News

Following on from an excavation in 2018, PCA Durham archaeologists, alongside colleagues from the Newark and Warwick offices, have uncovered the continuation of this previously unknown but extensive Roman site. We have just finished the fieldwork so are in the early stages of post-excavation but already we have some amazing finds such as the ‘Darlington’ eagle, a likely iron lamp holder and several Roman coins!

The Darlington Eagle – An iron eagle with a copper alloy head. The head is similar to the bronze Silchester Eagle. The x-ray shows that the copper alloy head is on a stem which goes into the iron body. On cleaning there is a small patch of green enamel surviving in one eye.  The legs are damaged and there is no good join to the lamp holder but the width between the legs suggests that this object was mounted on it.

The iron mount – The iron mount has two prongs to which the eagle may once have been attached, although no join now survives.  The x-ray images of the eagle and mount have been stitched together by the archaeological consultant for the site (Nansi Rosenberg of Prospect Archaeology).

The Roman lamp holder- An iron lamp holder with riveted handle.

A well-preserved Roman silver coin – a Roman silver Siliqua of emperor Valentinian I (AD 364-375), minted in Antioch. It was recovered during a metal detecting survey on the site that was kindly undertaken by George and David Marley of Detectology UK Ltd.

Ireneo Grosso will be giving an online lecture to The City of London Archaeological Society on Friday, 19th May at 7pm. This is a hybrid event; if you are joining online, your link to join the lecture will be in your email confirmation. Use this form to register:

.

Another smaller north-south orientated road, located in the west-central part of the site, was bounded by clay and timber buildings, whilst in the north-west part of the site evidence for part of an in situ opus signinum floor was recorded. A later Roman shaft, also recorded in this area, produced a large assemblage of Roman painted plaster confirming the presence of a Roman masonry building in this part of the site.

The east-west orientated Roman road was later truncated by a series of large pits possibly during the late Roman period. Here evidence of industrial activity, in the form of glass production, was suggested by the substantial amount of Roman glass recovered, together with fragments of crucibles and of at least one structure which was interpreted as a furnace.

During the late 16th/early 17th century the western part of the site was developed with when at least two basemented buildings which truncated the upper part of the Roman horizon.

.

Your mental health first aiders are:

Alistair Douglas: 07958 547 143 ADouglas@pre-construct.com

Caroline Edwards: 07718 492 321 CEdwards@pre-construct.com

Sian O’Neill: 07810 860 013 SO’Neill@pre-construct.com

Vicki Ridgeway: 07824 636 635 VRidgeway@pre-construct.com

Richard Krason: 07855 877 939 RKrason@pre-construct.com

Dave Havard: 07821 049 827 DHavard@pre-construct.com

Tom Learmonth: 07960 667 124 TLearmonth@pre-construct.com

Anxiety UK is a charity providing support if you have been diagnosed with an anxiety condition

Phone: 03444 775 774 (Monday to Friday, 09.30 to 22.00hrs; Saturday to Sunday, 10.00 – 18.00hrs)

The NHS provides a list of other useful helplines.

Of pots and people: Approaching skill, settlement, and early Roman rural society through pottery-making in the Lower Ouse Valley, Cambridgeshire, UK 

Eniko Hudak (PCA) and Adam Sutton (MOLA) will be speaking at this year’s TRAC at Exeter University on 28 April on their research into 40 early Roman (1st and 2nd century) kilns and tonnes of domestic Roman pottery. This nationally significant discovery was made ahead of the A14 Cambridge to Huntingdon improvement scheme, close to Brampton and Godmanchester in Cambridgeshire near the River Great Ouse, where a number of Roman routes converged.

Photos courtesy of MOLA-Headland Infrastructure

A long and highly complex series of technological interactions characterises pottery-making in later Iron Age and early Roman southern Britain. Following the introduction of the potter’s wheel technology was used in diverse and highly socialised ways, becoming entangled with various novel styles of potting, and with other emerging technologies. Conventional narratives of early production sites of the decades after the Roman conquest of AD 43 tended to lean on economic factors and the direct impact of Roman conquest as interpretative frameworks, neglecting the study of social agency. This paper argues that we can do better.  The authors will present analysis of the ‘Lower Ouse Valley’ potting complex (Cambridgeshire, UK), characterising pottery-making through typological and archaeometric analyses. We will contextualise the ceramic chaîne opèratoire revealed by these analyses through a study of the structural remains of these first- and second-century AD pottery production sites, which were excavated as part of a single landscape-scale scheme of works. The result, we argue, is a rich understanding of how potting technology and technique continued to change several generations after the initial introduction of wheel technology, and even within communities who enthusiastically engaged with technological novelty. Key outcomes include the revelation of the heterogenous ways in which wheel technology was used even in the production of a ‘standardised’ repertoire; the identification of different forms of technical knowledge, exchanged on multiple scales; and a consideration of how social and economic narratives may be more fruitfully interwoven in the study of ancient technology.

Click here for the conference programme