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Figure 16: Age-depth relationships showing colluvial accumulation rates in both cave and pit infills; the combined data equate to a mean rate accumulation rate of 0.2cm per year (20 cms per century) within the last 2000 years driven hypothesis of hazelwood dieback accompanied by dustbowl conditions is preferred for this ‘8200 Year Event’ horizon. Another lengthy period of 4000 years followed in which a continuity of occupation was played out on the brickearth land surface. This is recorded in a broad flint assemblage exhibiting a diversity of tool types, workmanship and age, spanning the Later Mesolithic to Late Bronze Age. Small in number, these flint clusters point to no more than a local activity focus with flintwork sourced from a number of important settlement sites in the immediate surroundings. Iron Age flintwork and pottery are surprisingly rare. A measure of local, but probably not wholesale, deforestation is implied since the old brickearth soil continued to survive.

Figure 16 Age-depth relationships showing colluvial accumulation rates in both cave and pit infills; the combined data equate to a mean rate accumulation rate of 0.2cm per year (20 cms per century) within the last 2000 years driven hypothesis of hazelwood dieback accompanied by dustbowl conditions is preferred for this ‘8200 Year Event’ horizon. Another lengthy period of 4000 years followed in which a continuity of occupation was played out on the brickearth land surface. This is recorded in a broad flint assemblage exhibiting a diversity of tool types, workmanship and age, spanning the Later Mesolithic to Late Bronze Age. Small in number, these flint clusters point to no more than a local activity focus with flintwork sourced from a number of important settlement sites in the immediate surroundings. Iron Age flintwork and pottery are surprisingly rare. A measure of local, but probably not wholesale, deforestation is implied since the old brickearth soil continued to survive.

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Figure 1: Location of the study area within the Thanet area The archive has been deposited at the Trust for Thanet Archaeology, The Antoinette Centre, Quex Park, Birchington, Kent CT7 OBH.
Figure 1: Location of the study area within the Thanet area The archive has been deposited at the Trust for Thanet Archaeology, The Antoinette Centre, Quex Park, Birchington, Kent CT7 OBH.
Figure 2: Distribution of sites and monuments in South Thanet, west of Ramsgate, based on the Trust for Thanet Archaeology Sites and Monuments Register (TSMR) and Kent HER (Historic Environment Record) databases.
Figure 2: Distribution of sites and monuments in South Thanet, west of Ramsgate, based on the Trust for Thanet Archaeology Sites and Monuments Register (TSMR) and Kent HER (Historic Environment Record) databases.
Figure 3: Full view of the cave (left) and pit (right) in summer 2004. The section runs for 26 m from east to west and extends 5 m vertically from 41 m to 46 m AOD The Spratling Court Farm cave feature is, unusually, boot-shaped with a clear vertical shaft entrance, a horizontal gallery, adit or passage, and a rounded chamber at the ‘toe’ end (Figure 4). Well over half of the feature was lost to the road contractors in 1996, but sufficient survived to make a reasonable estimate of the cave’s original shape and size. The shaft neck (Figure 4, columns 7-8) is 1.5 m wide and 3.0 m deep, cut in solid flint-free Upper Chalk, taking the cave floor (E7) to 4 m below present ground level. No footholds are visible. The passage, with one surviving concave side, exceeds 1 m in height and runs left (west to east) for 4 m (E6 to E3), before entering a slightly enlarged concave chamber up to 2 m high (Figure 4, columns 2-3). The inclination of the floor and inward-dipping soil layers at E7 point to a second passage possibly branching off to the south; this may denote an underground network rather than a single adit. Between these two passages a spur lies to the east of the shaft (behind E7); smooth and well worn, it suggests continued use over a prolonged period. The west side (E8) is only poorly preserved, having suffered greater weathering and internal collapse. No wall inscriptions have been located, but tool markings on the passage back wall (at E5) do indicate the use of a short-headed iron pick with a right- handed action (Rod LeGear, pers. com.).
Figure 3: Full view of the cave (left) and pit (right) in summer 2004. The section runs for 26 m from east to west and extends 5 m vertically from 41 m to 46 m AOD The Spratling Court Farm cave feature is, unusually, boot-shaped with a clear vertical shaft entrance, a horizontal gallery, adit or passage, and a rounded chamber at the ‘toe’ end (Figure 4). Well over half of the feature was lost to the road contractors in 1996, but sufficient survived to make a reasonable estimate of the cave’s original shape and size. The shaft neck (Figure 4, columns 7-8) is 1.5 m wide and 3.0 m deep, cut in solid flint-free Upper Chalk, taking the cave floor (E7) to 4 m below present ground level. No footholds are visible. The passage, with one surviving concave side, exceeds 1 m in height and runs left (west to east) for 4 m (E6 to E3), before entering a slightly enlarged concave chamber up to 2 m high (Figure 4, columns 2-3). The inclination of the floor and inward-dipping soil layers at E7 point to a second passage possibly branching off to the south; this may denote an underground network rather than a single adit. Between these two passages a spur lies to the east of the shaft (behind E7); smooth and well worn, it suggests continued use over a prolonged period. The west side (E8) is only poorly preserved, having suffered greater weathering and internal collapse. No wall inscriptions have been located, but tool markings on the passage back wall (at E5) do indicate the use of a short-headed iron pick with a right- handed action (Rod LeGear, pers. com.).
