Archaeologists unearth a remarkable Roman villa under a housing development site

Large-scale excavation works often end with people digging out something from the past that holds a lot of historical importance. In March 2024, a team of archaeologists dug out an ancient villa from the age of the Roman Empire while a housing development project was underway in a small English village, as reported by CNN. The villa complex was decorated with colorful plaster, mosaic chips and a bunch of tightly coiled lead scrolls, hinting that some ritual or pilgrimage might have taken place at that site.

"The villa in Grove would have been central for this area of Oxfordshire," Francesca Giarelli, the project officer for Red River Archaeology Group and the site's director, told the news outlet. Giarelli also mentioned that the villa had multiple levels and the structure stretched across 10,800 square feet on the ground floor, which was possibly visible for miles. The year-long excavation also brought up hundreds of coins, plus rings, brooches, mosaic tesserae and painted plaster with floral motifs. The archaeologists were able to date the site to the time when the Roman Empire flourished from the 1st or 2nd century into the late 4th or early 5th century A.D. 

There was another aisled building with a bigger and more impressive hall-like area, built after the villa's construction. Giarelli stated that the family inhabiting the villa grew richer over time and eventually constructed the second building. "In Roman times, villas were not simply residential dwellings but more like small administrative centers," Giarelli explained. She added that people working in those administrative quarters were responsible for maintaining the roads in the area, managing and planning the agricultural lands and the villas acted as storage units to stock edible products for times of crisis.

The archaeologists found many other signs of human activities in the villa. There was a horse-headed buckle that dated back to 350-450 AD. It suggested that there were people from Roman elite societies living in the villa or it could be someone who wanted to be associated with that period. However, these buckles also have a connection with burials from the early Anglo-Saxon Era, as mentioned by the archaeologists to the news outlet. In a press statement, the discovery of the site was attributed as "remarkable." 

The site's excavation had begun long before housing developers Barratt and David Wilson Homes started their construction work and dug two evaluation trenches. "The trenches revealed a high potential for archaeological presence," Giarelli said. An archaeological investigation was carried out that started two months before the building constructions began and was ongoing as of March 2024. "Archaeologists haven't yet found where all the people ended up," Giarelli added. The archaeologists suspect that there might be a hidden sanctuary that is still underground and holds a lot more information about the villa and the people who lived there.

In May 2024, another team of archaeologists from the University of Tokyo uncovered parts of a Roman villa built before the mid-first century, per Phys.org. The structure was found in the Campania region in Southwestern Italy. The team ended up making many observations at the site that all pinpointed to it potentially having been the home of the famed founding emperor of the Roman empire, Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus.