The Towns of Roman Britain: The Contribution of Commercial Archaeology Since 1990 090776441X, 9780907764410

Table of contents :
List of Contributors vi
List of Figures vii
List of Tables xi
Summary xiii
CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION / Neil Holbrook 1
CHAPTER 2. PLANNING, COMMERCIAL ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE STUDY OF ROMAN TOWNS IN ENGLAND / Stewart Bryant and Roger M. Thomas 7
CHAPTER 3. RECENT ADVANCES IN THE UNDERSTANDING OF ROMAN LONDON / Dominic Perring 20
CHAPTER 4. COMMERCIAL ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE STUDY OF ROMAN YORK 1990–2013 / Patrick Ottaway 44
CHAPTER 5. THE TOWNS OF SOUTH-EAST ENGLAND / Michael Fulford 59
CHAPTER 6. THE TOWNS OF SOUTH-WEST ENGLAND / Neil Holbrook 90
CHAPTER 7. THE TOWNS OF THE MIDLANDS AND THE NORTH / Paul Bidwell 117
CHAPTER 8. URBAN EXITS: COMMERCIAL ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE STUDY OF DEATH RITUALS AND THE DEAD IN THE TOWNS OF ROMAN BRITAIN / John Pearce 138
CHAPTER 9. THE PLACE OF DEVELOPER-FUNDED ARCHAEOBOTANY IN ELUCIDATING THE FOOD SUPPLY OF THE TOWNS OF ROMAN BRITAIN / Mark Robinson 167
CHAPTER 10. COMMERCIAL ARCHAEOLOGY, ZOOARCHAEOLOGY AND THE STUDY OF ROMANO-BRITISH TOWNS / Mark Maltby 175
CHAPTER 11. RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT: ADVANCEMENT OF KNOWLEDGE, METHODOLOGIES AND PUBLICATION / Michael Fulford 194
Index 213

Citation preview

ITAIN

THE TOWNS OF ROMAN BRITAIN THE cONTRIBuTION OF cOMMERcIAl ARcHAEOlOGy SINcE 1990 EditEd by MichaEl FulFoRd and nEil holbRook

ISBN 978-0-907764-41-0

27

BRITANNIA MONOGRAPH SERIES No. 27 Published by the Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies 2015

The Towns of Roman BRiTain: The conTRiBuTion of commeRcial aRchaeology since 1990

The Towns of Roman Britain: the contribution of commercial archaeology since 1990

Edited by Michael Fulford and Neil Holbrook

With contributions by Paul Bidwell, Stewart Bryant, Michael Fulford, Neil Holbrook, Mark Maltby, Patrick Ottaway, John Pearce, Dominic Perring, Mark Robinson and Roger M. Thomas

Britannia Monograph Series No. 27 Published by the Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies Senate House Malet Street London WC1E 7HU 2015

BRITANNIA MONOGRAPH SERIES NO. 27 Published by the Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU This monograph was published with the aid of a grant from Historic England © Copyright Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies 2015 British Library Catalogue in Publication Data A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 0 907764 41 0

Front Cover illustration: Excavations at Princesshay, Exeter, 2005–6. (© Exeter City Council) Back Cover illustration: A Roman eagle sculpture found by archaeologists from MOLA in the City of London in 2013. (© MOLA (Museum of London Archaeology))

Produced by Past Historic, Kings Stanley, Gloucestershire Printed in Great Britain

CONTENTS List of Contributors List of Figures List of Tables Summary CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION Neil Holbrook

Page vi vii xi xiii 1

CHAPTER 2. PLANNING, COMMERCIAL ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE STUDY OF ROMAN TOWNS IN ENGLAND Stewart Bryant and Roger M. Thomas

7

CHAPTER 3. RECENT ADVANCES IN THE UNDERSTANDING OF ROMAN LONDON Dominic Perring

20

CHAPTER 4. COMMERCIAL ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE STUDY OF ROMAN YORK 1990–2013 Patrick Ottaway

44

CHAPTER 5. THE TOWNS OF SOUTH-EAST ENGLAND Michael Fulford

59

CHAPTER 6. THE TOWNS OF SOUTH-WEST ENGLAND Neil Holbrook

90

CHAPTER 7. THE TOWNS OF THE MIDLANDS AND THE NORTH Paul Bidwell CHAPTER 8. URBAN EXITS: COMMERCIAL ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE STUDY OF DEATH RITUALS AND THE DEAD IN THE TOWNS OF ROMAN BRITAIN John Pearce

117

138

CHAPTER 9. THE PLACE OF DEVELOPER-FUNDED ARCHAEOBOTANY IN ELUCIDATING THE FOOD SUPPLY OF THE TOWNS OF ROMAN BRITAIN Mark Robinson

167

CHAPTER 10. COMMERCIAL ARCHAEOLOGY, ZOOARCHAEOLOGY AND THE STUDY OF ROMANO-BRITISH TOWNS Mark Maltby

175

CHAPTER 11. RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT: ADVANCEMENT OF KNOWLEDGE, METHODOLOGIES AND PUBLICATION Michael Fulford

194

Index

213

LIST OF Contributors

Paul Bidwell, formerly of Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums Stewart Bryant, formerly of the Association of Local Government Archaeological Officers Michael Fulford, Department of Archaeology, University of Reading Neil Holbrook, Cotswold Archaeology Mark Maltby, Faculty of Science and Technology, Bournemouth University Patrick Ottaway, PJO Archaeology John Pearce, Department of Classics, King’s College London Dominic Perring, University College London Mark Robinson, Oxford University Museum of Natural History Roger M. Thomas, Historic England

LIST OF FIGURES

Page Introduction Fig. 1.

The major towns of Roman Britain

Planning, Commercial Archaeology and the Study of Roman Towns in England Fig. 1. Extract from the St Albans Urban Archaeological Database (UAD) within the Hertfordshire Historic Environment Record (HER), showing temples and the theatre at Verulamium Roman City. The inset shows the same information on the Heritage Gateway website: www.heritagegateway.org.uk

2

11

Recent Advances in the Understanding of Roman London Fig. 1. Fig. 2. Fig. 3. Fig. 4. Fig. 5. Fig. 6. Fig. 7. Fig. 8.



Roman London c. a.d. 43 Roman London c. a.d. 55 Roman London c. a.d. 65 Roman London c. a.d. 75 Roman London c. a.d. 125 Roman London c. a.d. 225 Roman London c. a.d. 375 Roman London and environs c. a.d. 375

22 24 27 29 31 34 36 37

Commercial Archaeology and the Study of Roman York 1990–2013 Fig. 1. Fig. 2. Fig. 3. Fig. 4. Fig. 5. Fig. 6.

