An agger (Latin) [1] [2] is an ancient Roman linear mound or embankment. The word is sometimes applied to fortifications, such as the Agger Servianus, a part of the Servian Wall of Rome, which protected the city on its most vulnerable side, the Campus Esquilinus. It consisted of a double rampart bearing formidable fortifications. In modern usage however, particularly in British archaeology, it is most commonly used to describe the ridge or embankment on which Roman roads were built. The course of a Roman road can often be traced today by the distinctive line of the agger across the landscape [3] and even when destroyed by agriculture, the vestigial mound that can persist has allowed archaeologists in recent years to trace the course of many Roman roads using lidar.
The road agger was usually constructed by first clearing the topsoil, before excavating a shallow trench along the line of the road, although in some instances military roads were built directly onto the existing surface without even removing vegetation. A firm base was laid (in Britain only 28% of cases were of stone [4] ), before the agger was then built, usually from materials sourced close to the road, including stones, earth, sand and clay, sometimes in layers, often not, but always rammed hard into a solid mass. Some of this material came from excavating the ditches (fossae) which usually accompany a Roman road. These ditches were often set some distance from the agger [5] [6] , when their function seems to have been to define the road, rather than provide drainage, although In upland areas, with higher rainfall and more difficult terrain, it is quite usual to find the ditches next to the agger to assist with drainage. Since the ditches were often (but not always) quite shallow, termed 'scoop ditches' by archaeologists, further road material was frequently sourced from quarry pits close to the road, which can often form long lines, or merge together to form what is in effect a quarry ditch. Only rarely was material brought in from a distance. This use of local materials, especially on military roads (viae militares), means that occasionally there was no stone at all in the agger construction. Finally, the agger was metalled with small stones in a matrix of smaller materials such as gravel and earth, and cambered to ensure good drainage off the road surface. Paved roads are hardly ever found outside towns, not even near Rome itself.
The aggers of a few important Roman roads in Britain, and in Europe, survive as high linear mounds and until relatively recently many scholars believed that they were built that way. For example, Ermine Street north of Lincoln, which survives in places up to 1.5m high and in excess of 15m wide, was described by Margary as being 'one of the most magnificent in Britain, rivalled only by Ackling Dyke' [7] . The other Roman road from Lincoln to York was known as the Roman Ridge at various places between Doncaster and Tadcaster, and stood nearly 2m high and was still in use in the 18th century, as recorded by an engraving in Francis's Drake's Eboracum of 1736. However, modern archaeological investigation has shown (on this road and others), that when first built these road aggers were generally not large at all - it was the successive resurfacings and reconstruction adding more and more material to the aggers which caused them to get spectacularly large. For example, when investigated near the end of Tillbridge Lane, the original Roman agger of Ermine Street was found to have been just 6.5 m wide and 50cm high [8] [9] with most of the huge agger being post-Roman and possibly as recent as the 18th century.
The Fosse Way was a Roman road built in Britain during the first and second centuries AD that linked Isca Dumnoniorum (Exeter) in the southwest and Lindum Colonia (Lincoln) to the northeast, via Lindinis (Ilchester), Aquae Sulis (Bath), Corinium (Cirencester), and Ratae Corieltauvorum (Leicester).
Roman roads in Britannia were initially designed for military use, created by the Roman Army during the nearly four centuries (AD 43–410) that Britannia was a province of the Roman Empire.
Long barrows are a style of monument constructed across Western Europe in the fifth and fourth millennia BCE, during the Early Neolithic period. Typically constructed from earth and either timber or stone, those using the latter material represent the oldest widespread tradition of stone construction in the world. Around 40,000 long barrows survive today.
Kit's Coty House or Kit's Coty is a chambered long barrow near the village of Aylesford in the southeastern English county of Kent. Constructed circa 4000 BCE, during the Early Neolithic period of British prehistory, today it survives in a ruined state.
Stane Street is the modern name of the 91 km-long (57 mi) Roman road in southern England that linked Londinium (London) to Noviomagus Reginorum (Chichester). The exact date of construction is uncertain; however, on the basis of archaeological artefacts discovered along the route, it was in use by 70 AD and may have been built in the first decade of the Roman occupation of Britain.
King Street is the name of a modern road on the line of a Roman road. It runs on a straight course in eastern England, between the City of Peterborough and South Kesteven in Lincolnshire. This English name has long been applied to the part which is still in use and which lies between Ailsworth Heath, in the south and Kate's Bridge, in the north. The old road continued to Bourne thence north-westwards to join Ermine Street south of Ancaster. This part of Ermine Street is called High Dike. In the south, King Street joined Ermine Street close to the River Nene, north of Durobrivae. The whole is I. D. Margary's Roman road number 26.
Wade's Causeway is a sinuous, linear monument up to 6,000 years old in the North York Moors national park in North Yorkshire, England. The name may refer to either scheduled ancient monument number 1004876—a length of stone course just over 1 mile (1.6 km) long on Wheeldale Moor, or to a postulated extension of this structure, incorporating ancient monuments numbers 1004108 and 1004104 extending to the north and south for up to 25 miles (40 km). The visible course on Wheeldale Moor consists of an embankment of soil, peat, gravel and loose pebbles 0.7 metres (2.3 ft) in height and 4 to 7 metres in width. The gently cambered embankment is capped with unmortared and loosely abutted flagstones. Its original form is uncertain since it has been subjected to weathering and human damage.
In archaeology, earthworks are artificial changes in land level, typically made from piles of artificially placed or sculpted rocks and soil. Earthworks can themselves be archaeological features, or they can show features beneath the surface.
