The Romans in Derbyshire The Camp in the Field A surprisingly
large audience of around five hundred gathered at a public
meeting at the Winding Wheel in Chesterfield in 2003 to hear
Professor John Walker, the Director of the Department of
Archaeology at Manchester University deliver the results of his
findings following the latest archaeoligical "˜dig' in the town.
But the bearded and bespectacled Professor, who described
himself as "˜simply a sad fat man who digs holes in the ground'
revealed far more information about "˜Roman Chesterfield' than
did the actual ground that he and his team had recently
excavated! After explaining that archeology was "not exactly
rocket science"? Mr Walker went on to say that as an academic
subject it was "˜imprecise' and that his job was to "read the
signs and interpret the ground - thus, by its very nature
archeology is speculative, open to interpretation, and this is
why everything we claim for Roman Chesterfield must be prefixed
by the word possible"?. For example, on the o