Archaeological Fieldwork

Each year our international team of academics, students, volunteers and support staff combine to conduct exciting fieldwork that helps reveal and better understand the prehistory of southern Britain, solving many unanswered questions and framing new ones

This year fieldwork will be continuing on the Durotriges Project, a programme of archaeological investigation examining Iron Age Dorset and the nature of interaction between the local Durotriges tribe and the wider Roman Empire. The research project, which began in 2009, has investigated a series of Bronze and Iron Age farmsteads, an Iron Age town, three Iron Age cemeteries, a Late Roman Villa and burial ground and a post Roman settlement.

Durotriges Project website

Download the extensive article, 'Finding Duropolis' (pdf 2.3mb), from Current Archaeology magazine to learn about the project's full history.

Students from our range of archaeology courses are able to gain vital hands-on experience at a series of important and fascinating sites, while those with an interest in archaeology, Dorset's history, or the project as a whole, are welcome to join us. 

At the Durotriges Project site this year, we hope to investigate an Iron Age banjo enclosure (a large enclosed farm), gaining an insight into settlement, manufacturing activity and burial in the period immediately before the arrival of the Roman legions in AD 43. Updates and information can be found on our Facebook, Instagram and Twitter accounts