Saturday, June 24, 2006

Location Map

Rama is located towards the top centre of this map. Posted by Picasa

Thursday, June 22, 2006

This second stage of a landscape archaeology project in the Southern French Alps was designed to assess the nature and depth of the archaeological remains of a major site Roman site called Rama. The first stage, in 2005, comprised a geophysical survey thus allowing us to locate the site and make a decision where to place our trial trench.
The 2006 fieldwork assessed the relationship of the site with the Durance River and the Byasse torrent and evidence for ancient flooding on the site. Below is an image of the initial opening up of the trial trench - view looking north up the Durance Valley Posted by Picasa
Starting the excavation of the trench Posted by Picasa
Cleaning up the section after the mechanical digger has left Posted by Picasa
A spring about 500m to south of the site Posted by Picasa
Exposed sedimentary units in a natural section of the Durance River Posted by Picasa
Where the Byasse (centre-left) meets the Durance (about 400m to the north east of the site at Rama) Posted by Picasa
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The context for the trial trench at Rama - the Durance River is to the top of this image - we are looking towards the northeast along the Durance Valley Posted by Picasa
View of the trench looking towards the Durance River Posted by Picasa
Remains of a probable basin - hydraulic cement covers the inner edge of the room in this image Posted by Picasa

The excavation trench

The flood deposits (coming from an inactive branch of the Byasse river) are towards the bottom end of the trench. The Durance River is some 400m further away from the top edge of the trench. Posted by Picasa

The excavation trench

An overview of the excavation trench - the main archaeological remains occur in the central area.
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Note the really interesting flood deposits in the section (top-centre of the photographPosted by Picasa
The main area under excavation Posted by Picasa
The main trial excavation area. Posted by Picasa
Detail of wall with Roman tile. Posted by Picasa
Coarse river deposits abutting the Roman walls Posted by Picasa
Coarse bed deposits overlain by finer flood sediments. Posted by Picasa

Flood Deposits

Detail of different river channel and flood deposits: coarse riverbed material down in the bottom, centre-left of the image. Posted by Picasa

Roman Walls

Detail of a Roman wall where pottery dating to the Late Roman Period was found. Posted by Picasa

Geoarchaeological sampling

Sampling flood deposits that now overlie the Roman site Posted by Picasa

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

Roman walls under 1.5m of floodplain deposits Posted by Picasa
Backfilling the trench Posted by Picasa