5 November 2024 The Future is the Product of the Past

134 ancient settlements discovered north of Hadrian’s Wall

134 ancient settlements have been found during a survey of the region north of Hadrian’s Wall in the United Kingdom.

These locations belong to Indigenous communities that date to the Roman occupation. The findings were published in the journal Antiquity on Tuesday.

Following Hadrian’s ascension to the throne in AD 117, he built a wall unlike any other in the Roman world, a wall that was a tangible representation of Rome’s might, solidifying the Roman defense strategy and indicating the Empire’s most northern limit.

Hadrian’s Wall (Vallum Aulium) was a Roman defensive structure that extended 73 miles (116 kilometers) from Mais (Solway Firth) to Segedunum (Tyne River) (Wallsend).

In AD 142, Emperor Antoninus Pius extended the frontier further north and constructed the Antonine Wall (Vallum Antonini). This wall ran 39 miles (62.7 km) and annexed lands formerly ruled by the Damnonii, Otadini, Novantae, and the Selgovae tribes.

Earthworks can be seen at the Woden Law hill fort in southern Scotland, close to a Roman road, with the remains of Roman camps less than a mile away. Antiquity

Most research into the area has focused on the Roman side of history to learn more about the roads, forts, camps, and iconic walls they used in their attempts to control northern Britain.

Manuel Fernández-Götz, head of the Department of Archaeology at the School of History, Classics, and Archaeology at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, is interested in uncovering the other side of the story: how Roman rule affected the lives of Iron Age Indigenous communities in Britain.

“This is one of the most exciting regions of the Empire, as it represented its northernmost frontier, and because Scotland was one of the very few areas in Western Europe over which the Roman army never managed to establish full control,” said lead author Dr. Manuel Fernández-Götz, from the University of Edinburgh.

Archaeologists from the University of Edinburgh have focused on the region around Burnswark hillfort in Scotland and expanded their study using Lidar (light detection and ranging) over an area of around 579 square miles (1500 km2).

İmage: Antiquity

The site has the highest concentration of Roman projectiles found in Britain, a testament to the firepower these legions carried. For centuries, northern England was a “fluctuating frontier characterized by dynamic patterns of confrontation and exchange between Iron Age communities and the Roman state,” the authors wrote in the study.

The team discovered 134 previously unknown Iron Age settlements mainly consisting of ancient farmsteads inhabited by the indigenous tribal population of Caledonia. The Lidar data paints a fuller picture of the ancient landscape, revealing often dense distributions of sites dispersed across the region with a regularity that speaks of a highly organized settlement pattern.

The archaeologists will use geophysical techniques and radiocarbon dating to go through some of the noteworthy finds revealed so far in order to better understand these communities and the people who created them as their study continues. Their results might help to construct a picture of life in the area before, during, and after the Roman rule, as well as how much the imperialists affected local life.

This lidar image reveals two newly identified settlements in the vicinity of the Range Castle fort.
This lidar image reveals two newly identified settlements in the vicinity of the Range Castle fort.

Manuel Fernández-Götz, leads a project called “Beyond Walls: Reassessing Iron Age and Roman Encounters in Northern Britain,” which will explore an area from Durham stretching to the southern Scottish Highlands through August 2024. The project is funded by the UK’s Leverhulme Trust and began in September 2021.

Antiquity

https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2022.47

Cover Photo: This is Burnswark Hillfort in southwest Scotland, where Roman legions tried to push their boundary northward. Manuel Fernandez-Gotz

Related Articles

4,000-Year-Old Lion Jaw Bone Unearthed in Kültepe

14 September 2021

14 September 2021

Excavations continue in Kültepe, the starting point of Anatolian written history. During the excavations, a 4,000-year-old lion jawbone was unearthed....

5700-year-old monumental Menga Dolmen reveals it as one of the greatest feats of Neolithic engineering

6 December 2023

6 December 2023 1

A new investigation tracing the source of the gigantic stones that make up the Menga dolmen in southern Spain reveals...

Archaeologists unearth the remains of three dozen headless people at a stone age settlement in Vráble, Slovakia

25 September 2022

25 September 2022

Archaeologists have unearthed a mass grave containing the remains of about three dozen headless bodies of people at a settlement...

Anthropologists discovered a bone in the Grotte du Renne cave in France that could indicate the presence of a previously unknown lineage of Homo sapiens

9 August 2023

9 August 2023

A bone discovered in the Grotte du Renne cave in France may represent the existence of a previously unknown lineage...

Unique Gold Ring and Crystal Amulet among 30,000 Medieval Treasures Uncovered in Sweden

7 March 2024

7 March 2024

In the Swedish medieval city of Kalmar, archaeologists from the State Historical Museums unearthed the remains of over 30,000 objects...

3.300-year-old Hittite Inscription was Used in Gate Construction

10 May 2021

10 May 2021

Our cultural assets become victims of ignorance one by one. The works that will illuminate the darkness of history continue...

Carvings at Göbeklitepe could be World’s Oldest Calendar

6 August 2024

6 August 2024

Experts suggest that markings on a stone pillar at the 12,000-year-old Göbeklitepe archaeological site in Türkiye probably represent the oldest...

The oldest trace of human activity discovered in North America dates back 23,000 years

26 September 2021

26 September 2021

A recent fossil footprint found in New Mexico, the United States, indicates that humans existed in North America about 23,000...

Archaeologists unearth 3,500-Year-Old Gold Jewelry in Egypt

14 December 2022

14 December 2022

Archaeologists discovered a collection of ornate jewelry at the Tell El-Amarna necropolis on the Nile River’s eastern bank in modern-day...

Archaeologists found a medieval skeleton with a prosthetic hand in Freising, Germany

28 October 2023

28 October 2023

Archaeologists in the city of Freising in Bavaria, Germany, unearthed containing a skeleton with a prosthetic hand. The metal part...

2,400-year-old unearthed flush toilet in China

18 February 2023

18 February 2023

According to a China Daily report, the lower parts of a flush toilet estimated to be 2,400 years old have...

4000-year-old boat salvaged near the ancient city of Uruk one of the most important cities in ancient Mesopotamia

6 April 2022

6 April 2022

A team of archaeologists from the Iraqi German Mission of the State Board of Antiquities and the Orient Department of...

Archaeologists discovered an enigmatic complex of rooms, interiors of which covered with figural scenes unique to Christian art

7 April 2023

7 April 2023

Archaeologists of the Polish Center of Mediterranean Archaeology at the University of Warsaw discovered an enigmatic complex of rooms made...

Incredible Mayan Inventions and Achievements

31 July 2022

31 July 2022

The Mayans excelled at agriculture, pottery, writing, calendars, and arithmetic, leaving an incredible quantity of spectacular architecture and symbolic artwork...

At a dig site in western Turkey, a centuries-old Byzantine fortress will be revealed

24 December 2021

24 December 2021

Excavation of vast Byzantine-era fortifications considered to be about 900 years old has begun at a dig site in western...