Simon Keay

Italy and the West : comparative issues in Romanization

Nineteen papers examining varied responses to Romanization, and how this affects our view of the development of the Roman Empire. The traditional view of the Romanization is as the triumph of a superior and more advanced culture over primitive communities that was brought about by military expansion and which resulted in the creation of a very uniform political and cultural entity. It is only in the last twenty years that the variety of responses that Romanization elicited among the various ethnic groups, social classes, genders, spheres and even within the same person in different conjunctures of his or her life have begun to be appreciated. This new perspective has deep implications for our perception of Roman imperialism. The aim of this collection of papers is to further understanding of Romanization at a formative stage; early Roman expansion in Italy. There is much evidence for bi-directional negotiation between Italian communities and Rome. Understanding the motivation of the Italian peoples to become part of a new political entity is crucial to knowing how Roman Italy was kept together for more than half a millennium. Seven papers also examine responses to Romanization in other areas of the empire.

Lead in ancient Rome's city waters

Significance Thirty years ago, Jerome Nriagu argued in a milestone paper that Roman civilization collapsed as a result of lead poisoning. Clair Patterson, the scientist who convinced governments to ban lead from gasoline, enthusiastically endorsed this idea, which nevertheless triggered a volley of publications aimed at refuting it. Although today lead is no longer seen as the prime culprit of Rome’s demise, its status in the system of water distribution by lead pipes (fistulæ) still stands as a major public health issue. By measuring Pb isotope compositions of sediments from the Tiber River and the Trajanic Harbor, the present work shows that “tap water” from ancient Rome had 100 times more lead than local spring waters. It is now universally accepted that utilization of lead for domestic purposes and water distribution presents a major health hazard. The ancient Roman world was unaware of these risks. How far the gigantic network of lead pipes used in ancient Rome compromised public health in the city is unknown. Lead isotopes in sediments from the harbor of Imperial Rome register the presence of a strong anthropogenic component during the beginning of the Common Era and the Early Middle Ages. They demonstrate that the lead pipes of the water distribution system increased Pb contents in drinking water of the capital city by up to two orders of magnitude over the natural background. The Pb isotope record shows that the discontinuities in the pollution of the Tiber by lead are intimately entwined with the major issues affecting Late Antique Rome and its water distribution system.

The Tiber valley project: the Tiber and Rome through two millennia

In 1997 a new collaborative research project was initiated by the British School at Rome. This project draws on a variety of sources of archaeological information to explore the regional impact of the City of Rome throughout the period from 1000 BC to AD 1300. The project provides a common collaborative research framework which brings together a range of archaeologists and historians working in various institutions. In this paper those involved in different aspects of this new project outline their work and its overall objectives.

Falerii Novi : further survey of the northern extramural area

The results of a survey of the extra-mural area immediately to the north of the Roman town of Falerii Novi (Lazio) in Italy.

Recent Archaeological Work in Roman Iberia (1990–2002)

The Iberian peninsula is a key region that has the potential to transform fundamentally our understanding of the Roman Empire. The longevity of the Roman presence in Iberia, the huge geographical variety of its regions, and the cultural differences between its peoples make it ideal for understanding the genesis, development, and disintegration of the Roman Empire as a whole. The transformation of regional infrastructure in Spain and Portugal during the 1980s and 1990s has generated much new archaeological information. This is particularly true of the major cities, where intensive urban development has greatly enhanced our understanding of their layout and development during the historic periods. In the countryside too, the expansion of the road networks, EU-inspired changes in crop quotas, and the intensification of mechanized farming have all had a major impact and substantially increased the number of known villas and rural settlements.

The development and characteristics of ancient harbours. Applying the PADM chart to the case studies of Ostia and Portus

Over the last 20 years, the geoarchaeology of ancient harbours has been a very active area of research around the Mediterranean basin, generating much palaeoenvironmental data from many sites, including estimations of sedimentation rates, the height of the ancient sea-level at different dates and palaeo-geographical reconstructions. Combining this information has proved a major challenge. This article proposes a new chart called the Palaeoenvironmental Age-Depth Model (PADM chart), that allows the researchers to combine all relevant indicators in order to estimate harbour potential of a given ancient port, and to generate comparable data between harbours in terms of degree of closure and water depth available against a synchronised chronology. This new approach, developed in the context of the ERC-funded RoMP Portuslimen project, takes into account estimations of water depths relating to differing Roman ship draughts at different periods. It is tested against the palaeoenvironmental evidence published over 10 years from two Roman harbours located at the mouth of the river Tiber: Ostia and Portus. This reveals that: (1) there has been an underestimate of the real sedimentation rates due to the margins of error of the radiocarbon dates; (2) there was effective control of the water column by dredging; (3) there were different periods of control of the sedimentation. We suggest that the navigability of the Ostia harbour by ships with shallower draughts was maintained until sometime between the 2nd c. BC and 1st c. AD, while at Portus it was retained until the 6th—7th c. AD.

Complex networks in archaeology: urban connectivity in iron age and Roman southern Spain

In this article the authors highlight some of the issues surrounding the study of past urban connectivity and how archaeologists can deal with them by adopting a complex networks research perspective.

Enhancing research publications using Rich Interactive Narratives

It is desirable in many disciplines to include supplementary information to add value to research publications, particularly in digital form. The concept of interactive publications, in which the reader can browse and navigate through in a nonlinear manner, is one such medium that is explored in this paper. We describe the application of the Rich Interactive Narrative framework to provide such a mechanism in the fields of archaeology and chemistry, to supplement academic journal papers. This system provides both passive (pre-recorded) and active (user-led) interaction modes to navigate through data, including experimental datasets, maps, photos, video and three-dimensional models, and supports event-based audio and text narration. It includes an extensive authoring tool for deployment to the Web. We conclude by discussing the future possibilities of such a platform for e-science and scholarly communication.

Interim report on an enigmatic new Trajanic building at Portus

Excavations by the Portus Project (fig. 1) between the spring and autumn of 2011 uncovered the remains of a major building of uncertain function, possibly associated with ship repairs. Building 5 forms part of a complex of important structures1 situated on the isthmus of land between the great Claudian and Trajanic Basins at the heart of the port (fig. 2). It was a single building of Trajanic date, 247 m long and 58 m wide, which extended from the E facade of the Palazzo Imperiale, which it directly abutted, as far as the corner of the hexagonal Trajanic Basin. Neighbouring buildings included the much smaller Building 72 directly to the east, and the Horrea-Terme3 on the S end of the Monte Giulio (fig. 3).

The late Roman villa of Vilauba and its context: a first report on field-work and excavation in Catalunya, North-East Spain, 1978–81

The first three seasons of a joint Anglo-Catalan research project in north-eastern Spain have concentrated on the Roman villa of Vilauba. It has been shown that the site was occupied for some nine centuries, but the most important discoveries have been the elucidation of substantial phases of occupation from the fifth to seventh centuries A.D., which included in the latest phase a large press building for olive oil. These findings have pointed to the problems of the transition from the Roman to the early medieval period, which have also been met in the field survey of the surrounding region. The medieval settlement pattern had emerged by the ninth or tenth centuries, but its relationship with the Roman pattern remains to be clearly established. Important discoveries have also been made about considerable geomorphological changes in the area, which can be dated to the post-Roman period. A range of techniques have been used in the survey, including recording of standing buildings, geophysical survey and surface collection, which, added to the environmental and pottery studies from the excavation, are shedding important light on the Roman and early medieval rural development of this part of Spain and on the western Mediterranean more generally.