A Farmer Finds A Roman Villa In His Field | Time Team | Timeline

[Music] this Oxfordshire field hides something so special it's been tantalizing people for decades and here's a hint these incredible crop marks they're a clue that there's something big and almost certainly Roman right underneath my feet but what is it why is it here I almost believe this is a Roman wall I'd love it if just for once this turned out to be a posh powerful des res rather than some manky old Roman farmhouse the kind of place that drew people here for centuries maybe all roads do lead here to drop short we've got just three days to find out if the gods are with us [Music] beneath the huge cooling towers of Didcot power station are these fields known as drop short back in the 1960s a young PhD student decided to excavate this size farmers have been regularly plowing up Roman remains and our keen archaeologist wanted to know why he soon found the stone walls of what was clearly some kind of Roman building but he never found enough evidence to prove exactly what it was now we're here to finish the job he started doing something no other team can do intensely digging for three solid days with some of the best archaeologists and specialists technicians in the business if anyone can do it time team can over here I've been pontificating over the bonnet for the last 20 minutes I don't go anywhere Neal you're the site director can't you get them moving okay plain as a pikestaff what we've got it's a great photo isn't it and you can see this very clear straight ditch and you sort of trapezoidal shape now that says to me Roman there's one thing missing there's no building yet we know that the building because it does up here in the sixties the first question is where is it these are the results of the excavations in the 1960s bit of a key that it's Roman mosaic a wonderfully accurate plan but like Neil says unfortunately we don't know where in this field this building is we've got to identify this mosaic Emily oftentimes when we found a mosaic it's actually been disappointing it's all been plowed to blazes over years and years of years and actually the more important information is actually in the structure itself fair enough I want to hear the whole story nevertheless Robert wrench burnt debris stone foundations mosaic I know which I'd go for out of those four so first we've got to find out where exactly that student put his trenches and where he found the mosaic back in the 1960s archeologists often weren't as rigorous as today he left no records of where he dug but things have moved on and we've got technology on our side geophysics Jimmy from our GFS team has been rolling out his radar kit all morning running this dig for time team is Neal Holbrooke an expert in Roman archaeology I mean what slightly worries me is the crop marks and the ditches are incredibly visible but the actual villa we can't see at all just it's big splodge I'm a little worried by there because if you can't find this villa we didn't know where to dig the problem is I suppose it could just be that it's been spread out you know we've got just a demolition spread there I mean if that's the case then maybe that's all we'll see but at least if we can Center you in on that spread you can poke a hole in it there now I need you to target me in the radar takes time to analyse so we're also doing a magnetometry survey for quick results our site lies in the south of Oxfordshire at the heart of the Thames Valley its rich soil has made it ideal farmland for centuries just to the north of our site of water meadows reaching across to the River Thames about a mile away and to the south those majestic cooling towers as far as Roman villas go this isn't exactly Italy few have ever been found around here and none of the pots brand Roman villas we're familiar with or anywhere near to drop short so a grand villa with mosaic floors would be a real find John Gator our GFS boss is ready to serve up the first magnetometry results where's your plan for this John right those are rectangular ditches yeah and what I've done initially is a block in there why well it's roughly in the middle that was my reasoning so we've surveyed the strip in there there you can see the ditches yeah so that corresponds with those ditches there in the middle we've got this clear edge there you can see between the black and the white now that could be the edge of the building but not guys expecting to see I was thinking that you can see very clearly defined wall lines pre make out rooms of a range what I'd say guys I think think you must assume that the building is necessarily in the middle of the enclosure I mean all those sure pros do you went along there we test it but you know what I'm not convinced that's the villa no I wish approved of it it well we've got to do it so much for new technology so where is his trench gonna go John well roughly here where you don't have a roughly precisely where well precisely here what I'm precisely market in please so do we go dig well you can do it where you going oh you shallow ground over there I don't know or you can do it over there away from the mill no where is it gonna go here well 5x2 from here get join me to spray it please on this alignment yeah it's good enough for you Oh be careful definitely you know so the black the first trench is going in across the long black area that John's identified on his survey apart from that feature the geophysical up a jumble of debris in the topsoil with no mortared walls or anything else obviously man-made INGOs trench one on old wing and a prayer [Music] no you then hope you got there