Roman York and its environs, showing the principal settled areas, cemeteries, roads and streets. (Drawn by Lesley Collett of York Archaeological Trust) Plan of York showing location of sites referred to in the text (date of excavation in brackets). (Drawn by Lesley Collett of York Archaeological Trust) Davygate (1998): Roman fortress barrack wall in a lift shaft trench. (© P. Ottaway) West Offices (2011): multiphase Roman wall foundations, robber trenches and drains surviving in an area previously truncated for York’s first railway station in the 1830s; south-west at top of picture. (© On Site Archaeology) Peasholme Green (1995): successive dumps of Roman pottery kiln debris. View to the north-west; note that Roman archaeology here is unusually close to modern level. (© Malton Archaeological Projects) 3 Driffield Terrace (2004): decapitated Roman skeleton with iron rings around the ankles. (© York Archaeological Trust)

45 46 49 50 51 52

The Towns of South-East England Fig. 1. General plan of the oppidum, legionary fortress and colonia of Camulodunum (Colchester) showing the extent of the Colchester Garrison development. (© Colchester Archaeological Trust)

61

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THE TOWNS OF ROMAN BRITAIN

Fig. 2.

The élite burial site at Stanway, Camulodunum (Colchester): speculative sequence and dates for the development of Enclosures 3–5. (© Colchester Archaeological Trust/Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies) Fig. 3. Folly Lane, Verulamium: the ceremonial enclosure with élite burial site and temple showing the main features and excavated areas. (© Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies) Fig. 4. Plan showing the location of Chichester, Fishbourne Roman Palace and the Chichester Dykes. (© Sussex Archaeological Society) Fig. 5. (a) Plan of all excavations carried out east of Fishbourne Roman Palace in the 1980s and 1990s; (b) Outline plan of Fishbourne Roman Palace showing the location of the late Iron Age ditch in Area B. (© Sussex Archaeological Society) Fig. 6. Winchester: Northgate House excavations in the wider context of the Iron Age enclosure and settlement of Oram’s Arbour. (© Oxford Archaeology) Fig. 7. Winchester, The Brooks site: (a) in the last quarter of the first century a.d.; (b) in the mid-second century a.d. (© Winchester Museums) Fig. 8. Winchester, The Brooks site: (a) in the early third century a.d.; (b) in the mid-fourth century a.d. (© Winchester Museums) Fig. 9. (a) Roman Colchester and the location of the circus (© Colchester Archaeological Trust/Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies); (b) Plan of the Roman circus at Colchester (May 2014). (© Colchester Archaeological Trust) Fig. 10. Folly Lane, Verulamium: the Romano-Celtic temple, funerary shaft and turf stack. (© Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies) Fig. 11. Winchester: location of Roman cemetery excavations between 1971 and 2005. (© Winchester Museums) Fig. 12. Winchester: the late Roman cemetery at Lankhills. (a) Distribution of graves with belt sets and crossbow brooches; (b) distribution of graves with Sr and O analyses by broad isotopic character. (© Oxford Archaeology) Fig. 13. Reconstruction of the Stanway (Camulodunum) warrior burial by Peter Froste. (© Colchester Archaeological Trust) Fig. 14. Reconstruction of the Roman circus at Colchester by Peter Froste. (© Colchester Archaeological Trust) Fig. 15. Winchester: The Northgate House, Staple Gardens and former Winchester Library, Jewry Street sites; reconstruction of the sites within the north-west corner of the Roman town during the mid-third to early fourth century by Mark Gridley. (© Oxford Archaeology)

62 63 64 65 67 70 71 74 76 78 79 81 81

82

The Towns of South-West England Fig. 1. Excavations at Princesshay, Exeter, 2005–6, the largest excavation undertaken within the walls of a Roman town in South-West England since 1990. The degree of disturbance of Roman levels by later features is apparent. (© Exeter City Council) Fig. 2. Late Iron Age enclosure and overlying Neronian to early Flavian defended structures at the former St Loye’s College site, Exeter. Note how the Iron Age enclosure is directly overlain by the large Roman courtyard building. (© Exeter City Council and AC Archaeology) Fig. 3. The relationship of the Kingsholm and Gloucester fortresses. (© Cotswold Archaeology) Fig. 4. Plan of military discoveries in the Kingsholm area. The line of the fortress defences is heavily conjectural. (After Atkin 1986 with additions; © Cotswold Archaeology) Fig. 5. Plan of the first-century a.d. legionary fortress and associated military installations at Exeter. (After Henderson 2001, with additions; © Cotswold Archaeology)

91

93 94 95 97

LIST OF FIGURES

Fig. 6. First-century a.d. post-in-trench timber buildings under excavation in 2013 at the former St Loye’s College site, Exeter. (© AC Archaeology) Fig. 7. Plan of a large first-century a.d. timber courtyard building, perhaps a praetorium, at Mount Dinham, Exeter. (© AC Archaeology) Fig. 8. Development of a part of an insula at Dorchester, as revealed by excavations at the former County Hospital in 2000–1. (© Wessex Archaeology) Fig. 9. Extramural apsidal building under excavation at Kingshill South, Cirencester, in 2009. (© Oxford Archaeology)

ix

98 99 102 104

The Towns of the Midlands and the North Fig. 1. Fig. 2. Fig. 3. Fig. 4. Fig. 5.



Fig. 6.

The fortress at Chester and its immediate environs. (© David Mason) The colonia at Lincoln in its wider setting. (© Michael Jones) Brough-on-Humber. (By kind permission of Pete Wilson) The fort and town at Carlisle. (© Oxford Archaeology) Vine Street, Leicester. (a) The early masonry phase; (b) The urban courtyard house. (© University of Leicester Archaeological Services) Vine Street, Leicester. (a) The later masonry phase; (b) Decline and abandonment. (© University of Leicester Archaeological Services)

