Michael Fulford

Links with the Past: Pervasive ‘Ritual’ Behaviour in Roman Britain

Recent theoretical debate combined with a greater attention to the nature of individual deposits in the archaeological record has focused on the nature of ritual behaviour, its material correlates and its significance as social practice. In southern Britain a particular focus for this debate has been presented by the study of ‘special deposits’ and the structured (ritual) deposition of archaeological deposits from the Iron Age. Cunliffes review and interpretation of an extensive range of evidence from the hillfort of Danebury, Hampshire, can be set in the context of Hills penetrating regional study of ritual in the Iron Age of Wessex. For the former, ‘special deposits’ or ‘structured deposition’ have been seen as the evidence of propitiatory rites, particularly to ensure fertility; for the latter, they are seen as a defining reflection of the ‘mediation, transformation and classification of people, animals, spaces and things’.

Economic interdependence among urban communities of the Roman Mediterranean

Abstract Classical sources hint at the role of trade in the development and maintenance of urban communities with access to the sea. With very little surviving written evidence, the usefulness of the changing ratio of ‘imported’ to ‘local’ wares in ceramic assemblages is assessed as a means of gauging the economic interdependence of Roman coastal cities of the Mediterranean. The currently available data are assessed and tested against a number of independent sources; in particular the changing patterns of importation to Ostia is set against the historical evidence of Romes corn supply. The potential for understanding the processes which produced the assemblages under consideration by reference to similar material from better documented pre‐industrial societies is also explored. It is concluded that there was a very high level of interdependence among Roman cities around the Mediterranean.

The Distribution of South-East Dorset Black Burnished Category I Pottery in South-West Britain

The good survival of ceramics in the archaeological record has ensured that pottery has played a major role in the study of ancient industry and trade. How far Roman pottery can be used as a proxy for understanding the organisation of other industries is not a debate we wish to enter here, but it is clear that there remain important areas to be researched before the usefulness of pottery is exhausted. There have been significant advances in understanding over the last twenty-five years, with research concentrating more on characterisation, and the nature and scale of distributions, than on typology and chronology. The benefits of adopting a quantitative approach have been well rehearsed, although not always accepted. In this way, such research has made a major contribution to the ongoing debate about the extent to which pottery production and supply, and hence the economy as a whole, were controlled by market as opposed to institutional interests such as the state and, in particular, the Roman army.

Territorial expansion and the Roman Empire

Abstract As the first state to control all the lands bordering the Mediterranean, Rome had the possibility of exploiting their subsistence surpluses to serve its political ambitions. The relative cheapness of sea transport allowed that surplus to be collected and redistributed with equal ease to and from any point around the Mediterranean. Although the city of Rome itself was the most important consumer of this resource, it is argued that Roman expansion into temperate Europe depended as much on the supply of strategic commodities as it did on cash. Flows of goods northwards can be identified in the archaeological record and their importance can be gauged by the way in which pre‐existing and long‐standing trade routes were over‐ridden by them. Use of such subsistence resources on the frontier overcame the problems of gathering food in a land‐locked environment and of regional shortages, allowed the army to concentrate on military affairs and released it from the necessity of over‐exploiting frontier lands.

Byzantium and Britain: a Mediterranean perspective on Post-Roman Mediterranean Imports in Western Britain and Ireland

THE RATIOS OF E. and W. Mediterranean pottery among groups of post-Roman imports in western Britain and Ireland are compared with those of contemporary pottery assemblages from Mediterranean sites. It is argued that the British material arrived in ships which had sailed direct from the Aegean region or from Constantinople itself The inspiration for this trade clearly lay in the NE. Mediterranean. Direct contact between the Byzantine world and the British Isles makes more sense of certain passages in Procopiuss Gothic Wars and of other written sources such as the Penmachno stone.

Victorian excavation methodology: The society of antiquaries at Silchester in 1893

The excavations of the Roman town of Silchester, Hampshire, undertaken under the auspices of the Society of Antiquaries between 1890 and 1909, are reconsidered in the light of renewed excavation on the site of insula IX, first explored in 1893. The excavation methodology of trial-trenching followed by area excavation of masonry buildings thus located is reviewed alongside the evidence of policy for the recovery and retention of finds. It is estimated that about 95 per cent of the archaeological resource survives for future research.

Using experimental archaeology and micromorphology to reconstruct timber-framed buildings from Roman Silchester: a new approach

Abstract Determining the internal layout of archaeological structures and their uses has always been challenging, particularly in timber-framed or earthen-walled buildings where doorways and divisions are difficult to trace. In temperate conditions, soil-formation processes may hold the key to understanding how buildings were used. The abandoned Roman town of Silchester, UK, provides a case study for testing a new approach that combines experimental archaeology and micromorphology. The results show that this technique can provide clarity to previously uncertain features of urban architecture.

Provenance of chalk tesserae from a Roman town-house in Vine Street, Leicester

Fourth-century a.d. chalk tesserae from Roman Leicester (Ratae Corieltavorum) yield rich microfossil assemblages that identify a biostratigraphical age of Cretaceous Late Cenomanian to Early Turonian. The nearest chalk outcrops to Leicester lie in Hertfordshire, Lincolnshire, Yorkshire and north Norfolk, indicating that the material for the tesserae must have been sourced remotely and transported to Ratae. Superimposing the Roman road network onto a map of the relevant Chalk Group distribution provides a guide to possible sources. A process of evaluation identifies Baldock in Hertfordshire and Bridlington in Yorkshire as the most likely sources for the Leicester tesserae.

Nero and Britain: the palace of the client king at Calleva and imperial policy towards the province after Boudicca

The evidence for a major, post-Boudiccan Neronian building campaign in Calleva is set out and discussed and its wider context considered. It is suggested that there was deliberate investment in the civil development of the client kingdom south of the Thames in contrast to the re-establishment of direct military control to the north and in East Anglia where revival of the towns was slow to take off.

Fort Building and Military Supply along Britain's Eastern Channel and North Sea Coasts: The Later Second and Third Centuries

This paper seeks to explore the contribution to our understanding of the Roman coastal forts between the Wash and the north Kent coast which can be provided by a study of the surviving building materials which can be attributed to them. Although some of our sites have little or no masonry surviving above ground level, we argue that the materials to which we draw attention were derived from their defensive wall circuits which were constructed between the late second and the late third century. While certain of our sites eventually belonged to the Late Roman Saxon Shore of the Notitia Dignitatum , others were not thus designated. All our sites have long histories but, since the materials in question probably derive from the initial, stone-building phase of these forts, it is likely that our conclusions will relate to, and inform our interpretation of, their primary function. Our survey includes the forts at Brancaster, Burgh Castle, Bradwell, Reculver, and Richborough, all of which can be assigned to the Saxon Shore system with reasonable confidence, as well as the fort, rather than defended civil port at Caister-on-Sea. We also consider evidence of materials which we argue were derived from Walton Castle, which has been identified by some as the Portus Adurni of the litus saxonicum listed in the Notitia Dignitatum , and which was lost to the sea by the nineteenth century.