SDO9928 - 'Roman Britain in 1972: Southern Counties' Britannia

Brief catalogue of archaeological works carried out on Roman sites in Britain during 1972. This includes the following summaries for sites in Dorchester (on pages 315-6), reproduced here in full. Dorchester: (i) at South Grove Cottage, Trinity Street (SY692904), excavation at the back of the south rampart of the town showed that its tail had been extended at the end of the third century over the three metre wide chalk and flint foundation occurring at the rear of the primary chalk rampart. The foundation itself appeared to have cut through occupation layers overlying a late 1st century pit. (ii) At The Grove (SY689908) a section across the line of the west defences of the town revealed two ditches 5m apart. The inner and smaller of the two was of two phases, the earlier yielding pottery of the second or third century, and the later one undated. The outer ditch showed an early phase with V-section, a widening associated with pottery of the third or fourth century , and a final medieval phase. p315 (iii)At Poundbury: (SY685911) seventeen more inhumations were excavated on site C in the fourth century Christian cemetery, one being of a man with blond hair in a lead-lined wooden coffin packed with gypsum. A third century building on this site yielded scrap from iron working and objects including a male statuette. On site D a third-century rectangular house, 5.5m by13.5m, was associated with inhumations mainly oriented N-S, some with graved goods, and none apparently dated after the early fourth century. One of the burials was of a child in a lead-lined wooden coffin packed with gypsum, in which locks of dark brown hair survived. One grave contained the fittings from a bronze-bound box. A strip of open ground separated these burials from the Christian cemetery. Two mausolea stood just inside this boundary: one had been decorated with wall-paintings and contained gypsum burials of two adults, both with remains of dark brown hair; the other contained four burials, of two adults and two children, three of which were gypsum burials in stone or lead-lined wooden coffins. pp. 315-6.