Caistor Dig: a guide to what you’ll find

Time Team’s involvement.

Channel 4′s Time Team are filming a documentary about the Caistor Project at the Roman town, due to be screened next year. 

For the man leading the dig at Caistor St Edmund, a professor who trained in south Norwich at the UEA, it’s a chance to uncover evidence of an even earlier time.

For Time Team it’s an opportunity to tell the wider story about the Iceni. They’re taking a bit of a risk, as they don’t know if any significant finds will be uncovered during the 3 week dig. Karen Walsh, producer and director of the documentary said: “What we want to find out is whether the Roman town was built on top of an existing Iron Age settlement.”

What you’ll find.

The Caistor Project lasts until Saturday September 11th. Around 2000 people visited the dig in the first 10 days. A Finds Tent shows you some of the items the archeologists have uncovered so far, as well as giving you background to the site itself. Two trenches are currently being excavated. Volunteers from the charity The Caistor Roman Project are helping excavate the site.

Heading from Norwich, you’ll spot signs to a make-shift car park, just after Caistor Hall. From there it’s a short walk to the dig itself.

Venta Icenorum is a scheduled ancient monument, owned by the Norfolk Archaeological Trust. The only previous large-scale excavations at Caistor were carried out between 1929 and 1935. No major excavation work has been carried out in more than 70 years, until now.

The dig.

Leading the dig at the Roman town of Venta Icenorum is Will Bowden, an Associate Professor of Roman Archeology at the University of Nottingham. When studying for his PhD at the University of East Anglia (UEA), he often pondered the site’s history. Now he has a research grant to uncover what lies beneath the Roman town.

The question he really wants to answer is whether Caistor was an important Iron Age settlement before the Romans arrived, in Boudicca’s day. Using a sophisticated geophysical survey, his team have mapped out the entire site, and are digging where circular anomalies appear in the street pattern of the roman town.

Professor Bowden said: “One of the big mysteries about the site is why is it here. Is it founded on a virgin site, or was there earlier occupation?” “Coin evidence points to there being an Iron Age mint somewhere near here.”

Get involved.

One of the aims of the Caistor project is to understand the role of the town in the wider landscape. A team of volunteers are carrying out an extensive field survey across 25 parishes surrounding the Roman town. This involves walking across ploughed fields, picking up any trace of past human activity, such as pottery or worked flint. Volunteers are welcome and no prior experience is necessary. Find out more via their website.

Blog.

You can follow regular updates from the dig by reading Professor Bowden’s blog. It has some insights into life at the dig, working alongside Time Team (such as Tony Robinson being asked to sign Blackadder dvds). There’s praise too for a group of local ladies who arrived armed with enough cake to feed a Roman army.