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 rebuilt on a larger scale and flourished, growing larger in size than its pre-Boudican levels (to 108 acres/45 ha) despite its loss of status to Londinium, reaching its peak in the Second and 3rd centuries. The town's official name was "Colonia Claudia Victricensis" (City of Claudius’ Victory), but it was known colloquially by contemporaries (such as on the monument of Gnaeus Munatius Aurelius Bassus in Rome - "see below") as "Camulodunum" or simply "Colonia". The colonia became a large industrial centre, and was the largest, and for a short time the only, place in the province of Britannia where samian