Duncan Hale

For over a century, excavations on Trypillia sites in Ukraine and Moldova, as well as on Cucuteni sites in Romania, have revealed few obvious signs of architectural differentiation among the huge numbers of domestic houses. Now, for the first time, a new generation of geophysical prospection methods used to investigate mega-sites has revealed uncommonly large Trypillia structures which merit the name 'mega-structures'. The first three such mega-structures were identified in geophysical prospection in 2009 at the mega-site of Nebelivka, Kirovograd Domain, Ukraine. This article provides a preliminary report on the excavation of the largest mega-structure in the summer 2012 season. This building, covering an area of 600m², must rank as one of the largest structures ever built in prehistoric Europe.

Three other enclosures near traprain law were selected for more limited exploration during the tlep, both to provide some comparative data for the principal excavations and to validate specific anomalies revealed by the geophysical surveys. the three sites were East Bearford, 2.5km west-southwest of Traprain Law; Foster Law, 8km to its west-northwest , and East Linton, 1.5km due north (figure 1.3). all three evaluations proved useful, yielding absolute dates and other evidence to complement the main suite of excavations, by establishing the order of the two superimposed enclosures at Foster Law, and by demonstrating the complexity of boundary maintenance both there and at East Linton.

The Early Iron Age enclosures and associated sites on Sutton Common on the western edge of the Humberhead
Levels contain an exceptional variety of archaeological data of importance not only to the region but for the
study of later prehistory in the British Isles. Few other later prehistoric British sites outside the East Anglian
fens and the Somerset Levels have thus far produced the quantity and quality of organically preserved
archaeological materials that have been found, despite the small scale of the investigations to date. The
excavations have provided an opportunity to integrate a variety of environmental analyses, of wood, pollen,
beetles, waterlogged and carbonised plant remains, and of soil micromorphology, to address archaeological
questions about the character, use, and environment of this Early Iron Age marsh fort. The site is comprised
of a timber palisaded enclosure and a succeeding multivallate enclosure linked to a smaller enclosure by a
timber alignment across a palaeochannel, with associated finds ranging in date from the Middle Bronze Age to
the Roman and medieval periods. Among the four adjacent archaeological sites is an Early Mesolithic
occupation site, also with organic preservation, and there is a Late Neolithic site beneath the large enclosure.
Desiccation throughout the common is leading to the damage and loss of wooden and organic remains. It is
hoped that the publication of these results, of investigations between 1987 and 1993, will lead to a fuller
investigation taking place.

For over a century, excavations on Trypillia sites in Ukraine and Moldova, as well as on Cucuteni sites in Romania, have revealed few obvious signs of architectural differentiation among the huge numbers of domestic houses. Now, for the first time, a new generation of geophysical prospection methods used to investigate mega-sites has revealed uncommonly large Trypillia structures which merit the name ‘mega-structures’. The first three such mega-structures were identified in geophysical prospection in 2009 at the mega-site of Nebelivka, Kirovograd Domain, Ukraine. This article provides a preliminary report on the excavation of the largest mega-structure in the summer 2012 season. This building, covering an area of 600m², must rank as one of the largest structures ever built in prehistoric Europe.