FRANKFURT, GERMANY—A team from Goethe University is excavating a village built on the foundations of a Roman fort near Gernsheim in the Hessian Ried. The cohort of soldiers dismantled the fort, filled in its defensive ditches, and left the site around A.D. 120, when they were transferred from the Rhine to the frontier. “A temporary downturn probably resulted when the troops left—this is something we know from sites which have been studied more thoroughly,” team leader Thomas Maurer said in a press release. The researchers uncovered the foundation of a stone building, fire pits, two wells, and cellars. “We’ve also found real treasures such as rare garment clasps, several pearls, parts of a board game (dice, playing pieces) and a hairpin made from bone and crowned with a female bust,” said Maurer. The town’s residents were probably mostly of Gallic-Germanic origins, but some Roman citizens from other parts of the empire may have lived there as well, since pieces of traditional dress, and coins that were not in circulation in Germania Superior, have been found. One of the coins came from Bithynia, located in northwestern Anatolia, and may have been a souvenir. To read about the rise of Roman power, go to "Rome's Imperial Port."