Silchester

The Town Life Project 1997–2014: Reflections on a Long Term Research Excavation

Bibliographic Data

ID21251438
AuthorsMichael Fulford (0000-0002-8780-9691, University of Reading, corresponding author)
Year2015
Volume0
Issue2014
Pages114
Publication date2015-03-27
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueTheoretical Roman Archaeology Journal (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2515-2289 • E-ISSN: 2515-2289
PublisherOpen Library of the Humanities (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.16995/trac2014_114_121
OpenAlexW801219530
LanguageEN
References cited8

saw the completion of the excavation of a large sample (3025m 2 = 25 per cent) of one of the larger insulae (IX) of the Roman town of Calleva Atrebatum (Silchester, Hampshire, UK). The fieldwork had taken 18 summers of six-week seasons, the equivalent of over two years of continuous excavation, with teams, including staff, of 130-150 participants. The aim of the project at the outset was to characterise the changing life of the town from origins to abandonment. The initial estimate was that the project would certainly last five years, but not more than ten. However, well within five years it became abundantly clear that, despite antiquarian interventions, notably by the Society of Antiquaries in Insula IX in 1893, the preservation of the archaeology was such that a duration of 15 seasons was highly likely. Indeed, such was the rich complexity of the late Iron Age and earliest Roman archaeology that it only became possible to predict the end of the fieldwork a couple of seasons ahead, and that was on the assumption of reasonable weather, with no repeat of the extremely wet summer of 2012. Both the landowner, Hampshire County Council, and English Heritage, the organisation through which Scheduled Monument Consent (SMC) was negotiated (i.e. the permission to excavate), supported the project to completion in the field. The licence from the County Council and SMC were granted for five years at a time; altogether four consents and renewals of licence were sought and granted over the duration of the project. The land within the town walls had been set aside as pasture and an area including space for a campsite and the infrastructure of the seasonal excavation was fenced off for the duration; the limits of the area being adjusted as the spoil heaps grew in volume and the corresponding space they occupied

Archaeology · Astronomy · Excavation · Physics · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies · Cultural Heritage Management and Preservation · Historical and Cultural Archaeology Studies · History

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