Excavations at the Iron Age and Roman town of Silchester in Hampshire are rewriting British history, revealing that the Atrebates tribe enjoyed a lifestyle previously thought to have been introduced by the Romans. The dig, led by Dr Amanda Clarke and Professor Michael Fulford of Reading University, has uncovered seeds from a level dating to around 50BC, a century before the Roman invasion.
The findings show that the Atrebates ate a varied diet including shellfish, domesticated birds such as chicken and geese, and a range of fruits. They flavoured their food with coriander, dill, fennel, and poppy seed, and imported wine in barrels and amphorae. A single charred olive stone, the earliest ever found in Britain, was recovered from a well.
The town also had planned streets aligned with solstices and regular house plots, challenging the belief that Roman introduced town planning. The Iron Age road, however, was less robust than its later Roman counterpart, which had a camber and drainage ditches.
Ritual burials of ravens, dogs, and a cat suggest religious practices involving sacrifices. A unique folding knife showing two dogs mating was also deliberately buried. Professor Fulford believes the town was at its peak before the Romans arrived, founded around 50BC by Commius, an Atrebates leader once allied with Julius Caesar.
