PREVIOUS INVESTIGATIONS AT MARGIDUNUM

Margidunum is recorded in the Antonine Itinerary as one of four settlements on the Fosse Way between Leicester and Lincoln, the others being Vernemetum (Willoughby-on-the-Wolds) to the south-west and Ad Pontem (East Stoke) and Crococolana (Brough) to the north-east. It was first described by William Stukeley, who visited in 1722, although at the time the location of the stations listed in the Itinerary for this part of the road had not yet been resolved and he mistakenly believed this to be Ad Pontem; only with the excavation of the settlement at East Stoke by Adrian Oswald in 1937–8 were the Roman place-names finally restored to their locations, and Margidunum ascribed its correct name. Stukeley noted the remains of buildings with floors and stone wall foundations, and recounted personally pulling up one of many wooden piles as well as recording the quarrying of the site for stone by locals.Footnote ⁴ Indeed, later excavations recovered two fourteenth-century pottery vessels from a robber trench that had been dug to extract stone from the town wall,Footnote ⁵ while the Victoria County History recorded that stone-robbing continued well into the nineteenth century.Footnote ⁶

The two major programmes of excavation at Margidunum during the twentieth century were both concentrated on the defended area. The first, by Felix Oswald, was a mammoth undertaking, excavating mostly single-handed each Saturday from 1910 until 1936, interrupted only by the First World War. During this time, he uncovered about a quarter of the area within the defences, mostly on the north-west side of the Fosse Way. Oswald did not bring his results together into a single volume but published a series of articles and pamphlets.Footnote ⁷ He believed the defences were military in origin and marked Margidunum as an important fort during the conquest period, with the stone wall being added in reaction to the ‘barbarian conspiracy’ of a.d. 367.Footnote ⁸ Furthermore, burnt and fire-cracked stones from an arched window were evidence for burning of the town by Boudicca's army as they chased the Ninth Legion up the Fosse Way to Lincoln.Footnote ⁹ In Oswald's interpretation, metalled surfaces became the Via Principalis and Via Quintana of the fort and substantial buildings were given colourful names; thus, a large stone building near the centre of the town was dubbed ‘the Commander's House’, while a building in a complex in the north-western part of the defended area became ‘the Schola’.Footnote ¹⁰ Oswald's findings were re-appraised by Malcolm Todd, who excavated at Margidunum between 1966 and 1968 in advance of construction of the current roundabout. Like Oswald, his investigations were mainly situated within the defended area, but he also sectioned the defences, investigated a small part of an extramural cemetery outside the south-west gate, and excavated a trench c. 275 m south-west of the defences at the junction of the A46 and Newton Lane. He questioned Oswald's conquest-period date and argued that the key samian assemblages dated to no earlier than a.d. 50, and perhaps after a.d. 55, and re-interpreted the military phase as being focused on a putative fort situated to the north of the visible defences, based on a V-shaped ditch that he believed to be part of its southern defences.Footnote ¹¹ The town defences were re-dated to the late second or early third century and identified as being of civilian character.Footnote ¹² Todd's Newton Lane trench did not identify any buildings but recovered considerable quantities of pottery dated to a.d. 60–75 and thus indicated that the settlement extended at least this far along the line of the Fosse Way even at this early date.Footnote ¹³

Further archaeological investigations were undertaken in connection with improvements to the A46 between Newark and Widmerpool in 2009. The initial stages comprised several phases of fieldwalking and geophysical survey that recorded pottery spreads extending for 700–800 m along the Fosse Way from the defended area, potentially representing extensive areas of extramural occupation, and noted a substantial courtyard villa 500 m west of the walled town, close to the modern village of Newton, encompassing an area of c. 100 × 60 m.Footnote ¹⁴ Further co-aligned features to the north-east may represent contemporary settlement, farm structures or pens (fig. 1).Footnote ¹⁵ A re-assessment of the pottery from the previous investigations suggested more extensive late Roman occupation within the defences than envisaged by Todd and indicated that the town wall dated to the fourth century.

The road improvement around Margidunum by-passed the town in order to minimise any impact on the archaeological remains, but impacted on the Fosse Way at two locations, where archaeological excavations recorded elements of the extramural settlement on the road frontage south-west of the town.Footnote ¹⁶ At one of these excavations, 300 m from the town defences, a pair of roadside plots each contained two late first-century timber roundhouses that were superseded by a sequence of post-built rectangular buildings occupied from the the mid second until at least the late fourth century (excavation area DE3002, fig. 3). A further 500 m to the south-west (excavation area DE3001), a more extensive excavation uncovered two small curvilinear enclosures (H and J) and a trackway, which by the late second century was replaced by a more regular arrangement of conjoined rectilinear enclosures that were recut during the third–fourth centuries and became the focus of an inhumation cemetery. To the north, and somewhat further back from the Fosse Way, the excavations uncovered field boundary ditches, a corn-drying oven and a trackway that linked the Newton villa to the road. Further north again, the remains of a late Iron Age/early Roman farmstead were noted on either side of the A6097 Bridgford Road. A metalled surface recorded in a small trench beside the A6097 may be the agger of a road posited by Todd that branched off the Fosse Way south-west of the defended part of the town and lies beneath the modern road.

