Roman Britain

The TRAC session that led to this series of combined mini-papers was consciously designed as a forum for discussion. The aim of the session was to consider ways to tackle perceived systemic problems in the archaeology of Roman Britain (and, by extension, in the archaeology of other periods) that lead to destructive methods, interpretive fallacies and poor job satisfaction. The shared feeling of those attending the TRAC session seemed to be that well established systems in developer-funded or ‘commercial’ archaeology, university archaeology departments and even in museum environments are overly driven by ideas of competition, division and acquisition for its own sake, the apparently dominant neoliberal values of our time. Such values promote constraining hierarchies within and between organisations, generating lack of communication and ineffective team working. In this ‘manifesto’-style paper, different authors discuss the systemic issue that has most impact on their field of employment or research, and offer solutions for a potential ‘redemption’.

Draft final completed section of the South Yorkshire Archaeological Research Framework on behalf of Historic England and the South Yorkshire Archaeology Service. The final published version will be in the form of an interactive website hosted by Historic England that will feature all of the regional archaeological resource assessments and research frameworks, which should be going online in 2020. I would like to thank Andrew Lines, Jim McNeil, Zac Nellist, and Dinah Saich of the South Yorkshire Archaeology Service; for approaching me to see if I would be interested in producing this document. The comments made during and after the day workshop on the Iron Age and Roman periods by the many colleagues who attended were extremely useful, and where possible have been incorporated within this document.

As small portable forms of statuary, pipeclay objects provide a valuable insight into the religious beliefs and practices of the culturally mixed populations of the Roman provinces. This thesis provides a complete catalogue of the nearly 1000 published and unpublished pipeclay objects found in Britain, including figurines, busts, shrines, animal vessels and masks. This research is the first study of this material conducted since the late 1970s. Pipeclay objects were made in Gaul and the Rhine-Moselle region but not in Britain. Attention thus focuses on where and how the British finds were made by analysing their styles, types, fabrics and any makers’ marks. This reveals how the pipeclay market in Britain was supplied and how these objects were traded, and suggests that cultural rather than production and trade factors were more influential on pipeclay consumption in Britain. A typological, chronological and distributional analysis of this material is conducted to highlight pipeclay consumption in Britannia. As in many other provinces, deities are the most common depiction and Venus figurines the most common type. Comparison with Continental collections highlights distinctive regional consumption patterns, with Britain having several rare and exotic types, especially in London. The social distribution and contexts of the British finds shows that pipeclay objects were mainly used by civilians - probably in domestic shrines and occasionally in temples and in the graves of often sick children. Rare types (both in terms of origin and fabric) probably belonged to higher status foreigners. This thesis identifies previously unidentified subtle differences between the use of pipeclay and metal figurines. While ostensibly the same function, significant differences in style and iconography show ceramic figurines overwhelmingly depicting goddesses while metal figurines tend to depict male deities. Similar numbers of each mean that both are rare in Britain, but subtle differences in their social distribution suggests different groups used ‘higher-status’ metal and ‘lower-status’ ceramic figurines in the province. Fragmentation experiments suggest that deliberately breaking figurine heads was an important ritual practice.

July 2019 edition of the Roman Finds Group's bi-annual newsletter Lucerna, featuring articles on A Corpus of Gaming Boards from Roman Britain by Summer L. Courts and Timothy M. Penn, and An Anthropomorphic Cosmetic Mortar from Flintham, Nottinghamshire by Alastair Willis

January 2019 edition of the Roman Finds Group's bi-annual newsletter Lucerna, featuring articles on Images of Silenius from the Territoriu, of Romano-British Baldock by Gil Burleigh and Ralph Jackson, and Roman Bone Gaming Counters from Caistor St Edmund by Natasha Harlow

January 2018 edition of the Roman Finds Group's bi-annual newsletter Lucerna, featuring articles on Finds from Sacred Places in the Landscape around Romano-British Baldock by Gil Burleigh, and mystery objects from Piercebridge, County Durham

January 2017 edition of the Roman Finds Group's bi-annual newsletter Lucerna, featuring articles on A Copper-Bowl with Phallic Decoration from Trier,in the Collection of the Yorkshire Museum by Adam Parker, A Crossed Line: A Slightly Different (?Military) Harness Mount by M. J. Dearne and Bringing Writing Tablets to Life by David Sherlock

July 2016 edition of the Roman Finds Group's bi-annual newsletter Lucerna, featuring articles on Bone Spatulate Strips From Roman London by Glynn J.C. Davis, and Glass Adornments in the Late Iron Age and Roman Period Frontiers by Tatiana Ivleva

January 2016 edition of the Roman Finds Group's bi-annual newsletter Lucerna, featuring articles on The Manufacture and Symbolism of Radiating Designs on Brooches in Roman Britain by Ben Paites, A New Monogram Brooch from Britain by John Pearce, Sally Worrell and Frank Basford, and Romano-British Weighing Instruments by Philip Smither

July edition of the Roman Finds Group's bi-annual newsletter Lucerna, featuring articles on ‘Bügelzangen’ and related objects from Roman London by O. Humphreys and M. Marshall, and  recent finds from PAS by K. Adams, D. Boughton, A. Byard, R. Griffiths, M. Phelps, D. Williams, J. Pearce and S. Worrell

In the storerooms of the Great North Museum, Newcastle, lies an intriguing, but overlooked, monument inscribed in Greek. It has a mysterious history, and, perhaps as a result of its uncertain origins, does not appear in any of the epigraphic corpora. It has only been treated to a short notice in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, in which it was mis-transcribed. Through this article we hope to rescue this monument from obscurity by presenting the text, for the first time, with revised read- ings and commentary, and by suggesting a possible origin based on clues in the content and iconography.

A series of archaeological investigations, carried out in 2009 and 2010 along the route of the Sittingbourne Northern Relief Road, identified a multi-period site dating from the earlier prehistoric to the Roman periods.
While a small assemblage of residual Palaeolithic and Mesolithic/Early Neolithic flint artefacts represented the oldest activity, the earliest archaeological features were Neolithic/Early Bronze Age pits, waterlogged alluvial deposits and an occupation horizon. A Middle Bronze Age ring ditch with central cremation burial was found on Kemsley Down and was probably contemporary with the Bronze Age settlement previously identified nearby at the Kemsley Fields site. The ring ditch seems to have remained a landscape feature for a considerable time with Late Iron Age field boundary ditches respecting its location and finds of Roman pottery from the upper fills. 
The Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age period was poorly represented although recovery of pyramidal loom weights suggest that a domestic building was probably in the near vicinity. The upper alluvial deposits in the Kemsley Marsh were broadly dated to the Iron Age. In the Late Iron Age/early Roman period a field-system and possible enclosed settlement were established on Kemsley Down and the majority of finds and features dated to this period. The enclosure was recut and expanded northwards on at least two occasions. The settlement was ideally located on the higher and drier land overlooking the creek with the opportunity to exploit the resources of both the marsh and the surrounding fields.
By the 2nd century AD, the settlement was abandoned and the area by the ring ditch used as a small cremation cemetery. In addition, a salt-evaporation hearth or saltern was also identified on the edge of the marsh. Considering the importance of the Roman salt-production industry in the Thames Estuary, surprisingly few sites have been subject to modern archaeological excavation techniques, and this saltern is a rare find in the region. In a wider context, the possible exploitation of the natural resources of the foreshore being controlled by the local villa estates is explored.