The Durotriges Big Dig (Archaeology Field School)

The Durotriges Project is an archaeological investigation studying the transition from the late Iron Age to the early Roman period in southern England. The fieldwork, takes place within Dorset, a county of outstanding natural beauty and one of the best preserved archaeological landscapes in Britain. The project is run as a Bournemouth University summer field school.

Archaeological Background

The invasion of southern Britain by Rome is usually treated as if it was a single, dramatic event, with the Roman legions fighting a lengthy and bitter war of conquest. But, was it really like this? The Durotriges Project is reconsidering the Iron Age to Roman transition through a detailed programme of field survey, geophysical investigation and targeted excavation. In the summer of 2009 excavation commenced focusing upon an enclosed later Iron Age 'banjo' settlement containing round houses, storage pits (containing enigmatic human and animal hybrid ritual offerings) , a later Iron Age Durotrigan cemetery and the remains of a 4th century Roman villa. In 2014 a significant find of a small late Roman cemetery, with five skeletons found nearby the Roman villa, created global news. In 2015, also creating global news, was the discovery nearby of an extensive undefended Late Iron Age settlement of the scale of a small town, consisting of an estimated 100-150 roundhouses. In 2016 work will continue on this settlement, the size of which is unprecedented for an open settlement of this period in this part of southern Britain.

We would recommend that you attend for a minimum of two weeks to expect to undertake some or all of the following activities:

• Stratigraphic excavation of deposits and features
• Context and feature recording
• Drawing measured plans and sections
• Finds processing: cleaning, documenting and packaging different materials
• Surveying using total station and GPS for the mapping of spatial site data
• Sampling for environmental evidence and other scientific analyses (e.g. geochemical analysis)
• Flotation, sieving and sorting of soil samples to extract environmental evidence and other artefacts
• Geophysical survey for detecting and mapping below-ground features (resistivity and magnetometry)