The Roman's Panic - Ancaster, Lincolnshire

Time Team visits Ancaster, to which their resident Roman expert, Guy, recently moved. The town has yielded numerous Roman finds as well as a large cemetery with several sarcophagi from the period. In addition, the church of Ancaster is known in British archaeology for a Roman inscription dedicated to the deity Viridius. One question the team wants to tackle concerns why the Romans built a defensive system around the town in the late 3rd century CE. After some initial problems with the stratigraphy, Phil finds the cemetery level, while Carenza discovers a layer filled with jumbled up human remains mixed with other bones, probably representing disturbed burials. In the cemetery, Phil eventually uncovers the lid of a possible sarcophagus, and its excavation could thus require certain precautions due to the potential for lead poisoning and presence of biological hazards. However, the object proves to be a cist burial, as well as hazard-free. Incredibly, one of the cist slabs also turns out to contain yet another inscription to the god Viridius. In the end, the archaeologists suggest that the massive defences were ordered to be put up by the Roman central administration in Britain, and completely disrupted the original town layout. Archaeological or historical period(s): Roman Britain.