THE POPULATION

GRAVE LOCATION AND FUNERARY RITES

The graves were distributed intermittently along the west side of the ditch at the rear of the roadside plots and are assumed to represent the population who resided within or otherwise utilised the enclosures. The isotopic evidence supported this, indicating that the ten sampled individuals could all have been of local origin (below). A total of 54 individuals were buried in 52 inhumation graves, including two double burials, and there was also a single cremation burial. Most burials were aligned parallel to the ditch, with only a few variants at right angles to it. Many of the burials were positioned in groups or clusters, and some appeared to have been deliberately enclosed within specific plots.

The chronological relationship between the apparent domestic activity and the burials is difficult to assess. Nonetheless, two possible interpretations can be offered here. Almost half the non-grave pottery assemblage dated to the middle Roman period (c. a.d. 120–250), while only 14 per cent dated to the late Roman period (c. a.d. 250–400) and most of the remainder spanned these date ranges. It is therefore possible that occupation was most intensive in the later second and early third century, with a reduction thereafter, and that use of the enclosures as a burial ground occurred after the domestic occupation had ceased. Alternatively, the site may have had a domestic element right through to the fourth century with the burials being placed in ‘backyard’ plots throughout the period. This latter interpretation would be more consistent with the evidence from the coin assemblage, which suggests a peak in activity, or at least coin loss, during the second quarter of the fourth century, petering out over the course of the third quarter. Extended supine inhumations are often assumed to represent late Roman burial practices, though this form of burial was not uncommon from the second century.Footnote ³⁴ Dating evidence from the inhumation burials was rare; small quantities of pottery were recovered from 40 of the 52 inhumations but none of this material was deliberately placed and it is likely to have been incorporated incidentally with the backfill from the contemporary ground surface, along with small quantities of slag and tile. The date of the pottery from graves ranged between the second and the fourth centuries with a concentration in the middle Roman period consistent with the wider pattern of pottery use at the site, as one would expect for residual material. The radiate of Tetricus dated 271–4 from grave 537 and the irregular issue dated c. 350–64 from grave 994 demonstrate the late date of at least some of the burials, as do a dropped-flange dish in sandy reduced ware and a body sherd in East Gaulish ‘Rhenish’ ware from grave 38, a hammerhead mortarium in Mancetter-Hartshill white ware from grave 542 and a globular beaker in fine reduced ware and body sherds in Nene Valley colour-coated ware from grave 699, which indicate a date no earlier than the middle of the third century for these burials. It is not certain how early burial began, however. There was also no clear distinction between the pottery forms and fabrics found in burial contexts compared with other features, apart from a slightly higher proportion of beakers and cups in the graves. It is possible that some of the latter sherds derive from vessels that were used in grave-side rituals and commemorations, which often involved feasting.Footnote ³⁵ Hobnails were found in 18 graves and are sometimes taken as a marker of late Roman inhumations, though a recent survey has shown that hobnails are not unusual in middle Roman contexts.Footnote ³⁶

The burials were all located in relation to the main boundary ditch that defined the rear of the roadside plots, most lying parallel to it and a few at right angles. A single grave (990) was dug entirely into the fill of an early phase of the ditch, and was presumably contemporary with the adjacent later iteration, and grave 554 also slightly cut into the earlier ditch. This association with a boundary is a typical location for burials on rural settlements and at smaller nucleated centres.Footnote ³⁷ The burial rites show remarkable consistency, comprising extended, supine burials with the arms usually placed either by the sides or with the hands resting, sometimes crossed, on the pelvis, and only a few burials with the arms folded across the chest. All are single, discrete graves with the exception of two instances (56 and 355) where particularly large graves contained two burials that were evidently interred in a single episode, the skeletons lying close together with arms overlapping (fig. 5). The individuals in grave 355 were a possible male aged 36–45 years and a female aged 26–35 years and those in grave 56 were a possible male aged 36–45 years and an individual of undeterminable sex aged 18–25 years.

FIG. 5. Double burials 56 and 355.