119 120 122 124 126 127

Urban Exits: Commercial Archaeology and the Study of Death Rituals and the Dead in the Towns of Roman Britain Fig. 1. Number of investigations of (extramural) burials, Britannia fieldwork reports 1990–2012 (separate infant burials are excluded) Fig. 2. Number of excavations of burials (black) from Roman towns in Britain, Britannia fieldwork reports 1990–2012, and number of investigations within 1 km of walled area (grey), as reported to the AIP 1990–2012 Fig. 3. Plan of excavation area J1 North (Colchester Garrison Alienated Land), showing roadside ditches and a burial space used mainly from the first to third centuries a.d. (© Colchester Archaeological Trust) Fig. 4. Plan of excavation area C2 (Colchester Garrison Alienated Land), showing burials of mainly late Roman date, barrow ring ditches and a mausoleum, south of the circus. (© Colchester Archaeological Trust) Fig. 5. Plan of the Bridges Garage site, Tetbury Road, Cirencester, excavated in 2013, showing cremation and inhumation burials as well as robber trenches related to foundations of a possible mausoleum within a ditched enclosure. The orientation of burial features suggests that Tetbury Road, immediately north-west, may overlie a Roman road which represents the earliest course of the Fosse Way which later moved to the south. (© Cotswold Archaeology) Fig. 6. The London Road cemetery, south of the junction at Wootton Hill, Gloucester, in use from the first to fourth centuries a.d. Nine cremation burials, more than sixty inhumations and one mass burial (beneath the cluster of burials in the south-east corner of the site) were excavated in the central, southern and eastern parts of the site which had escaped later truncation. (© Oxford Archaeology, Simmonds et al. 2008, fig. 4.1) Fig. 7. A funerary sculpture of eagle and snake entwined from the Minories, London, excavated by staff of Museum of London Archaeology in 2013. The lack of weathering suggests it may have decorated the interior of a mausoleum. (© MOLA/Andy Chopping) Fig. 8. An enamelled figurine of a cockerel (c. 125 mm high) from the burial of a two- to three-year-old child in the cemetery at Bridges Garage, Old Tetbury Road, Cirencester. The best preserved of the few known examples of its kind, the figure was perhaps created as a toy but in the grave may have acquired an additional significance as a sacrifice. (© Cotswold Archaeology)

139 140 141 142

144

145

149

151

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THE TOWNS OF ROMAN BRITAIN

Fig. 9. A glass flask with snakethread decoration buried with an adult female inhumation south of the colonia at Parliament Street in Gloucester. It was once part of a larger flask within which it was contained, its reduced state perhaps suggesting burial at a later period than its manufacture in the late second/early third century. (© Cotswold Archaeology) Fig. 10. Gilded copper-alloy cross-bow brooch, spurs and gilded silver belt fittings (buckle, strap-end) from Grave 1846, Lankhills, Winchester. (© Oxford Archaeology) Fig. 11. Excavation in progress on the mass burial pit of later second- or early thirdcentury date at London Road, Gloucester. (© Oxford Archaeology) Fig. 12. Sexed inhumations from recent Roman urban cemetery excavations in Britain, including probable and confident identifications from skeletal remains.

152 153 154 155

LIST OF TABLES

Introduction Table 1. Number of archaeological investigations at the major Roman towns in England between 1990 and 2010. Source: Archaeological Investigations Project

4

The Towns of South-East England Appendix. Significant investigations 1990–2013

83

The Towns of South-West England Appendix. Significant investigations 1990–2013

109

The Towns of the Midlands and the North Appendix. Significant investigations 1990–2013

132

Urban Exits: Commercial Archaeology and the Study of Death Rituals and the Dead in the Towns of Roman Britain Table 1. Burial groups comprising 25 or more graves excavated from 1990 to summer 2013, compiled from Britannia, AIP entries, other grey literature and publications Table 2. Examples of Roman period funerary monuments documented from recent urban cemetery excavations in Britain

158 159

Commercial Archaeology, Zooarchaeology and the Study of Romano-British Towns Table 1. Percentages of cattle, sheep/goat and pig from excavations in Roman London and Southwark Table 2. Percentages of cattle, sheep/goat and pig from 1 Poultry, London Table 3. Percentages of cattle, sheep/goat and pig from 1973–91 sites, Southwark

180 180 181

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SUMMARY The last twenty five years have seen an explosion in the amount of archaeological fieldwork undertaken in Britain in response to proposals for various kinds of development. The publication of Planning Policy Guidance Note 16 (Archaeology and Planning) in England in 1990 enshrined the principles that preservation of archaeological deposits was the preferred outcome on development sites, but where this was not required by the planning authorities developers should pay for the costs of archaeological investigation, post-excavation analysis and publication. The historic towns of England which had substantial Romano-British antecedents have experienced their fair share of development since 1990 and a series of major investigations has made profound contributions to knowledge of particular towns. This volume provides a synthesis and assessment of the contribution that developer archaeology has made to knowledge of the major towns of Roman Britain (coloniae, municipia and civitas capitals). Those major towns which are today largely greenfield sites where little or no development has taken place fall outside our scope. This volume does not profess to be a comprehensive synthesis of all the work that has occurred since 1990, but rather seeks to highlight those areas where most new knowledge has accumulated. It is, however, the first attempt to take a look at the new evidence on a national scale since the early 1990s. The volume commences with a review of the legislative and planning framework within which most commercial archaeological work has been conducted since 1990 (Bryant and Thomas). This is followed by two cases studies: London (Perring) and York (Ottaway). Perring discusses the very considerable new evidence from London (he estimates that over 200 excavations in London and Southwark have encountered significant Roman remains since 1990). By contrast at York the main thrust of new discoveries centres firmly upon the suburbs and the knowledge that can accrue from aggregating a series of individually small-scale investigations. Three regional reviews consider the other towns in the South-East of England (Fulford), the South-West (Holbrook) and the Midlands and North (Bidwell). Colchester, Winchester, Exeter and Leicester stand out as the places where most new discoveries have been made, once again with a bias towards the suburbs. A number of suburban investigations have recovered important funerary and burial evidence, and this topic is considered on a national scale by Pearce. Two further thematic reviews consider the advances that have accrued from the study of faunal remains (Maltby) and plant evidence (Robinson). The collection, analysis and reporting of the full range of biological and artefactual evidence has been one of the major advances of the developer-funded era. The volume concludes with a review by Fulford of the overall contribution of development-led work to our understanding of Romano-British urbanism. He identifies the non-publication of excavations as a major issue in almost every town, often compounded by the lack of dissemination of the results of work undertaken before 1990. This weak record of publication is a major issue which stifles future research and hinders the effective management of the historic environment in these important places. Fulford concludes by identifying areas where improvements in investigation and reporting practices should be sought in the future.

