City of the Dead: Calleva Atrebatum

Page 4 of 8

• 1. The lost town
• 2. Celtic roots
• 3. Our introduction to Calleva
• 4. Early excavations
• 5. Immigrants from France?
• 6. The Roman town
• 7. 6th-century abondonment
• 8. Find out more
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Early excavations

The early excavators appear to have limited themselves to exposing the foundations and plans of the masonry buildings, which were discovered by systematic trenching across the area occupied by each block of the Roman street grid.

When walls were met, their lines were traced and the interiors exposed by removing what was for the most part ploughsoil. Areas between the buildings, and the complex stratigraphy that lay beneath and between individual buildings, were not further investigated.

'The origins and early development of Calleva...remained obscure.'

The archaeology of timber buildings was ill understood at the time of these excavations, so while much was learned of the nature of the town between the second and the fourth century AD, the origins and early development of Calleva, when timber was the major building material, remained obscure.

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