Louise Loe – författare

The cemeteries around Roman Gloucester remain as windows through which the past populations of the town and preceding fortresses may be studied. Excavations by Oxford Archaeology in London Road between 2004 and 2006 revealed substantial parts of one of these cemeteries, at Wotton, lying by one of the main Roman roads east of the town. In addition to the nine cremation and 64 inhumation burials, a rare mass grave was found of at least 91 individuals, possibly victims of the Antonine Plague which swept the Roman Empire during the later 2nd century AD. This report analyses the burials for what they can tell us of the origins, health, status and funerary practices of the people living in Gloucester from the 1st to 4th century AD. The development of the Wotton cemetery itself is also studied, using evidence from excavations undertaken from the 19th century onwards.The current investigations also unearthed vertebrate deposits in the gravel cap dating to the Pleistocene, including hippopotamus and possibly bison and elephant. The significance of this assemblage in terms of the local geology is discussed.

During the First World War, 250 soldiers were buried behind enemy lines in unmarked mass graves on the outskirts of the village of Fromelles, Northern France. They were among several thousand Australian and British soldiers who were killed in the Battle of Fromelles on the 19th and 20th July 1916, the first action on the Western Front to involve the Australian Imperial Force. This volume describes Oxford Archaeology’s contribution to a joint Australian and British government mission, under the management of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, to recover the soldiers and re-bury them with full military honours in a new Commonwealth War Graves cemetery in Fromelles. Bringing together an international team of forensic and investigative professionals, Oxford Archaeology excavated and scientifically examined the remains of the soldiers and items – remnants of uniforms, insignia, and poignant mementoes of home, among them a return train ticket and a heart-shaped leather pouch – buried with them. With the full support and co-operation of the soldiers’ families, this evidence was employed alongside DNA and historical sources in an attempt to identify the soldiers by name for their commemoration on headstones. Since the recovery operation began in 2009, limited information has been revealed about the project. This volume is the comprehensive account of the work. Ultimately, however, this is a story of the soldiers, their bravery and sacrifice. With contributions by: Alison Anderson, Matt Bradley, Carl Champness, Ambika Flavel, Wayne Hoban, Peter Jones, Dai Lewis, Tim Loveless, Paul Murray, Dan Poore, Lucian Pricop, Ian Scott, Mark Viner, James Walker, Roland Wessling and Richard Wright.

The Thameslink Project, a major infrastructure upgrade focused at Blackfriars Station and London Bridge Station, and along the New Borough viaduct, involved archaeological investigations at Park Street which included the excavation of 331 post-medieval skeletons. The burials were associated with Cure’s College Almshouse, St Saviour’s parish, and dated between 1587 and 1831. Park Street is the first sizeable post-medieval almshouse burial assemblage to be archaeologically examined and, as such, provides a wealth of new information on living – and dying – in London during the 16th to 19th centuries. By bringing together the archaeological, historical, artefactual, osteological and isotopic evidence, this volume traces the development of the burial ground and builds a social and biological profile of the individuals buried there. A predominantly working class group, these individuals were not among the poorest of the parish, but neither were they wealthy. They hailed from the locality and beyond, as far as continental Europe, and worked as labourers, tradesmen, and skilled craftsmen. Diseases identified on the skeletons attest to nutritional deprivation and living conditions which were defined by poor sanitation, over-crowding and atmospheric pollution, while burial practice reflects pressure on burial space at a time when epidemics and high mortality were a major problem in large suburban parishes such as St Saviour’s.