ANCIENT human remains, pottery and other interesting artefacts were discovered at an excavation in Chipping Sodbury, it was revealed this week. 

Last year, Cotswold Archaeology carried out an excavation in land west of Trinity Lane, near the Ridings, Chipping Sodbury, before 90 homes are built on the site. 

This week the results from a post-excavation assessment were submitted to South Gloucestershire Council's planning portal. 

It revealed that during the excavation, remains of three children were found, among other things including pottery.

Cirencester-based Cotswold Archaeology say that the excavation, carried out with the support of Cotswold Homes, went well.

Although work on the site has finished, further post-excavation work analysing the findings off site is being carried out over the next 12 months and a detailed report on the site will be published in due course.

A spokesperson for Cotswold Archaeology said: "The excavation, carried out with the support of Cotswold Homes, went well.

"Previous investigation had revealed evidence for a small low-status Roman farmstead and the recent excavation exposed the remains.

"The small settlement originated in the Late Iron Age to Early Roman period (approximately 100 BC to 100 AD) when it was occupied by two or three timber roundhouses.

"By the 2nd century AD the farmstead had been rebuilt - six timber buildings belonging to this phase were identified, although some may have been used as workshops or for storage rather than as dwellings.

"Although the site continued to be occupied throughout the Roman period the roundhouses were replaced by field boundary ditches and small enclosures used for livestock, probably associated with a new farmstead that lay outside of the development site.

"The latest feature, dating to the 4th century AD, was an isolated ditch, suggesting the site may have formed part of a wider agricultural landscape in this period.

"The remains of several human infants were buried alongside this ditch, a common practice in Roman Britain.

"Pottery and other artefacts recovered from the site were mainly utilitarian and suggest that the site was fairly low-status throughout its occupation."