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A farmer's field in Buckinghamshire has yielded a grisly secret  -  it was the burial ground for nearly 100 tiny babies slaughtered by the Romans. The site is suspected of being an ancient brothel and the 97 newborns could have been the unwanted babies of prostitutes, experts say. With little or no effective contraception available to the Romans, who also considered infanticide less shocking than it is today, they may have simply murdered the children as soon as they were born. The Yewden Villa excavations at Hambleden in 1912. Archaelogists have found the remains of 97 babies at the site...

Norfolk acted as a hub of resistance against Roman occupation, new analysis of archaeological finds has revealed. But the empire's military might eventually eclipsed native East Anglians in a brutal crackdown described as a "lost holocaust". A sprawling Celtic 'proto-city', as significant to its Iceni occupants as modern-day London, sprawled across eight square miles of West Norfolk, almost certainly providing a regular home to Boudicca. David Thorpe, from the Sedgeford Historical and Archaeological Research Project (Sharp), is excavations director for the site - the exact location of which is not being disclosed. Speaking yesterday, he explained the team have discovered...

Alex Kingston: Fighting spirit Alex Kingston is one of America's best-paid TV actors, with a luxurious LA lifestyle to match. So why did the ER star leave it all behind to appear in a mud-splattered British drama about Boudica? By James Rampton 30 September 2003 By nature, The Independent is a self-effacing newspaper. It displays an entirely proper sense of British reserve and modesty. It is not at all keen on blowing its own trumpet. However, it is more than happy for someone else to do so on its behalf - especially if that someone happens to be Hollywood star...

Roman Britons after 410The ‘end of Roman Britain’ is a myth. Roman culture survived right through the Anglo-Saxon period. Martin Henig explainsThe 'story' of Roman Britain, as told to generations of schoolchildren, is a very simple one - AD 43, the Roman legions march in; AD 410, they march out again. Barbarity beforehand, barbarity afterwards, civilisation in between. In an earlier issue of this magazine (BA, September 1998) I suggested that the Roman 'conquest' of AD 43 was not all that it seemed to be, and that Britain's southern rulers - if not those in the north - were Romanised...

More of the ancient Roman city of Verulamium’s secrets have been discovered by archaeologists. The burnt remains of a 1,800-year-old kiln - a type of oven used to create pottery - have been unearthed during excavations of the ancient city near the modern city of St. Albans in Hertfordshire, Great Britain.