Posted on 09/24/2010 6:31:56 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
A dig in search of Anglo-Saxon skeletons has instead unearthed signs of a sprawling Roman settlement. The discovery was made last week, on the grounds of Cambridge's Newnham College.
Evidence of a 16th or 17th century farmhouse that could date back to the reign of Henry VIII was unearthed at the site as well.
"We knew there was a Roman settlement here before but we had no idea of the size," said Dr Catherine Hills.
"The village has been buried under the gardens for nearly 2,000 years, and may have seen the Roman conquest of Britain and Boudicca's revolt. The 16th-century farmhouse was a complete surprise."
The site first became of interest in the late 1930s when excavations for World War II air raid shelters lead to the discovery of five skeletons. Back then, archaeologist Dorothy Garrod and a team of women from the college excavated the graves using dessert spoons and toothbrushes...
No mysterious Anglo-Saxon skeletons were unearthed this summer, but the consolation prize was definitely worth the excavation exercise.
The dig revealed large amounts of Roman pottery, enough to convince Dr Hills and Dr Lewis that they dug through to the remains of a 2,000-year-old settlement.
This is significant as it suggests that the Roman presence at Newnham was far more considerable than previously thought.
"East Anglia is rich in Roman and medieval remains just waiting to be discovered. People threw away a lot of rubbish, and their old pottery and animal bones are now allowing archaeologists to discover the existence of entire villages," said Dr Lewis.
"We are starting to realise the huge extent of Roman settlement around this area."
(Excerpt) Read more at heritage-key.com ...
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Amateur.
Too bad that area didn't include my backyard.
Just dig somewhere, it would seem.
Exactly. Would an Oxonian have made this mistake?
Perish the thought!
Win some lose some I guess. :D
From what I’ve seen, it’s actually pretty hard not to find Roman settlements in southern England.
It’s a woman leading a bunch of English schoolgirls on behalf of feminism.
The Romans *did* get around...
Years ago, when there was still a cottage industry producing charcoal the old-fashioned way (by hand, generally a father-to-son kind of thing), one guy finally got curious about the stone floor of his pit, started digging around a bit, and discovered he’d been using the surface of a Roman road that had been covered by soil to a depth of a foot, foot and a half.
I was watching some cable show where some Brit archeologists were looking for some Tudor-era palace, and they were miffed when they kept finding Roman artifacts. I’d much rather find Roman stuff than some Henry VIII chicken bones.
Has anyone ever documented whether the “Roman” settlements were actually settled by Romans who immigrated from Italy, discharged Roman soldiers who might have been recruited from almost anywhere in the Empire, or simply settlements which took the Roman form because it was a superiour culture in terms of technology, architecture, art, etc?
Speeding sparks like lightning, engine working hard
Furnace on the footplate shining in the night
Iron striking metal the sound of racing steel
That’s all I ever wanna hear, it’s music to my ears.
The Roman army peaked in size during the 2nd Triumvirat; after the defeat of Marc Antony and Cleo VII, Augustus cut the regular army in half, to 28 legions (plus the Praetorian Guard, which was his personal bodyguard, and garrisoned in and near Rome), and doled out long-promised land to the retirees. The army was supplemented by 28 legions-worth of auxiliaries drawn from the provinces and deployed as specialists in their native weapons. The idea was to have a decisive edge over local enemies by the auxiliary matchup, also to co-opt the military capabilities of conquered peoples by absorbing them, commanding them, and moving them someplace where they often didn’t know any local languages.
Anyway, the ideal legion was 5000 troops, plus officers; that adds up to 140,000 regulars, plus 140,000 auxiliary troops. After their term of service (which took on the form of the most productive years of a Roman citizen’s life) many were eligible for land, which generally speaking wasn’t available in Italy. Having the Empire sown with towns made entirely of veterans tended to keep things pretty calm, and other than those who got pissed because this or that emperor was a RINO (Roman In Name Only) and rebelled (that characterized most of the 3rd c AD), they are the reason the western empire lasted so long.
The deterioration was also contributed to by the lack of Romans and even Italians; prosperity and a coherent political structure stretching over the entire Med basin and most of western Europe and then some meant local peace everywhere, and serving in the army as a regular didn’t carry the attraction of civic duty. Also, the “real” Romans and the Italian neighbors declined in numbers for various reasons, mostly low birth rate. By the time of the adoptive emperors, the Roman regular army wasn’t too different (other than weapons and comportment) than the auxiliaries. Essentially, the Roman army was a large foreign force. The emperors themselves came from the provinces and had various semi-Roman or non-Roman ancestry.
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