A programme of environmental sampling was conducted to inform proposed residential development on land off Barbers Drove, Crowland. The samples were taken from a number of marine silts, palaeochannel fills and peat deposits, exposed during trial trenching on the site (see ELI12811). Analysis of the samples allowed a model of the sedimentation of this area to be determined, showing a gradual progression of the site from a lower intertidal zone to tidal salt marshes to fresh water peat beds, subject to periodic inundation. Radiocarbon dating of the various samples indicated this transition began some time after the late 5th millenium BC (the Mesolithic to Neolithic transition) with the deposition of marine silts. Dating of the palaeochannel deposits to the late 3rd millenium BC (the Neolithic to Bronze Age transition) indicated the time of the change to tidal salt marsh. This deposition continued until the early-mid 2nd millenium BC, when the growth of peat deposits occurred intermittently until the transition to the Iron Age. Separate environmental sampling was also conducted of a pair of shallow linear features, identified at the northern edge of the site. Although thought to be the product of natural erosion, the hollows contained fragments of charcoal that were carbon dated to the later Neolithic, at the time of the transition of the site to a tidal salt marsh environment. {1}{2}