We have the most fabulous Iron Age street system emerging; a street system we believe starts its life as early as 20BC – perhaps just as a thoroughfare in the first instance, alongside small holdings with dumps of gravel and soil creating lanes between buildings. We speculate that at this time there was a north-west/south-east running street, with a right-angled turn in the north-west of our trench heading to the north-east, to directly run under our north trench edge and beneath the Roman east-west street. This is yet to be confirmed by excavation – although Tony’s cut through the Roman east-west street seems to suggest that this may not actually be the case. If this is not the case, this Iron Age street would seem to curve round in an arc to run back into Emily’s area – and if this is found to be true next season, why does the street do this? What is it avoiding?
Our Iron Age street running north-west to south-east: dating from 1st century BC to1st century AD
Tony's slot through the east-west Roman street - with the Iron Age lane curving round to the south to avoid it - kite photograph courtesy of Mark Household!
In the early 1st century AD this Iron Age street system was enlarged upon and formalised; layers of gravel were added, along with roadside ditches and fence lines marking out properties. And the right-angled offshoot heading to the north-east may have been re-routed at this time to avoid the Roman east-west street which was constructed sometime in the latter years of the 1st century AD. There is also another right-angled turn of the street system added at this time, running south-east into the Iron Age ‘insula’ from the north-east running street spur. This lane offshoot is clearly defined by roadside ditches.
Photographs of gravel; challenging indeed! But if you look carefully you can see the spur of the Iron Age lane heading south-east into the heart of the Iron Age block, flanked by ditches
We know that much post excavation work (and further excavation next season) must be done to confirm the dating of these various streets – but whatever the result, we do know that in the Iron Age there was a cunning plan! Streets were laid out between buildings….there was organisation…..and we are beginning to identify building foci, along with foci of rubbish pits and wells. It will all make glorious sense one day – and I am looking forward to uncovering the big picture! The town of Calleva Atrebatum was planned and developed – and how exciting is that?
And take a look at our fantastic Iron Age building as uncovered by Hen! We believe it is contemporary with the Iron Age street system, so it dates from about 20BC. It is an extremely substantial building – at least 30m in length (next season will confirm its exact length) and approximately 8m wide. It is diagonally aligned north-east to south-west, and it overlies our 40BC ditch. At its south-western corner was found ‘Scraps’, the ‘toy’ dog breed discovered last season and dubbed by the Guardian newspaper ‘the handbag dog’ due to its tiny size. We don’t fully understand this building as yet – more work for next season -but it was clearly an important, rectangular building. Post excavation work will reveal more of its secrets – so stay tuned!
Our Iron Age building looking north-west; marked out by linear construction trenches. There is clearly an earlier (or later??) post-hole constructed building running across its width...more work for next season!
Look at this wonderful kite photograph taken by Mark Household! You can clearly see the north-south Roman street sweeping north through our Insula IX trench and out through the North Gate
I love this picture of cows at the South Gate!