Archaeology @ Home II: Roman Cremations

Two weeks ago we received a letter announcing archaeological excavations were to commence on Huntingdon Road. In other words, an excavation in my backyard! This is in relation to the North West Cambridge Project, developing an area for new University accommodation. According to English legislation this construction work must be preceded by archaeological investigation (I could expand further on this, but it involves mostly unexciting archaeological theory).

I made some strategic calculations, and decided Tuesday afternoon was a good time to go explore. They should have been excavating for 2 weeks now, so no longer only scraping off top soil, it was not pouring down with rain today, and it was at least an hour after lunch/coffee time. So, Petar and I set out down the road, towards the distant College of Girton.

We first checked in with the World Conservation Monitoring Centre, with the expectation that they might be able to provide us with some information on what was going on in their garden. No - they had no idea. The guy at the desk only mumbled 'they better not be messing up my parking lot' and that was that. He pointed us back to the main road. Therefore, Petar and I obviously climbed the fence into the much more interesting looking potato field instead.

One minute you are in your room writing a dissertation design. The next you are in a potato field.

So, we passed through the potato farm (and strolled past some surprised potato farmers). Sure enough, in the distance we could see some heavy machinery digging away at a bit of muddy field.  As we approached, we encountered some (unfortunate?) archaeologists who were field-walking. A very dodgy looking coffee room. A portable toilet. Yes, definitely looking like an archaeological site.

A friendly archaeologist told us we could not go any closer due to said heavy machinery, but he did give us some interesting information on the site. The edges of the field do not seem to be especially fascinating, but further up the slope they have found a Roman cremation site, including some skeletons, and coins. They suspect there is also some pre-Roman stuff, although they have not gotten to that yet. They are going to be excavating for maybe 5 months, at least till March, so I am going to chase down who-ever is in charge and see if I can get involved!

I have done some googling, and previous excavations in these fields have also revealed some very interesting things. There is evidence of Roman villas, or at least large, wealthy farms. Very cool - how these fields have served farms nearly continuously since Roman times. Huntingdon Road is actually only a little bit next to an original Roman Road, another almost continuous feature. The story goes that this road was used by the Roman legions to march up north? I am quite curious how many Roman settlements there were around here, and how large they were. Farmsteads? Connected villages? A large town?

More to come.