A total of 24 burials (45 per cent) were interred within timber coffins, which were represented by coffin nails indicating that they were nailed at the corners and occasionally also at the middle or a third of the way along. This is a rather higher proportion than the figure of 20 per cent of burials provided with coffins recorded by the Roman Rural Settlement Project, but the latter aggregates burials from a wide range of site types with vastly different representation of coffins, and the authors cautioned that coffin use may have been in part due to the choices of individual communities rather than having any greater significance regarding, for examples, the status of the buried individual.Footnote ³⁸ In addition to the evidence for coffins, the stone slabs that lined the base of one grave presumably represented some form of cist, although there was no indication that the sides of the burial had been similarly lined, apart from a stone that had collapsed onto the feet and a single stone that may have been deliberately placed on the hands. Fifteen individuals (29 per cent of the total) were buried shod in hobnailed footwear, but this information is difficult to interpret due to the probability that others were provided with footwear constructed without hobnails, and in any case the status of such material as grave goods is ambiguous since these items may have been no more than part of the clothes in which the individuals were buried. A rather different instance was represented by a grave where the footwear was not worn but had been placed away from the body, and most likely outside the coffin. A similar instance was recorded in the A46 Improvement Scheme excavation on the opposite side of the Fosse Way.Footnote ³⁹ The deliberate burying of footwear with the deceased has been interpreted as related to the journey to the afterlife, and became increasingly popular in the third and fourth centuries.Footnote ⁴⁰ Other than this, the only grave goods were jewellery buried with children aged 1–5 in graves 500 and 994 (fig. 6). The child in grave 500 was provided with two shale bracelets and a necklace or bead string comprising 63 glass beads, but bone preservation was very poor and consequently it is not known whether the items were worn, placed loose on the body, or located on the coffin. The arrangement is more certain in the case of burial 994, where six copper-alloy bracelets were looped onto a seventh and placed on the right shoulder and two further bracelets were placed on the left shoulder and near the pelvis. A necklace of glass beads may again have been present, although the beads appeared to be distributed quite widely from the skull to the pelvis. Such items of jewellery, often placed rather than worn, were a common inclusion in burials during the late Roman period, and although the sex of the individuals at Chapel Lane could not be determined, they are particularly associated with the graves of young girls.Footnote ⁴¹ The burial rites at Chapel Lane bear close similarity to the group of 13 graves excavated in a corresponding location along the rear boundary of the similar enclosures on the opposite side of the Fosse Way in A46 Improvement Scheme excavation area DE3001.Footnote ⁴² In addition to the similar choice of location, the burials in DE3001 were all supine interments, nine of them coffined and four with hobnailed footwear, and grave goods were absent with the possible exceptions of a broken finger ring and a single coin. Like the Chapel Lane burials, they were not well dated, apart from the inclusion of residual pottery, which included both middle and late Roman sherds, and the coin, which was dated to 330–5. The similarities between the two groups of burials strongly suggest that they are the graves of a single community, and that the community shared a very clear idea of what represented an appropriate burial rite. In this they contrast with the small number of burials that Todd excavated close to the defences of Margidunum, which included two with lead coffins and one individual who had been decapitated,Footnote ⁴³ suggesting the individuals buried here exhibited a wider range of status.

FIG. 6. Graves 500 and 994, with grave goods.

The single cremation burial appears as something of an anomaly in a cemetery that otherwise comprises only inhumation burials, although the fragment of cremated long bone recovered from a soil sample from the fill of another grave may indicate that other cremations were originally present. It is unfortunate that the urn, a greyware jar, could only be assigned broadly to the Roman period. Cremation was the predominant rite until the second century, after which it was supplanted by inhumation, but persisted as a minority rite.Footnote ⁴⁴ The close proximity of the cremation to a cluster of eight inhumation burials with a further three graves immediately to the south suggests that, despite the difference in rite, it formed a contemporary part of the cemetery and was not an earlier feature.

Post-mortem modification of human remains

Deliberate cut marks on a disarticulated human femur recovered from a pit indicate that human remains were purposefully modified, albeit in ways and for reasons that are uncertain. The bone evidently did not comprise a primary deposit within the pit, as it was recovered from the uppermost of three fills, and it is possible that it its deposition here was incidental or that it had been redeposited from a nearby grave. Macroscopic observations of the cut marks suggested that they were made using a metal or stone tool. There was also evidence from the same bone fragment suggestive of carnivore gnawing. The marks are similar in character and location to examples from Longford in Gloucestershire and Gussage All Saints in Dorset and may be evidence for cutting of the muscle attachments around the thigh during deliberate disarticulation of the (partially decomposed?) joints of the corpse.Footnote ⁴⁵ Three disarticulated bones (two femora and a tibia) at Longford exhibited both cut marks and evidence of canid gnawing and a similarly modified disarticulated right femur of Iron Age date was recovered from Gussage All Saints. In both the Longford and Gussage femora, the proximal ends of the bone were gnawed in the region of the femoral neck, and parallel cut marks were present on the lateral aspect of the proximal femoral diaphysis. Such manipulation of human remains is commonly thought of as an aspect of Iron Age funerary practice, and indeed a frontal bone at the A46 Improvement Scheme with several small, fine, vertical and horizontal cuts (similar to ‘filleting’ marks) located on the centre of the bone, interpreted as possible evidence of peri- or post-mortem scalping, was radiocarbon dated to between 100 cal. b.c. and cal. a.d. 30.Footnote ⁴⁶ This was recovered with fragments of human tibial shaft and proximal femur that exhibited chop and saw marks consistent with bone working, while the ends of these fragments exhibited evidence of canid gnawing. However, a growing body of evidence indicates that such Iron Age traditions continued into the Roman period.Footnote ⁴⁷ The Chapel Lane specimen was radiocarbon dated to cal. a.d. 80–225 (94.5 per cent probability)Footnote ⁴⁸ and the bones at Longford, which comprised two femora and a tibia, were recovered from early Roman features. Striking evidence for treatment and modification of the dead during the Roman period has been recorded at Clay Farm, Cambridgeshire, and Gill Mill Quarry, Oxfordshire, both involving skull fragments from Roman deposits that exhibited cut marks interpreted as evidence for defleshing.Footnote ⁴⁹ In the case at Gill Mill, a frontal bone with cut marks and a drilled perforation was radiocarbon dated to cal. a.d. 85–235 and was recovered from a ditch fill dated certainly later than a.d. 300 and possibly after a.d. 350. The common occurrence of marks from canid gnawing in many of these instances substantiates the argument from the location of the Chapel Lane remains within the pit that they were discarded quite casually as refuse, regardless of the significance of their reworking (fig. 7).

