During this year (1999) the company underwent another name change to Aggregate Industries (more new hats!). Gravel extraction was gathering pace and two large fields (H and G) were stripped.
Field H initially looked featureless in the bleak landscape of stripped sandy subsoil, but as always, on investigation, some fantastic finds were located. A large pit over 3 metres in diameter, 0.75m deep and full of burnt flint proved to be of late Mesolithic date.
Further features of Early and Middle Bronze Age date were excavated - a notable find was a fragile, pierced bone pendant, which had survived because it had been charred.
The most exciting find from this field was a late Roman cremation assemblage, which was found in the silted up fill of a field ditch. Cremated bone, perfectly preserved, had been carefully placed in a large black burnished ware cooking jar and covered with a 'dog-dish' bowl. The pottery dated the cremation to the late 3rd - early 4th century. Work by Jackie McKinley of Wessex Archaeology, determined that the bone was that of an adult woman approximately 30 - 40 years old, between 4'10" - 5' 2" tall and of slim build. Inhumation was the usual rite in Dorset; cremation at this late date is unusual and rare and hints at 'alien' burial practices.
Middle Bronze Age features predominated on field R. Much time was taken up excavating two 'hut' structures, which consisted of rings of postholes. Large amounts of pottery were found including substantial remains of six large bucket urns. Two broken, 'Deveril Rimbury vessels had been tightly packed into a small pit, and strangely one of the pots had been turned inside out. A single urned cremation was located, the amount of bone within the plain pot suggested that more than one individual had been interred.
A further 160 charcoal-filled pits were excavated from the two fields and ceramic finds indicated use from the Middle bronze Age to the end of the Roman period. Ditches were excavated and followed, these were likely to have been field boundaries and dated from the Bronze Age to early modern times. In general, the ditches were aligned north-south or east-west which is the pattern of present field hedges on the site.
Those involved: