'Exciting' Chalke Valley Roman Villa discovery 'fills knowledge gap'
It suggests roman ways had reached South Wiltshire
The discovery of an ancient Roman Villa in the Chalke Valley is shedding light on who ruled the area hundreds of years ago.
It's the first villa to be unearthed in the area - and gives an insight into how local society functioned at the time.
It also ends speculation that roman ways of living hadn't reached the Chalke Valley.
The villa's discovery was made by Teffont Archaeology, along with the help of 60 volunteers from Chase and Chalke after a number of reported finds by metal detectorists in the area.
Dr Denise Wilding led the dig and said it's an exciting moment that fills a gap in knowledge.
She said: "Previously, people thought perhaps the that there was maybe a big Imperial estate controlling the area, or maybe people were living in pre Roman ways, whereas now we know that we've got this villa. There is some kind of controlled by higher status people."
The site is likely to date back to the third or fourth century and bridges the gap from the Iron Age to the Roman period.
Dr Wilding added: "It tells us that there is kind of some continuity from the Iron Age into the Roman period, people are living their lives, they're interacting with Romans.
"There's that kind of adoption of Roman ways of living. We've got the mosaic and the design on that is similar to the same design on other mosaics within the kind of networks that these Romans were tied to."
According to Dr Wilding, the site suggests it was home to people who led a life of luxury.
"The type of people likely to be using it there was somebody there that was of higher status because you put lots of time and money into building a villa," she said.
Dr Wilding continued: "But there's also going to be people that are working for them as well. One of the buildings that we found is an agricultural barn, so you need people to work your land, whether that's farming animals or growing crops and then we've got other buildings such as the Bath House, which might have been used by both sets of people."