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BBC Radio 4 news item this morning reports that English Heritage have discovered a Roman settlement at the base of Silbury. Indications are that the settlement may have been used by visiting Romans wishing to pay homage to the monument.

It is the lead story in todays Western Daily Press for anybody that is interested

Cheers

Copius-freakus2

I am constantly stunned by the ineptness of our more recent archaeologists - this is supposed to be an important site culturally, and yet the most obvious [let's face it, the Romans were messy bastards] remains of all have not been noticed.

It says so much for the last 100 years that everything is being redone to get the right answers.

There was also a report from the site on BBC 24 hour news plus an interview with the site manager (didn't catch her name).

-Chris

Moving images! Also... sound!

http://snipurl.com/1clt1

This is a video from the BBC web site, but the URL was horribly long (not that Littlestone's link wasn't appreciated).

K x

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/03/10/nhill10.xml
ffs

Came across an interesting article in WAM 1998 article last week. P.Ashbee - Stonehenge - Its possible non-completion, slighting, and dilapidation...

In it he argues that Stonehenge like Avebury were places that were reused by the romans for worship, a cult might have existed. Romano - british interest is found in both the above monuments, plus longbarrows (WKLB), Newgrange and Tara, as also the siting of temples on henges point to continuation?? of acknowledgment of old shrines.

The vanished stones (or not being there in the first place) of Stonehenge bit was also interesting, but people have to read the article, did'nt mention the Berwick stones...

moss and VBB have touched on this elsewhere http://www.themodernantiquarian.com/forum/?thread=39994&message=497847 but there's a good B&W photo (done with an array of caesium magnetometers) of the town on page 9 of the May-June edition of British Archaeology.

Romans were devoted to the idea that every place had its own guardian spirit (genius loci). It helped the process of Romanization that they didn't clash with local beliefs.