EDO4809 - Dorchester Middle School, Coburg Road, Dorchester; Trench 3

Between May 1998 and May 1999, AC archaeology carried out an excavation and a series of watching briefs during works on Dorchester Middle School (1). Five areas (Trenches 1-5) were investigated. No post-excavation work has been done on this site, which remains unpublished. The brief description below is based on information contained within the excavation archive (2). Trench 3 was an area excavation in the school playing fields proposed for new hard surface sports pitch. The area was disturbed by a number of World War II slit trenches, but a number of significant archaeological features were exposed. In the northern part of the site, the majority of a hengiform monument comprising an oval ring of fifteen pits about 11m by 15m across with a series of larger pits around the perimeter was found. A large number of stakeholes were found across the area of this monument, mainly around the perimeter, in and around the pits. The inner ring of pits were oval in shape with flat bases, 0.6m deep. The outer ring of large oval pits had steep sides and flat bases, 0.5m deep. Some knapping debris was recovered from these pits. To the southwest was an isolated oval early Neolithic pit containing half of an Early Neolithic pot and a large quantity of flint debitage and some animal bone. To the southeast, was an oval pit containing a tightly crouched inhumation burial of a male aged 25-35 years, with head to the north and facing east. No dating evidence was recovered. An L-shaped Roman boundary ditch crossed the excavation trench. This was aligned roughly E-W/N-S and was a V-shaped ditch with a flattened base, measuring 1.5m wide and 0.4m deep, filled with brown silty soil.