DIGGING AT KIBWORTH. I posted here about how excited Annalisa was by “the landscape and barrows near Stonehenge†because she was sure that there was a lot more that archaeologists could find. Here is some confirmation of Annalisa’s belief. Mary Jane is reading Michael Wood’s THE STORY OF ENGLAND. It’s a great book and apparently based on a great television series. Wood tells the history of England through a detailed history of three villages in Leicestershire (collectively called “Kibworth”). This article by Lee Marlow from the Leicester Mercury tells about the archaeological digs that were part of the project. Wood asked for volunteers who dug 55 test pits “not just in remote fields but in public places, in back gardens, front gardens, school fields and pub car parks.” There were finds at most of the places they dug. A dig at a pub car park found an Anglo Saxon bone comb from about 500 AD. Says Wood: “…after a few digs we had a Roman settlement, all sorts of pottery, Anglo-Saxon pieces, Viking pieces….” Shortly after the test pits were dug in 2009, a magnetometry survey in the area found Iron Age Houses and a complete Roman villa.
The test pit sites were apparently selected almost randomly—and they found lots of archaeological evidence.