EPPIC Roman Pottery
1964-73 Ancaster Cemetery Excavations

Project type: Roman and Prehistoric Pottery Analysis

Recording and reporting on the Ancaster Roman pottery assemblage was undertaken in 2006/07 as part of the English Heritage funded EPPIC placement scheme which provides paid training with the support of established specialists in a professional working environment with the aim of increasing the skills base within various archaeological specialisms. The placement in Romano-British Ceramics was hosted by Archaeology South-East, on behalf on EH/IFA, training was provided by Charlotte Thompson (ASE) and the project and training was overseen and managed by Louise Rayner (ASE), with additional training and support from specialists based in the East Midlands and Lincolnshire. The project focused on an assemblage from the Ancaster cemetery excavations carried out by David Wilson for Nottingham University between 1964 and 1973. This project was selected because it provided a large assemblage with a diversity of local, regionally traded and imported material.

The excavated trenches produced pottery from a number of phases from the Middle Iron Age to the Late Roman period, and Middle and Late Iron Age pottery was recovered from a small number of pits, hearths and gullies. Many of the trenches picked up two parallel ditches which formed part of the defences of the early Roman fort, probably established 5-10 years after the conquest and occupied until the AD 70s or even into the AD 80s. A limited number of other small pits and gullies were also contemporary with this phase. The majority of the features are probably associated with the later Roman town of Causennae and located in the extra-mural area immediately to the east of the walled settlement. For a period of more than 100 years, the area appears to have been used for settlement, agricultural or workshop type activities. A wide variety of features were present in this broad phase, including stone buildings, a well, ditches, pits and extensive areas of gravel quarrying. The latest phase consisted of a large, late Roman inhumation cemetery.

The aim of the project was to provide training in all aspects ceramic analysis from identification, spot-dating and quantification to the analysis of data. The project culminated in the production of a major report for publication, including discussion of chronology and selected key groups, as well as analysis of supply and trade, the assemblage in its regional context and aspects of function and status. Inevitably, over forty years after the start of the excavations, problems were encountered with the assemblage and the archive but the process of integrating the ceramic evidence with stratigraphic information also became an important part of the training. The project provided the basis for the placement holder to begin a career in pottery analysis with ASE.

Project Officer: Louise Rayner
Client: English Heritage/Institute for Field Archaeologists
Project type: Roman and Prehistoric Pottery Analysis