#ThrowbackThursday Garrison Area E

This #ThrowbackThursday we will be remembering Area E of the Garrison excavations which is now the new St John’s Green Primary School on Abbey Field

Back in 2013 we worked on Area E, which was located in the southern hinterland of the Roman walled town where Roman and Anglo-Saxon cemeteries, funerary monuments, and a circus have previously been identified.

The first phase of Roman activity identified on site dated to approximately mid 1st to 2nd century AD. This included a NW/SE ditch which appeared to be the western boundary of a 1st-century Roman cemetery including a high-status bustum (a special kind of burial where where the remains of the body are left undisturbed in the ashes of the funeral pyre) and three cremations (one a high-status boxed cremation). The high number of imported items found in these burials, and the very Romanised ways of life that they represent, suggest that the deceased could be post-Boudican immigrant colonists. The elite nature of some of the burials may indicate that the cemetery was exclusively used by one prosperous family

The cemetery continued into the second phase of Roman activity (mid-late 2nd century). Twelve undated grave-shaped cuts were identified in and near to the cemetery. These are probably graves whose bodies were dissolved by the acidic soil which makes them difficult to date, but they are likely late Roman in date

The site also has a large post-medieval ditch which may be interpreted as a circumvallation ditch (a type of defence with outer facing barriers) dug by the Parliamentarian forces in the Siege of Colchester 1648

For more information about the Garrison Area E excavations check out CAT Report 778 at: cat.essex.ac.uk