4). ~a­lure numbers and site atlas plan numbers are given in bold, as: wells, no 4; site atlas plans, 8. Note that there may be scvc-rJI entries on a single page. espcciillly for s ite atlas plan numbers. Subheadings are in chronological order (Neo to AS) where that is more appropriate than alphabetical order, with i'11\y non-chronologic.-.1 subhe<&d s placed first . Plt'.tSC see the contcnls list for contributors to this volumC'.

ABC enclosures (later Iron Age) 6,19 (Fig ·0, 20

acknowledgements 5, 9 aerial photography t, 2 (fig), 6, 7, 10, 23-5

(Fig n. 30; and S« cropmarks AERIAL program, for plans (rom oblique

photographs 23 Aerofilms of Crays 10 agriculture. in fourth c-entury 21

over 00 Enc site 20 post A1\glo-Saxon phase 22

aisled barn, med? 22 alluvial day 4 Ancient Monuments L1boratory9.12, 13 Anglo-Saxon settlement. (ifth~arly eighth

century21 abandonment 22 irOnworking C'videJ\CC 3J shifting nature 21 nnd S« cemC'teries

animal burials, undated 22 archivt 1, 2, 14, 15

computerisation 12-13 ordering 14-15

arrowheads, Bkr b-t 18

O.cklog Working Party (OAMI-IB) 13-14 O.gshot lleds 26 Baker Street (Orsett), LBA and later s ite 3

(Figi,S 'O.njo' settlement 19 (Fig 4), 20 barro .... •s 12

BA. nos4 and 58 or ring d itches 18 (Fig 4), 24 Iron Age square-ditched 20

13 and 6/C horizon:) 6, 7 Blackheath Beds 27 Blue House f,um 8 BM/EH Management CommitteeS. 11, 14 BM/EH project (Britis h Museurn/Englis h

Heritage 1986-9) 2;nud ~'f MI'X bone, animal I. 19

human 1, 19 poor survival4

boulder day 28 lloyn Hill Terrace 2, 19,26,28-30,31 brickearth4,8, 16, 20,24 British Museum I, 6, 9, 13, 14; ami &Y

BM/EH Management Committet" Bronze Age 18 bronzes, SA 19,34 burials. prehistoric (786) 7, 18

Bkr, with vessel and arrows 18

EOA? 18 Iron Age, con<'t'ntrations 19- 20 RB. with Romano·S.1xon veSSt'l20 RO stone coffin 8 n"d s« cemeteries

Buried Ch.:lllnel 26. 28

Cambridge University Committee for Aerial Photography 10, 23

card index of features 12 catalogue, of archive 14; of finds 12 cemeteries, cropmarks 24

Iron Age 19,20 RBI (mixed) 6, 21 R61120 ROIV 8, 21 RB, continuing use 21 RB l,lte il\humation·, in AUC complex 21 ASI (inhumatiOr\·) 1, 7 (fig 4). 9, 21 ASII (mixed) 7, 16, 21,22 AS, imporMnce 13 n11d St't" burials

ch>lk31 Chalk b<'<ls 27, 2S ch;ucool1,9 chert 31 clay art('f,lcts,lBA 19 Clayg.>lc lleds 26 roins,A$21 romputeris..'ltion 2.. 12- 13

'0-..'Cp Thought Syndrome' 13 error r,ltes 13 hindrance to public<ltion? 13 rctrievall2, 13

computers, types used 12-13 con~rvation 9, 12 cont('xt information l..J.-15 contir,uity, RB to AS. no socio-economic

evidence 21 corndriers (CO) 12 croprnnrks. 1960s interest in 6

on adjacent farm l.lrld 28,30 compared with excavated features 24

(Fig 7) dh.cu~::.ion 23-5 not seen on brickeMth 8 plan .>t t :2500 23 (Fig n poor res pons(' in site centre 23 re~ognition d ifficuhi~ 8 in relation to Linford Quarry site 7 nrtd sr.• aerial photography

