Edge of an Era: The People of Iron Age and Romano‑British Weston

Thursday 19 March
2:30pm – 4:00pm
C2000 Hall, Straits, Portland
Tickets: £4 / £3 Friends

Join archaeologist and Bournemouth University researcher Andrea Frankham‑Hughes as she shares fascinating new insights into Portland’s ancient past. This talk explores the long‑forgotten 2006 excavation at Weston, where 17 burials and rare Iron Age features were uncovered but never published.

This is a wonderful opportunity to learn more about the island’s prehistoric communities and the people who lived here on the edge of an era.

Booking:
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Portland has a rich history hidden deep in time, but development means that much of our evidence for the prehistoric people of the Island is sadly lost. The finding of Iron Age settlements and burials on Portland is extremely rare in modern times. Most discoveries of cemeteries and settlements were made in the late 1800s and destroyed by quarrying.

You may have heard about the 2006 excavations at Weston by Susann Palmer and the Association for Portland Archaeology (APA). They found an enigmatic site with burials, stone round houses and other structures, but did you know that there was another dig alongside? Excavated by commercial archaeologists AC archaeology (AC), this dig revealed 17 burials and stone drainage channels dated to between 100BCE and CE100. Whilst Susann Palmer and Denine Reilly published a book containing an extensive record of the APA site, the AC archaeology site was never made public; the bones and artefacts remained in their archival storage, and the excavation became largely forgotten.

Archaeologist and Bournemouth University Post Graduate Researcher Andrea Frankham-Hughes has a passion and a mission to highlight prehistoric Portland. In 2021, she rediscovered the AC Weston site and, together with the University, worked to transfer the entire archive to their collection for safekeeping and research. Andrea is undertaking the first in-depth study of its kind on the Island, by focusing on the 17 individuals and grave goods found at Weston by AC. This has revealed some interesting insights into the lives of the Iron Age Durotrigian people of Portland.

Unusually, one young woman is buried cradling a chicken in her arms and surrounded by a large quantity of iron fragments. Individuals were carefully buried by the community, some with pottery and animal bones to accompany them to the next life. Andreas ongoing research looks at what the Weston site can tell us about the culture of the late Iron Age people of Portland as they lived through the transition to Romano-British, and how their culture compares to contemporary groups on southern mainland Dorset.

After creating an embroidery for b-sides’ Portland Dress, Andrea has been inspired to create an ongoing project called ‘Stitching the Dead’ in which she embroiders the archaeological drawings of the Weston burials. The project was part of a talk and exhibition at Bournemouth University’s Postgraduate research conference in 2025.

Each piece takes over 10 hours to make and draws together the threads of research, ancestry and wellbeing whilst highlighting and giving access to the hidden archaeology of the Island.

There will also be a rare opportunity to see Andreas ‘Stitching the Dead’ embroidery project and artefacts from the AC site, which will be on display at C2000 for the talk.