RÉSUMÉ Les vingt-cinq dernières années ont vu exploser le nombre d’opérations archéologiques entreprises en Grande-Bretagne en réponse aux demandes de divers types d’aménagement. La publication, en 1990, de la note 16 Planning Policy Guidance (Archéologie et Aménagement) en Angleterre consacre les principes qui favorisent une préservation des vestiges archéologiques sur les sites aménagés tout en stipulant que, là où les autorités ne requièrent pas cette préservation, l’aménageur doit financer les opérations archéologiques, les études post-fouille ainsi que les publications. Les villes historiques d’Angleterre aux antécédents romano-britanniques notables ont connu un développement considérable depuis 1990, entraînant une série d’opérations majeures qui ont profondément contribué à la connaissance de ces villes. Ce volume offre une synthèse et une évaluation de la contribution que l’archéologie préventive a apportée à la connaissance des villes majeures de la Grande Bretagne romaine (coloniae, municipia et capitales de cités). Nous n’avons pas pris en compte ici les villes majeures qui sont aujourd’hui des terrains pratiquement vides n’ayant connu que peu ou pas de développement. Ce volume ne prétend pas être une synthèse complète de l’ensemble des travaux menés depuis 1990 mais cherche plutôt à mettre en lumière les zones ayant accumulé des connaissances essentiellement nouvelles. Il s’agit en revanche de la première tentative d’analyse des informations récentes à l’échelle nationale depuis le début des années 1990. Le volume débute par un examen du cadre législatif et administratif à l’intérieur duquel la plupart des opérations archéologiques préventives ont été menées depuis 1990 (Bryant et Thomas), suivi de deux études de cas: Londres (Perring) et York (Ottaway). Perring présente les apports considérables pour la ville de Londres (il estime que plus de 200 fouilles à Londres et Southwark ont mis au jour des vestiges romains significatifs depuis 1990). À York par contre, le pôle principal des nouvelles découvertes est fortement basé sur la banlieue et sur les informations qui peuvent s’additionner en compilant une série de petites opérations. Trois études régionales traitent des autres villes du sud-est de l’Angleterre (Fulford), du sud-ouest (Holbrook), ainsi que des Midlands et du Nord (Bidwell). Colchester, Winchester, Exeter et Leicester se démarquent en livrant la plupart des nouvelles découvertes, avec à nouveau une prépondérance des opérations en banlieue. Plusieurs de ces opérations ont mis au jour d’importants éléments funéraires et vestiges d’inhumations, ce sujet étant abordé à l’échelle nationale par Pearce. Deux autres études thématiques traitent des progrès accumulés par les études de la faune (Maltby) et des plantes (Robinson). La récolte, l’analyse et les rapports concernant l’étendue des éléments biologiques et du mobilier constituent une des avancées capitales de l’ère de l’archéologie préventive. Ce volume se termine par une étude de Fulford sur la contribution générale des travaux préventifs à la connaissance de l’urbanisme romano-britannique. Fulford identifie l’absence de publication des fouilles comme un problème majeur pour la plupart des villes, souvent aggravé par le manque de dissémination des résultats de fouilles entreprises avant 1990. Ce faible nombre de publication est un obstacle essentiel qui paralyse la recherche future et entrave l’efficacité de la gestion de l’environnement historique dans ces lieux remarquables. Fulford conclut en identifiant les zones où, à l’avenir, des améliorations sont souhaitables au niveau des pratiques de recherche et de rapports.

ZUSAMMENFASSUNG Im Vereinigten Königreich ist die Anzahl der Rettungsgrabungen im Vorfeld von Bauvorhaben innerhalb der letzten 25 Jahre explosionsartig angestiegen. Die 1990 veröffentlichten Richtlinien für Archäologie und Bauplanung in England (Planning Policy Guidance Note 16) legen fest, dass Bodendenkmäler vorzugsweise in-situ erhalten werden sollten. In Fällen, wo dies nicht durch die Bauplanung vorgeschrieben wird, sollen die jeweiligen Bauträger für die Kosten der Ausgrabung, archäologischen Aufarbeitung und der Publikation aufkommen (Verursacherprinzip). In diesem Zuge wurden seit 1990 in einer Reihe englischer Städte mit romano-britischen Wurzeln umfangreiche Ausgrabungen durchgeführt, die substantielle neue Erkenntnisse zur Stadtgeschichte geliefert haben. Dieser Band legt eine zusammenfassende Analyse und Bewertung der Erkenntnisse vor, die Ausgrabungen unter dem Verursacherprinzip zur Geschichte der gröβeren Städte (coloniae, municipia, civitates) im römischen Britannien beigetragen haben. Städte, auf deren Gebiet keine oder nur minimale Wiederbebauung stattfand („greenfield sites“) werden nicht behandelt, und dieser Band versteht sich auch nicht als umfassende Synthese aller Forschung, die seit 1990 stattgefunden hat. Stattdessen werden vor allem die Bereiche hervorgehoben, in denen die meisten neuen Erkenntnisse gewonnen wurden. Dabei handelt es sich um den ersten Versuch einer solchen Bestandsaufnahme auf nationaler Ebene seit den frühen 1990er Jahren. Der erste Beitrag von Bryant und Thomas gibt einen Überblick über die rechtlichen und raumplanerischen Rahmenbedingungen, denen die kommerzielle Archäologie seit 1990 unterworfen ist. Darauf folgen zwei Fallstudien: London (Perring) und York (Ottaway). Perring erörtert die beachtlichen neuen Erkenntnisse der Londoner Stadtarchäologie (er schätzt, dass über 200 Ausgrabungen in London und Southwark seit 1990 aussagekräftige römische Funde geliefert haben).York steht im Gegensatz dazu. Hier wurden die meisten wichtigen Entdeckungen der letzten Jahre nicht im Stadtkern, sondern in den Vororten gemacht, und es wird gezeigt, wie die Interpretation mehrerer kleiner Fundstellen im Zusammenhang wichtige neue Erkenntnisse liefern kann. Es folgen drei regionale Studien, die sich mit den Städten im Südosten (Fulford), dem Südwesten (Holbrook), sowie den Midlands und dem Norden (Bidwell) befassen. Als wichtigste Fundorte stechen vor allem Colchester, Winchester, Exeter und Leicester hervor und wieder wurden wichtige Erkenntnisse durch Grabungen in suburbanen Bereichen gewonnen. Pearce gibt einen Überblick über die wichtigsten Grabfunde, die auf nationaler Ebene und wieder vor allem in Vororten gemacht wurden. Zwei weitere Beiträge liefern kritische Zusammenfassungen des Erkenntnisgewinns aus der Analyse von Tierknochen (Maltby) und Pflanzenresten (Robinson). Es zeigt sich, dass die grössten Fortschritte in den letzten 25 Jahren in der Erfassung, Analyse und Interpretation von biologischem und anderem archäologischen Fundmaterial gemacht wurden. Fulford schlieβt den Band ab mit einer zusammenfassenden Bewertung der Beiträge verursacherfinanzierter Grabungen zur Stadtforschung im römischen Britannien. Er sieht die Tatsache, dass viele Ausgrabungen nicht veröffentlicht werden als das Hauptproblem für fast jede Stadtarchäologie, oftmals dadurch noch verschärft, dass vor allem Grabungen, die vor 1990 stattgefunden haben, selten einem weiteren Kreis von Forschern bekannt gemacht wurden. Dieser Mangel an Publikationen stellt ein grosses Problem dar, das die weitere Forschung wesentlich beeinträchtigt und auch die effektive Pflege der historischen Denkmäler an diesen wichtigen Fundorten erschwert. Fulford endet seinen Beitrag, indem er die Bereiche benennt, in denen nachhaltige Verbesserungen in Forschungspraxis und Vorlage der Ergebnisse angestrebt werden sollten.