CI'OSS·re(erencing. pl.lns/notcbooks 14, 15 crudbles 19,34 Cunliffe report 13, 14

database 13. 15 digital plotter 12 Oirector.1teof Ancient rv1onum~nb.1nd Jib·

toric Ouilding::. (DAMHB) 13; n"d "'"f English Heritage; Ministry ...

distribution plots 12 ditch, from North Enclosure 19 dolerite, utili~"CC 31 dossiers, of no tebook entries 12 Dutch S.lnd .. ~xc.wation h...'Chnitlut>s II

earthworks, L6A, North Ril'g 4 economy.LBA pastoml? 19 enclosures, and their cropmarks 24

Double Oilchcd (00) 20 (Fig 4) RO farmstead 20 RBI •nd RBII 7 (Fig 4) 1~6 to "Otlth, little known :z:o-1

40

English fteritdgc (formerly lAM DoE; DAMHB; etd 5, 9; Olld "'' BM/EH: Di­rectorate ... ; Ministry •..

'Enigma• viii (Fig 4) environment, former condition:, 4 erratics, not seen in quarry 30 Essex County Counci19 excavation, area detennined by crupn1.1rks 8

carnp9 control area 7 coordinates II c:osts 13 dynamics ::.hown on atl.1s 16 as educational experience for labour

force 10 features correlated with cropmarks 24 grid 7 methods and plans 11 progress recorded (rom air 23 l'l'('()rdingproblems 15 str.1tegy 7 h.>chnique:, II tri,ll6 n"d St't' archive; funding

farmstead (RI)) 20 feature lills8 feature plans 11 feah1re types, abbreviations 12 fi('ld boundJrics (on tithe map) 16,22 field :,ystem:,, MBA overridden 18

neglect in later fou rth C'\!ntury 21 remodelled in later 1~6 21 post-Rontar\ 1\ew layout 22 Saxo·Nonnan? 22

finds. one-third put in context 14 F'landrian Tr-,lnsgrt"SSion 2S flint .a, 28,31 flint ronglomer.lt<', utilised 31 flints. in p('riglacial featurt'S8 Flood Plain Terr\lCC 26 fluviatile gravels 28-9 {orderati, illCOnclu:,ive cvid('nCC 21 Frere report12, 13, 1.1 funding. irnplicationsof changes. problems,

e tc 14

g<'<>logy 2, 4 (Fig) dt.'SC'rtbed 26-31 eifect on exc.w,ltion 7-9 excavation conditions 4 s tr,ltigr.lphy ,ll\d "lniCture 26- 7 (Tttb)

Glaci,ll Gr.wels 26, 2S gl,1SS I gold, on ingot mould 34 gr.mary 20 gravel, fluviatile 28-9

glacia126, 28 gr.wel quarrying, operation describt"d 6 gr,1ves 12;nud S<"l." burials; cemeteries C r,lys libr.uy/museum9 grecns.1nd, utilised 31 grit (Millstone etc), utilised 31 ground level/posthole buildings (CLB/

Pli8) vii, viii, 12, 16 Cnil~t'llhiiu~·r CCI-I) vii, viii, I, 12

corn pared with croprnarks 24 with crucible fragments 34 of early- middl(' Saxon :,ettlcment 21 with mould for sq·headt,>d brooch 3-1 ll042 33 no 43, t:.-'Cige missing (rom site atl.1s vii no 44, missing (rom site atlas vii

no81-2 7 no 86 22 no 9833 no 105 7 no 10633 no 11411 nos 167, 112 22 referencing of fills IS

