Iron Age housing uncovered at Warwick University
 A recreation of Iron Age living in the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ's programme In Surviving the Iron Age
|  | Researchers at the University of Warwick have discovered late iron age roundhouses on the campus. It is the earliest evidence of settlement in Coventry.
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 | | The discovery of the outline of 15 late iron age roundhouses on the University of Warwick's campus is hugely significant for Coventry. It is the earliest evidence of settlement within the modern boundary of the city.
The 15 building outlines uncovered so far appear to be just the edge of a larger complex of Iron Age structures, bounded on side by a small river and leading back to the site of a Neolithic track or pathway.
The number and size of the roundhouses uncovered makes it a significant English Iron Age site and one of the most significant such sites in the West Midlands. Because of its size some of the team involved have dubbed it a housing estate.
The roundhouse outlines uncovered so far are on the large side - the largest being 15 metres in diameter. Dr Stephen Hill, the University of Warwick archaeologist supervising the archaeological dig, believes the site dates from the 1st century BC or the 1st century AD.
Dr Hill has also suggested the inhabitants were probably pushed off the site by the incoming Romans in the first century AD. There is considerable evidence of Roman presence on the University of Warwick site and the Coventry area as a whole.
Some Iron Age pottery and a significant quantity of animal bones from the period have been recovered from the site.
The researchers are not expecting the find any artefacts beyond the small amount of pottery so far recovered as the hut outlines being examined are below what would have been ground level when the site was inhabited.
The site was uncovered during the construction of a special Β£365,000 all-weather sports pitch for the university. Old aerial photographs of the site suggested there may be interesting archaeology on the site, so the university invited Dr Hill and the City of Coventry's archaeologists onto the site before the building commences.
When the archaeologists have finished examining the site the sports pitch will be constructed with care to limit the impact on the archaeology underneath.
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