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Note From 1984 until March 2015, English Heritage was the government body responsible for archaeological matters in England. In April 2015, that responsibility passed to a newly named organisation, Historic England. English Heritage, however, remains responsible for monuments in state care (such as Wroxeter Roman City). References to English Heritage in this volume should be read with this recent change in mind.

CHAPTER 1

Introduction By Neil Holbrook The last twenty-five years have seen an explosion in the amount of archaeological fieldwork undertaken in Britain, and this is almost entirely due to the increase in work generated in response to proposals for various kinds of development. The publication of Planning Policy Guidance Note 16 (Archaeology and Planning; commonly abbreviated as PPG 16) in England on 12 November 1990, and comparable guidance in Wales in 1991 and Scotland in 1994, enshrined the principles that preservation of archaeological deposits was the preferred outcome on development sites, but where this was not required by the planning authorities developers should pay for the costs of archaeological investigation, post-excavation analysis and publication. This changed the ground rules, for the so-called ‘rescue’ work of the preceding decades operated on a very different basis and with considerably less funding (Rahtz 1974; Jones 1984). Although the terminology may have changed, the essential tenets of the guidance contained in PPG 16 remained little altered in its successor policies, Planning Policy Statement 5 (2010–2012) and the National Planning Policy Framework (2012–present). The next paper in this volume by Bryant and Thomas discusses the legislative and planning context of developer archaeology in England in more detail. The historic towns of England which had substantial Romano-British antecedents have experienced their fair share of development since 1990. In many cases engineered foundation designs involving rafting or piling have been adopted to allow development to proceed whilst ensuring the preservation in situ of the vast majority of archaeological deposits. Even when this approach is adopted, however, there is invariably some manner of associated archaeological work, such as preliminary evaluation to establish the depth and preservation of deposits, or limited excavation in those areas where impact is unavoidable. It would, however, be incorrect to assume that no excavations of scale or consequence have taken place since 1990. Quite the contrary, and as the papers in this volume will demonstrate, a series of major investigations have made profound contributions to knowledge of particular towns, and of Romano-British urbanism more generally. The purpose of this volume is to provide a synthesis and assessment of the contribution that developer archaeology has made to knowledge of the principal towns of Roman Britain. Our emphasis is on the major towns of Roman Britain (coloniae, municipia and civitas capitals) (fig. 1). Owing to the nature of our sources no definitive list of towns which attained these legal statuses is possible, but for convenience we have followed Millett’s (1990, table 4.4) listing of ‘public towns’. Thus we have included the possible civitas capitals at Carlisle and Ilchester but not considered other towns sometimes suggested to have attained this status such as Chelmsford, Corbridge or Water Newton. We have, however, included Bath given the exceptional quality of its monumental complex of public architecture which contributes towards its status as a World Heritage Site, and the major legionary fortresses and their associated civilian settlements at Chester and York. The civilian settlement at York was elevated to the status of a colonia, probably in the third century. We have no knowledge of the legal status that attached to the extramural occupation at Chester. Socalled ‘small towns’ and forts with their associated vici which underlie modern towns and cities with strong medieval pedigrees (Cambridge and Newcastle-upon-Tyne for example) fall outside of our scope, as do those major towns which are today largely greenfield sites where little or no development has taken place. Aldborough, Caistor-by-Norwich, Silchester and Wroxeter fall into the latter category and it is pertinent that all have been subject to campaigns of research-driven fieldwork over the last couple of decades (Wilson 2012, 297; Wilson 2013, 292–3; Bowden 2013; Clarke et al. 2007; Fulford et al. 2006; Fulford and Clarke 2011; White et al. 2013). As this study has been funded by English Heritage, the towns under consideration are restricted to England. In

THE TOWNS OF ROMAN BRITAIN

2

N

Town considered in this volume Town not considered in detail in this volume

Hadrian’s Wall

Carlisle

Aldborough York

Brough-on-Humber Lincoln

Chester

Wroxeter

Leicester Caistorby-Norwich

Colchester

Gloucester

Carmarthen

Caerwent

St Albans Cirencester

Bath

London Silchester

Ilchester Exeter

Winchester Dorchester

0

Canterbury

Chichester

250km

fig. 1. The major towns of Roman Britain.

the event the omission of the Welsh evidence is not too great a drawback as Davies and Burnham (2012) have recently summarised the advances in knowledge of Roman Wales for the period 1992–2012. Little developer work has occurred at Caerwent and Carmarthen (and the latter is only a possible civitas capital) since 1990, although research work at the former continued until 1995. That work which has occurred in Carmarthen between 1990 and 2002 is summarised by James (James 2003, table 1.1). At Caerleon the only development-led investigation of note was the 1992 cemetery excavation at Abbeyfield (Evans and Maynard 1997), although research-driven geophysical survey and excavation has occurred since 2006 inside the fortress and in the western suburb where a monumental complex of uncertain function has been revealed between the amphitheatre and the river Usk (Guest and Young 2007; Chapman 2011, 323–6; Guest et al. 2012). Research-motivated fieldwork has understandably been scarcer in modern town centres, but not entirely absent (for example geophysical survey in Cirencester: Holbrook 2008, 83–5; Booth 2009, 267–9; Darvill et al. 2013). There has also been some work associated with improved display and interpretation of archaeological remains, such as the re-excavation of Chester amphitheatre and that associated with the Carlisle Gateway City Millennium Project (Wilmott and Garner 2009; Zant 2009). And more may follow: at the time of writing proposals to re-expose and put on permanent display the legionary baths in Exeter are once more under consideration. Research work forms a valuable complement to the developer work and highlights an important distinction. Whereas