Gun Hill Tilbury, Iron Age to Anglo-Saxon site )(Fig), 5

gunmet.ll, in Saxon CTuciblc 34

hearth/furnace linings 32.. 33 Hertfordshirc conglomcrJtc ('pudding

stone'), utilised 31 Hoford L1ne, gravels 28, 29 Holoc:enealluvium 26 Hoveringham Gf',wcls ltd 7, 9, 28

i<c wedge casts 24;nml !'!Yperigl(lclal fe..1t\1res image enhancement 9 industrial acti\ ities, RB 20 lnformix relation.11 datath1se 13 ingot, LBA copp<r 34 ingot mould, Iron Age 34 Iron Age19-20 ironworking, slags evidence 31-3

kiln firing 9 kilns viii, 7, 12.. 21 knapping floor? 7

l(lndsc.lpe, geologic~1J evolution 27-8 LBA changes 18·19 parcelling in RB era 20 (F'ig 4) scrub when Saxons came? 21

landscape arch(leology 6; Mucking's im· portancein 1,17

Late Bronze Age 18-19 lava31 limcstonc31 linford Quarry 3 (Fig), 5, 6, 7 lit hies. Neo/Bkr 18; OA t9 location of Mucking sites, described 2- 5 (Figs) london Clay 26 lower Chalky Boulder Clay 26 lo\•o'er Eocene 26 Lower Tertiary b«<s 27, 28 LuftwJffe photogr.lph 23

Manpower Services Commission 10, 14 mechanic{tl equipment 6$ 7 m('Chanical excavi\tiOJ\, and quarrying 6-7;

topsoil losses 11 medieval and later period 22 Mesolithic period 18 metalwork I, 21 metJiworking. non· f('rrous 34 metJlworking debrls,LBA 19 Middl(' S.1x0n period 22 Ministry o( Public Building and Works 6;

llttd Set' Directorate ... ; English I leritage 'modern' features 16 mould fragments 19,34 MPX (Mucking post·excavation 1973-85) 1,

12-14; termination 13-14; and sa BM/EH project

Mucking. location 3 (Fig) Mucking a~as. sou them t>nd 2 (Fig) Mucking Creek 19 multicut/multifillcontext numtx-rsviii,l5,16 m\llti-period palimpsest, of M\ICking 1 multivallate e<~rthwork, Iron Age, over

South Ri11gs 19 (Fig 4)

Neolithic features and finds 18 Netherlands State Service 9 North Enclosure (Iron Age)8, 19,24 North Ring 3 (fig), 4, 7, 19.34 Notrs for excat~tors II

INDEX

Note$ f(lr sitr nssisttmts I I

Orsctt, c.lusewaycd enclosure 3 (Fig), 5 'Cock' Iron Age ('ndol:ourc 3 (Fig), 5 ('arly Iron Age assemblage 5 ami St'l• B.1ker Street; Rt.>Ctory Road

Orsctt quarry 6, 23-30

P.,l,:~eocene scdi1nents 26 l'.llaeolithic period 18, 26.30 p.1laeomagnetk dating 9 l'.lssmore Edwards Museum 9 patt('rned ground S...9, 24-5,30 peat beds 28 Pebble Gravels 26 pedology, excJvatioJ\ conditions 4 pe1\annular gullies (PC) vii, viii, 12, 19,24 periglac;ial (eatures8, 9, 16,24-5,28,29,30-1 period summ.uy 18-22 phtlSing 2 phosphate nodult.-s 31 phosphate survey 9 pits, red loam filled 29, 30, 31; Noo 18 planning. of exct\vation 7 (fig>. I I; of p(•ri·

glaci<tl features 8 plans, computer indexes 13; crOSS*refer·

cncing 14 l'latcau Gr.lvels 27 PlcbtO<"ene dcpc.lSit~ 24-5. 26, 29, 30 pollen, poor ~urvival 4

pollen analr.;is 9 polygons, tUJ\dra·typc etc 28, 30 pond-like feJturc 21 pu::.t·excavation, phases 1; process 12-17;

mtdSt·~BM/EH project;MPX posthole b\1ildings (CLB/PHB) vii. viii. 12,

16,22 not well revc,:~led by cropmarks 24 rarity 7 LBA 4/6-post 19 LOA round 19 4/6/9-post (Mid lA round housescttlc·

mcnt) 19 AS (cJrJy .. middlc) 21

pottery, in periglacial features 8 total quantity retrievl.>d I Ukr 18 Noo, dclibt'r;_ltf.' deposit IS Ne-o Hvtildenhall, Mortlakc. Grooved