then mr. Roman itched well it looked like Ric Tesori that's what I thought they look like bricked a sorry for that bits from a mosaic pavement they came but they're quite big in air it's more likely from the border rather than from the center pipe with itself but they are from her remember say you're right here [Music] turning up a fragment of border mosaic straightaway is a very promising start it's just the kind of thing that our student dug up in the 1960s in search of clues to the site we've retrieved his finds from the museum where they've been for 50 years time team finds expert Danny has roped in Romanist Louise Revell to help identify them what people were wearing 2,000 years ago and that's gorgeous art oh yummy can you tell us yeah yeah that's a very nice piece of painted wall plaster which would have gone onto the walls you've got the reddish color but you also have these whites and this pale greenish line on it which would be the sides of borders so it's not all one color instead you break it up and you might have figures or something in the middle of this nice to be able to see colors how you would have seen it is it's really I mean that white is so vibrant it's gorgeous back at Neil's first trench there's tension in the air have we zeroed in straight away on the remains of a Roman building come in low-earth T's I think I have no bottom uh that's the bottom of the Flyway Wow I can't put I wish so what is that black well it's a hell of a lot of burning yeah it's burning isn't it is it actually just what they've been putting stubble burning from the modern fields rather than actually being to do the Romans no I don't think it's that you look in this section here look at the intensity of the heat look it's it's actually burning this clay look over this clay is turned red don't struggle burning so this is really old big ancient burning this is when the villa burnt down conclusions but you can see why it shows that clearly on the geophys yeah it's very discrete line of burning we've got a strip mache crew you've just witnessed lat something has clearly burned down here and this must account for the black line on the G Affairs but could John be right did our Roman building burn down the results from Jimmy's radar survey which should give a really clear 3d picture of any remains under the surface have started to come through we're hoping it will give better results than the initial magnetometry did Jimmy's not getting a clear picture at all there's no depth now that maybe the clay or it could be that it's been plowed away so what we've done is just extend the magnetic survey that's it there it's not great so I think what we need to do is perhaps look some of these when we came here we were saying oh look we've got these fantastic aerial photos we've got all these fines coming up actually this could be a bit too easy afternoon day one and we've got nothing the GF is team are drawing a big fat blank it's a real problem for Neil in his search for the villa giving him no leads to place his next trench so he's going with John's best guess for trench two [Music] as the top soils removed Neil's about to find out whether their best guess is enough [Music] oh yeah I mean that's water didn't there you know I could almost believe this is a Roman wall stones and they're set in mortar let's get this three stones showing first three is a wall but that is looking good it looks very good so I think this is our level against all odds kneels in luck spin the trench in this direction then we can get some people in here and clean back but looking a lot like that is the face of a wall with one face there never face there and then some material potentially plaster floor or something going through there it's good news at last but are these fragments of walls the same walls that our 1960s archeologist found if they are then we should be very close to finding our big prize the mosaic funny old day because quite honestly for the first three quarters of it everything was really very difficult and then suddenly whoosh went bang on the money and tomorrow we'll excavate more of this and hopefully find out more about the dating of what it is that we've got and what it was used for but for now it's down tools and off to the pub archeology will have to wait till the morning it's the beginning of our second day at drop short and it's full speed ahead we suddenly seem to be digging everywhere Stewart Ainsworth our landscape archaeologist is joining the team on this dig he's been scrutinizing the site and matching it to the fine detail the local maps already he's come up with some fresh insights for Neil what's the story I don't say this but I think Stewart's practice prove it to me well done taking the original magnetometry that John did here rescaled the original excavations which was floating in space and we didn't know where they were and if you start to play about without some interesting things caught yeah those coincide exactly with the 1960s excavations so that means the mosaic was originally here thanks to Stuart's efforts we're getting a much better understanding of where exactly the 60s archaeologists were working so with a bit of luck Neal should be able to pinpoint where the mosaic was found he's put Phil in charge of this job I've just got to get my head around all the frantic activity this morning this is our main trench here where we think that the mosaic would be and they've now stuck in another trench over here not sure why they've done that but they've also put in another trench way over in this direction behind this tin here another idea why they've done that at all