FIG. 7. Human femoral shaft from pit 107 displaying anthropogenic modification: (a) and (c) canid gnawing; (b) and (d) transverse peri-mortem cuts.

A series of peri-mortem cuts to a hand phalanx recovered from the backfill of grave 468 are more difficult to interpret (fig. 8). It is unfortunate that the grave had been disturbed by a modern land drain, which had cut diagonally across the skeleton and completely removed the left hand, as a result of which it is not certain whether the bone was a displaced digit from this burial or an intrusive element from another burial elsewhere. The size, shape, direction and number of cuts is consistent with several cuts being made to the base of the finger by a fine, sharp blade such as a small knife, taking place around the time of death or shortly after. They would be consistent with defensive wounds, resulting from use of the hands to fend off a blade-wielding attacker, or with an attempt to remove the finger or perhaps to remove soft flesh in order to recover an associated item such as a finger ring. Similar shallow cut marks made to the metacarpals and hand phalanges of two skeletons from Driffield Terrace in York were interpreted as defensive injuries.Footnote ⁵⁰

FIG. 8. Skeleton 466, peri-mortem cuts, proximal hand phalanx.

OSTEOLOGICAL AND ISOTOPE ANALYSIS

The skeletal assemblage represented the remains of at least 65 individuals (54 articulated inhumations, the single urned cremation burial, fragments of disarticulated bone from four grave fills, four ditch fills and one pit, and a fragment of cremated human bone from one grave fill).Footnote ⁵¹ Of these 65 individuals, 56 were adults and nine were juveniles; 13 were female, 22 were male, 6 were of indeterminate sex and 22 were unsexed (table 2). Although some caution should be exercised since a quarter of the adults could not be assigned to a more specific age category due to poor preservation and/or the absence of diagnostic elements, it is striking that almost half were prime adults, aged 26–35 years; a large proportion were middle adults, aged 36–45 years, and there were none above this age group. Post-cranial indices and adult male stature were within the expected range for the period but adult female stature was low, falling c. 10 cm below the average.Footnote ⁵² The predominance of males over females is typical for a Roman urban or semi-urban cemetery, although given the large proportion of skeletons at Chapel Lane that could not be sexed the discrepancy may not be significant. Neonate and infant individuals were completely absent, and a similar pattern was found in the A46 Improvement Scheme excavation on the opposite side of the Fosse Way, where the burials comprised adult inhumations with the exception of one adolescent female aged 15–17 years old.Footnote ⁵³ In contrast to this pattern, numerous infant burials were found placed in and around buildings in A46 Improvement Scheme excavation area DE3002, c. 150 m north of the Chapel Lane burials.Footnote ⁵⁴ Most of these dated to the middle and late Roman phases, and adult inhumations were largely absent apart from one late Roman individual. It is probable that neonates and infants were consistently buried close to the home, while those of a certain age and older were buried away from the main domestic area. The practice of burying infants in and around buildings during the Roman period is fairly common and there are many examples of infants found sealed within successive floor layers and others overlain by domestic debris.Footnote ⁵⁵ The absence of infants at Chapel Lane may therefore be explained by their having been buried closer to the focus of domestic occupation, which presumably lies unexcavated on the road frontage.

TABLE 2 age and sex distribution of the cemetery population

Indeterminate = sexually dimorphic characteristics mixed; unknown = no sexually dimorphic characteristic present.

Health and environment

In general, the health of the population is typical of other Roman-period assemblages, with rates of dental and skeletal pathology consistent with those reported for other Romano-British populations, although crude dental pathological prevalence was at the high end of the expected range. It should be noted that data collection in general (and hence interpretation) was hindered by high levels of fragmentation and incompleteness.

