Nuclear Prehistory
An examination of an archaeological site in the Lincolnshire village of Fulbeck, by Dymphana Byrne.
There was a worn hippo tusk and a couple of large unidentified black teeth on the desk in the contractor's site office. They, and the two ammonites the excavator had just turned up when we went to look at the third trench on Fulbeck airfield, would be handed over the Trust for Lincolnshire Archaeology.
The independent Trust had known about the area for some time. It is a flat site three miles from the pretty stone Lincolnshire village of Fulbeck in the valley of the river Brant. It is not far from the Roman town of Ancaster, the Ermine Way is close and parts of a Roman temple have been found nearby at Long Bennington. But access was difficult as the land, a Second World War airfield, was owned by the Ministry of Defence.
Then, in 1986, along came Nirex – the Nuclear Industry Radioactive Waste Executive – looking for somewhere to dispose of low level waste. Fulbeck airfield was one of four flat clay-based sites chosen for exploratory digging; eventually one site would be chosen for waste disposal.
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