see the old boys taken away what are you doing putting in a trench right over here it's practically the other side of Oxfordshire from where the rest of our villa is what will I do Tony is get away now from where the 1960s excavators dug because they've the actual if I'd intact Roman deposit to give us dating evidence for the complex so this ditch over here and ate the whole trapezoidal enclosure and then can you see it's all to this like inner enclosure potentially around the building and that's where we put another trench over here oh is this the new one that's almost adjacent to feel strange yeah so what we're trying to do is get dating now to there and out of there but we've hardly started excavating the villa itself at all why didn't we wait a while before we went off onto the periphery and concentrate on the villa what feels carefully excavating away in there you know there's important and as delicate and complicated archaeology we've got to give fill time so what we fought is which we dig here and we dig here this gives filled time to investigate further there and then tomorrow what we can try and do is come back and perhaps put some other trenches in here because the one thing we still don't understand is what is the plan of this Villa and how big is it tomorrow tomorrow the Sun will come out tomorrow tomorrow is our last day that means you're only giving us one day to excavate the villa yeah we are but we have to learn about the resources available to us and I we can't rush to archeology take its own course feels confident [Music] so Neil's keeping Phil on the hunt for the mosaic in trench too but he's also open to new trenches one over the inner perimeter ditch and one on the outer [Music] ditches are useful for archaeologists finds on the bottom must have been shut in first so give you the earliest date of occupancy stuff at the top was done last so give the most recent date so we should see that yellowy greenie fly surely and it's not long before the inner trench starts to pay off that's a bit of glass yeah I want to be very careful cuz I don't I want to get it out in one piece it's quite um yeah Dibble this maybe these it's almost molten it's nice okay I can say through it when you do that the light can you come and have a look at this window in the villa but isn't it amazing that if this is molten yep it suggests perhaps a fire perhaps that part the vinner if you've burnt at some stage because there's an awful lot of charcoal up there in the first trench but this little bit does suggest well wouldn't it be fantastic if there's a story to do a bit of burning it's like we're looking for a Roman window to expertise Roman glass is unmistakable and this piece suggests that whatever building we have here was quite classy but even if it is high-end what would mark out our building as being specifically a villa we keep talking about the possibility of there being a villa here but it does rather beg the question what is a villa villa is one of those horrendous terms to actually define one of the problems is we use it archaeologically just to mean any kind of countryside residence that has I don't know the odd bit of mosaic little bit of wall painting that looks something a bit more impressive than your bog-standard peasant farm a villa is where you display well it's where you show off how wealthy you are so if we've got nice things that suggests it's the sort of upper end of the villa rather than the lower end of the villa scale they wanted towns were they were they isolated in the countryside were they like stately homes how did it operate well the villas are the elite residences of the wealthy and the wealthy are magistrates in towns so they're almost like the country seat of the urban magistrates interesting thing about this one is that it's actually quite away from st. Albans for olay meum cirencester and sill Chester which of the main towns in the area and that's what makes this area is such an oddity this site does pose more questions than answers doesn't it it does very much so [Music] in search of answers Neel sending Stuart on a mission to survey the site from the air you'll be seeking clues in the landscape as to how the site may have changed over the past 2,000 years he may be able to spot ancient drove ways potential indicators of intensive farming activity and he'll also be taking a careful look at the River Thames he too may offer further hints about this choice of building location [Music] back on dry land the data from Stuart's flight has been processed we're building a 3d model of the area to help us get a real handle on what it would have looked like in Roman times if you are a traveler coming up River what would you have seen what would the landscape Athene like well if you came from the landward side we would come along this Ridge and then what happens he seemed to connecting to a series of roads one down here one down here and that's one of the things soften the helicopter to see the crop marks these roads coming in here coming down these fields which seem to connect into its wider landscape and you can see this is a scar caused by the River Thames it's changed course over time Oh in might suspicion ease that in Roman times the channel came much much closer to the Villere so that the the village just literally sit on the edge of the channel somewhere in this area here so it wouldn't have been stuck out miles away from anywhere in the middle of the country it would have been part of an organized landscape oh very much so and I think the river is very very important to the economy the villa because of the market the potential will be