The most common skeletal pathology was extra-spinal osteoarthritis (OA). This is commonly observed in archaeological populations, although its anatomical distribution and prevalence in Romano-British populations is highly variable.Footnote ⁵⁶ Almost a third of all adult skeletons at Chapel Lane had OA in one or more joints. Adults from the older age categories (prime and middle adult) were increasingly affected by the condition, and males were much more likely to exhibit OA than females. The acromio-clavicular joint was most commonly affected (16.67 per cent true prevalence rateFootnote ⁵⁷ for both the left and right joints). Clinically, OA in this location is more common in elderly patients and is thought to be largely age progressive.Footnote ⁵⁸ Prevalence of OA in the acromio-clavicular joint is low in Romano-British assemblages (an average of 1.51 per cent TPR for Roman Britain).Footnote ⁵⁹ However, the high TPR at Chapel Lane could be influenced by the low number of acromio-clavicular joints present overall: two out of a total of twelve joints were affected (left and right combined). The higher prevalence has therefore probably been influenced by poorer preservation, high levels of fragmentation, and general absence of the parts of skeletal elements that comprise this joint, that is the acromion of the scapula and lateral end of the clavicle.

Dental health was poorer than average for the period, with most types of dental disease falling within the upper end of the range of normal variation. The most common dental pathologies were calculus (permanent dentition 60.27 per cent TPR) and periodontal disease (16.0 per cent TPR). Prevalence of dental caries was also higher than average for the period. The observed patterns are suggestive of poor oral health coupled with consumption of more cariogenic foods than recorded for the population at the A46 Improvement Scheme and comparative populations from the wider country such as Bletsoe, Bedfordshire, and Lankhills, Winchester, though it should be noted that the latter is from the south of England, where factors such as geographical variation may also influence differences in oral health.

Evidence of non-specific infection and inflammation was completely absent in adult female individuals, with only males and skeletons of indeterminate sex exhibiting such lesions, e.g. periosteal new bone formation. Prevalence and severity of periosteal new bone formation in archaeological populations can be indicative of adaptation/maladaptation to environmental conditions, in particular poor sanitation, malnutrition and general health stressors. As such, its presence or absence is often used as an indicator of the general health of the population.Footnote ⁶⁰ With this in mind, the evidence from Chapel Lane suggests that females may have been less susceptible to such stressors. However, erosion and abrasion of the cortical surfaces of the bones may also have eradicated evidence of periosteal new bone formation in this group (especially subtler lesions). In this respect, observed prevalence of periostitis among the Chapel Lane individuals should be viewed as a minimum rate.

Males were also much more likely than females to have one or more healed fractures. This pattern is also borne out in the observed comparative data, and generally in data across Roman Britain.Footnote ⁶¹ The types of fractures observed were caused by a variety of direct or indirect mechanisms, with no overt evidence for interpersonal violence. Of note are three skeletons that exhibited similar rotational ankle fractures, which are relatively uncommon clinically.Footnote ⁶² Commonly cited causes of these types of fractures include falls and sporting injury (e.g. during running or jumping onto a twisted foot or ankle), and the instances at Chapel Lane are similarly likely to be accidental, although the occurrence of the same injury in three individuals suggests that the cause was some common activity, and may have been occupational.Footnote ⁶³

Also of note was the high prevalence of modifications to the leg bones that are typically associated with individuals who habitually adopt a squatting posture. Changes in the ankle were represented by lateral tibial squatting facets (left = 5/6, 83.3 per cent; right = 5/8, 62.5 per cent). These changes are observable as a small anterior extension of the distal tibial joint surface, and they are likely to be caused by habitual extreme movement involving hyperdorsiflexion at the ankle, that is, bending of the foot upward towards the shin.Footnote ⁶⁴ The rates observed at Chapel Lane are higher than expected, especially compared to the larger cemetery population at Lankhills, where lateral squatting facets were present on 14/246 (5.7 per cent) of left tibiae and 18/242 (7.4 per cent) of right tibiae.Footnote ⁶⁵ Such modifications may have been related to the undertaking of everyday habitual work or rest postures.Footnote ⁶⁶

Diet

In general, patterns of dental health are shown to worsen in the Romano-British period compared to the preceding Iron Age, which may relate to a lack of oral hygiene in conjunction with an increase in the consumption of foods that contain sucrose (e.g. honey, wine and a fermented grape juice known as sapa).Footnote ⁶⁷ Starchy foods may also have a cariogenic effect when consumed in large quantities in combination with sugar (the combination of sugar and starch together is considered to be more cariogenic than sugar alone).Footnote ⁶⁸ Thus, the higher prevalence of dental caries observed in the Chapel Lane population may be indicative of increased consumption of sugary foods, possibly in conjunction with foods containing starch, compared to the other similar populations. Caries prevalence at Chapel Lane should be seen as a minimum rate considering that it is impossible to deduce how many carious teeth were lost ante-mortem.

