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For some years now, local metal detectorist and amateur archaeologist Paul Bevan has been discovering large amounts of Iron-Age and Roman material on his land at Standish, in Gloucestershire. His searches of his field have yielded Roman brooches, pottery, mosaic tesserae, roof tiles and coins. In the summer of 2003, he even dug his own trench to investigate further. Unfortunately for him, he chose he hottest spell on record in England. He found what he thought was an Iron-Age surface, but the clay soil baked hard in the heat and he had to close the trench to protect the archaeology.
There were more than enough finds already, though, to interest Time Team in the site. First impressions, particularly the quantity of Roman building materials and other finds, pointed to the presence of a sizeable villa somewhere nearby.
In fact, no villa was found. Instead, clue by clue, the archaeologists were able to piece together a different story of how the site was used during the Iron Age and Roman era. Most likely, it involves different generations of one family farming the same land, and living through huge social change and gradually improving their lifestyle as Romanised Britain became more and more prosperous.
Time Trail
The classic histories of Britain can give the impression of a land in which everything changed with the Roman invasion. Modern histories, informed by the ever-growing wealth of archaeological evidence, now tend to emphasise a continuity between the periods before and after the Romans arrived. The period before the invasion in 43 AD is now considered to have involved much more contact with the Roman world and increasing Roman influence, especially in the south. The period afterwards is considered to have involved much more continuity with the past. For most people, making a subsistence living from farming the land, little would have changed – and what did change, changed slowly.
What is certain is that there was no clear-cut dividing line in most of the country between the Iron Age and the Roman era. Instead, as Time Team's investigation at Standish illustrates, individual families continued to farm the land as their predecessors had done for generations. They continued to live in what are thought of as the classic Iron-Age roundhouses well into the Roman era, only gradually adopting Roman products and customs (including the Roman preference for building rectilinear structures) as prosperity grew and their culture evolved.
An increasing appreciation of the continuity between life in Iron-Age Britain and what followed has led to a reassessment of the history of the period. It is now apparent that many sites that would once have been seen as solely Iron Age in character were in fact occupied continuously into the Roman period. This was likely to have been the case in most farming communities, since it was not Roman imperial policy to uproot the peoples they conquered provided that they did not actively oppose their conquest. This continuity of occupation of the land has been reflected in the findings at other Time Team digs, such as at Throckmorton, where finds ranged in date from a Bronze-Age ditch to a first-century Roman brooch; Wittenham Clumps, where a rectilinear Roman house, a cobbled Iron-Age floor and more than 300 separate rubbish pits were among the indications of continuous occupation of the site; and Green Island, Dorset, which was part of an important trading centre from the Iron Age through to the fourth century AD.
Which group of people were most likely to have introduced iron to Britain?
The Romans
Celtic speakers from Europe
Germanic traders
Which of the following were extremely rare in most of Iron-Age Britain?
Burials
Cremations
Deaths
What do most modern archaeologists consider to be the principal cause of the major changes that took place in southern Britain during the Late Iron Age (100 BC to 43 AD)?
Invaders from Europe
Immigrants from Europe
Increasing trade and other contacts
What is the estimated population of Britain at the time of the Roman invasion?
At least half a million
At least a million
At least four million
And what was the estimated population of Britain during the Roman era?
Up to a million
Up to four million
Up to ten million
What did Julius Caesar say originated in Britain?
Druids
Women warriors
Everything that was bad for Rome
Answers here.
Local metal detectorist and amateur archaeologist Paul Bevan had discovered large amounts of Iron-Age and Roman material on his land at Standish. He called in Time Team to see if he had a villa on his property. Time Team developed a strategy to test this theory with county archaeologist Jan Wills.
A magnetometry survey indicated a range of rectilinear and curvilinear negative features within a widespread boundary but no strong evidence for a Roman structure. Strongly defined features picked up by a resistivity survey turned out to be geological.
Trenches placed over two circular features revealed roundhouses of different dates. One, with a clearly visible 'drip gully' around its perimeter, was dated to 150-50 BC. A deliberate deposit of stacked pots, charcoal, and butchered horse remains by the entrance indicated a destruction date of about 50 BC. The other, with a metalled floor surface, was dated to the first century AD.
A trench placed over a pit anomaly revealed a crouch-position burial of a young woman. While there were no grave finds, residual pottery dated the burial to the first century AD. Stone rubble and evidence for iron working was also excavated.
Excavation over rectilinear features revealed freshly broken shards of pottery dating from the second to fourth centuries AD, together with tesserae, roof-tile fragments, evidence of iron working and rubble foundations for two timber structures. These buildings were interpreted as a farmstead facing onto a walled yard.
The conclusion was that there was no villa here, and the Roman period timber structures accounted for all the Roman material found on the site. This was the last discernible phase of the farming activities of a family that may have been in continuous occupation of this land since the mid-late Iron Age.It's Day Four at Standish and the familiar Time Team faces have long since packed up and headed off home. For one person, though, the work is far from over. This is Wessex Archaeology's Steve Thompson, who is still toiling away in the field. On this dig he has been forced to take drastic measures to get the job completed: he is using the headlights of the Team's 4x4 vehicle to illuminate the archaeological context sheets so that he can finish recording the dig.
