Big Dig 2011 is underway

Date: 6 June 2011

Excavations from the Big Dig site.

Excavations from last year’s Big Dig uncovered a skeleton buried on a bed of meat and a rather ‘UnRoman’ view of Britain.

What will this year’s Dig unveil? Follow it on Twitter @DBD2011 or subscribe to the blog here.

The Durotriges Project is an archaeological investigation studying the transition from the late Iron Age to the early Roman period in southern England.

The fieldwork, takes place within Dorset, a county of outstanding natural beauty and one of the best preserved archaeological landscapes in Britain. The project is run as a Bournemouth University summer field school.

The invasion of southern Britain by Rome is usually treated as if it was a single, dramatic event, with the Roman legions fighting a lengthy and bitter war of conquest. But, was it really like this? The Durotriges Project is reconsidering the Iron Age to Roman transition through a detailed programme of field survey, geophysical investigation and targeted excavation.

In the summer of 2009 excavation commenced (continuing this year), upon an enclosed late Iron Age ‘banjo’ settlement containing round houses, work surfaces, storage pits and the footings of a Roman masonry building.