Compared to other data, crude prevalence of dental enamel hypoplasia was quite high, with a third of dentate skeletons exhibiting hypoplastic lesions; this higher rate is consistent with findings from the A46 Improvement Scheme, where crude rates were even more elevated.Footnote ⁶⁹ However, per-tooth prevalence at both sites was much lower, suggesting that while a higher proportion of the population exhibited lesions, fewer teeth per person were affected. Furthermore, the ages at which lesions were likely to develop could broadly be divided into two groups: in the deciduous teeth (below the age of nine months) and in the permanent teeth (between the ages of three and five years).

Affected young children in these age brackets are thus likely to have suffered periods of low-level physiological stress in the form of illness, nutritional deficiency and/or metabolic disruption during these times. The clustering of individuals with hypoplastic lesion development around the age of three to five years is interesting as this may relate to weaning. Reduced breast milk consumption and introduction of new solid foods can potentially expose young children to new pathogens, in addition to which weaning foods of lesser nutritional quality than the previously consumed breast milk can put a child at risk of nutritional stress.Footnote ⁷⁰

Males were almost twice as likely to exhibit cribrous lesions in the eye sockets than their female counterparts. While presence of cribra orbitalia has been linked to the development of iron-deficiency anaemia or vitamin B12 deficiency,Footnote ⁷¹ and orbital lesions exhibiting bone growth beyond the outer table are most likely to be associated with anaemia; none of the lesions exhibited by the Bingham population expressed this.Footnote ⁷² As the precise cause of cribra orbitalia is unclear, interpretively this pattern can only suggest that males and females were subject to different types of health stressors. This does fit, however, with the assertion that males may have been more vulnerable to physical stress than females.Footnote ⁷³

Studies have highlighted the influence of factors such as settlement type (i.e. rural versus non-rural) and diet on population health. For example, research into health in late Roman Britain has shown that populations from rural sites are likely to have poorer health and diet than their urban counterparts.Footnote ⁷⁴ Migration should also be considered by way of explanation; observed health and dietary differences in population subsets may also be reflective of a childhood spent elsewhere. This interpretation could apply to Bingham; however, the sample is small and the (albeit limited) isotope results (see below) suggest that the population may chiefly comprise people who were born and raised in the local area.

The cremation burial

The burnt bone assemblage comprises one urned cremation burial and one fragment of residual cremated long bone from an inhumation grave. Cremated bone from the burial weighed a total of 232.2 g, with most of this (222.2 g) from inside the urn and the remaining 10.1 g from soil immediately around the urn. This falls below the weight range cited by McKinley for archaeologically recovered cremation burials (600–900 g),Footnote ⁷⁵ but it is uncertain whether this was due to the evident truncation of the burial by ploughing. Alternatively, this low bone weight could suggest that only some of the cremated individual was deposited, the rest being taken elsewhere. During excavation of the burial it was noticed that there was a lack of charcoal, which could suggest that the cremated bone fragments were hand-picked from the pyre for deposition within the burial, deliberately excluding any form of pyre debris or fuel ash.

Osteological indicators of age and sex were very limited. The size and morphology of the bone fragments were consistent with those of an adult, aged over 18 years, and the rounded shape of the orbital margin fragment was in keeping with that of a male individual. However, as this was the only sexually dimorphic trait available, the estimation must be regarded as very tentative.

Strontium and oxygen isotope analysis of tooth enamel

Ten skeletons were sampled for stable isotope analysis, primarily to establish whether Anglo-Saxon burial 794 (below) was a non-local migrant from a population with a different geographical origin to the Romano-British burials. Either a second molar or premolar was sampled from each individual, and the ratio of strontium and oxygen isotopes determined in order to investigate likely childhood geographic origin.

The data from this site are compared with those from other data sets from contemporary burials at Catterick, Gloucester, London, Winchester and York in figure 9.Footnote ⁷⁶ The Chapel Lane oxygen isotope data generate a very tight grouping of data with a small interquartile range and no outliers, in contrast to the other datasets. The small size of the Chapel Lane dataset might play a role in this, but equally it could support a local origin and possibly support an argument for an isotopically stable water source such as a well into a well-equilibrated aquifer. The strontium isotope range from the Chapel Lane individuals, including 794, is consistent with an origin within a 30 km radius of the site.Footnote ⁷⁷ However, the values are not unusual and can be found elsewhere in the UK and the continent.

