Between July and December 2019 Oxford Archaeology East (OA East) carried out an open-area excavation on 4.6ha of land south of Gidding Road, Sawtry, Cambridgeshire (TL 1623 8329), in advance of residential development. The principal remains revealed by the excavation dated to the Late Iron Age and Romano-British periods and relate to a larger area of settlement and agricultural activity on the western edge of the modern village, elements of which have also been recently investigated by excavations immediately to the north of the site, at Glebe Farm. The sequence of Iron Age and Romano-British features revealed by the excavation developed on either side of a north-east to south-west aligned seasonal watercourse (winterbourne) which bisected the excavation area. Activity appears to have begun in the Late Iron Age/earliest Romano-British period, when boundary ditches were laid out on the land either side of the winterbourne. In the southern part of the site these ditches were associated with the remains of several possible temporary structures/shelters and with a possible ditched droveway, which provided access to, and crossed, the winterbourne. Activity continued uninterrupted into the later 1st century AD, when modifications were made to the existing layout of boundary and droveway ditches and several large waterholes were dug in the northern part of the site. From the late-1st to mid-2nd century AD activity intensified on the northern side of the winterbourne, with the establishment of a multiphase rectilinear enclosure and a system of small fields/plots. Two of the ditched boundaries were associated with isolated Romano-British burials; one cremation burial and one inhumation. Although no definite structures/buildings were identified, evidence for contemporary settlement in the vicinity was provided by a substantial assemblage of Roman pottery (4913 sherds, 55,331g) and by a restricted range of other finds including metalwork and fired clay, alongside animal bone and charred plant remains. The pottery assemblage suggests that activity at the site peaked in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD, with 97% of the pottery dating to this broad period. From the later 2nd century AD, the level of activity significantly declined and features that were clearly dated between the later 2nd-4th century AD were restricted to a midden deposit and a large pit or waterhole along the northern edge of excavation. Palynological analysis of a sequence from one the waterholes in th...