SDO9988 - 'Roman Britain in 1986: 1. Sites explored', Britannia

Brief catalogue of archaeological works carried out on Roman sites in Britain during 1986. This includes a summary of discoveries in Dorchester, reproduced here in full: Dorchester (Durnovaria): (i) Poundbury cemetery: on the line of a water-main trench west of the city and south of Poundbury (a) the digging was watched between SY 6827 9063 and 6847 9117. The SW stretch was blank, but at 6847 9110 a series of five inhumations began; four were of adults in wooden coffins orientated W-E. The fifth, at 6850 9115, was an adult gypsum burial similarly orientated in a lead coffin with a substantial coffin of greensand. This is the first lead-lined stone coffin, and the first greensand coffin recorded in the Poundbury cemetery, earlier finds have been of Ham Hill stone coffins or lead-lined wooden coffins. No grave-goods were present. (b) Between SY 6847 9117 and 6868 9115 the trench was archaeologically excavated except in the area of previous excavations. At the western end two round houses and a pit of Iron Age date were located; two ditches may have represented a surrounding enclosure. Nine more burials were found. A crouched adult inhumation of the first century A. D. was accompanied by a Black-burnished dish and meat bones. The other eight (two juveniles and six adults) belonged to the late Roman cemetery; seven were in wooden coffins, the eighth lay prone and uncoffined. One child and one adult were buried with hobnail boots. (c) At SY 6827 9071 no trace of the aqueduct was found on its expected line. [Report by Susan Davies in Trust for Wessex Archaeology’s Project Summary Reports 1986-7] (ii) A hoard of c. 7000 late third-century radiates is recorded from the town. [Information from Andrew Burnett]