In 2006 Swale and Thames Archaeological Survey Company carried out an evaluation in advance of a new helicopter facility, access route, car parking and services. 22 evaluation trenches were excavated. A number of pits containing Middle Bronze Age pottery were found. (1)

Following the discoveries made during the evaluation trenching, the site was further investigated In 2007 when the Swale and Thames Archaeological Survey Company carried out an strip and map excavation of the site. A complex of enclosures and droveways was found. The earliest dated feature was a pit containing Early Bronze Age pottery, this was the only feature dated to this period. The majority of the evidence at this site is dated to the Middle Bronze Age when a network of enclosures was laid out across the site. This middle bronze age activity can be split into three main phases. The first, dated to c.1500-1300BC consists of a NNE‐SSW aligned droveway with at least three accompanying paddocks and corals to the immediate southwest. The second phase of Middle Bronze Age activity dates to c. 1300-100 BC and was by far the most intensive phase of occupation recorded on site. Settlement patterns focus around a small potentially double‐ditched enclosure adjacent to the northern extent of the site, disappearing beneath the baulk edge. Aligned NNE‐SSW this feature turns through 90° and heads WNW‐ESE to form the southern tip of a potential domestic enclosure. All linear features associated with this phase conform to this pattern providing a text book example of a Middle Bronze Age corralled farmstead. Further droveways and improvements were made at this time, including the digging of probable waterholes in the corners of the enclosures. These pits were lined with clay and probably for the animals' drinking water. An isolated post hole was located outside of the enclosure and possibly served as a marker pole. Placed deposits were found dating to this period of use in the terminus of one of the ditches. The final phase of Middle Bronze Age activity was dated to c.1100 - 1000 BC and is evidenced by an enclosure in the northwest of the site.

The site presents good evidence for early management of the landscape along with internal occupation activity for the Middle Bronze Age. It is suggested that the primary focus of the site would have been associated with land divisions and demarcation (placed deposits?), comprising the management and control of domesticated livestock within a co‐axial system of land division. Mudd (1984), when discussing a site in West Kent, suggests that this ‘land division and demarcation’ may be based around the connections between highland and lowland areas within the landscape forming a system involving ‘transhumant pastoralism’. If this is indeed the situation during the Middle Bronze Age at The Loop, it is plausible to suggest that the development site is situated within the heart of this evolving landscape, between the higher grounds to the south and the lower towards the north. It is also essential of course to place this within a landscape reflecting social and economic pressures that would have required intensive land management and boundary definition. In fact, the absence of an occupation site (or sites) is in stark contrast to the frequency of domestic pottery retrieved, indicating that evidence for ‘living areas’ has either been destroyed (ploughing?) or is located beyond the proposed development area. The presence of two possible enclosure ditches would suggest that domestic occupation may have occurred (and may still survive) within areas to the immediate north of the site, while the presence of barrows around Manston Airfield suggest that the areas for the dead, or ancestors, would have been to the south on the higher (more visible) areas of the landscape. Issues of social identity and complexity would have been visible within the contemporary landscape, domestic structures, agrarian field management, funerary and possibly even monumental semblances are all indicative of the Middle Bronze Age as some of the first complex field systems are seen in Britain, indicating a growing pressure on the land as the numbers of people and animals increased. (2)

<1> Swale and Thames Archaeological Survey Company, 2006, The results of an archaeological evaluation in connection with proposals for the construction of an engine overhaul facility on land at the south east area of the Loop, near Manston in Thanet, Kent (Unpublished document). SKE18295.

<2> Swale and Thames Archaeological Survey Company, 2008, An Archaeological Post-Excavation Assessment Report: The Loop, Manston, Thanet, Kent (Unpublished document). SKE24023.