 | Mill End. We have determined the
precise shape and size of a Roman Villa at Mill End (by the river
Thames). We have discovered its garden perimeter ditch and found what may
be a kiln close by. The resi survey and crop marks also indicated what
may be the edge of an earlier Iron Age feature - a ring ditch and we
need to go back to Mill End at some time to follow this feature into
adjacent fields. For more details see link above 'Mill End'. We have
completed an underwater archaeology survey to explore any infrastructure for
a quay or other feature along side the villa. There were some vertical posts
found leading out into the river, but the age of these has not been
determined. There were a number of finds 17th century and younger - but no
quay remaining today. |
| In Horse Leys field (opposite the Mill
End car park) using resistance and magenetometry survey methods we
discovered so many features! Lots of field boundaries and enclosures,
a very odd structure that looks like a tanning pit but could be alls
orts of interpretations, several circular features and linear ditches,
plus - wait for it - very probably a Romano-Celtic temple which has
been cut through by the moving of the Hamble Brook in the mid 1800s. |
| Middle Couch Field (across the stream
next to Horse Leys). Here we followed the edge of the temple and metal
detecting outside the scheduled area proved many Roman nails hence
hinting that the temple might have had much timber in the construction.
Could this temple have been associated with a water deity? It overhangs the
old position of the Hamble Brook. |
| Yewden excavation photograph archive.
We discovered a photograph archive that was previously unknown and this is going to proved very useful
in our interpretation of the site and in the building reconstructions. |
| Pottery collections from Yewden Roman Villa.
This vast collection of almost a tonne of pot has been sorted into into
fabric types and vessel form. From this we interpreted the results in
terms of status, trade and dates for the various areas of the Yewden site.
Lovely insights have produced the shock information that the 1st House,
which has always been quoted in eminent books as the 'main villa house' and
'dates from the 1st to 5th century' - was actually not built until the
beginning of the 4th century! It has enabled us to date various events
and interesting finds for instance 'Siitomina'
and her pot is dated to 170-200 AD, which coincidently is the same date as the
'bodies' in Pit 6 (two adult males, one adult female and two children dumped
in Pit 6 and covered up with building materials). This is becoming so
exciting that it is worthy of a book on this part alone! |
| Database. We developed a database system which
enabled us to record the finds from the field as
well as the pottery collections in a format transferable to the Bucks County
Museum. All finds were dealt with via a tailored version of the database,
which is easy to search for any object and locations and all other known
details are also recorded. We dealt with an amazing 39028 sherds and vessels
which weighted almost 1 tonne! We also measured EVEs (estimated vessel
equivalents). This is a good way to work out how many vessels the sherds
represent (as
weight and sherd count alone cannot do this due to huge differences in
several aspects e.g. between bulky
cooking and storage pots compared to fragile posh pottery for instance). |
| Infant bones (97 infants). These have
had an osteological examination and they are now known to have died at term
(38 to 40 weeks gestation). There are no other infants on site (except the two
children in Pit 6 with 3 adults). The inescapable conclusion is that they
were killed at birth. More information is available from the link 'Infant
deaths' above. The paperby Simon Mays and myself will shortly appear in the Journal of Archaeological
Science. We are continuing the research with the infant aDNA and so
far this shows a 50:50male to female sex ratio in the infants. Bone
preservation is so good we are extending this study to include more infants
and we will also investigate their relateness. |
| Filming - 360 Productions
completed the filming of our Hambleden Project for a
pilot showing of 4 archaeological programmes for BBC2. Called Digging
for Britain, it was broadcast on August 19th 2010. The press went wild
after this showing and the project literally went worldwide in a huge number
of media, CNN, BBC news items, newspapers and scientific magazines. We are
to be included as an update in the next series ?August 2011 and this will
feature the final results on the 97 newborn infant burials. |
| Glass and iron objects. We have
finished the glass which is photographed, drawn and entries made to the
database. We have much coloured glass including beautiful blue-green vessels
and many fragments of window glass. The iron objects show a good range of
objects with some very nice woodworking tool sets. |
| Samian pottery. An amazing 2680 sherds
and vessels weighing a whopping 34 kg! This is a huge and an interesting collection as some can be very tightly dated (e.g. the
Martres de Veyre type can be dated to manufacture between only 20 years -
100-120 AD. The infant burials have been dated to occurring between 150 and
200 AD based largely on the Samian pottery, which is why they cannot be
refined tighter. The Samian is amazing at what it can show - when the whole
pottery amounts per 5 year period is plotted you can see the dramatic
decline due to the disruption createdby Boudicca's revolt in AD 60 and each
and every trade change in the Samian industry is reflected in the pottery on
site. A full account is in the monograph. |
| Flint proved to be very interesting.
Objects ranged from Lower Palaeolithic large hand axes, through Mesolithic
microliths to Neolithic polished axes. There was a very notable collection
of Neolithic/Bronze Age scrapers and other tools. This all shows people have
lived and passed through the Hambleden Valley for at least 400,000 years!). |
| Copper Alloy - a lovely collection
worked on by Sandie Williams. It includes a lovely selection of brooches,
rings, ligulae and many other objects. These are now reported in the
monograph and a good photograph selection is available. |
| Other artefacts: we have decided that animal bone,
amphora and CBM
cannot be worked on as we have no funds remaining. These will have to wait for a time when further
funds can be made available or another worker comes forward. We are
continuing work on a variety of slags discovered during the 1912 collection
work and continuing with some further work on iron finds. |