FIG. 9. Results of the isotope analysis: (a) the ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr isotope composition of the Chapel Lane samples and comparative Roman UK populations represented by box-and-whisker plots; (b) the δ¹⁸O CARBVSMOW isotope composition of the Chapel Lane samples and comparative Roman UK populations represented by box-and-whisker plots. (Comparative data from Chenery et al. Reference Chenery, Müldner, Evans, Eckardt and Lewis2010; Reference Chenery, Eckardt and Müldner2011; Reference Chenery, Pashley, Lamb, Sloane and Evans2012; Eckardt et al. Reference Eckardt, Chenery, Booth, Evans, Lamb and Müldner2009; Evans et al. Reference Evans, Stoodley and Chenery2006; Leach et al. Reference Leach, Eckardt, Chenery, Müldner and Lewis2010; Montgomery et al. Reference Montgomery, Knüsel, Tucker and Bonogofsky2011; Müldner et al. Reference Müldner, Chenery and Eckardt2011.)

POSTSCRIPT TO THE CEMETERY: A FIFTH/SIXTH-CENTURY BURIAL IN A ROMAN WELL

The burial of an individual suffering from leprosy (794), radiocarbon dated to cal. a.d. 425–565 (95.4 per cent confidence),Footnote ⁷⁸ in the top of Roman well 790 provided a striking postscript to the use of the area for burial during the Roman period. This was an adolescent aged 13 to 17 years, who had been buried in a pit dug into the top of the well, lying directly on the surface of the shaft's stone lining (fig. 10). Pottery from the construction packing of the well indicated that it was dug sometime after the middle of the second century, but the sherds from its backfill were not sufficiently diagnostic to establish when it went out of use. However, all the material was definitely Roman and, since activity associated with the roadside enclosures apparently ceased before the end of the fourth century, there was presumably some period of disuse before the burial was inserted. A handmade bowl of fifth/sixth-century date was found in close proximity to the skeleton and is likely to have been deliberately placed as a grave good; it may be significant that the form of the urn was consistent with vessels commonly used as containers for contemporary cremations. Both the radiocarbon date and the dating of the urn indicate that the burial dates from the earliest part of the Anglo-Saxon settlement of the region, which appears to have comprised a piecemeal process, with only limited evidence for Anglo-Saxon material from settlements or cemeteries in Nottinghamshire before the sixth century.Footnote ⁷⁹ Isotopic results for this individual are consistent with the local environment, and thus it is likely that skeleton 794 spent their childhood in the local area and was not a first-generation migrant, if indeed they were of Germanic rather than British descent (although non-local origin in a location with a similar environment cannot wholly be ruled out).

FIG. 10. Fifth/sixth-century inhumation 794 inserted into the top of Roman well 790.

The skeleton was particularly notable for the presence of specific infectious lesions consistent with a diagnosis of leprosy, which is a most uncommon find for this period. Characteristic lesions were observed in the facial bones of the skeleton (fig. 11). Despite some taphonomic abrasion, the margins of the nasal aperture were rounded and eroded/reabsorbed both inferiorly and around the sides of the aperture. Increased abnormal vascularity was apparent on the inferior and superior sides of the palate in the left and right sides of the maxilla. It should be noted that the observed oral porosity was compared to skeletons from the same site, not affected by oral disease, in order to rule out the possibility these were caused by normal variation. In addition, the aforementioned periosteal new woven bone was present in the right superior surface of the palate (just posterior to the margin of the inferior nasal aperture). Lytic lesions were also present in this area. These are consistent rhinomaxillary syndrome bone changes associated with a diagnosis of leprosy.Footnote ⁸⁰ Several other pathognomic changes, besides rhinomaxiallary syndrome, are also associated with leprosy (e.g. reabsorption of the alveolar process and intranasal structures, ante-mortem loss of the anterior teeth), but these were not observed in this individual. Other infectious changes were present elsewhere in the skeleton which may be associated with leprosy, but these are not diagnostic and may instead pertain to some other (non-specific) infectious condition. Alternative diagnoses (e.g. an unidentified systemic infection, late-onset congenital treponematosis or other treponemal disease such as venereal syphilis) still cannot be wholly ruled out, but the leprosy diagnosis should be regarded with a degree of confidence.Footnote ⁸¹

FIG. 11. Skeleton 794: rounded, eroded margins of the nasal aperture, plus periostitis and lytic lesions affecting the superior and inferior maxillary palate. All consistent with rhinomaxillary syndrome and a diagnosis of leprosy.

