This was a pre-Roman (Late Iron Age) settlement in north Essex, likely active in the 1st century BC through to the Roman conquest of AD 43 and probably continuing into the early Roman period as a rural settlement. Such sites in this part of Essex typically take the form of unenclosed or lightly enclosed farmsteads with roundhouses, associated paddocks, and field systems, rather than oppida-scale centres like nearby Camulodunum (Colchester).
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
The site lies within the hinterland of Camulodunum, the principal centre of the Trinovantes and later a Roman colonia, and would have formed part of the agricultural landscape supplying that major centre. Settlements of this type are significant for understanding the dense pattern of native rural occupation that persisted with little disruption across the conquest period in eastern Essex.
Without a more specific site identification (the Pleiades record gives no description), little can be said with confidence about excavated remains here; comparable north Essex sites have yielded ditched enclosures, post-built roundhouses, Late Iron Age "Belgic" grog-tempered pottery, loomweights, and occasional cremation burials. Aerial photography and developer-led
This was a pre-Roman (Late Iron Age) settlement in north Essex, likely active in the 1st century BC through to the Roman conquest of AD 43 and probably continuing into the early Roman period as a rural settlement. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a settlement site from the Roman period in Britain.
Site of pre-Roman settlement is classified as a Roman settlement — a civilian site in the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer. Roman Britain's archaeology encompasses thousands of sites ranging from legionary fortresses and marching camps to villas, temples and towns.
Several Roman sites lie within a short distance, including Remains of an apsidal Roman building at Butt Road and Southway (0.9 km), Col. Camulodunum (1.1 km), Ad Ansam (1.2 km). Aubrey Research maps over 2,200 Roman sites across Britain, drawn from the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer.
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