York Historic Environment Record

Watching brief during re-development of land formerly occupied by a bungalow. The site was located within the grounds a known Roman cemetery and between two Roman roads. The watching brief revealed Roman features consisting of inhumations, pits and a large ditch feature sealed below post-Roman to later post-medieval plough-soil. A total of three graves and a possible further two graves were recorded from which pottery recovered suggests a date range of between mid-2nd to 4th centuries. In addition to the inhumations an enigmatic animal burial interred within what seemed to be a large grave cut of a Roman date was encountered. Finds from the graves included Roman pottery sherds, a fragment of spindle whorl and a coin provisionally identified as an ‘Antoninianus’ dated to between AD 250 and 270. The pit features were interpreted as either associated with quarrying or domestic use. The most prominent feature revealed during the watching brief was a large butt-ending ditch almost 4m in width and in excess of 2.78m in depth. This ditch appeared to post-date the inhumations and probably had a defensive purpose maybe associated with Roman defensive annexe located to the south-east of the site.