current archaeology
May 1970
In this issue .. . ALARGE part of this issue is devoted to just one town: Winchester. However, as this is the lar gest excavation in Britain, indeed perhaps the largest excavation in Europe, it is about time that we dis cussed it again. (Previous accounts in CA 2, 6. and 9). Of the four major sites that have been excava ted within the town, we deal with two in this issue. Firstly there is the site of the Old Minster, the Cathe dral church of Saxon Winchester, which lies just to the side of the present (basically Norman) cathedral, has now been fully excavated, revealing a complex sequence of development between its foundation in 648, and its demolition by the Normans in 1093.
The other Winchester site in this issue is The Brooks. This is a small portion of the Medieval town comprising two churches, 12 houses and a row of cottages, which is being meticulously excavated in order to throw light on life in Medieval towns. Side by side with the excavations extensive documentary research has been carried out by Derek Keene, so that we can actually say who lived in which house, and when.
But behind the Winchester excavations is the director, Martin Biddle, one of the leading members of the younger generation of archaeologists, and in this issue we have begun the first of what we hope will be a series of 'Interviews' with Current Archaeologists. Here he not only tells about how he started in archaeology, but also the inside story of the Winchester excavations.
One of the major current problems is that of the survival of the Roman civilisation and way of life down into the "Dark Ages". In the 50's Professor Frere showed in his classic series of excavations at Verulamium how a town site could be followed through several structural phases after the cessation of coin and pottery evidence, and we can now do the same for a villa. The villa concerned is that at Latimer in Buckinghamshire, and Keith Branigan, the excavator describes the four post-Roman phases which must take the history of the villa right down into the 5th—and, who knows?—even perhaps the 6th century.
Outside the Roman town of Dorchester, Christopher Green has been excavating a large cemetery that appears to be Christian. The cemetery contained several mausolea, one of which contained fragments of painted wall-plaster.
Then we conclude our series taking a new look at British Prehistory with an article on 'The New Iron Age'. In the last 10 years the overall picture of the British Iron Age has been somewhat confused but progress is now being made on regional surveys. The fullest of these is that by Dennis Harding for his doctoral thesis under Professor Christopher Hawkes, on the Upper Thames Valley, during the course of which he drew over 5,000 pieces of Iron Age pottery. In this issue he therefore discusses the Iron Age with special reference to the Upper Thames region, and he introduces the new concept of the 'Angular Horizon.'
The cover photo is a view of Winchester Cathedral from the air, taken by A. R. Smith, showing the excavations of the Old Minster in progress.
The next issue of Current Archaeology is already in the press, and should be out very shortly. This will be a special issue on Housing, and will contain long articles by Chris Musson on Bronze Age and Iron Age Round Houses, and by David Johnston on Roman Villas.
233 EDITORIAL 234 NOTES AND NEWS 235 THE NEW IRON AGE
by Dennis Harding 241 THE LATIMER ROMAN VILLA
by Keith Branigan
245 WINCHESTER: The Old Minster 250 WINCHESTER: The Brooks 256 CURRENT ARCHAEOLOGIST:
Interview with Martin Biddle 259 DORCHESTER: A Late Roman Cemetery Inside Back Cover: BOOKS
