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Buried on the boundary: Interpreting Venta Icenorum’s enigmatic ditch deposits
The latest excavation by the long-running Caistor Roman Project has uncovered a series of unusual deposits within the monumental triple ditches that encircled Venta Icenorum, capital of the Iceni. At the same time, recent GPR surveys have shed new light on aspects of the settlement that these once-imposing earthworks surrounded. Giles Emery and Will Bowden report.
Visitors to the Roman regional capital of Venta Icenorum, at Caistor St Edmund, just south of Norwich, usually find themselves walking the impressive earthworks that, together with thick flint walls, once formed the settlement’s late Roman defences. This rectangle defines only part of a larger area of occupation, however, with the formal street-grid extending out beyond its lines. Excavations led by Professor Will Bowden of the University of Nottingham in 2009-2012 (see CA 270) established that these gravel streets began to be laid out from c.AD 100, possibly developing gradually over the course of the 2nd century. This period also saw the creation of a monumental triple enclosure ditch th
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