The Iron Age and Middle Saxon sites are described and discussed in detail. Both sites consisted mainly of ditched enclosures with sparser numbers of pits and other features. They yielded significant artefactual assemblages and palaeo-environmental and economic material, including some waterlogged and mineralised plant remains for the Middle Saxon period. Comparisons between the periods show a greater emphasis on sheep rearing in the Middle Saxon period than in the Iron Age, and a more varied diet for the inhabitants, including fish and hedgerow fruits. Both periods of occupation are in many respects typical of broader trends. The Iron Age enclosures formed part of an extensive permanent occupation of the Isle of Ely from 400-300 BC, with reorganisation in the 1st century AD. The beginning of Middle Saxon settlement around AD 700 and its contraction around AD 850 can be attributed to the wider fortunes of the monastic centre on the island.

Archaeological excavation of about 11ha of land at Towers Fen, Thorney, Peterborough (England), investigated part of an extensive pattern of ditched enclosures and fields associated with several waterholes and two ponds. One large pit, which may have been a waterhole, yielded Early Bronze Age pottery and is radiocarbon dated to the terminal 3rd millennium BC. Two other dates from the ponds came out at around 1500-1300 BC. The other features were probably also Middle to Late Bronze Age although the limited quantity of pottery was not datable precisely. Waterlogged material recovered from the deeper features included most of an unusual wooden tub or bucket, as well as other pieces of worked wood. The palaeo-environmental evidence from pollen, plant macro-fossils, insects and charred plant remains indicated that the land supported a mosaic of woodland, scrub, arable fields, meadow and short grazed grassland. A wide variety of trees was present, particularly wet-loving species such as willow and alder, and there was abundant evidence for coppicing. Nearby excavations at Pode Hole, and the wider picture provided by plotted cropmarks, indicate that the site formed part of an extensive prehistoric landscape. It is suggested that the Bronze Age agricultural landscape developed piecemeal and was based upon a mixed arable and pastoral economy. This contrasts with Fengate and other landscapes of this period where large-scale land divisions have been related to intensive livestock management. The sparse evidence for contemporaneous settlement is typical of many sites of this period.

This excavation report details work carried out as a result of the A34/M4 Junction improvement. The finds were somewhat fragmentary but showed activity in the Mid to Late Bronze Age, then a gap followed by renewed activity in the Late Iron Age and Roman periods, with only a scattering of later, Saxon, finds. Finds included worked and burnt flint, pottery and some Roman metal finds such as coins and spoons.