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Dorchester-on-Thames
DORCHESTER EXCAVATION SEASON 2013
This upcoming season the project will continue in the Village Allotments, led by Paul Booth. We will be pursuing the story of Late Roman life within the town walls and unravelling the complex of ditches and pits that likely date from that period. We will try to put our fragmentary structures in context, explore the construction of the Roman road, and begin to peek at the earlier phases of Roman activity on this site. Additionally, a series of test pits will be dug in village gardens, adding even more data – threads to be woven into the story of Dorchester. If you would like to learn more about how you can join the excavation at Dorchester, please email wendy.morrison@arch.ox.ac.uk.
Please visit our Open Day (July 20st, 1200-1700) in the Village Allotments. Bring artefacts you may have found in your own garden to be identified and see the objects we have excavated. Take a site tour with the Director and see what we have been digging. There will also be hands-on learning activities for children of all ages.
History of the Dorchester Excavation
In 2007 Oxford Archaeology, the University of Oxford and the people of Dorchester-on-Thames came together in the first of what is planned to be many years of joint research and archaeological training.
Dorchester is a key site in British history. It was a prestigious ceremonial centre in the Neolithic and Bronze Age, and is highly unusual in having important Iron Age, Roman and Anglo-Saxon towns in a single place which has suffered remarkably little damage from development.
Investigations at Dorchester will give us a better understanding of three of the key transition points in English history: the move away from tribal society with the growth of urbanisation in the late Iron Age, subsequent incorporation into the Roman Empire, and the rise of early Medieval society from the confused situation arising from the withdrawal of the Roman legions in AD 410.
Since 2007, beginning in the Minchin Recreation Ground, and in the Village Allotments in subsequent years, we have been investigation the Post Roman and Later Roman archaeology of the town. In 2012, we will be going deeper, and perhaps uncovering the earlier Roman origins of such a significant place. An Interim Report of the first 5 seasons is in the process of publication and will be available soon.
Funding bodies:
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