Archaeological investigations carried out during improvements to five
key junctions along a stretch of the A13 trunk road through the East
London Boroughs of Tower Hamlets, Newham and Barking and Dagenham have
revealed evidence for activity spanning the Mesolithic through to the
post-Roman period. Regionally important evidence of Neolithic activity
included artefact assemblages of pottery and worked flint. A rare cache
of charred emmer wheat provides definitive evidence of early Neolithic
cereal cultivation in the vicinity and a fragment of belt slider made
from Whitby jet attests the long distance exchange networks. The
greatest concentration of activity, however, dates to the 2nd Millenium
BC and includes several waterlogged wooden structures and trackways,
burnt mounds and other evidence associated with wetland edge occupation.
Extensive geoarchaeological and palaeoenvironmental sampling provides an
important record of landscape evolution and periods of major change can
be detected, both natural and anthropogenically induced. As well as
providing a context for the archaeology along the A13, this raises a
number of issues regarding the interaction of local communities with the
natural environment, how they responded to change and to a certain
extent exploited it. Ultimately this is of relevance not only to
understanding the past but also to current concerns regarding
environmental management along the Thames estuary.