SDO12539 - Little Keep, Dorchester, Dorset. Post-excavation Assessment Report and Updated Project Design for Analysis and Publication.

Wessex Archaeology was commissioned by Scott Wilson, acting on behalf of Bellway Homes (Wessex), to undertake an archaeological evaluation and subsequent archaeological excavation on land adjacent to the Little Keep building, Dorchester, Dorset (National Grid Reference 368620090785). The evaluation revealed evidence for large scale historical levelling of the Site. In places buried soil was identified, overlying the archaeological features. The features comprised to inhumation graves and a gully. No secure dating was found. Evidence for the 1860s barrack building was recorded. The evaluation results led to an archaeological excavation, which found part of a late Roman cemetery containing 29 inhumation graves, six possible graves, a ditched mausoleum feature and a possible enclosure ditch. These burials are almost certainly part of a far more extensive cemetery or group of cemeteries indicated by numerous single and multiple burial findspots in the vicinity. Of particular interest in this part of the cemetery were the burial positions and treatment. Although it is not unusual to find prone and decapitated burials in late Romano-British cemeteries, it is their relative predominance in this area of the cemetery that is unusual. There were 13 standard extended, supine burials, 11 prone extended burials, three decapitated, extended supine burials, one prone, decapitated, extended, and one on its side and decapitated. Finds included three late Roman coins, coffin nails and hobnails along with well preserved human remains. Several pieces of pottery, worked flint, ceramic building material, and animal bone were also recovered and can be considered either residual or intrusive. No evidence for the Roman-British aqueduct was observed in either of the archaeological investigations. This report assesses the potential of the remains found and puts forward a programme of analysis leading to a publication report in the Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History Society.