Dr. Mike Hodder is a long-standing member of the Society. His early days in archaeology were spent as a schoolboy volunteer on the Society’s excavations at Wall Roman site and he now volunteers at the museum there. Formerly Sandwell Borough Archaeologist, then Birmingham City Council’s Planning Archaeologist, he is Honorary Lecturer in Archaeology at the University of Birmingham. He researches all periods of the archaeology of the West Midlands region, and he has published two books and many articles on various sites and landscapes. He co-edited, with Dr Roger White, Clash of Cultures? the Romano-British period in the West Midlands. He is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and a Member of the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists.
The unexpected discovery of an apsidal stone wall near Acton Trussell church led to over 30 years of excavations by the Penk Valley Archaeology Group, directed by the late Tony Habberley. These revealed timber and stone-based Roman buildings, including a probable bath house and mosaic floors, which lay within a ditched and subsequently stone-walled enclosure. Remains of prehistoric activity on the site included worked flint, pottery, a possible burnt mound, gullies, a stockade and a possible enclosure. A report on the excavations, published in the current volume of the Society’s Transactions, includes a discussion of the wider context of the site in prehistoric and Roman Staffordshire.
