Deconstructing the Durotriges. Changing my Trousers.

The police have been around again, warning me to write something or face legal action. So here goes -

What I did tonight.

I've been a member of the local archaeology group for a few years, but I've never been to any of their talks.

This month the talk was "Deconstructing the Durotriges".
The Durotriges were (maybe) a tribe living in pre-Roman southern Britain in the area near present-day Dorchester. A skeleton of one of their number (maybe), dug up in the 1930's, lies in Dorchester museum with a Roman ballista still lodged in his spine. I've never deconstructed Durotriges before, so I thought I'd give it a go.

The talk was in St Matthew's church, a building I can see on a hilltop a couple of miles away. How to get there? I would have gone by bike, but it was a dark, rainy night and my bike was showing early symptoms of a puncture. So catch the bus then.

Arriving on the main road,expecting a long wait, pleasantly surprised by a bus appearing after five minutes.
Great. I get on OK, but someone behind me gets into an argument with the driver about something. Lots of shouting, swearing. The driver turns the engine off. Lots of other passengers get involved. The police arrive. Ten minutes later the situation is resolved and we get under way.

Up the hill to Kingsdown. Posh, old area. Cobbled alleys, just big enough for a cart - or a car nowadays.
Thirty greyheads in the church hall to hear about people who lived nearly two thousand years ago. Laptop and Power Point presentation. I sit near the front, cos I'm deaf, but still can't hear too good.

The lecturer has done a PhD on looking for the Durotriges and he wonders if they really existed in the way that everyone assumes they did. They were mentioned by Ptolemy in about 150 AD, though he never came this way himself. No other written reference to them until, in the 19th cent, two stones were unearthed on Hadrian's Wall bearing their name. Either they were conscripted or volunteered to go north and help build the wall.

The lecturer wanted to look for a common culture around that time that could be identified as being "Durotrigian".
He looked at the archaeological record of about half a dozen areas around Dorset to find common themes in pottery, patterns of settlement, coinage, etc., but it doesn't seem that there were any; each area had its own distinctive style.

Around Poole, the harbour was flourishing, lots of industry including the pottery that became widespread over a large area. A more civilised place - no hill forts. Around Maiden Castle, wilder, hill fort country. South Somerset is interesting. At Ham Hill there is evidence of a big battle with the Romans. The pottery disappears for a generation at the time of Boudicca. Perhaps the people of that area supported her revolt in the east and got wiped out for it. The coins of that area are remarkable. The designs are abstract and seem very modern.

Then nine o'clock came and we all left.

I went to catch the bus back home. One turned up after about five minutes.
I got on and sat in the front seat - ugh! It was all wet. My trousers were wet.

I told the driver, a young Polish guy with very little English. "There was a drunk man sit there."

How lovely. No wonder people don't use public transport.

The end.
Will this do?

Celtic Coin Index