'Beginning with the 2004 series, I was responsible for coordinating the recording of all trenches and the archaeology in them,' says Steve. His role during the 2005 series has been to coordinate all of the finds from the excavations. It's not a simple task, as Time Team unearths many thousands of finds each year and every single one of them has to be cleaned, stabilised, catalogued and stored.
'It's a great job really,' Steve says. 'When you're a digger on a Time Team site you can be stuck in a trench all day while there are 15 other trenches uncovering material and a whole story emerging, which as an archaeologist working on one specific area you just wouldn't be aware of. As finds coordinator I get to see absolutely everything that comes out of the ground and have a good idea about how everything is going.'
Many of the finds are cleaned on site by helpers from local archaeology and history societies or interested youth groups. 'You get to meet some really nice people,' Steve continues. 'They all help us out a lot. After everything has been cleaned it's bagged up and marked so that we know exactly where it came from. Then, after all the filming has been done, we take it back to Wessex Archaeology where further research is done and people like pottery and bone specialists can look at the material. All this work goes towards making a proper report for the site. The finds are then stored in an archive, which is usually held by the local museum to the dig or by the landowner.'
Audio file: Listen to Steve talking about finds.
Meet the Team: Find out more about Steve.
It's not always possible to find the time in every programme to fit in the 'cameos', or archaeological reconstructions, that are filmed on Time Team digs. This is especially so when a lot of finds are made on a site, it covers a long period and there is a complicated story (or stories) to be told. This was the case at Standish, with the result that metalworker Hector Cole's reconstruction of an iron tool that was found on the site did not feature in the programme itself.
Ros Ereira, cameo producer
When Paul Bevan, the owner of the land at Standish, showed us an iron tool he had found in the plough-soil of the site, we decided that we should try to reproduce it in order to find out more about what it was and how it might have been used. Paul felt sure that it was an axe, but Hector Cole, the metalworker we brought in to reproduce the find, thought it might have been a chisel. So he made us two replicas, and we fitted them with different handles, one for use as a chisel and the other as an axe, so that we could try them out and see how well they worked.
It was very exciting to have the opportunity to try out these tools, and to see how they may have been used in the Iron Age, as well as having the chance to see Hector at work, which is always a real pleasure.
Hector Cole
Hector Cole is a silver-medal holder of the Worshipful Company of Blacksmiths and is a leading specialist in the forging of replica iron artefacts. He has an in-depth knowledge of the forging of Saxon pattern welded swords, knives and spears. Hector's archaeological reproductions can be seen in museums around the world.
For further information about his work, visit his website at:
www.hectorcoleironwork.co.uk
Channel 4 is not responsible for the content of third-party sites.
Revealing the Buried Past: Geophysics for archaeologists by Chris Gaffney and John Gater (Tempus, 2003) paperback £17.99
Written by two of the foremost experts in the field, this book draws the reader into the world of geophysics. Aimed at the seasoned archaeologist, student, amateur and those who have seen the 'geofizz' techniques used and want to learn a little more, the book is well written, clearly presented and has lots of illustrations and explanatory diagrams. An introduction to the history of geophysics is followed by a lucid discussion of the different techniques available, the methods and equipment used, survey logistics and post-survey analysis. Drawing on their work with Time Team, Gaffney and Gater present a series of case studies from different periods. In conclusion, they consider the future for prospecting for the past and how this powerful surveying tool may be transformed in years to come. Foreword by Mick Aston.
Farmers in Prehistoric Britain by Francis Pryor (Tempus, 1998) hardback £18.99
Wearing both his hats as archaeologist and farmer, Pryor has produced an empathic work on the life and methods of prehistoric farmers. Often what survives is just a few cropmarks, but this work brings what is now obscure into vivid reality.
Iron Age Britain by Barry Cunliffe (English Heritage, 2004) paperback £14.99
This revised introduction to Britain in the first millennium BC incorporates modifications to a story that is still controversial. It covers a time of dramatic change in Europe, dominated by the emergence of Rome as a megastate. In Britain, on the extremity of these developments, it was a period of profound social and economic change, which saw the end of the prehistoric cycle of the Neolithic and Bronze Ages, and the beginning of a world that was to change little in its essentials until the great voyages of colonisation and trade of the 16th century.
Iron Age Communities in Britain by Barry Cunliffe (Routledge, 1991, 3rd edition)
For more than 30 years Barry Cunliffe's survey of the British Iron Age has been a standard source.
Prehistoric Britain by Timothy Darvill (Routledge, 1987) paperback £22.99
Timothy Darvill examines the development of human societies in Britain from the earliest times down to the Roman Conquest, as revealed by available archaeological evidence. Special attention is given to six themes which are traced through all phases of prehistory: subsistence, technology, ritual, trade, society and population.
Which group of people were most likely to have introduced iron to Britain?
Celtic speakers from Europe
Which of the following were extremely rare in most of Iron-Age Britain?
Burials
What do most modern archaeologists consider to be the principal cause of the major changes that took place in southern Britain during the Late Iron Age (100 BC to 43 AD)?
Increasing trade and other contacts
What is the estimated population of Britain at the time of the Roman invasion?
At least a million
And what was the estimated population of Britain during the Roman era?
Up to four million
What did Julius Caesar say originated in Britain?
Druids