Although the first written records of leprosy in Britain date to the tenth century,Footnote ⁸² the earliest reported archaeological cases date to the Roman period.Footnote ⁸³ Though the frequency of leprosy in Britain does appear to increase slowly from the Roman period onwards, it is not until the twelfth century that infection rates begin to peak.Footnote ⁸⁴ The number of cases dating to the post-Roman/early Saxon period is very small, and they tend to be located in the southern half of England. Examples include a fifth/sixth-century burial of a leprous male aged around 21 to 35 years old at Great Chesterford, Essex,Footnote ⁸⁵ a possible sixth-century instance from Beckford in Worcestershire (formerly Gloucestershire),Footnote ⁸⁶ seventh-century cases from Burwell and Edix Hill in CambridgeshireFootnote ⁸⁷ and Eccles in Kent,Footnote ⁸⁸ and a seventh- to eighth-century skeleton from Tean in the Isles of Scilly.Footnote ⁸⁹ Given this evidence, the probable leprosy diagnosis in early fifth- to mid sixth-century skeleton 794 from Chapel Lane is rare for this period, and previously unattested as far north as Nottinghamshire at this time. It is possible that this condition, and perhaps more significantly any visible disfigurement associated with it, was the reason behind the decision to bury skeleton 794 in a seemingly isolated location, rather than in the community cemetery, wherever that may lie. The juxtaposition of the burial and well is unlikely to be coincidental, but the circumstances that led to this arrangement can only be guessed at, although presumably the backfilled well remained visible on the ground surface. The burial was at the bottom of a substantial pit, although it was not entirely certain whether it lay at the base of the pit or was already in place and had been disturbed by the pit, which might explain why much of the middle of the skeleton was missing. Neither is it certain what had happened to the upper part of the well lining, which was absent to a depth of c. 0.5 m. Indeed, one possible scenario is that the burial was opportunistically interred within a pit that was initially dug in order to obtain stone from the lining, just as the upper part of the stonework had evidently been robbed from wells 192, 568 and 884.

Evidence of activity in the area had markedly reduced from the late Roman period. Both Oswald and Todd argued that Margidunum was largely abandoned following the end of the Roman period, although small quantities of early Anglo-Saxon pottery from both their excavations suggest an ephemeral presence remained.Footnote ⁹⁰ Further Anglo-Saxon finds, although still few in number, were recovered during fieldwalking surveys along the Fosse Way.Footnote ⁹¹ It has also been suggested that some of Todd's late Roman inhumations found cutting the earthworks around Margidunum could be early Anglo-Saxon, though there is no conclusive evidence of their date.Footnote ⁹² Signs of early Anglo-Saxon habitation in the wider landscape are equally scarce but nonetheless present. Since Newton villa has not been excavated, any possibility of continued post-Roman use of the building complex is unknown. Excavation between the villa and the Fosse Way, however, has discovered a few Anglo-Saxon features. The most significant of these was a sunken-featured building located about 250 m north-west of Margidunum.Footnote ⁹³ The feature contained some late Roman/early Anglo-Saxon glass, an Anglo-Saxon cruciform brooch and a wide selection of fifth/sixth-century pottery representing at least 48 vessels. Two pits were discovered further south close to the western side of the Fosse Way, one to the north of the current excavations and the other to the south. The nearest Saxon settlement of any significance has more recently been found about 2.3 km to the south-west at Saxondale, where an enclosure and several pits were accompanied by a fifth/sixth-century cremation cemetery featuring at least 19 burials.Footnote ⁹⁴

The selection of a disused Roman feature within an abandoned settlement as an appropriate location for this burial is striking and was presumably a consequence of the contemporary community's attitude toward the deserted site – be it positive or negative. The relative paucity of identifiably early Anglo-Saxon material may imply that Nottinghamshire continued to be populated by communities derived from the Roman population into the sixth century,Footnote ⁹⁵ and it is therefore possible that skeleton 794 was buried by a community that viewed the abandoned settlement as the home of their forebears. A study on the reuse of Roman sites for the burial in the early Anglo-Saxon period has suggested that such instances reflect places of perceived importance in the contemporary landscape rather than simply the opportunistic use of abandoned space.Footnote ⁹⁶ An example of the significance attached to Roman remains occurred at Newark, where reused Roman vessels appear to have been regarded as desirable containers in which to bury Anglo-Saxon cremations.Footnote ⁹⁷ Alternatively, if the presence of the urn within the burial at Chapel Lane indicates that the community identified with a more recently arrived community, they may have felt no connection to the former settlement and considered it to be the work of a distinctly different community, in which case the apparent exclusion of the individual from normative Anglo-Saxon burial locations may suggest some form of exclusion from wider society.Footnote ⁹⁸ It is notable in this context that the burial does not correspond with any of the categories of ‘deviant burial’ that Reynolds has defined for the early Anglo-Saxon period, defined by a prone position or evidence for decapitation, stoning or amputation,Footnote ⁹⁹ and which he associated with superstitions related to fear of the dead and a desire to ‘lay potentially troublesome individuals in the grave without fear of their returning to inhabit the world of the living’.Footnote ¹⁰⁰ However, Reynolds stressed that even these types of abnormal burials were usually placed within the community burial ground, which makes the location of skeleton 794 all the more unusual.Footnote ¹⁰¹

In summary, the placement of this individual within an abandoned Roman settlement and burial ground appears to have been significant, as was the deposition in the abandoned well, which was deemed more appropriate than digging a grave for the body. It is possible that the fact that this individual had contracted leprosy made them a social outcast. The exact reasoning behind the burial in this particular location, however, must remain open to debate.