McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research annual report 2018-19

Research Highlights
Aldborough, North Yorkshire
Rose Ferraby & Martin Millett (Faculty of Classics)
Work continued at the Roman town of Isurium
Brigantum with a long fieldwork season in May. We
re-opened an area beside the principal road to the
North Gate first explored in 1924. This work revealed
evidence for buildings and yielded several architectural
fragments. Our aim was to examine a good-sized
area of deposits from the period of the town’s origins
enabling us to assess its early character. It proved
difficult to identify the extent of the 1924 work, but
our trench revealed a long sequence of structures and
the surface of the most northerly street within the
planned town. We did not reach the beginning of the
sequence, but a second-century blacksmith’s workshop
was revealed in the deepest part of the trench. Above
this, successive phases of buildings faced onto the main
road. A fourth-century midden was overlain by two
phases of timber buildings taking the sequence into the
fifth century. The excavation will be continued in 2020.
In collaboration with Charly French and Sean Taylor, the
survey of the geoarchaeology of the valley floor to the
north of the town continued. The initial prospection of
the area was completed, and a complete pollen core
recovered. This is currently being analysed by Rob Scaife
at Southampton.
A series of podcasts recorded during the excavation can
be accessed at:
https://aldboroughromantown.wordpress.com/
podcasts/
The 2019 excavation from the north with the
blacksmith’s workshop visible in the foreground.
The project was funded by an anonymous donor.
Patricia Hart
Martin Millett
Final Film-skills Workshop, 2 March 2019.
Archaeology at Cambridge 2018–2019 39