East Farm Pit, Barnham - a timeline
1700s: The earliest indications of clay digging at East Farm, the pit becomes the main source of bricks for the Euston Estate.
1880s: The pit is shown (as a “Gravel Pit”) on 1st edition Ordnance Survey (OS) map, with the brickworks located on the eastern edge of Barnham village (NGR TL 876792), by what is now Salmond Drive.
1891: The pit is mentioned in the Old Series Geological Survey Memoir for Ely, Mildenhall and Thetford.
1900s: The enlarged pit is shown as a “Clay pit” on the OS map. Bricks made from clay extracted from East Farm pit are used to rebuild Euston Hall after it was damaged by fire in 1902.
1913: First published report of Palaeolithic artefacts from Barnham by Clarke in the Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society of East Anglia, also including a description of the deposits in the brick pit.
1930s: Last clay extraction takes place at East Farm pit.
1933-36: TT Paterson conducts excavations at East Farm Barnham as part of his study of the geology and archaeology of the Breckland. Findings published in the Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society of East Anglia in 1937.
1979: John Wymer cuts a section in the pit, locating the cobble surface and finding a refitting group of 13 flakes and a core.
1989: A reconnaissance visit to East Farm in February to explore the potential for further research is followed by a week’s fieldwork which established areas for larger scale excavation.
1990-94: Five seasons of fieldwork take place at East Farm, Barnham, directed by Nick Ashton (British Museum). By the end of the excavations, three archaeological areas had been excavated, Area I, Area IV(4) and Area V and an Area III had been excavated to recover faunal material. Papers were published in the Journal of the Geological Society and Antiquity.
1998: Publication of results of the 1989-94 excavations as a British Museum Occasional Paper; Excavations at the Lower Palaeolithic Site at East Farm, Barnham: 1989-94.
2000: The Quaternary Research Association visits East Farm as part of its Annual Field Meeting. TimeTeam broadcasts an episode featuring the nearby site at Elveden and also including Barnham.
2013: Excavations recommence at East Farm, again led by Nick Ashton. A group of eight students from Leiden University join the research team to establish a new archaeological area (Area VI) in the southeast corner of the pit and the faunal area (Area III) is relocated and enlarged.
2014-18: Five seasons of fieldwork undertaken at East Farm, with students from Leiden as well as several UK universities. Major excavations in areas III and VI have yielded 100s of lithic artefacts, numerous fauna remains and new geological information.
2016: First results from new excavations published in Journal of Quaternary Science.
2019: Another three-week field season gets underway.
1880s: The pit is shown (as a “Gravel Pit”) on 1st edition Ordnance Survey (OS) map, with the brickworks located on the eastern edge of Barnham village (NGR TL 876792), by what is now Salmond Drive.
1891: The pit is mentioned in the Old Series Geological Survey Memoir for Ely, Mildenhall and Thetford.
1900s: The enlarged pit is shown as a “Clay pit” on the OS map. Bricks made from clay extracted from East Farm pit are used to rebuild Euston Hall after it was damaged by fire in 1902.
1913: First published report of Palaeolithic artefacts from Barnham by Clarke in the Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society of East Anglia, also including a description of the deposits in the brick pit.
1930s: Last clay extraction takes place at East Farm pit.
1933-36: TT Paterson conducts excavations at East Farm Barnham as part of his study of the geology and archaeology of the Breckland. Findings published in the Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society of East Anglia in 1937.
1979: John Wymer cuts a section in the pit, locating the cobble surface and finding a refitting group of 13 flakes and a core.
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| Image: Jordan Mansfield/Barnham Palaeolithic Project |
1990-94: Five seasons of fieldwork take place at East Farm, Barnham, directed by Nick Ashton (British Museum). By the end of the excavations, three archaeological areas had been excavated, Area I, Area IV(4) and Area V and an Area III had been excavated to recover faunal material. Papers were published in the Journal of the Geological Society and Antiquity.
1998: Publication of results of the 1989-94 excavations as a British Museum Occasional Paper; Excavations at the Lower Palaeolithic Site at East Farm, Barnham: 1989-94.
2000: The Quaternary Research Association visits East Farm as part of its Annual Field Meeting. TimeTeam broadcasts an episode featuring the nearby site at Elveden and also including Barnham.
2013: Excavations recommence at East Farm, again led by Nick Ashton. A group of eight students from Leiden University join the research team to establish a new archaeological area (Area VI) in the southeast corner of the pit and the faunal area (Area III) is relocated and enlarged.
2014-18: Five seasons of fieldwork undertaken at East Farm, with students from Leiden as well as several UK universities. Major excavations in areas III and VI have yielded 100s of lithic artefacts, numerous fauna remains and new geological information.
2016: First results from new excavations published in Journal of Quaternary Science.
2019: Another three-week field season gets underway.
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