Four years into our excavations at Sizewell C, near Leiston on the Suffolk Coast, Oxford Cotswold Archaeology (OCA) has so far examined some 140ha (350 acres) across 75 separate areas. This fieldwork builds on seven years of initial evaluations, and while several substantial investigations remain to be tackled, all of the sites explored so far are now undergoing post-excavation assessment, a phase that is due to be completed in the next three years. The scale of this long-running project is mirrored by the extent and diversity of the archaeology that has been uncovered to-date, some of which I will outline here.
Our principal excavations lie within a 12 square kilometre block located between the villages of Sizewell, Leiston, and Theberton, as well as the Minsmere Nature Reserve, while further links extend along the routes of the Sizewell Link Road and the Two Village Bypass, and at new Park and Ride sites at Darsham and Wickham Market. While these latter schemes are necessarily linear or discrete, what sets this project apart is that the main programme stretches across a single, uninterrupted expanse of land. For the first time in this region, we can examine archaeology on a landscape scale, understanding how this area was used from the Early Neolithic to the present day. Across a broad sweep of varied geology and topography, patterns of occupation start to emerge – and, with them, the possibility of addressing archaeology’s fundamental questions: questions that are echoed by the subtitle of this article.
The landscape’s geological diversity is as important as its geographical scope. Were the project flipped to the west, it would sit entirely on the Lowestoft Formation Diamicton – the boulder clay of Suffolk’s central ‘uplands’ – and its archaeology would look very different. In particular, it would be lacking in early prehistory: the people of the Middle Iron Age were the first to leave a major archaeological footprint up there. As it happens, though, we occupy the eastern fringes of that clay, encompassing the underlying glacial sands and gravels and, further east still, the Pliocene Crag sands; peats and alluvial soils also infill the deeper valleys towards the sea. Within the outline of our investigations, the land falls c.20m to sea level, and the resulting variation in subsoil and contour creates distinct archaeological niches. Put simply, only certain people do certain things in certain places, due mainly to underlying soil conditions and the availability of water.
