Preston Tunnel Long Section Pipeline, Preston, Lancashire: Watching Brief

Following proposals by United Utilities for the construction of a new main sewer from the western side of Preston Dock (NGR SD 52679 29470) to the Clifton Marsh Wastewater Treatment Works (NGR SD 45801 28150), the Planning Archaeologist at Lancashire County Archaeological Service (LCAS) recommended that rapid archaeological desk-based research and an archaeological watching brief should be undertaken for those sections of the sewer route that had not been subject to previous ground disturbance.
During the watching brief, which was undertaken between March and September 2010, several features and finds of archaeological interest were encountered. The earliest of these was an unstratified aurochs scapula, which is the shoulder blade of a type of cattle that is thought to have been extinct in Britain since at least as early as the fourth century AD, and possibly as early as the Bronze Age. The bone exhibited cut marks consistent with butchery.