Oldest town in Britain with the River Avon acting as a transit route. Evidence of frogs' legs being eaten as well as 31,000 flints and animal bones have also been found. Colchester claims to be Britain's oldest "recorded" town. Its claim is based on a reference by Pliny the Elder, the Roman writer, in his "Natural History" ("Historia Naturalis") in 77 AD. He described Anglesey as "about from Camulodunum, a town in Britain", where Camulodunum was the Roman name for Colchester. It is claimed that this is the first known reference to any named settlement in Britain, although coins minted by Tasciovanus mention the
Camulodunum "Camulodensium" (although Lincoln and Gloucester are other possible candidates). The formal collapse of Roman administration in the province occurred in the years 409-411. Activity in the 5th century continued in Camulodunum at a much reduced level, with evidence of at the Butt Road site showing that it briefly carrying on into the early 5th century. Several burials within the towns walls have been dated to the 5th century. These include two burials discovered at East Hill House in 1983, which have been surgically decapitated (in a fashion found in both Pre-Roman and some early pagan-Saxon burial practices), and other burials