Herod's Farm, Foxton SAM 16: An Iron Age and Roman cropmark site.

An archaeological investigation was carried out by the Archaeological Field Unit of Cambridgeshire County Council at Herod's Farm, Foxton, during September 1993. This work was funded by English Heritage, as one of a series of evaluation excavations on the Cambridgeshire County Farms estate, following the recommendations made in the County Farms Survey (Malim 1990), to determine methods of beneficial management for the surviving archaeology. The site at Foxton is a Scheduled Ancient Monument (SAM 216), recognised as a series of complex cropmarks, thought to contain archaeological remains dating to the Iron Age and Roman periods. The site was investigated using a combination of techniques; geophysical survey, aerial photographs, and selective machine trenching. The results of the work have revealed that extensive archaeological deposits survive, to a much greater degree than previously suspected. Geophysical survey confirmed that the cropmark data accurately reflects the limits of archaeology. Within two trenches (B1 and B2), complex archaeology revealed large quantities of Iron Age pottery, burnt daub, burnt and butchered animal bone. The evidence points to a substantial rural settlement probably concentrating on animal husbandry. The site seems to have been occupied from the Late Iron Age (2nd - 1st century BC) through to the Roman Conquest (AD 50) and beyond, although during this time the focus of the settlement appears to have shifted towards the north-west. large quantities of artefacts, particularly Roman, were recovered in the plough soil, suggesting that the survival of later occupation on the site has been compromised by ploughing.