The diggers are back, and bringing the surveyors this year. Here are our plans for this year's archaeological work in Dorchester.

Survey: 16th to 20th June

We are very grateful that we have been given permission to survey several areas of land in the village this summer. This provides us with a golden opportunity to assess areas about which we have very little archaeological knowledge.

During this part of our programme Oxford Archaeology staff will be training a group of students from the Oxford University Department of Continuing Education in the techniques of modern below-ground surveying: resistivity and magnetometry (what Time Team calls 'Geophys') and earthwork survey of above ground features.

On Thursday 19 June we would like to invite you all to an Open Evening at the Village Hall, to view the results. Do try to come along, who knows what we might have turned up!

Excavation: 30th June to 20th July

This year's excavation will take place on the allotments. During the first two weeks we will be training a group of Oxford University Undergraduates in excavation techniques. Although welcome at all times, we would like to welcome our local volunteers particularly during week 3 (14-18th July) when we will be able to give them as much time and attention as they need in learning the dark art of getting dirty and uncovering fascinating features and artefacts.

On 19th July we will be holding an Open Day on the allotments between 12.00 noon and 5.00pm. As we did last year, we would welcome sight of any artefacts you have found in the village over the years, so we can add them to our database for future reference, and our experts can identify them for you.

We are developing an excavation website: digdorchester.net where we will be posting relevant information past and present. If you want any other information please email Paul Booth, the site director at p.booth@oxfordarch.co.uk or Lorraine Lindsay-Gale at l.lindsay-gale@oxfordarch.co.uk. Both can be contacted on 01865 263800.

By the time you read this, the remedial work on the recreation ground will have been done, and we would like to apologise for any inconvenience that the unexpected settlement problems have caused. Can we please ask that everyone keeps off the re-seeded grass, to give it the best chance of growing back as quickly as possible.

'Discovering Dorchester' is a joint project between the University of Oxford, Oxford Archaeology and the people of Dorchester on Thames.

The pilot excavation undertaken in July as a joint project between the University of Oxford and Oxford Archaeology was a great success. Over a period of three weeks, 13 local volunteers joined the OU students to be taught the techniques of professional archaeology by OA staff. Fortunately, due to a late injection of funds from the University, they received their training free of charge, with lunch included. The excavation focused on two sites: the Minchin Recreation Ground and a private garden in Haven Close. Both sites produced some very interesting results.

Historic mapping suggests that the recreation ground was used as farmland from at least the 16th century until it was donated to the village as a recreation ground in the 19th century by Mr Minchin. Aerial photographs taken in 2001(visit Google Earth on the web) show a series of intriguing crop marks, and a subsequent geophysical survey, undertaken by William Wintle as part of the project, confirmed the likely survival of potentially significant archaeological remains.



The Parish Council and the cricket club kindly agreed that an excavation area could be opened over a series of crop marks in the south-east corner of the recreation ground. From Google Earth these appeared to show part of a curvilinear feature, characteristic of a Bronze Age ring ditch (a ploughed-out burial mound), and a square enclosure with a large pit-like feature lying just inside its western boundary.

Excavation confirmed the presence of the ring ditch, which had previously been unknown. This would suggest that the Bronze Age cemetery associated with the Dorchester cursus and the Big Rings henge extended much further south than had been thought. Assuming that the ring ditch was symmetrical, it would have had an internal diameter of c. 30m. Consequently, the projected location of the central burial was to the south of the excavation site (under the basketball court).

No evidence for Iron Age activity was recovered, which probably reflects the focus of settlement in the late Bronze Age and Iron Age at Castle Hill and Dyke Hills. The vast majority of the artefactual material recovered from the site was from the 4th century AD (late Roman period), and was deposited within the western, southern, and eastern boundary ditches of the rectangular enclosure that cut across the Bronze Age ditch and also in the top of the pit-like feature, which turned out to be a Roman water-hole or well.

The numerous and large unworn pot fragments suggest that the finds have come from the immediate vicinity of the site and may imply a high-status building near by. Significant quantities of copper and iron slag also suggest metalworking in the area.

The project was delighted to welcome two visits from Dorchester Primary School and 60 visiting undergraduates who were excavating at Frilford during the same period. We also had daily visitors who were either walking their dogs or taking their children to the play area, which made for a very sociable atmosphere. Thankfully, our presence did not impact too greatly upon the Cricket Club, to whom we are very grateful for the use of the pavilion. Our local volunteers were, in no particular order: Catriona Brodribb, Connie MacDonald, Karen Selway-Richards, Mim Umney Gray, Angela Reid, Katie Jones, Brian and Denise Leigh, John Metcalfe, Penny Cookson, Tracey Lester, Alison Round and Meg Fisher. We would like to thank them all for their enthusiastic involvement, and hope to see them next year.



Over the three weeks of the dig we gave a series of six evening lectures on the archaeological history of Dorchester from the Neolithic to the medieval period. These were very well attended, and gave people the opportunity to ask as many questions as they wished.

On 21 July the project held an Open Day, which in spite of threatening weather was very well attended. Some 120 people came up to the recreation ground, many bringing finds of their own, which were photographed and recorded on a specially developed GIS map of the area. This information will be most valuable when we come to planning excavations in the future. The children had a great time attempting to win the 'Spoil Heap Challenge', which had to be run twice by popular demand.

A few intrepid enthusiasts made it round to Haven Close, a walk well rewarded by the sight of some beautiful Samian pottery imported from the south of France in the early Roman period. As work is on-going there, we will bring you further news of this excavation in the next issue of Dorchester News.

Over the coming months the finds will be analysed, and a detailed report will be published as soon as possible. After that we can begin planning further research for next year. Now that the project is well established, we will be able to seek more substantial funding and give everyone more notice of our plans for 2008. We hope that this will enable more volunteers to try their hand at excavation next year.