INTRODUCTION

3

research excavation at greenfield sites can (largely) be targeted to answer specific archaeological questions, commercial work is located where development is to take place (which is itself determined by a complex set of factors relating to economic regeneration and town planning). Commercial work, therefore, frequently examines locations which might not be chosen for research investigation as they may initially appear to have less obvious potential. But conversely, it is often just these sites, especially in the extramural areas, where the most startling and unexpected discoveries are made. No hard or fast rule to determine the area of study around each town has been adopted in this volume. Instead authors have adopted a flexible approach so that extramural areas which contain valuable evidence for suburban occupation and burial activity, as well as pre-urban Late Iron Age and Roman military activity, are fully considered. As will be apparent in the following papers, much investigation has occurred outside of the historic walled areas, often with much reward. This volume presents a geographical and thematic approach to the new evidence that has accrued from the developer work. It does not profess to be a comprehensive synthesis, but rather seeks to highlight those areas where most new knowledge has accumulated since 1990. The state of research at the dawn of the developer-funded era was captured in various syntheses published between 1989 and 1995, and these provide a convenient benchmark against which to measure subsequent achievements (Esmonde Cleary 1987; Todd 1989; Wacher 1989; Burnham and Wacher 1990; Wacher 1995). Various publications have sought to capture and synthesise information for individual towns, both within the framework of the urban archaeological assessment programme supported by English Heritage, and in semi-popular accounts in the Tempus/History Press format (for an example of each format for the same town, St Albans/ Verulamium, see Niblett and Thompson 2005; Niblett 2001). This volume, however, is the first attempt to take a look at the new evidence on a national scale since the early 1990s. This volume has been produced as part of a more wide-ranging project examining the potential of commercial archaeological investigations to further our knowledge and understanding of the Roman period in England. The products of many commercial investigations are reports which are collectively referred to as grey literature. This can be defined as unpublished reports on fieldwork investigations undertaken as part of the planning process which are produced in very small numbers and have a very limited distribution (although accessibility is improving markedly thanks to on-line initiatives such as OASIS; http://www.oasis.ac.uk). A previous paper reported on the principal conclusions from an earlier phase of this project which examined four pilot areas of England (Fulford and Holbrook 2011). One of these areas was Essex, and a review of the grey literature in the urban core of Colchester quickly established that this process and the associated contextualisation of the material was a substantial undertaking requiring considerable local knowledge, especially where investigations were of limited extent (Holbrook 2010). The urban archaeological databases and assessments discussed below by Bryant and Thomas are likely to be the best mechanism to achieve this, although the difficulties (and effort involved) in producing high quality syntheses should not be underestimated. For reasons of practicality, therefore, this volume concentrates on conventionally published work, although some authors make use of selective grey literature reports. It is stressed, however, that no systematic review of the grey literature from the major towns of Roman Britain has been undertaken. As a prelude to the papers contained in this volume an attempt has been made to assess the quantity of investigations which have encountered Roman deposits in our towns since 1990. The only consistent, national, dataset was that generated by the Archaeological Investigations Project (AIP) which covered the period up to 2010. The project has now, sadly, been discontinued. The AIP consists of short summaries of interventions drawn from a review of grey literature reports. The AIP never claimed to be a complete record of work done as it relied both upon the thoroughness of records kept by others (principally Historic Environment Records and the organisations undertaking the investigations) and their willingness to co-operate with the project. For an intervention to be included in the AIP it had to be documented in a report that could be located and referenced. A number of investigations, however, are not documented in any kind of report, either one prepared shortly after the completion of fieldwork or indeed in some cases at all. This is particularly the case with excavations. Final excavation reports can take many years to reach publication, and in some cases do not appear at all, as is apparent from a review of the

THE TOWNS OF ROMAN BRITAIN

4

tables in the papers by Fulford, Holbrook and Bidwell. On a national scale it commonly takes more than five years from the end of an excavation for the final report to be published, and one imagines that the preparation period is greater for urban than rural sites (Fulford and Holbrook 2011, 334). In the absence of final publications, knowledge of certain excavations normally flows from annual ‘round-ups’ in county and regional journals (where these exist), and nationally in the ‘Roman Britain in xxxx’ sections of Britannia (which cannot be considered comprehensive as it depends upon the voluntary submission of information from individuals and organisations). The AIP treated inclusion within a county ‘round-up’ as sufficient documentation to warrant inclusion in its listings in its latter years, but this was not the case with earlier entries. The entries derived from the AIP for the major Roman towns of England have been subjected to data cleaning through examination of the project summaries. The lists had been compiled using a search for the keyword ‘Roman’. Upon review it became apparent that this search had captured interventions containing phrasing such as ‘no Roman archaeology was found’, or which had recovered only residual Roman artefacts. These entries were therefore removed. The cleaned AIP data are presented in Table 1 and are split into two categories: the area within the walls and the area within 1 km of the walls. For each zone the type of investigation has been divided into the categories of evaluation, watching-brief, excavation, and unknown. Evaluations are investigations of limited extent which are designed to characterise the nature of the archaeology present and inform an assessment of the archaeological impact of a proposed development. Such work is reported in grey literature and it is rare that the results will be published in a conventional format. Watching-briefs normally take place after the granting of planning consent and during the construction of a development. This is a typical response when only a low level of archaeological remains is expected or the anticipated remains are unlikely to be of particular significance. Once again watching-brief results are normally only reported in grey literature. Excavations are investigations which seek to provide a full record of the archaeology that is to be destroyed by a development. Where investigations are of very limited table 1. number of archaeological investigations undertaken at the major roman towns in england between 1990 and 2010. source: archaeological investigations project Within Walled Area

Within 1 km of Walls

Type of Investigation

Type of Investigation

Watching-brief Evaluation Excavation Unknown Total Watching-brief Evaluation Excavation Unknown Total London

