Test pit excavation within currently occupied rural settlements: results of the HEFA CORS project in 2009

This paper reports on the fifth year of the University of Cambridge Higher Education Field Academy (HEFA) project run by Access Cambridge Archaeology (ACA) which combines education and university outreach (particularly within the secondary school sector) with the archaeological investigation of currently occupied rural settlements (CORS) by the excavation of 1-metre square test pits in open spaces within existing rural villages and hamlets. The programme was directed by Carenza Lewis, with Catherine Ranson supervising. Paul Blinkhorn reported on the pottery for all sites except Castleton. Summaries of the results of the HEFA CORS project in 2005–8 have been published in earlier volumes of MSRG Annual Report (Lewis 2006, 2007a, 2008), while the aims and methods have been outlined elsewhere (Lewis 2007b) and can also be viewed on the ACA website (http://www.arch.cam.ac.uk/aca/). The website also includes copies of the pottery reports from each site, and distribution maps showing the distribution of pottery period by period from the prehistoric to the modern era for every site where test pit excavations have been carried out by ACA since 2005