Abingdon connecting to that wider hub economically it's in a great position actually visually I think it's a splendid position will that view connecting you with the centre at Abingdon if you took the view southwards and in Roman times you wouldn't have seen the cooling [Laughter] it's a great theory that might explain why Villa was built here in the first place but it also needs proving so Stewart's ropes in Naomi our environmental specialist to help take samples from deep in the water Meadows across the road if the river was once here the soil will be different a couple of meters down one thing that invariably takes time in archaeology is making sure you don't destroy the things you find Phills team have been carefully scraping back the earth above what we hope will turn out to be a Roman mosaic once all the promises that we'd get something exciting here really we haven't heard anything from the people in this trench all morning except now Phil you want me I think Kurt you we've got something interesting to show you Tony well tell him what is it I know it says mosaic but actually the original excavation records make it clear that there were only small fragments isolated Tesori that indicate there was a mosaic there the real bit of mosaic was that bit there in the corner of this room and that is where pretty much directly underneath my toolbox I think this is the perfect time to stop for a moment don't you see you after the break there's just a day and a half left to find the roman villa a drop short and its grand mosaic of which as yet we haven't found even the fragment the sun's beating down and fills now talking to himself oh come on Phil put the Merc in the barrel one day's time I gotta fly it twice as far as that Phil and his team are still hard at it in their Trench inching towards what they hope will be the big prize a large Roman mosaic which could be under his toolbox if we're lucky and across the road in the water Meadows Stuart Naomi are on a mission they're looking for the River Thames or at least where it used to be they think the Thames has significantly changed course since Roman Britain a full mile closer to drop short that it is now so they're taking core samples to prove their theory what your first impressions have well it's all looking very good in terms of typical of River deposits it's very it's clear it's very silty as well this is also dementia yet from water that's moving yes yeah so at least we are finding what we're really looking for so we have got evidence of water movement mm-hmm Naomi's pretty certain they're right it just needs double checking in the labs that these cause are showing deposits typical of moving water meanwhile back in the trenches there's some good news Neil's two new trenches are really delivering the goods Danny's in the outer perimeter ditch getting her hands dirty just to be sure of what she's found Danny calls on mark Cornie a specialist Roman finds expert who's joined the team it's from a cheese press at ease people waiting pressing cheese and they're made locally between the 2nd and the 4th century AD there are those only small piece that I mean tells us a story doesn't it they're making cheese here so that implies they've got either cattle or sheep goats or all three that you can make cheese from it's a puzzling piece of evidence that suggests our villa perhaps wasn't the Grand Country residents of an urban bigwig that we assumed what would he be doing with a cheese press it looks like the drop short residence may have been living off the land and it's more to come from Matt's trench on the inner perimeter roof tile isn't it and I think he's having what can only be described as a very good afternoon for an archaeologist you actually find a deposit like this where it's absolutely chock full of stuff [Music] I did time [Music] [Music] [Laughter] that's the second part of a rustic locally made part from the third or fourth century that's come out of this trench today it would probably have been in the kitchen storing grain oats or dried fruit drop short seems to have a whole host of rustic features so we're being pulled in two directions is it a swanky villa or is it a farm over in the water meadows the core samples have been analyzed and have yielded some intriguing information for Neel result we think we found the river channel all the way up to here three holding and basically in a nutshell it's quite waterlogged quite waterlogged much drier deposits similar deposits to what we're finding over at the villa sites off dry land if you like so where we're standing now you've been paddling you'd be right right on the edge here so could I put my boat into him I'm thinking so yeah it's definitely a navigable body of water and in a way this river potential the focus of the whole site and could you been using this in the villa economy could they have been I don't know so pasturing cows oh yeah I mean the location here with me we know we've got evidence of driveways and the really interesting thing about the big draw of where that comes past the enclosure it continues and comes up to what will be the edge of the water bringing animals to water and you've got grazing out there it's part of the whole economy of the villa so do you think then it's this location of higher spur of land it's just why the villas where it is it is yeah right on the edge of the river it's not going to flood up there either which is quite important I was coming here now and saying where would you put the villa the evidence is now stacking up the drop short might have been a farm yet confusingly there's all this posh Roman stuff here as well