Figure 4: Long section, cross sections and plan of surviving cave rock walls. Dotted lines show where the modern quarry face truncates the feature and dashed lines indicate conjectured rock surfaces.
Figure 4: Long section, cross sections and plan of surviving cave rock walls. Dotted lines show where the modern quarry face truncates the feature and dashed lines indicate conjectured rock surfaces.
Figure 5: Infill stratigraphy preserved within the Roman cave at Spratling Court Farm The shaft infill predates that of the chamber. Steeply-inclined chalk breccias at the base (Figure 5, E7-D7) represent the initial infilling of the vacant cave after abandonment; these partly originated from internal wall collapse, but they probably also came from chalk rubble dislodged from former spoil tips which once surrounded the cave entrance. There is no evidence for agricultural or domestic waste (as seen, for example, in deliberate backfilling strategies in Neolithic flint mines, Russell, 2000); a process of natural infilling is implied. The chalk breccias are particularly clean and sterile; no metal or pottery finds were made. [hey overlie a number of large animal remains, disarticulated and scattered on the cave floor — a pelvis, femur and scapula of cow, and a horse jawbone. Unlike those in chamber unit 6, there are no signs of butchery, but one bone does show teeth puncture marks indicative of scavenger activity. A radiocarbon date was obtained from the cow femur: 179 cal. AD (95% probability range 30-336 cal. AD) (Beta-201974). This yields a minimum age for cave abandonment; original cutting of the cave must logically precede this.
Figure 5: Infill stratigraphy preserved within the Roman cave at Spratling Court Farm The shaft infill predates that of the chamber. Steeply-inclined chalk breccias at the base (Figure 5, E7-D7) represent the initial infilling of the vacant cave after abandonment; these partly originated from internal wall collapse, but they probably also came from chalk rubble dislodged from former spoil tips which once surrounded the cave entrance. There is no evidence for agricultural or domestic waste (as seen, for example, in deliberate backfilling strategies in Neolithic flint mines, Russell, 2000); a process of natural infilling is implied. The chalk breccias are particularly clean and sterile; no metal or pottery finds were made. [hey overlie a number of large animal remains, disarticulated and scattered on the cave floor — a pelvis, femur and scapula of cow, and a horse jawbone. Unlike those in chamber unit 6, there are no signs of butchery, but one bone does show teeth puncture marks indicative of scavenger activity. A radiocarbon date was obtained from the cow femur: 179 cal. AD (95% probability range 30-336 cal. AD) (Beta-201974). This yields a minimum age for cave abandonment; original cutting of the cave must logically precede this.
Figure 8: Proposed cut-and-fill sequence for the cave at Spratling Court Farm. Figure 8 proposes a cut-and-fill sequence summarising the stratigraphic evidence discussed so far. Key to this reconstruction is the position of the residual brickearth that demonstrates that the former land surface (Stage 1), from which it originated, was a late survival in the erosional history of the area. Chalk spoil from the cave excavation is believed to have been dumped nearby (Stage 2) and thus briefly protected the old land surface. Only after spoil had fallen back into the shaft (Stages 3 and 4) was the brickearth re-exposed and, unsupported, then collapsed into the shaft on top of the basal breccias (Stage 5). Later, wider forest clearance in the Late Roman and post-Roman period removed the last vestiges of this old land surface from the Thanet ridge, completing the sequence (Stage 6).
Figure 8: Proposed cut-and-fill sequence for the cave at Spratling Court Farm. Figure 8 proposes a cut-and-fill sequence summarising the stratigraphic evidence discussed so far. Key to this reconstruction is the position of the residual brickearth that demonstrates that the former land surface (Stage 1), from which it originated, was a late survival in the erosional history of the area. Chalk spoil from the cave excavation is believed to have been dumped nearby (Stage 2) and thus briefly protected the old land surface. Only after spoil had fallen back into the shaft (Stages 3 and 4) was the brickearth re-exposed and, unsupported, then collapsed into the shaft on top of the basal breccias (Stage 5). Later, wider forest clearance in the Late Roman and post-Roman period removed the last vestiges of this old land surface from the Thanet ridge, completing the sequence (Stage 6).
