Late Iron Age/early Roman Pottery Kilns at Blackhorse Lane, Swavesey, 1998-99

Excavations revealed evidence for pottery manufacture consisting of one or possibly two kilns, as well as kiln debris and pottery. Contemporary features included a probable cremation burial, ditches and the remnants of a possible roundhouse. These features are considered to suggest the presence of a craft/ industrial area on the western edge of the fen island. The pottery is argued to be of particular importance since most of it occurred in stratified settlement-related contexts, and makes a significant addition to the growing corpus of later Iron Age and transitional material from Cambridgeshire. The assemblage includes numerous relatively complicated forms, with a high proportion of well-executed handmade items. The typology of the pottery assemblage displays both traditional and changing elements, considered to reflect wider developments in society at this time.