Cotswold Archaeology Celebrates Its First Birthday In Exeter
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The Exeter office of Cotswold Archaeology celebrated its first birthday in April, and has already begun to make a positive impact on the archaeology of South West England. Office head Laurie Coleman has been joined by fieldwork manager Derek Evans, who transferred from our Milton Keynes office, and the team has more than doubled in size in the year and will soon number 15. Over 100 projects have been completed so far, including the unexpected discovery of Roman military buildings at Topsham, near Exeter, and the investigation of a substantial Bronze Age enclosure and post-Roman cemetery on the outskirts of the city.
A large Bronze Age enclosure on the outskirts of Exeter excavated by Cotswold Archaeology. © Cotswold Archaeology / Adam Stanford, Aerial-Cam
Developing links with local stakeholders is a major objective for the office and we have already established a flourishing partnership with the Department of Archaeology at the University of Exeter. Most notable has been the success of a of a joint bid to the Arts and Humanities Research Council and Historic England tor funding for a major four-year project that will explore the relationship between the Roman and medieval city of Exeter and its rural hinterland. The project is a partnership between with the Universities of Exeter and Reading, Cotswold Archaeology, Exeter City Council and the Royal Albert Memorial Museum (RAMM). The project will run from 2016-20 and will see several of the important excavations from the 1970s and 1980s written up, as well as a programme of radiocarbon dating and research into the pottery, animal bones, and metallurgical debris. The results will be published as a series of monographs in 2022, and other benefits will include the updating of the city’s historic environment record and of the museum’s displays and interpretative material.
The office will also be collaborating with Exeter University again this summer at the Ipplepen Community Archaeology project near Newton Abbot in Devon.
Some of Cotswold Archaeology’s Exeter team inside a Roman military building of the 1st century AD at Topsham, near Exeter
