The incipit of a piece from icSurrey:

BONES of dozens of dogs offered to the gods in Roman times and unearthed in Ewell 30 years ago is an archeological find that has triggered further investigation.

Leading archaeologists are in the village recovering the secrets of lost Roman shrines.

The team of excavators, digging at Hatch Furlong on the Ewell bypass, is being led by Harvey Sheldon of Birkbeck College, University of London, and Jon Cotton of the Museum of London and president of the Epsom and Ewell Local History and Archaeology Society.

The first finds were made in the 1840s in a series of deep ritual shafts cut down into the chalk.

But today's archaeologists will be seeking to uncover more of a stone building and a further deep shaft found in 1977. Shafts like these have been found containing pottery vessels, coins and the bones of many dogs.

Ewell lies on Stane Street - the main Roman road from London to Chichester - and the discoveries in and around Hatch Furlong suggest that a religious complex once existed on the higher ground over-looking the settlement.

Bourne Hall Museum curator Jeremy Harte said: "This is a very exciting opportunity.

"We are looking at one of the most mysterious aspects of life in Roman Ewell - the cult centres where offerings were made to native gods."

The dig is being supported by Surrey County Council, Epsom and Ewell Local History and Archaeology Society, Surrey Archaeological Society and the Council for British Archaeology South East.

"This is a great opportunity for us to learn more about the mysteries of this place using modern techniques," said Caroline Thackray, territory archaeologist in the Conservation Directorate of The National Trust.

... hopefully we'll be hearing more about this one. As far as I can recall, dog sacrifices are pretty rare in the Roman world (associated with Lupercalia, of course, but also somehow associated with the Lares, Pan, and Geneta/Hekate).