Figure 9: Outline profile and plan of the main Iron Age pit.
Figure 9: Outline profile and plan of the main Iron Age pit.
Figure 10: Infill stratigraphy of the two Iron Age chalk pits at Spratling Court Farm by the thickening upper units. This arrangement suggests that colluvium gradually infilled the abandoned pit by progressive soil creep and hillwash encroaching across the pit floor from both directions in a stepwise en échelon manner.
Figure 10: Infill stratigraphy of the two Iron Age chalk pits at Spratling Court Farm by the thickening upper units. This arrangement suggests that colluvium gradually infilled the abandoned pit by progressive soil creep and hillwash encroaching across the pit floor from both directions in a stepwise en échelon manner.
Only a single spheroidal hammerstone coincides or overlaps chronologically with the Iron Age. Paucity of lron Age flintwork may have been the result of f int use reduction, ora decrease in farming intensity, or possibly a shift in population distribution within Thanet itself. However, nearby evidence of significant Late lron Age se tlement comes from Canterbury Road West (Perkins, 1985), and Hearne et a/. (1995) paint a picture of a flourishing community on Thanet between 150 BC and 50 AD, with dense Late Iron Age and Belgic occupation along the coastal strip. Lack of Iron Age Court Farm is surprising, and all the more since the pit is so firm the Mid-Late Iron Age. inds therefore at Spratling y radiocarbon-dated to
Only a single spheroidal hammerstone coincides or overlaps chronologically with the Iron Age. Paucity of lron Age flintwork may have been the result of f int use reduction, ora decrease in farming intensity, or possibly a shift in population distribution within Thanet itself. However, nearby evidence of significant Late lron Age se tlement comes from Canterbury Road West (Perkins, 1985), and Hearne et a/. (1995) paint a picture of a flourishing community on Thanet between 150 BC and 50 AD, with dense Late Iron Age and Belgic occupation along the coastal strip. Lack of Iron Age Court Farm is surprising, and all the more since the pit is so firm the Mid-Late Iron Age. inds therefore at Spratling y radiocarbon-dated to
Figure 15: Synthesis of eight age determinations in the combined cave and pit profile. Note that all dates are standardized to calender years BC/AD. unit v, OSL-dated to the Last Glacial period (~20 ka and ~12 ka BP). At the pit's eastern wall, residual brickearth unit i sits directly on the pit floor and is OSL-dated to ~12 ka and ~é ka BP; immediately above this, unit g is radiocarbon-dated to 25 AD. One metre higher, unit c contains Helix aspersa and is further OSL-dated to AD 220 (Mid-Roman). At the pit's western wall, residual brickearth unit 8 is tightly time-constrained between radiocarbon dates below (124 BC) and above (2 BC), confirming Late lron Age emplacement. Only three pottery sherds within unit 8 have Iron Age affinities. Helix aspersa recurs in unit 2 loam, one metre higher. Thus the combined analysis of stratigraphy, palaeoecology and archaeology, constrained by four radiocarbon ages on vertebrate remains and four OSL ages on brickearth, reconstructs a palaeo-record spanning the Last Glacial Maximum (20 ka BP) to post-Saxon times (post-AD 710).
Figure 15: Synthesis of eight age determinations in the combined cave and pit profile. Note that all dates are standardized to calender years BC/AD. unit v, OSL-dated to the Last Glacial period (~20 ka and ~12 ka BP). At the pit's eastern wall, residual brickearth unit i sits directly on the pit floor and is OSL-dated to ~12 ka and ~é ka BP; immediately above this, unit g is radiocarbon-dated to 25 AD. One metre higher, unit c contains Helix aspersa and is further OSL-dated to AD 220 (Mid-Roman). At the pit's western wall, residual brickearth unit 8 is tightly time-constrained between radiocarbon dates below (124 BC) and above (2 BC), confirming Late lron Age emplacement. Only three pottery sherds within unit 8 have Iron Age affinities. Helix aspersa recurs in unit 2 loam, one metre higher. Thus the combined analysis of stratigraphy, palaeoecology and archaeology, constrained by four radiocarbon ages on vertebrate remains and four OSL ages on brickearth, reconstructs a palaeo-record spanning the Last Glacial Maximum (20 ka BP) to post-Saxon times (post-AD 710).
Table 2: Summary of palaeoenvironmental reconstruction from the combined pit and cave colluvial fills.
Table 2: Summary of palaeoenvironmental reconstruction from the combined pit and cave colluvial fills.
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