Ware) 18 Deverei-Rimbury 18 LBA 19 RB later fourth-<::entury 21

pottery d.H.l, AS 13 pottery kilns, RB 21 publication, funding 14 publication ('J,.evt>I IV') 13

quart.t.itc,utili::..cd31 qucms 19,31

r<~d ioc.ubon dates 9, 35-6 ~Afphotogr.lph 23 Rainbow Wood, Iron Age site 3 (Fig). 5 RCHME, Air Photogr,lphy Unit 7, 10, 23; on

c;oropmark l:otudies 6 recording.. inadt.><tuacy of un-~ite 15 recovery, percentage I I Rectory Ro.1d (C>rsett). Iron Age site 3 (Fig), 5 researchers, use of art'hive 12, 17 r('):oil:otivity l>Urveys 9 rock types StY stone Romano-British enclosun:s, 1~61 ,:~nd RBII 7

(Fig 4) Roman period 20-1 round house settlement, mid lr01\ Age 19 nlund hou:,el>/ p(•nannular gullif.'t' (RH I PG)

vii, viii, 12, 19, 24

S.llt p roduction/distribution? 18

41

sand, current bedded 28;a11d sn.•Thanet sand sandstone 28,31 Silrsens 28, 29,31 scheduling o! Mucking. proposed 1; not

done6 seeds idcntific-Jtion 9 sept...uian nodules 31 settlem('nt, Iron Age, nearSE site margin 19 settlement areas, RU and AS suggcstt?d 8 settlements, Anglo-$.;1xon, importance 13 silver. on ingot mould 34 site atlas vii-viii, 7, 14, 1~16

description/numbers/etc 15-17 errata vii-viii symbols 16

site atlas plans 1-7 7 1 vii, viii 2 vii, viii, 6, 19,21 3 vii, 18, 19 4 16 5 vii, 6, 19, 20.2 1 6 vii., 19, 20, 21 7 vii, viii, 18, 19,21 8 vii, 16, 26, 21,22 9 19 10 vii, viii, 19, 20,21 11 vii,20,21,22 12 vii, 7, 18, 19, 21,22 13 vii, viii, 7. 19, 20,22 14 vii. viii, 11,20 15-17 22 16 vii,8, 19 17 vii, viii, 7, 18, 19 18 vii, 18 19 vii 21 vii, viii, 7 22 vii, viii 23 viii, 7, 18, 19 24 viii 25vii

site 1\0tebooks, archived 1. 2 computer indexes 13 dossiers 12

site pl:an production 5, 17 (Fig 6) sit(' plans. archived 1

provisional7 onph.1Sl"d 1

slags and metallurgic-JI residues31-3(Tabs) Dense Iron Silicate 31, Jt 33 not well dated 33 single lumps 33 sp.ltial analysis 32-3 (fabs)

slate 31 slec~r beam structures 20 smeWng slags 31, 32. 33 smithing, Iron Age and RB 33 smithing sl\ISS 32,33 Socie-ty of Alltiquaries 9 soil analysis 9 l:oOilmarks 11. 16, 23 soils 7

Band B/C horizons 6, 7 cropmark recognition 8 St Albans series 4, 2.a samples l nnd S.."t' t\lluvial day; brickearth; gravel;

ThJnet sand solifluction g ravels 24-5, 29, 30; aud srt' tr.lil

deposits Southcnd Air Photography 10 South Rings 4, 6, 8, 18-19(Fig 41,23

bronze casting e\•idence 34 d itches 7, 1~19 interior buildings 19 rcfcr('ndng 15 sacred/Sl"'Cul...'lr funct ion 19

speci.llist reports 12, 14 Springfield Typet>nclosure 18- 19 stone I

42 EXCAVATIONS AT MUCKING: TI-lE SITE ATLAS

stone types, ~utefac:ts and unutilised 31 str,ltcgic locJtion, North Ring 19; South

