Durham is a historic city and the county town of County Durham in North East England.
The present city can be traced back to around AD 995, when a group of monks from Lindisfarne chose the strategic high peninsula as a place to settle with the body of Saint Cuthbert (Cuthbert was an Anglo-Saxon saint of the early Northumbrian church).
Archaeologists excavating a construction site have discovered human cremated remains dating to around 90BC – 60AD, making the remains the earliest recorded resident of the Durham area and further evidence of early settlement at least 2,000 years ago.
Dr David Mason, Principal Archaeologist at Durham County Council, said the discoveries were very significant and were further evidence that people lived in the area during the Iron Age (800BC-43AD) and Romano-British (43-410AD) periods.
As well as evidence of the Iron Age cremation, archaeologists found items from medieval rubbish pits and 18th Century street-front buildings.
Header Image Credit : University of Durham
