A Bronze Age ring ditch was encountered following agreed extensions of the SMS1 area during excavations at Lanthorne Court in Broadstairs.. The southern part of the ditch was well-preserved as buried top and subsoils survived here. Within this part the ditch measured between 1.08-1.25m deep. Twoards the southern end of the features the ditch was directly under modern made ground (the top and subsoils had been completely removed here) and showed clear signs of truncation. The excavated sections here measured 0.96m and 0.68m deep respectively. Elsewhere, the ring ditch had been completely or almost completely truncated away where the modern made ground was much deeper. At one intervention it measured only 0.45m deep and it was not possible to excavate a full profile of the ditch here due to modern truncation. The fills mostly consisted of fine to medium silts, as well as some occasional sandy clay fills. They looked to be a mixture of slumping and silting events, and only a small amount of pottery was recovered. Although a few sherds recovered from some of the upper fills were possibly of Middle/ Late Bronze Age date, the majority of the potsherds were found to be much later, conforming to Early/ Middle Iron Age types. Some of the flintwork recovered was thought to be contemporary with the ditch, other pieces pre-dated it and were residual. Environmental samples taken from the ring ditch fills did not yield any particularly useful information. No primary burials were extant within the area encompassed by the ring ditch, these were believed to have been truncated away.It is unclear as to whether the ring ditch originally comprised a barrow, due to the level of truncation encountered. Some of the worked flint recovered from the ring ditch was thought to be roughly contemporary with the feature, though other examples were clearly earlier. No primary burials survived, however an un-urned cremation pit was found cut into the top fill of the ring ditch. The fill of this pit, in addition to cremated human bone, yielded four dog or wolf teeth that had been perforated, potentially originally part of a dress accessory. Prehistoric worked flint was collected, but no clearly datable finds were recovered from the cremation pit and it currently remains unphased. A second pit cut into the top fill of the ring ditch, contained very small quantities of highly fragmented burnt bone which were unfortunately unidentifiable. It may be postulated that this feature was also a cremation pit, possibly of similar date as the other cremation pit. (information summarised from source) (1)

<1> Archaeology South - East, 2023, Archaeological Excavations at Lanthorne Road, Broadstairs, Kent A post-excavation assessment and updated project design (Unpublished document). SKE57117.