Oxford's Archaeology

Even as a relatively wild primeval landscape it was perhaps always one of the better places for people to be, with a rich soil over well drained subsoil in a loop of two rivers, both of which could be waded at many times of the year.   So early settlers used it, not only for raising crops and families, but also a place to bury their dead.  After what may seem a 'happily ever after' period of utopian growth, an invading army aligned their roads on it, and created its first industry, making pottery for the Roman empire.

Archaeological remains are an important way of backing up (or sometime contradicting) this story of a developing community.  After the demise of the Roman Empire the pottery industry disappears, and we are left to wonder what happed to the people who lived by it and bought its products.  If they returned to Utopian agriculture, it is some time before the process of social differentiation gets going again, this time in a sustained way.  We find early historians telling of missionaries, including St Frideswide, the legendary founder (AD 727) of a church which became Oxford's cathedral, the mother church of the city. 

The Oxford we know appeared about two centuries later, with the gridiron or 'orthogonal' street plan (around AD 900), evidently such a success that it attracted an academic community which gelled into the university for which the city is famed.  It was perhaps a mixture of the defensible 'water fortress' and its scholarly community that encouraged Charles I to make Oxford his desperate final stand, in a century when some of the most profound scientific research was done in this city.

If Oxford was a microcosm of excellence in physical science in the 17th century, in the 19th century it hosted the critical debate on organic evolution, and in the 20th century pioneer work in the investigation of human cultural heritage, the techniques of archaeology.  Sites in Broad Street, the Castle and St Aldates have been beacons of work on ceramics, giving a scientific level of assurance for the formative period of this city, and by reflection may of the successful places of western Europe, a tool to address the big issues of human social and cultural development.

Wider information relating to historic environment matters in Britain can be sought from the Council for British Archaeology (CBA), which deals with many different aspects of caring for the archaeological resource;  conservation interests encompass the whole of the historic environment - from sub-surface archaeology, to standing buildings and landscapes.

Local and county-wide information on historic environment issues can be sought from Oxfordshire Architectural and Historical Society, a county-wide amenity society concerned with archaeology, architecture and the history of the city and county.

Page last reviewed 7 Apr 2008