City of the Dead: Calleva Atrebatum

Page 7 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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6th-century abondonment

The construction of the town wall in the later third century, and the downgrading of its great basilica into an industrial hall devoted to metalworking, is evidence of changing times, a symbol of the problems that Rome faced at this time in many of its provinces. Nevertheless, like its neighbours in southern England, the town continued to prosper and there is no sign of decline or desertion before the end of Rome's formal administration of Britain at the beginning of the fifth century.

'Anglo-Saxon control gradually prevailed over southern Britain.'

Despite the difficulties of mapping and dating activities as Roman artefacts ceased to be produced, the University of Reading's ongoing excavation of the block known as insula IX points to a population continuing into the fifth or sixth century.

One element of that community was Irish, evidenced by the remarkable discovery of a stone carved with ogham, a form of writing that originated in southern Ireland and that is unlikely to date before the beginning of the fifth century.

There are many difficulties in understanding and dating the final abandonment of the settlement, a process that involved the deliberate infilling of wells. Pressure from early Anglo-Saxon settlement around Dorchester-on-Thames, to the north, was probably a significant factor. The abandonment of the town may have been the result of deliberate policy to cleanse it of its occupants, as Anglo-Saxon control gradually prevailed over southern Britain between the fifth and the seventh centuries.

'...a better understanding of the origins of Calleva is yet to come.'

The ongoing excavation project that has been working on these, and many other, problems related to the developing life of the town is in a residential and working area, close to the centre. The aim is to examine a part of the insula from its origins in the late Iron Age to the demise of the town in the fifth and sixth centuries.

The project is about halfway through, and already we are seeing a sharp contrast between a comparatively rich phase in the first and second centuries, and a more industrial and crowded occupation in the third and fourth centuries. We have barely a glimpse of the underlying late Iron Age occupation - a better understanding of the origins of Calleva is yet to come.

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