Cawthorn Roman Camps

Turf walls of a building in fort A under excavation at Cawthorn Roman Camps In 1999 and 2000 CfA undertook excavations on what is one of the most enigmatic sites of Roman Britain. The excavation started as a joint project between CfA and the North York Moors National Park Authority (NYMNP) who own the site and open it to the public. The partnership was extended to include Malton Museum, the Ryedale Folk Museum and English Heritage's Aerial Survey Team who mapped the earthworks of the site using both modern and historic aerial photographs. In addition the Landscape Research Centre, with funding from CfA, undertook geophysical surveys and Ed Dennison Archaeological Services, with funding from NYMNP, undertook a detailed topographic survey of two of the four major earthworks that form the complex.

In the 1920's excavations, largely directed by Sir Ian Richmond, established the site in the archaeological literature as a series of temporary camps dating to the late 1^st/early 2^nd century AD. This view that was challenged by the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England (RCHME), when they surveyed the site as part of a nationwide examination of Roman camps. The Royal Commission suggested that the sites consisted of a single temporary camp (C), two forts (A and D), and an annexe (B) which is attached to fort A.

Within earthworks A-C the remains of smaller structures are visible, features that Richmond regarded as shelters built around tents. He suggested that other pits that he found were 'Officers' dug-outs', an interpretation that was unique in Roman archaeology.

The CfA/NYMNP project was designed to look at the effects of visitor erosion and other 20^th-century activity, including farming and forestry, as well as providing more information that would aid our understanding of the site.

Ten trenches were excavated three of which (1, 4 and 5) showed the surviving earthworks to be the remains of turf-walled buildings belonging to the late 1^st - early 2^nd centuries, with those in trenches 4 and 5 being rebuilt at least once.

Cawthorn Roman Camps - Detail of the rampart of fort D showing the turves used to construct it Three trenches were dug across the defences of fort A. It is clear from them that fort A was occupied twice. On the second occasion its eastern side was strengthened by the addition of annexe B, whereas the northern, western and southern ramparts were heightened. Archaeo-magnetic dates from ovens found behind the ramparts, and also from the building in trench 4 in annexe B, confirmed the late 1^st- early second- century date of the Roman occupation. However, the trench on the eastern rampart of fort A re-investigated one of Richmond's Roman 'Officer's dug-outs' and showed it to be a Grubenhaus, an Anglo-Saxon, or Anglo-Scandinavian building belonging somewhere in the period after the end of the Roman period and the 11^th century (unfortunately there was no absolute dating evidence).

The northern part of the interior of fort D was shown to have been heavily disturbed by 20^th-century agriculture, as had been suggested by aerial photographs. A trench in the middle of the fort showed that little survived there either. However, a trench through the defences of the fort, where they cut away part of camp C, showed the rampart to be well preserved and that the ditches to have been re-dug three times. As with fort A, the ramparts of fort D were shown to be of two periods of construction, but unlike those of fort A, which were built of material excavated out of the ditches, the second phase of fort D's ramparts was constructed of turves stripped from the site.

Plan of Cawthorn Camps showing the location of the trenches The results of the excavations and other research are now being assessed and when this has been done a report on the excavations will be produced. In the meantime an interim report will appear in the CfA Reports series.