Diversity earned farmers a mint
Horace Batchelor
Farmers, it seems, were cashing in on old money almost 2,000 years ago
in Northumberland.
A hoard of Roman coins discovered by metal-detecting enthusiasts on a
farm near Longhorsley suggests that entrepreneurial native farmers
were recycling old bronze coinage and making trinkets to sell back to
soldiers in the Roman army.
The hoard of 70 Roman coins dates from the reign of the Emperors
Vespasian to the reign of Marcus Aurelius - from AD69 to 180.
This was a period when the Antonine Wall, between Glasgow and
Edinburgh, and not Hadrian's Wall, marked the frontier of the Roman
Empire.
The hoard was found by members of the Ashington and Bedlington
Detector Club near the route of The Devil's Causeway, the main Roman
road to Scotland which ran north through Northumberland.
Most of the coins are so worn as to be illegible, so they were
probably no longer recognised as official coins of the Roman Empire in
the Second Century - but they would have had value as recyclable
bronze.
The discovery of metal which solidifies in the air holes of a mould -
and the very worn faces of the coins - is evidence that recycling was
taking place.
"There are no Roman sites close to the find spot so it suggests it is
the locals who are recycling," said Lindsay Allason-Jones, Director of
Archaeological Museums at Newcastle University.
"They could have been making items such as brooches or horse harnesses
and with the Devil's Causeway nearby they would have had a handy
market selling to the Romans."
The Longhorsley coin hoard has no monetary value in present day terms.
But Lindsay said: "The hoard is very valuable in archaeological terms,
because this glimpse of local recycling is evidence that there was a
relationship between the native and the military population at a time
when Northumberland was part of the Roman Province of Britannia.
"Although artefacts made from recycled metal have been found, this is
also the first real evidence of native settlers using Roman materials
as a source of recycling."
The detector club has donated the coins to the university's Museum of
Antiquities, where they will go on show.
Club treasurer Allan Jacques said: "We were searching fields with the
permission of the farmer. It is quite a buzz to be the first person to
touch these coins for almost 2,000 years."
Three years ago club members unearthed one of the largest hoards of
Anglo-Saxon coins to be found in the North of England.
The 253 silver coins were discovered on farmland near the village of
Bamburgh in Northumberland.
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Possible Remains of Jamestown Head Found
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - Archaeologists believe they may have discovered
the skeleton of the man considered the main force behind the first
permanent English settlement in America.
The grave's placement inside the 17th-century Jamestown fort, the
estimated time frame of the grave and the ceremonial artifacts found
with the skeleton suggest it belongs to Capt. Bartholomew Gosnold,
said William Kelso, archaeology director of the Richmond-based
Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities.
''This is just as significant as actually finding the fort,'' Kelso
said. ''We're talking about finding one of the Columbus-era type
guys.''
The association, which began excavating the fort area in 1994, is
arranging DNA tests to compare the remains to Gosnold's descendants.
Kelso described the skeleton - buried alone and found about 2 feet
into the ground - as ''remarkably'' well-preserved.
A native of Suffolk, England, Gosnold pushed the English to send out
another group of explorers and settlers after the disappearance of the
Roanoke colony, in what is now North Carolina's Outer Banks, sometime
around 1587.
In 1602 he led an expedition to the Maine and Massachusetts coasts,
where he discovered and named Cape Cod, for the fish found there, and
Martha's Vineyard, for his infant daughter.
As commander of the ''Godspeed'' four years later, he was
second-in-command in the three-ship fleet that landed the 107 Virginia
Company settlers at Jamestown in May of 1607. He helped design the
triangular fort where they lived.
Capt. John Smith, credited with leading and ultimately saving the
colony, described Gosnold as ''the prime mover behind the
settlement.''
Gosnold died in August, 1607, after three weeks of illness. About
two-thirds of the settlers died that summer.
''Had he lived, he would have been the name associated with
Jamestown,'' Kelso said.
Kelso said that between 1607 and 1610 - an approximate time frame for
the grave - about four high-ranking settlers died, leading
archeologists to several possible identities of the skeleton.
But Kelso said Gosnold was by far the most important, and he suspects
that the grave's placement inside the fort, along with artifacts he
declined to detail Monday, support a historical narrative that
describes the captain's ''honorable'' burial for his contributions to
the settlement.
