EXCAVATIONS IN 1999 ON LAND ADJACENT TO WAYSIDE FARM, DEVIZES 



149 



These are shown on Figure 2 as Trenches 1 9 and 

 21 to 24. The principal aim of these trenches was 

 to attempt to determine the extent, nature and 

 function of the Romano-British buried soil horizons 

 identified during the evaluation and to establish 

 whether they sealed evidence for structural or cut 

 archaeological features. 



EXCAVATION OF AREA 2 

 MIDDEN 



An extensive midden deposit (overall nos. 4255, 

 4293) was present, extending over a large part of 

 Area 2. The surface area of this deposit (c.l 150m 2 ) 

 was initially cleaned by hand to define its extent 

 and then sub-divided into 2m squares 

 corresponding with divisions of the existing site grid. 

 All squares (including those not excavated) were 

 allocated individual context numbers, and were 

 hand-excavated alternately. 



EXCAVATION RESULTS 

 AREA 1 



A plan of all features for this area is given as Figure 

 3. The overlying layer sequence in this area is shown 

 on Figure 4a and comprised topsoil (context 3000) 

 of between 0.25-0. 40m thickness, generally 

 overlying a 0.15m thick layer of mixed clayey sand 

 subsoil (3031). The natural subsoil (3015) consisted 

 of greensand and clay with outcrops of greensand 

 bedrock. Within this area of the site two broad 

 phases are identified: 



PHASE 1: LATE IRON AGE TO 

 EARLY ROMANO-BRITISH 



Linear features 



Two parallel ditches 7m apart (F3034 and F3099 

 on Figure 3), likely to be the flanking drainage 



N 



A 



Archaeological 

 features obscured by 

 midden deposit 



Fig. 2 : Plan of all features 



