#ThrowbackThursday Butt Road excavations

Today we are looking at the Butt Road excavations for #ThrowbackThursday

Back in 1976, an excavation began in preparation for the construction of the new Colchester police station  One major objective was to examine the relationship between a Roman building already identified on the site and the Butt Road Roman cemetery.

Coin evidence suggested that the Roman building had been in use from AD 320-340 until the 5th century, and some of the 690 graves examined were contemporary with the use of the building. It was decided that the building was constructed as a “funeral banqueting hall”, which would have been used for memorial services and funeral meals. The high concentration of pig and bird bones here supports the notion that banquets would have been held here

The site also yielded detailed information about those buried there. For example, Grave 35 was identified as a young man aged 22-26, who suffered from wide-spread bone infection (periostitis) which suggests he would have been very unwell, and this would have resulted in his death. Grave 172 was found to be a woman aged 35-50 with a probable depressed skull fracture. This appeared to have been caused by trauma such as a blow by an instrument such as a small hammer head. These sort of details can teach us more about what a population looked like!

Research by Work Experience Student Jessica. See CAR 9 at cat.essex.ac.uk for more details