glass the painted walls and the elusive mosaic there's a real puzzle developing it's not often I get my knees dirty but I'm so desperate to see some sign of the wretched mosaic that I can't help myself [Music] we're only getting floor foundations rather than whatever was on the floor it does imply that the floor is gone we've got very clear right the way across this the site look like ours going right the way through into the ground now if that's happened since the sixties and it could well have done then the floor what left but what little there was of it is gone so after all that hope and efforts no grandmas aook for us to admire and wonder at Phil said at the beginning that mosaic chasing was a dangerous game and it seems as if a mosaic that survived 1400 years may have been destroyed by plowing in the last 50 years at the end of day 2 it's left Neal with a problem I can't deny that I'm feeling a bit disappointed we're coming to the end of day 2 we didn't get the mosaic not your fault you located where it was but it wasn't there but more than that I don't know the whole thing seems to me to be a bit of a mess we know so little I understand you're frustrated Tony but you know we have to do this right by the archaeology Phil's doing a top job in there it's gonna be a race for tomorrow absolutely for sure we may open one other trench I think but you know if you really assay to me am I absolutely sure we're gonna know by tomorrow night behind this building but don't know just one day left and we've no idea what our roman building looks like still we've been in a tight spot before it's a big ask but it's down to you Neil we're we're looking for we're looking to demonstrate it's the beginning of day three here in Oxfordshire and we found a Roman house we know it had a floor because look there's the bedding layer for the floor we know it had a roof we found lots of roof tiles like this one and we know that down there was the River Thames which elegantly flowed past the Venice front door now we don't know that actually it could be the back door or even the side door because what we don't know is which way around the villa faced or would it look like from the outside [Music] with so little time left side director Neil has got the digger working at the crack of dawn and v trench goes in time teams geophys squad have tried everything but have come up with an only scanty evidence and the villas layout so Neil's having to draw on all his archaeological experience to crack this one we start think about Roman villas we got Phil's trench here so that's just the Pogues we've got one big range there now John's getting anomalies over here so that's just suppose we've got a second range over here so just one possibility is is that this is the early villa here they then knock this down and rebuild at a later date back here and perhaps this is the source of all the pottery that's coming out of the ditches if we get stone walls here or even timber evidence of timber buildings then we're in business if we don't get much here we're back the drawing and we're very much back to the drawing board Neil thinks that maybe there were two phases of construction a drop short one early villa built in the 1st to 2nd century which got knocked down or even burnt down to make room for a second later Villa where Phil's excavating this could explain the two ranges or lines of buildings that seem to show up on the GF is Neil's plumped for a trench across this faint GF is anomaly just seemed something rather bizarre over here ever appears to be surveying on top of the spoil heap like Sir Edmund Hillary on top of Everest what are you doing mate I'm just setting out a new trench and it's right on top of the spoiler yeah a new trench yeah new trench that's one I haven't heard about O'Neill can you hear me it's halfway through our final day and there's no stopping Neil he's going for trench number six hoping it'll unlock the drop short secret to plan C or D okay thanks oh it seems to me one problem we have is that the geophysics really hasn't worked on this site what do you mean well we haven't got a very clear picture of this filler I'm used to a really nice clear geophysics plus that's not our fault we can only map what below the ground if the archaeology isn't there if it's not surviving then we can't map it the upshot is is that we don't have a very clear picture of what the remains whatever remains of this villa what it might look like okay the tension spreading through the whole team despite Neil punching holes all along the line where he thinks the early villa might be the signs aren't looking promising but it's not game over just yet Time Team archaeologist Raksha has been unusually quiet over in the outer perimeter trench diligently carrying out Neil's instruction to get dating material from the ditch still I've got every faith she's going to deliver massive let's try and lift him oh wow that is pretty sinister Oh No Wow is that like one of those wrong it's like another hypocaust heart isn't it yes I love that the moment of turning it over and just going just feel the pattern on the underside with my fingers these patent hyper course tiles are part of a sophisticated central heating system and are the best evidence yet that there was a 1st to 2nd century building here somewhere right sure yes for Butchie over the last 36 hours I've been on the other side of that fence I'm got a clue what's going on in your drain welcome to the RT reggie's Tony marked of the finds help us to date the ditches absolutely we've really hit the jackpot in this trench in terms of good dateable pottery the earliest