Excavations in the Cotswolds

The Cotswolds are located in south western England mainly lying in Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire and extending in Wiltshire,Worcestershire and south eastern Warwickshire (Wikipedia,2013). It is said to be a „wonderful place to visit” ( escapetothecotswolds.org.uk, 2013) and „one of the most 'quintessentially English' ” (cotswolds.info, 2013) therefore it is a popular trip destination to tourists.

The main feature of the Cotswolds are „gentle hillsides (‘wolds’), sleepy villages”(the-cotswolds.org,2013) and the area which is 25 miles (40 km) across and 90 miles (145 km) long(Wikipedia,2013), almost the size of the greater Tokyo(the-cotswolds.org, 2013). Even the name itself bears the typical landscape we know today,beacuse the word „cotswolds” consists of two names: „cots” – a term for sheep enclosures,used by many people and „wolds” – gentle hills. It is thought that „cotswolds” stands for gentle hills inhabited by sheep (cotswolds.com, 2013).

But the beautiful landscape is not the only thing that attracts the peoples eyes. The history of the Cotswolds is quite impressive dating back not only to the Iron Age but also to the Neolithic Age around 3500 BC when the first visitors came. Since then many great monuments have been left behind such as barrows and burial grounds spread across the area of the Cotswolds (thecotswoldgateway.co.uk, 2010).

In AD 43 the Roman legions arrived (thecotswoldgateway.co.uk, 2010) and not so long after the invasion massive changes were made in the house building manner in Southern Britain. In the next couple of decades most of the houses were „rectangular, had several rooms, often tiled roofs, and were usually built with at least foundations and wall footings made of stone”(Guy de la Bédoyère, year...

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