NORTHAMPTONSHIRE, ENGLAND—The Guardian reports that traces of a Roman trading town, four wells, and a 30-foot-wide road for carts traveling to and from the town were uncovered in England’s East Midlands during archaeological investigations ahead of the construction of a high-speed train route. The site, which is situated near the River Cherwell, was an Iron Age village consisting of more than 30 roundhouses when the Romans invaded Britain in A.D. 43. “At its height, there would have been hundreds of people living in the town,” said archaeologist James West of MOLA Headland Infrastructure. Stone buildings were eventually constructed at the site, along with workshops and kilns in specialized industrial areas. Artifacts related to metalwork and the production of bread and pottery have also been uncovered. More than 300 Roman coins, scale weights, delicate jewelry, glass vessels, and fine pottery imported from Gaul are additional clues to the town’s prosperity, West explained. To read about the burial in the Midlands of a man who might have been a Roman slave, go to "Identifying the Unidentified."