piece we've got is this lovely piece of semion ware which probably dates to about 70 to 80 oh you do thanks there's a little lion but can you see it's also got a lead rivet it's been broken and repaired so it was obviously highly treasured by whoever owned it and these shirts are big and fresh they've not been kicking around on the surface this material being bought in and deliberately dumped to fill in these ditches what do you think all this means well I honestly believe that we haven't found the building yet that all of this materials come from so you don't think that it comes from our villa over there no look it's so fresh and it's high status and it's great quality I don't think we've actually found the villa that this comes from yet raksha's last-minute theory is that the early villa building isn't where Neil's been looking for three days but somewhere closer to her dish she could be right but have we got time to put her idea to the test some of the archaeologists to me was saying to me every time we haven't found the proper VIN and what we've found is just some annex or something and then there is another fab villa somewhere around that we just haven't located I mean we don't know I keep using this word longshot this is a long shot because look at history if it's gone normally totally you know it doesn't shout first safety Villa does it to you doesn't to me I can assure you that but the reality is we came here two and a half days ago we were pretty sure there was a villa here all right we've found the 60s dig but we found precious little apart from that to tell the story and we've got what three hours left and that's true so we have to try we have to try this if it works and plastic if it doesn't wear we've gone down fighting my money's on going down fighting in a last-minute lunge for the finishing post in goes Raksha you trench looking for the source of all the pottery she's been finding I don't know cried that's how I'm feeling [Music] [Music] very clean [Music] or pottery hang on careful [Music] pottery and bow it's just food [Music] this won't be building somewhere they disgust me [Music] the problem really is isn't it but there isn't one bit of building debris out of this trip so far stone rubble smashed up tile wall plaster and I don't see any of that at the moment it's just it's like a rubbish pit [Music] oh you have to test it and it sometimes it doesn't work you know you try your best you know it's been no lack of fault on this site of the last three days I don't we've ever fought so hard for three days about actually where to dig what we're digging you know and in the glorious light of retrospect I don't think I've done anything differently I don't think we've made any obvious mistakes I think we've done all the right things it just hasn't hasn't gone out why and that mean you know the essential conundrum of where this material which is so fresh in your ditch is coming from I don't know I don't know I fart every after I think we'll call air day yeah I think we'll call it a day Neels fail to find a shred of evidence for a stone build villa close to rakshasas trench there could still be a second earlier villa out there but we just can't see it in the geophys although it's not as if we're going away empty-handed thank goodness for Phil and his trench of riches what we have here are basically three rooms we've got that very small one there with the with the pink flooring which is where we add the mosaic or where we didn't have them at then we've got another little room here in the corner and then the main spread of the villa is this apparently large room going all the way up beyond the extent of our trench I mean you know it's you know funny today Phil we chased around looking for a big stone building haven't found it but in a sense you know this is the heart of the fiddle complex isn't it you all along you've been beefing away in here and actually yeah these are quite small rooms aren't they but this is as good as it got on this site I think these are pieces people trying to do Roland style living perhaps on a fairly small budget nice mosaic here nice mosaic here and they can think you could come in here and you could just live in nothing you could live it up in the roman style I think it's been a very very good conclusion [Applause] in the three days we've written a new chapter in the history of this site unlike the archaeologists who dug drop short in the 60s we've worked out why the villa was built here and finally have a grasp of its layout it gives a perfect insight into how a farming family got caught up in the fashions and lifestyle of their European masters [Music] we came here looking for a magnificent palace and not a manky old farmhouse but in fact we didn't find either what we did discover was a lovely little villa by the banks of the Thames which gave us a real flavour of early Roman life over the last three days we've excavated a huge amount of stuff and yet there must be something else out there although for the moment drop short remains an enigma and perhaps it always will [Music]

Channel: Timeline - World History Documentaries

Views: 209,460

Rating: 4.8842516 out of 5

Keywords: History, Full Documentary, Documentaries, Full length Documentaries, Documentary, TV Shows - Topic, Documentary Movies - Topic, 2017 documentary, BBC documentary, Channel 4 documentary, history documentary, documentary history, villa, roman fields, roman archaeology, roman history, tony robinson

Id: peKMb-4_7J0

Length: 46min 12sec (2772 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 10 2020

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