In archaeology, an enclosure refers to one of the most common types of archaeological site. It refers to any area of land separated from surrounding land by earthworks, walls or fencing. Such a simple feature is found all over the world and during almost all archaeological periods. They may be few metres across or be large enough to encompass whole cities. Importance and applicability Archaeology is the study of human nature and attempts to illuminate the question of what it means to be human. ... An archaeological site is a place (or group of physical sites) in which evidence of past activity is preserved (either prehistoric or historic or contemporary), and which has been investigated using the discipline of archaeology. ... Earthworks can refer to: Civil engineering earthworks based on moving massive quantites of soil; The Earthworks audio equipment company; The novel Earthworks by Brian Aldiss; The earthworks style of art. ...
Enclosures served numerous practical purposes including acting to delineate settlement areas or used as animal pens. They were also widely adopted in ritual and burial practices however and seem to demonstrate a fundamental human desire to make physical boundaries around spaces. A ritual is a formalised, predetermined set of symbolic actions generally performed in a particular environment at a regular, recurring interval. ...
Enclosures created from ditches and banks or walling can often be identified in the field through aerial photography or ground survey. Other types leave less permanent records and may only be identified during excavation. Aerial photography is the taking of photographs from above with a camera mounted on an aircraft, balloon, rocket, kite or similar vehicle. ... Archaeological field survey is the methodological process by which archaeologists (often landscape archaeologists) collect information about the location, distribution and organisation of past human cultures across a large area (e. ... For excavation in civil engineering see earthworks (engineering). ...
The evaluation of an Iron Age enclosure at Leicester Lane, Enderby, undertaken by Leicestershire Archaeological Unit (LAU) in 1990 revealed evidence of Iron Age occupation similar to that seen from the excavation by LAU of a D¹-shaped enclosure to the north east in 1983-4.
The enclosure ditch was between 3 and 5.5m in width with the sides of the enclosure longest on the western, southern and eastern lengths (c.47-50m), with the northernmost length being the shortest (40m).
Placed almost centrally along the northern side was the entrance into the enclosure, formed by a 4m wide gap in the enclosure ditch with two large pits, both c.2.5m in length, c.2m in width and c.0.5m deep, across the mouth of the entrance.
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