Wixoe is a village and civil parish in the West Suffolk district of Suffolk in eastern England. Located on the northern bank of the River Stour, two miles south-east of Haverhill, in 2005 its population was 140. It consists largely of Victorian cottages along a narrow lane. There is a church of 12th-century origin, St Leonard's, much restored in the 1880s. It was recorded in the Domesday Book, at 600 acres one of the smallest parishes in the hundred of Risbridge. There are some 13 listed buildings, including a 19th-century bridge and a water mill.
The London to Lewes Way is a 71 kilometres (44 mi) long Roman road between Watling Street at Peckham and Lewes in Sussex. The road passes through Beckenham and West Wickham, then crosses the North Downs above Titsey, on the county boundary between Surrey and Kent, and is overlain by Edenbridge High Street. The road continues on this alignment onto the high ground of Ashdown Forest, where the more grassy vegetation on the silted up outer ditches contrasts very clearly with surrounding heather in aerial photographs, then descends through Piltdown to Lewes, linking with the Sussex Greensand Way at Barcombe Mills and with a network of roads at Lewes.
The Chichester to Silchester Way is a Roman Road between Chichester in South-East England, which as Noviomagus was capital of the Regni, and Silchester or Calleva Atrebatum, capital of the Atrebates. The road had been entirely lost and forgotten, leaving no Saxon place names as clues to its existence, until its chance discovery through aerial photography in 1949. Only 6 kilometres (3.7 mi) of the 62 kilometres (39 mi) long road remain in use.
Ashdown Forest contains a wealth of archeological features. Absence of ploughing, predominance of heathland and lack of building development have allowed archaeological sites to survive and remain visible. More than 570 such sites have been identified, including Bronze Age round barrows, Iron Age enclosures, prehistoric field systems, iron workings from Roman times onwards, the Pale, medieval and post-medieval pillow mounds for the rearing of rabbits, and a set of military kitchen mounds between Camp Hill and Nutley dating from 1793 that are among the only surviving ones in the United Kingdom. The earliest known trace of human activity in Ashdown Forest is a stone hand axe found near Gills Lap, which is thought to be about 50,000 years old. The vast majority of finds however date from the Mesolithic and onwards into the modern era.
Mareham Lane is an unclassified road between Graby and Sleaford in Lincolnshire, England. It is approximately 10.6 miles (17.1 km) long.
The Street is the medieval name of the Roman road that ran across the high limestone plateau of central Derbyshire from the spa town of Buxton southeast towards modern Derby. The line of the road can be traced from surviving features, confirmed by archaeology, from Buxton as far as Longcliffe just north of Brassington. It is believed that from Brassington the road ran eastwards to Wirksworth and there joined another road which crossed the Derwent at Milford and ran on the east bank of the Derwent and can be traced to the northern suburbs of Derby to Little Chester, the site of the Roman settlement of Derventio. The 1723 map of Brassington Moor shows The Street road from Buxton through Pikehall up to the Upper Harborough Field Gate, leading onto Manystones Lane & Brassington Lane towards Wirksworth. In records from 1613 the road from Brassington to Wirksworth is called 'Highe Streete'.
Wimble Toot is a burial mound or, possibly, a motte built near the village of Babcary, Somerset, England. It is a scheduled ancient monument with a list entry number of 1015279.
The architecture of Scotland in the prehistoric era includes all human building within the modern borders of Scotland, before the arrival of the Romans in Britain in the first century BCE. Stone Age settlers began to build in wood in what is now Scotland from at least 8,000 years ago. The first permanent houses of stone were constructed around 6,000 years ago, as at Knap of Howar, Orkney and settlements like Skara Brae. There are also large numbers of chambered tombs and cairns from this era, particularly in the west and north. In the south and east there are earthen barrows, often linked to timber monuments of which only remnants remain. Related structures include bank barrows, cursus monuments, mortuary enclosures and timber halls. From the Bronze Age there are fewer new buildings, but there is evidence of crannogs, roundhouses built on artificial islands and of Clava cairns and the first hillforts. From the Iron Age there is evidence of substantial stone Atlantic roundhouses, which include broch towers, smaller duns. There is also evidence of about 1,000 hillforts in Scotland, most located below the Clyde-Forth line.
Hillforts in Scotland are earthworks, sometimes with wooden or stone enclosures, built on higher ground, which usually include a significant settlement, built within the modern boundaries of Scotland. They were first studied in the eighteenth century and the first serious field research was undertaken in the nineteenth century. In the twentieth century there were large numbers of archaeological investigations of specific sites, with an emphasis on establishing a chronology of the forts. Forts have been classified by type and their military and ritual functions have been debated.
The Dane John Mound, also known as the Dane John Gardens, is a former Roman cemetery in the city of Canterbury, Kent. It was converted into a motte-and-bailey castle in the 11th century, and turned into a civic park between 1790 and 1803.
Torberry Hill is an Iron Age hillfort in the county of West Sussex, in southern England. It is a Scheduled Ancient Monument, with a list entry identification number of 1015966. The hill fort is located within the parish of Harting, within the South Downs National Park. The hill includes the remains of an Early Iron Age univallate hill fort, a Middle Iron Age promontory fort and a post-medieval post mill. The hill is a chalk spur projecting northwards from the South Downs.
Shrub's Wood Long Barrow is an unchambered long barrow located near to the village of Elmsted in the south-eastern English county of Kent. It was probably constructed in the fourth millennium BCE, during Britain's Early Neolithic period. Built out of earth, the long barrow consists of a sub-trapezoidal tumulus flanked by side ditches.