Last year archeologists revealed that Longis Common was home to a Roman settlement – set above an Iron Age graveyard dating back to around 200BC- that was the largest in the Channel Islands.
This week, archeologists unearthed two sets of first and second century BC skeletons beneath the Roman masonry.
“So far we’ve excavated two skeletons which are actually buried on top of each other,” said Dr Jason Monaghan, who has been leading the dig.
Pictured: A team of 12 from Alderney, Guernsey and the UK set out on the excavation project three weeks ago.
“One of these has turned out to be a juvenile, we think probably about 16 years old and one of them was wearing a very nice bronze necklace and then an iron necklace on top of that and also a bronze bracelet.
“On Tuesday we removed most of another body in an adjacent grave pointing in the opposite direction. In the burial sections around the site we can also see bits of other bodies. For example there’s a jaw bone sticking out of a hip and a bit of a leg in another place, so some early graves look to have been disturbed by later activity.”
This year’s dig has shown that the Iron Age cemetery extended right underneath the road and under the Roman settlement.
“Last summer we suspected there was a high status Iron Age burial ground here,” said Dr Monaghan. “having been able to excavate in controlled circumstances, this has actually proved to have been the case.”
Three trenches were dug this year to find out more about the make up of the settlement uncovered the year before, and who lived there. Chest high Roman walls were unearthed in all three trenches indicating an expansive network of buildings.
Pictured: Dr Jason Monaghan, right, and his team found signs of domestic occupation among the trenches.
“In the Roman level of the trenches we’ve seen what appears to be domestic occupation with what looks like cooking pots and amphoras and mixing bowls and we’ve seen some industrial activity, iron working and other things.
“One of the exciting things we’ve found as well is the first evidence of Frankish occupation of Alderney in the 5th-6th century, the people who came after the Romans,’ said Dr Monaghan. “We found some very nice remains of a Frankish palm beaker, which sits in your hand, with a Christian motif on the bottom which is a very exciting, very rare find for here. It shows these buildings were in use after the Romans had left.”
Dr Monaghan, who brought a team of 12 people from Guernsey, the UK and Alderney to work on the site, said the visit had proved to be very satisfying.
“It’s very rare to get this level of preservation, number of objects and deep deposits anywhere in the Channel Islands and we’ve got it here on Longis Common. So this dig has been really exciting and very satisfying,” he said.
After these finds have been analysed, they will return to Alderney to be exhibited at the Alderney Society Museum.
Pictured top: The skull from one of the skeletons that were discovered during the dig (Credit: David Nash).