Perhaps the most important result in improving our understanding of the development of the Landscape in the Bronze Age was the discovery of an extensive coaxial field system on the south facing slopes of Cottington Hill, Sevenscore and Cliffsend spur. Ditches belonging to field boundaries were found in Zones 6, 7, 8, 10, 11 and 26. Most of the field boundaries on Cottington Hillwere aligned east-west and north-south. In Zone 8 a field boundary cut an earlier Bronze Age ring ditch indicating that the funerary monuments were both respected and used as reference points when the field system was laid out. Although the dating from the field boundaries is generally slight, there is sufficient pottery to demonstrate that most of them are Middle Bronze Age and this is confirmed by a number of stratigraphic relationships, though it is possible that some elements have an early-middle bronze age date.

In Zone 6 an ENE-WSW aligned ditch represented a major boundary that was certainly present in the later Bronze Age, though its date of inception is unclear. The ditch seems to have demared an area of Bronze Age Activity to the north (southern end of Zone 7).

Alongside the ditches there were a number of droveways. These droveways controlled the movement of livestock, sometimes this was by creating routes through the field system, presumably to protect crops from being trampled, but in two cases the droveways were connected to a series of small compounds that probably served as animal pens. A Hollow way was discovered within Zone 6, parallel with and 40m to the north of the e-W aligned boundary ditch also discovered within this Zone.

A Field system in Zones 7-8 was represented by east west ditches which extended up the slope for 200m. The northernmost of these boundaries may have been double ditched and functioned as a droveway. Part of the southernmost boundary of the system was also double ditched and represents a rectilinear droveway that turned south towards a series of compounds. It seems likely that these were for herding and managing livestock.

Further to the north in Zone 10 a short length of Bronze Age ditch aligned east west seems likely to have been part of a field systems, as may the isolated lengths of ditch in Zone 11.

An unusual D shaped enclosure was found in Zone 14 represented by a pair of parallel gullies, no other features are associated with these ditches, indicating therefore that the area was not used for settlement and may therefore from part of the field system . unfortunately the feature cannot be closely dated but its relationship with the Early Iron age features in the area suggest a middle to late Bronze Age date.

In Zone 26 a ditch enclosure was cut by Iron Age features and this, alongside the presence of pits containing Middle Bronze Age pottery, suggests a middle to late Bronze Age dates and likely form part of the field system discovered across the site. A group of ditches to the south east may also have been part of the field system. Lastly in Zones 4-5 a large (c.3m wide) flat bottomed SW-NE aligned ditch cut across the Late Bronze Age features. The ditch, which was much larger than any of the other BA field boundaries discovered across the excavation, it was re cut on the same alignment suggesting that it represented a substantial boundary of Late Bronze Age or Early Iron Age date. (information summarised from source) (1)

<1> Oxford Wessex Archaeology Joint Venture, 2011, East Kent Access (Phase II), Thanet, Kent: Post-Excavation Assessment Volume 1 (Unpublished document). SKE29279.