Archaeological evidence for early settlement suggests that there were occupation sites scattered throughout the area, rather than a village or town. There is evidence of Neolithic settlers in the form of stone axes and arrowheads, as well as the waste left by tool-making. Shards of Early Bronze Age pottery have been found, and in 1747, a hoard of spearheads and bronze rapiers were found on Crowle Moor, suggesting that settlement continued through the third, second and first millennia BCE. It continued through the Romano-British period, with finds in the parish suggesting a number of farmsteads, similar to those found in excavations at nearby Sandtoft during the construction of the M180 motorway. The grouping together of individual settlements to form a community probably took place in the Anglo-Saxon period.