{"id":181,"date":"2009-07-08T05:56:44","date_gmt":"2009-07-08T05:56:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.greatarchaeology.com\/news\/?p=181"},"modified":"2009-07-14T08:49:02","modified_gmt":"2009-07-14T08:49:02","slug":"medieval-finds-at-university-dig","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greatarchaeology.com\/news\/2009\/07\/medieval-finds-at-university-dig\/","title":{"rendered":"Medieval finds at university dig"},"content":{"rendered":"

Roman pottery, medieval remains and 11th Century dog bones have been found at the heart of Cambridge University during an archaeological dig.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong>\"The<\/a><\/strong>

The remains of an 11th Century dog were found during the dig<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

The dig has been taking place beneath a tearoom in the university’s central offices, known as the Old Schools. It was one of the events marking the 800th anniversary of the university. Some material pre-dates its foundation in 1209 by over 150 years, and is said to be the first evidence the area was occupied by an Anglo-Saxon community.<\/p>\n

Archaeologists<\/a><\/strong> have unearthed several animal bones, boundary markings and signs of quarrying, which a spokesman said suggested that in the final decades of the Saxon era the foundations of Cambridge were being laid.<\/p>\n

Roman occupation<\/strong><\/p>\n

Richard Newman of the Cambridge Archaeological Unit said: “The site has enabled us to prove what we previously had no proof for – that by the time of the Norman Conquest there was a thriving settlement in the middle of Cambridge.” The dig has reached what would have been ground level in ancient times, even before the Saxons arrived.<\/p>\n

Cambridge was founded by the Romans, who occupied the area on the other side of the River Cam to the university. In Anglo-Saxon times<\/strong>, a cluster of domestic properties began to emerge, and the dog, which appears to date back to that period, would have been a valuable ally for the family that owned it, said Mr. Newman.<\/p>\n

“It would have been a working animal,” he said.<\/p>\n

“A dog would also have given people security, it was useful when it came to protecting your possessions and it was cheaper than a lock.” By the time the university was founded in 1209, the area was a busy commercial centre.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Roman pottery, medieval remains and 11th Century dog bones have been found at the heart of Cambridge University during an archaeological dig. The dig has been taking place beneath a tearoom in the university’s central offices, known as the Old Schools. It was one of the events marking the 800th anniversary of the university. Some […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3],"tags":[175,61],"class_list":["post-181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aerial-archaeology","category-archaeology","tag-archaeological-research","tag-archaeologists"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greatarchaeology.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greatarchaeology.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greatarchaeology.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greatarchaeology.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greatarchaeology.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.greatarchaeology.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":196,"href":"https:\/\/www.greatarchaeology.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181\/revisions\/196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greatarchaeology.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greatarchaeology.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greatarchaeology.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}