A Landscape Archaeology Project: The Roman Site at Rama (Ecrins, French Alps)

Location Map

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Rama is located towards the top centre of this map.

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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

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Starting the excavation of the trench

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Cleaning up the section after the mechanical digger has left

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A spring about 500m to south of the site

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Exposed sedimentary units in a natural section of the Durance River

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Where the Byasse (centre-left) meets the Durance (about 400m to the north east of the site at Rama)

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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

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View of the trench looking towards the Durance River

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Remains of a probable basin - hydraulic cement covers the inner edge of the room in this image

The excavation trench

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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.

The excavation trench

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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 photograph)

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The main area under excavation

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The main trial excavation area.

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Detail of wall with Roman tile.

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Coarse river deposits abutting the Roman walls

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Coarse bed deposits overlain by finer flood sediments.

Flood Deposits

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

Roman Walls

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

Geoarchaeological sampling

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Sampling flood deposits that now overlie the Roman site

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Roman walls under 1.5m of floodplain deposits

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Backfilling the trench