21

67

24

19

131

16

39

40

7

102

York

19

22

7

6

54

13

27

8

4

52

Colchester

25

18

6

0

49

18

32

9

0

59

Cirencester

10

25

0

2

37

0

5

2

0

7

Chester

3

17

6

8

34

2

6

4

2

14

Chichester

4

5

5

2

16

2

7

1

0

10

Canterbury

3

6

2

0

11

0

2

0

0

2

Winchester

0

7

1

2

10

0

6

6

5

17

Dorchester

0

8

1

0

9

1

4

1

0

6

Leicester

2

2

3

1

8

1

3

3

1

8

Lincoln

5

3

0

0

8

5

8

0

0

13

Bath

0

0

0

1

1

0

8

4

0

12

Gloucester

1

2

0

2

5

3

11

2

9

25

Exeter

2

1

1

0

4

1

1

0

0

2

Ilchester

2

1

0

1

4

1

6

3

3

13

St Albans

0

1

2

0

3

0

3

3

0

6

Wroxeter

2

1

0

0

3

1

0

0

0

1

Aldborough

0

2

0

0

2

0

2

1

0

3

Brough-on-Humber

1

0

0

0

1

1

2

0

0

3

Carlisle

0

1

0

0

1

0

3

2

0

5

Silchester

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

Caistor-by-Norwich

0

0

0

0

0

1

1

1

0

3

100

189

58

44

391

66

176

90

31

363

TOTAL

INTRODUCTION

5

extent or do not produce particularly significant results, reporting in grey literature is the norm. The expectation is, however, that the more important excavations will be published in a conventional format. The unknown category represents those investigations where review of the AIP summary does not make it readily apparent which of the three previous categories it should be assigned to. London stands out, unsurprisingly, as the town where by far and away the most investigations have occurred, both within the walls and in the suburbs. This reflects the unique economy of the City of London (within the UK at least) where land values and development budgets can accommodate the often substantial costs of archaeological investigation. The number of investigations recorded by the AIP for London can be compared with Perring’s assessment in Ch. 3 that over 200 excavations in London and Southwark have encountered significant Roman remains since 1990. York, Colchester, Chester and Cirencester have also experienced significant quantities of archaeological work, both associated with substantial redevelopments (as at Colchester Garrison) or a large number of smaller ones (as at Cirencester). The low recorded level of work at a number of the other towns is more likely to be a product of weak engagement with the AIP rather than a true dearth of activity. For example, the papers by Holbrook and Bidwell demonstrate the major gains in knowledge that have accrued from investigations in Exeter and Leicester, two towns which are not strongly represented in the table. This volume grew out of a day conference at the University of Reading on 30 November 2013. All of the speakers at that event have contributed papers, supplemented by a number of other commissioned papers. The volume commences with a review by Bryant and Thomas of the legislative and planning framework within which most commercial archaeological work has been conducted since 1990. This is followed by two case studies: London (Perring) and York (Ottaway). Perring discusses the very considerable new evidence from London, and this can be usefully compared to what has been learnt from York, a major historic city in the North of England with a very different trajectory of development and renewal over the last quarter century compared to the capital. In York the main thrust of new discoveries centres firmly upon the suburbs and the knowledge that can accrue from aggregating a series of individually small-scale investigations. The case studies are followed by three regional reviews which consider the other towns in the SouthEast of England (Fulford), the South-West (Holbrook), and the Midlands and North (Bidwell). Colchester, Winchester, Exeter and Leicester stand out as the places where most new discoveries have been made, once again with a bias towards the suburbs. A number of suburban investigations have recovered important funerary and burial evidence, and this topic is considered on a national scale by John Pearce. Two further thematic reviews consider the advances that have accrued from the study of faunal remains (Maltby) and plant evidence (Robinson). The collection, analysis and reporting of the full range of biological and artefactual evidence has been one of the major advances of the developer-funded era, although as will be seen, the gains have not been evenly spread. The volume concludes with a review by Michael Fulford of the overall contribution of developmentled work to our understanding of Romano-British urbanism. He also identifies some areas where improvements in investigation and reporting practices should be sought. The editors are grateful to a number of individuals and organisations who have supported the production of this volume. Barney Sloane, Head of the Strategic Planning and Management Division at English Heritage, encouraged us to consider the urban evidence alongside our larger project looking at the contribution of developer archaeology to understanding of the Romano-British countryside. English Heritage generously grant-aided the production and publication of this volume, and we thank Kath Buxton and Tim Cromack for their support and proactive management of the process. Timothy Darvill and Bronwen Russell kindly provided the AIP data used in Table 1, which was reviewed by Nathan Blick and Rob Skinner of Cotswold Archaeology. We are grateful to the successive editors of the Britannia Monograph series, John Peter Wild and Paul Bidwell, for their encouragement, and especially to the Society’s Publications Secretary Lynn Pitts for copyediting the volume and managing the production process. Finally our especial thanks to all the contributors who responded positively to our invitation to speak and write, and for producing their papers in such a timely fashion. This volume appears as we approach the twenty-fifth anniversary of the publication of PPG 16. Back in 1989 John Wacher was hopeful that the increasing prevalence of developer funding could achieve much for urban archaeology and

6

THE TOWNS OF ROMAN BRITAIN

looked forward to ‘the re-creation of the “total” landscape of each and every city, which must include not only its visual appearance and the appearance of the surrounding countryside, but also the people who inhabited it and their way of life’ (Wacher 1989, 114). It will be fascinating to see how far the next quarter century takes us along the journey towards that lofty aspiration. BIBLIOGRAPHY Booth, P. 2009: ‘Roman Britain in 2008. I. Sites explored. 8. South-western counties’, Britannia 40, 266–71 Bowden, W. 2013: ‘Townscape and identity at Caistor-by-Norwich’, in H. Eckardt and S. Rippon (eds), Living and Working in the Roman World. Essays in Honour of Michael Fulford on his 65th Birthday, Journal of Roman Archaeology Supplementary Series 95, Portsmouth, RI, 47–62 Burnham, B. and Wacher, J. 1990: The ‘Small Towns’ of Roman Britain, London Chapman, E. 2011: ‘Roman Britain in 2010. I. Sites explored. 1. Wales’, Britannia 42, 320–8 Clarke, A., Fulford, M. G., Rains, M. and Tootell, K. 2007: ‘Silchester Roman Town Insula IX: development of an urban property c. AD 40–50 – c. 250’, Internet Archaeology 21/4, Darvill, T., Bockmann, G., Buffoni, A., Rassmann, K., Schafferer, G. and Vogel, R. 2013: ‘Geophysical surveys at Cirencester Primary School playing field, Victoria Road, Cirencester, 2011’, Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society 131, 123–32 Davies, J.L. and Burnham, B.C. 2012: ‘“Conquest, co-existence and change”: a retrospect and prospect for Roman Wales, 2012’, Archaeology in Wales 51, 3–21 Esmonde Cleary, S. 1987: Extra-Mural Areas of Romano-British Towns, BAR British Series 169, Oxford Evans, E.M. and Maynard, D.J. 1997: ‘Caerleon Lodge Hill cemetery: the Abbeyfield site 1992’, Britannia 28, 169–243 Fulford, M. and Clarke, A. 2011: Silchester: City in Transition. The Mid-Roman Occupation of Insula IX c.A.D. 125–250/300. A Report on Excavations Undertaken since 1997, Britannia Monograph 25, London Fulford, M. and Holbrook, N. 2011: ‘Assessing the contribution of commercial archaeology to the study of the Roman period in England, 1990–2004’, Antiquaries Journal 91, 323–45 Fulford, M., Clarke, A. and Eckardt, H. 2006: Life and Labour in Late Roman Silchester: Excavations in Insula IX since 1997, Britannia Monograph 22, London Guest, P. andYoung, T. 2007: ‘Mapping Isca: geophysical investigation of Priory Field, Caerleon’, Archaeologia Cambrensis 155, 117–33 Guest, P., Gardner, A. and Young, T. 2012: ‘Lost city of the legion? Excavating Caerleon’, Current Archaeology 268, 20–6 Holbrook, N. (ed.) 2008: Excavations and Observations in Roman Cirencester 1998–2007, Cirencester Excavations 6, Cirencester Holbrook, N. 2010: ‘Assessing the contribution of commercial archaeology to the study of Roman Essex, 1990–2004’, Essex Archaeology and History 41, 1–15 James, H. 2003: Roman Carmarthen. Excavations 1978–1993, Britannia Monograph 20, London Jones, B. 1984: Past Imperfect: The Story of Rescue Archaeology, London Millett, M. 1990: The Romanization of Britain, Cambridge Niblett, R. 2001: Verulamium. The Roman City of St Albans, Stroud Niblett, R. and Thompson, I. 2005: Alban’s Buried Towns. An Assessment of St Albans’ Archaeology up to A.D. 1600, Oxford Rahtz, P.A. (ed.) 1974: Rescue Archaeology, Harmondsworth Todd, M. 1989: ‘The early cities’, in M. Todd (ed.), Research on Roman Britain 1960–1989, Britannia Monograph 11, London, 75–89 Wacher, J. 1989: ‘Cities from the second to fourth centuries’, in M. Todd (ed.), Research on Roman Britain 1960–1989, Britannia Monograph 11, London, 91–114 Wacher, J. 1995: The Towns of Roman Britain (2nd edn), London White, R.H., Gaffney, C. and Gaffney, V.L. 2013: Wroxeter and the Cornovii. Final Report on the Wroxeter Hinterland Project 1994–1997. Volume 2: Characterizing the City, Oxford Wilmott, T. and Garner, D. 2009: ‘Excavations on the legionary amphitheatres of Chester (Deva), Britain’, in T. Wilmott (ed.), Roman Amphitheatres and Spectacula: a 21st Century Perspective. Papers from an International Conference held at Chester, 16th–18th February, 2007, BAR S1946, Oxford, 63–74 Wilson, P. 2012: ‘Roman Britain in 2011. I. Sites explored. 4. Northern England’, Britannia 43, 294–306 Wilson, P. 2013: ‘Roman Britain in 2012. I. Sites explored. 4. Northern England’, Britannia 44, 290–304 Zant, J. 2009: The Carlisle Millennium Project, Excavations in Carlisle, 1998–2001. Vol. 1: The Stratigraphy, Lancaster Imprints 14

