Excavation of the Iron Age Ring Monument ' War Ditches' at the East Pit, Lime Kiln Road, Cherry Hinton, Cambridge

This document forms the analytical report for the site archive generated by fieldwork undertaken by Oxford Archaeology East at the War Ditches Iron Age Ringwork, Cherry Hinton, Cambridgeshire (TL 4845 5555; Fig. 1). The excavations took place between the 20th April and 17th June 2009.
War Ditches was a large, probably circular enclosure, lying on a spur of the Gog Magog hills to the south of Cambridge. Much of the monument was destroyed as a result of quarrying for chalk. Had the monument survived, it would undoubtedly have acquired scheduled status as one of the key prehistoric monuments in the county. The emergency archaeological work supported by English Heritage was undertaken in advance of groundworks to open the site to the public as a nature reserve by the Wildlife Trust.
The archaeological work entailed the excavation of a single trench across the ditch through the part of the surviving monument threatened by the groundworks. A small number of test pits and auger surveys were also carried out. The excavations recovered a large and well stratified finds assemblage which, alongside radiocarbon dating, has enabled the sequence to be accurately dated. The monument was constructed at the end of the 5th century cal BC or the beginning of the 4th century cal BC, and was destroyed shortly after construction. It was then abandoned and only re-occupied in the middle of the 1st century cal BC. The final infilling of the upper part of the ditch took place around the end of the 1st century cal AD.