Ring~ 18 subsoils, grJvciS; nnd $1.'1." brkkt'<lr'th; 11l.lllt"l

sand Surridge Dbposab. Ltd 9 ~ymbols. explained 16

Tap low Terr.;ace 26, 30.31 terminology. ill.-defined for computeri<>.a·

tiOI\ 12,15 Tertiary Blackheath Beds 5 Thames, crossing points 2, 18 Thames estuary 2

Thanct sand 8, 27, 28 Thurr(l(k Oi.strkt/Borough Cuundl9, 14 Thurroc:k Museum 6. 9, 12 tithe m,1p 8, 16 (Pig 5), 22 tr<ldc,o(South l<ings 18 tr,lil dcposits 26, 30. 31; nwl ~·~· .:;olifluction

gr,wcls t n."i.. ... hollow? 8 trial excav.1tion 6

Up(l<'r Chalk 26, 27

vbitor:. 12 voluntct'r:. I, 10, I I

V.t'.11ton H,111 fMm 22 \V<tlton H,\11 Ro..1d 8 w,1shing p lant of quarry 28, 29 w.Jtcr, asl>h,ting exc,\v,ltim\8 weathl>r, influ('n«'onc-ropmark I\.X:ognition8 h 'C11<>, F nn air photog r.lph 24

no 4 20 no620 1~6 8, 12

whetstones 31 windmi1122 Woolwich !X'Cb 27, 31

KEY TO SITE ATLAS PLANS

LIMIT OF EXCAVATION - WALL

- ·-·-·-·-·-· QUARRY EDGE

EXCAVATED EDGE OF SMALL OR MODERN 0 FEATURE OF UNCERTAIN LOCATION FEATURE OR SIZE

STRING LINE

LINE OF PROJECTION !•' .· /''": .::>) FLOOR

------ SOILMARK

-··-··-··-··-··- ··-·· HEDGE [:: . :. ] REVETMENT

.. ... .... . .. ... .. . PERIGLACIAL FEATURE

111111111111111111111 ANIMAL DISTURBANCE

@ GRAVE (no in italics)

'''CI>'' ' CV' ' 'CD '' BRICKEARTH

~-~-~-~-~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - UNCERTAIN SOILMARK

T T T T T EXCAVATED EDGE • CREMATION (no in italics)

GH GRUBENHAUS

TTTTT EXCAVATED FEATURE, WITH UNCERTAIN PG TOP EDGE PEN ANNULAR GULLY

PHB POSTHOLE BUILDING

! ! ! l l FEATURE TRUNCATED BY EDGE OF EXCAVATED BOX me MULTICUT

mf MULTIFILL

t t T t T BOITOM OF RE-CUT DITCH

SHOWING IN SECTION I I I CD CORN DRIER

TT T TT RH ROUND HOUSE

...L ...L ...L ...L _j_ SIDE OF CONVEYOR BELT

QTH QUARRY TEST HOLE

~ CONVEYOR BELT STAND F FILL OF SOILMARK

For reasons explained on p 17 there is a slight variation of scale in the atlas. The ruler is based on the average scale of the atlas as a whole. Deviations of +0.8% and -1.4% occur overall.

CXl 0

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MUCKING, ESSEX 1965-1978 (INTERIM)

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Published by English Heritage, The Engine House, Fire Fly Avenue, Swindon SN2 2EH www.english-heritage.org. uk English Heritage is the Government's lead body for the historic environment.

©English Heritage 1993

Images (except as otherwise shown)© English Heritage or© Crown copyright. NMR

E-book (PDF) published 2012

E-book (PDF) ISBN 978 184802 172 3 Version 1.0

First published 1993 in paperback ISBN 1 85074 276 6

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Edited by Valerie Horsier Designed by Tracey Croft Scanning and production of e-book (PDF) by H L Studios www.hlstudios.eu.com

Front cover A collage of views of the Mucking excavations.