Altogether, with a scatter of such artefacts, some 21,000 flint flakes and tools were recovered. No evidence of domestic settlement was found, apart from the concentration of flint tools, which included many arrowheads.

In the early years it produced a great variety of very fine wares, ranging from white flagons to black bowls, some decorated with distinctive stamps and inscribed lines. Some vessels were stamped with the maker's mark. There is some evidence that the products were distributed well beyond the immediate area as some of the makers' stamps have been found at Colchester and as far away as Doncaster.

What was it like here when the Anglo-Saxons arrived? There was a 'managed' landscape with Romano-British field systems; grazing for sheep on higher ground, water meadows and arable land all rather run down, as the economy collapsed.

Useful timber for building was to hand, and there were deserted sites, like the Icklingham Roman town nearby, where all kinds of useful things could be found and recycled such as tiles for hearths, bronze, iron and even bits of pottery.

It is believed that many of the Romano-British population survived the collapse of Roman Britain and were absorbed into early Anglo-Saxon society, some at least, as slaves.

There were no forests of pine trees - these are all 19th-20th Century plantations.

From about 420 AD for the next 200 years into the 7th Century the landscape in our area was settled by the Anglo-Saxons, whose little villages controlled areas of land which were to become the 'parishes' of later saxon and medieval times.

West Stow, sitting in the centre of the Lark Valley, was one of a number of similar 'villages' extending from the three round the later Bury St Edmunds to Mildenhall on the fen edge. The Blackbourn valley to the north-east has a similar distribution of sites. They are spaced out along the river banks with territories extending behind. Beyond these settled valleys, central Suffolk, a region of heavy, damp clay was returning to dense scrub and forest after the collapse of Roman settlement. This area was not occupied by the earliest Anglo-Saxon settlers. To the east, settlement penetrated the lighter sandlings of the coastal region much as in the west. To the west and south the river systems of Cambridgeshire were densely settled by Anglo-Saxons and were clearly related by their possessions to those in Suffolk.

Connections were maintained with the continent and Scandinavia with the import of articles of dress and fashion as well as technologies and art.

Who were the Anglo-Saxons? There is a separate section which looks at this question.

The archaeological evidence was well preserved under a great mound of blown sand deposited here during the medieval period. The non acidic nature of the soil preserved many pieces of 'evidence' not normally found, including thousands of animal bones, iron and bronze objects, and even seeds and grain, all of which have been used to extend our knowledge of the life of villagers.

All the buildings were of wood. In a few rare cases houses had been burnt, so that types of timber could be identified from the charcoal. Otherwise, house sites could be identified from the post holes where the wooden parts had long since decayed.

From the beginning, the site owners, Bury St Edmunds Borough Council, also supported the project in association with Dr West. However, the passing of the Local Government Act of 1972 meant that on 1st April 1974 the old Borough Council was to be replaced by a new District Council amalgamating the towns of Bury St Edmunds and Haverhill with the surrounding Rural Districts of Thingoe and Clare. The West Suffolk County Council was also to merge with East Suffolk to produce Suffolk County Council.

In order to safeguard the site against the uncertainties surrounding the transfer of ownership under Local Government reorganisation, various ideas were considered.

In August 1973 it was suggested that the best body to oversee the village project would be a trust formed from members of the Borough Council, the County Council and outside experts. It would be called the West Stow Anglo-Saxon Village Trust.

Foreseeing the potential difficulties of the Trust managing the growing demands of the project and recognising the growing together of the Country Park and the village, the Trust and Borough Council entered a formal partnership. Under the partnership agreement the Borough now took over the employment of the construction staff together with day to day management. The Trust remained as the guardian of the village's authenticity and integrity. The Trust then appointed Dr Stanley West as its consultant archaeologist to carry out this role, oversee the reconstructions and keep records of progress.