Further Excavations At Langtoft. Lincolnshire www - Archaeology ...

situ; the stakes were embedded into the natural gravel and the split timber plank
remaining upright. Timber that has been re-used as revetment pieces in the watering
holes is not an uncommon event. Previous excavations at Bradley Fen have
uncovered both pit/wells and watering holes with timber revetments, including part of
a dug out boat (Gibson & Knight 2006).
F.1304 was a large pit (3.10m x 3.45m wide and 1.10m deep) that had similarities
with both the pit/wells and a watering hole. It contained layers of silting with
fragments of wood towards the base; on could possibly have been a degraded log
ladder, although the northeastern side had a slight convex step.
Middle Iron Age
The majority of the small number of Middle Iron Age features found during this phase
of excavation were located to the west and south of the 1994 saltern site (Figure 7). A
small part of the 1994 area was re-cleaned by machine for the purpose of surveying
any surviving features to accurately plan the layout of the site with the associated
features uncovered in the current area, the published plans not permitting this to be
accurately done.
The 1994 excavation was preceded by an evaluation phase consisting of aerial
photography, geophysical survey, field walking and trench evaluation (Heritage
Lincolnshire 1992b). Based on the results from this, and on the presumption that
destruction of this field by extraction was far more imminent that it actually proved to
be, an area roughly 0.4 ha was fully excavated in 1994. This work revealed features
and material culture evidencing a salt production site. As well as the salt related
briquetage there was also a small domestic assemblage indicating occupation. The
pottery was dated to the Middle Iron Age, between 4-5 1 and 1 st century BC (Knight in
Lane 2001: 261-262). In the description below the 1994 features are prefixed by 'HL'
to distinguish them from the current findings.
Within the 1994 area were two structures in the form of segmented gullys and
associated postholes (HL019 - sub square, HL009 - sub-circular) with a potential
further structure to the west (HL208). There were no hearth remains, probably due to
truncation by modern ploughing (although a possible hearth was suggested within
structure HL009 from a magnetometer survey). To the north of the structures there
were features interpreted as settling tanks and pits with linears features that possibly
represented natural gullies and small streams. Feature HL076 was interpreted as an
area dug into the stream to allow the water to 'pool' and collect before being added to
the adjacent elongated pit. The majority of the briquetage artefacts were recovered
from the vicinity of the structures indicating that the processing of the salt-water took
place in that locale (Lane 2001).
The 1994 briquetage assemblage consisted of three classes of artefacts; containers,
supports and miscellaneous debris. The containers were sub-rectangular gutter shaped
troughs which were abraded on the interior with salt stains on the exterior; salt
crystals would have been scraped off the inner wall. The troughs had a flat ended
convex profile. The manufacturing techniques of the troughs consisted of a
cylindrical vessel was made and when leather hard it was split down the centre to
form two troughs. The supports were horned pyramidal pedestals and sub-square base
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