What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?

I was surprised and gratified to learn that our modest little community is, in fact, also the site of the most important Gallo-Roman settlement site in the Vendée.

This little nugget was imparted by a very senior archaeological bod who descended from Nantes to speak at a meeting organised to discuss the plan local d’urbanisme (PLU) for the commune. I was not at the meeting (I was on childcare duties) but My Dear Wife was, in her role as a councillor, and she is normally a reliable witness, provided she hasn’t been at the cooking sherry.

Not, it must be owned, that a great deal of the remains of the Roman port that was once here are particularly obvious to the untutored eye. For example, at the top of the lane on which we live there is a stone-built barn with a rather curious rounded corner, a bit like a tower, on one end. This is the site of a Gallo-Roman chapel from the earliest days of Christianity. It’s not the only barn like it around here.

If it were up to me, these would be labelled at the very least and preferably exposed to the fascinated eye of passerby. But the watchword in modern archaeology appears to be “laissez-faire” (OK – that’s strictly two words): things, it seems, are best left safely in the ground and only dug up if it is really necessary to guarantee their preservation.

Now, back to the PLU. The PLU is a wildly important document that shows which bits of land within the commune can be used for what; most importantly, which bits can have things built on them. Normally these are drawn up every ten years or so, but in a sleepy little place like this they can last for twenty.

Even in the Vendée, which can hardly be described as crowded, land zoned for building commands about ten times the price achievable for agricultural lands, and more than this if utilities and services are already laid to the site.

The last PLU for Le Langon has been rejected by the powers that be because it showed building zones sprawling all over odd corners of the commune with great chunks in the middle of the village that remained (for no clear reason) as pockets of agricultural land.

This PLU was prepared during the Age of Cluelessness, when Mr Former Mayor and Stalin the Flatulent Rottweiler held sway in the village. Not that Mr Former Mayor was clueless: he knew practically everything that was going on (except – apparently – that a significant sum of cash was being siphoned off from the commune’s coffers).

But for what ever reason he didn’t share a great deal of information with either the members of the council or with the electorate at large. Some might put this down to a belief in the adage that “knowledge is power” and that it is shared at a ruler’s peril; personally I incline to the more charitable view that he simply either thought we were all too busy to bothering with the details of what was going on, or that he was a poor communicator, or that he was shy.

And it is obviously simply a matter of coincidence that some of the prime potential plots in the village centre that had not been zoned for building are owned by individuals that are more inclined to line up with the catholic / école privée faction of the population and any malicious mutterings to the contrary are simply wrong.

However, there was a pervading belief amongst the community that certain areas of the village were out of bounds because they contained buried artefacts of great historical importance.

Not so, said the man from Nantes.

If someone wants to develop a piece of land in a sensitive zone, they first have to follow an alarmingly simple, if a little protracted, procedure.

Stage one is to contact the archaeological authority and ask for an avis about the bit of land. This is completely free and is a document that lays out what is already known about the site and which bits – if any – must be avoided.

If the avis is incomplete then stage two undertaken. This is called a diagnostique: a couple of Herberts with some astoundingly complicated kit turn up and survey the site without actually digging anything up. This takes about a day and costs 50 cents per square meter, so for a 100 m2 house this would be 50 euros. There is, however, quite a waiting list for this.

If the dianostique throws up anything of interest, then if the project is to continue excavation trenches must be dug to remove or, at the very least, ensure the preservation of, whatever is there. This is both labour intensive and very, very expensive. A modest trench might cost €300,000 and costs running into the millions are not unusual.

However, if the applicant is a private individual, and the work is being done for housing rather than for, say, a swimming pool, the state (oh all right: the taxpayer) bears the cost of the excavation.

For me this casts archaeology in an entirely new light. I’ll explain. My eldest daughter is in the throws of choosing her optional courses for next year. Among the choices is Latin, which includes not just the language but also a cultural education about Rome.

Now, I’ve been feeling a little ambivalent about recommending this to her. Sure, it might be interesting and the language would probably appeal to her logical nature, but is there any point to it?

Well, Latin is terribly useful if one takes up archaeology and if archaeology can pay this well, I think there might be.