The construction of Hadrian's Wall began in the year 122 after Christ. The wall, which marked the northernmost border of the Roman Empire, stretched from the banks of the River Tyne (near the North Sea) to Solway Firth in the Irish Sea.
Built entirely in what is now England, it served to isolate ancient Britons, including the Picts, in the north. The stone wall was supplemented by military castles and forts separated by five Roman miles (about 5,000 paces).
The south of the wall is relatively well documented from the Roman chronicles. Beyond this artificial barrier, however, the evidence was scant. That is why archaeologists have spent years studying the area north of Hadrian's Wall and have managed to identify more than 100 previously unknown indigenous settlements from the time of Roman occupation, according to an article published in the journal Antiquity.
Seeing that there was so much life (and a potential threat) beyond its border, Rome decided to expand further and between 140 and 142 built the Antonine Wall in the center of what is now Scotland. But this occupation only lasted for a short period of time and the border line eventually went back to Hadrian's Wall.
Previous research on the region between the two walls focused primarily on the Roman perspective. Forts, roads, camps and walls that were used to control northern Britain were analysed. The University of Edinburgh team led by Dr. Manuel Fernández-Götz, however, set out to better understand the indigenous communities living in this border region.
"This is one of the most exciting regions of the Empire, as it represented its northernmost border, and also because Scotland was one of the few areas in Western Europe that the Roman army never managed to establish full control over," explains Fernandez- Gotz.
The team plans to survey the area from Durham to the southern Scottish Highlands. The first phase of their work has focused on the region around Burnswark hillfort in Scotland. This is the site of the largest concentration of Roman shell found in all of Britain, witness to the firepower that Rome's legions could bring to bear on those who opposed them.
Archaeologists have used the Lidar (infrared) system to survey an area of 1,500 km2 around Burnswark. Some of this area has been extensively studied in the past, but researchers have still found as many as 134 previously unrecorded Iron Age settlements, bringing the total to more than 700 villages.
The largest sites were already known and most of the constructions that have now been found are small farms of great value "because they represent the places where the majority of the indigenous population lived," the experts explain. "Individually they are very routine, but if we analyze them together they give us a more complete picture and help us understand the landscape in which the indigenous population lived," they add.