CHAPTER 2

Planning, commercial archaeology and the study of Roman towns in England By Stewart Bryant and Roger M. Thomas

INTRODUCTION Widespread urbanism was one of the Roman Empire’s biggest contributions to life in Britain, and also to the archaeological heritage. In addition to the major public towns of the province there were also a large number of ‘small towns’, a category which encompasses much diversity and which lies outside of the scope of the present volume. Because of the monumental character of some Roman urban remains (some still standing above the ground even today, others easily recognised during building work), the abundance of durable artefacts, and interest from the Renaissance onwards in Classical civilisation, the archaeological study of Roman towns in Britain has had a long and distinguished history. Many of the major Roman towns subsequently became important urban centres in Saxon and medieval times, down to the present day (e.g. many of the English cathedral cities). As a result, the archaeological study of Roman towns in Britain has been closely tied up with the question of archaeological responses to new development in urban contexts: urban archaeological resource management, as we might call it nowadays. Roman origins have also frequently had a strong impact on the later construction of civic identity, including through local museums. Archaeological resource management involves a wide variety of activities: identification, making inventories, assessing value, affording protection (e.g. by designation, such as scheduling), measures to conserve and maintain fabric, presentation to the public, and investigation, including work done in advance of planned new developments. Planning Policy Guidance Note 16 (PPG 16), Archaeology and Planning, was published in 1990, and had a profound effect on archaeology in England, including resulting in a system of commercial archaeology. This paper will examine the impact of PPG 16 (and its successor policies: Planning Policy Statement 5 (PPS 5), Planning for the Historic Environment, published in 2010, and the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), published in 2012) on our knowledge of the major Roman towns of England (DoE 1990; DCLG 2010; DCLG 2012). The character and quality of archaeological information and understanding generated at any given time are profoundly affected by the circumstances and conditions under which the work takes place, and by the archaeological approaches which are pursued at the time; the two factors are of course closely related. This has been as true since 1990 as it was before. This paper will therefore consider especially how the arrangements for ‘commercial archaeology’ in England have affected the nature and overall characteristics of the work undertaken in the major Roman towns since 1990. By way of context, it is worth considering the larger Roman towns against the wider background of Roman settlements in Britain. It has been estimated that there may be some 100,000 ‘nonvilla’ Roman rural settlements in England, and perhaps 2,000 villas (Mattingly 2006, 370). By contrast, there are only around 15 civitas capitals, four coloniae and one provincial capital

8

THE TOWNS OF ROMAN BRITAIN

(Millett 1990, 102, table 4.4). ‘Rarity’ is one of the non-statutory criteria by which monuments are assessed for ‘national importance’ (which enables them to be scheduled under the ancient monuments legislation) (DCMS 2013, 10). It follows from this that all the major Roman towns in England have a good claim to be considered as monuments of national importance in their entirety. In the case of sites which are now ‘greenfield’ land, such as Wroxeter and Silchester, this has been recognised by the scheduling of the entire area as a single monument. Clearly, scheduling the entire historic core of a modern, living, town or city would be entirely impractical, but this does not detract from the importance of the area. Of course, the Roman archaeology of, say, Winchester is less well-preserved than that of somewhere like Silchester, which is now a greenfield site, but this is counter-balanced by the presence of remains of other periods (Saxon, medieval, post-medieval) and the long overall sequence of occupation on a single site. A BRIEF HISTORY The history of archaeological engagement with Roman towns in England can be divided into four main phases. First, from the eighteenth century onwards, was a phase of antiquarian interest. This was initially very much ad hoc, although considerable public interest was sometimes aroused by discoveries (e.g. the ‘Hunting Dogs’ mosaic found in Cirencester in 1849 and reported in the Illustrated London News: Darvill and Gerrard 1994, 20 and fig. 3). Rather more systematic activity began in the later nineteenth century, such as the observations made when Canterbury’s new sewerage system was installed in the 1860s or the discovery of a Roman ship at County Hall, London, in 1910 (Pilbrow 1871; Marsden 1965). The second phase began after the Second World War. From the early 1950s, work was carried out in advance of reconstruction on bomb-sites in cities such as Canterbury and London. This work was generally under the auspices of archaeologists from local museums or locally established excavation committees. The most remarkable Roman discovery of this time was Professor W.F. Grimes’ unearthing of the Temple of Mithras on a building site near Cannon Street in the City of London in 1954. This aroused huge public interest, and also occasioned considerable embarrassment for the government, as construction work was delayed. Eventually the temple’s foundations were rebuilt on a plinth above street level (Shepherd 1998). This kind of work gathered pace in the 1960s, with important excavations in Winchester, Cirencester and elsewhere. Some of these were funded by the central government predecessors of English Heritage, but the work was generally carried out by freelance excavators or local excavation committees. As urban redevelopment gathered pace, there were also some serious losses, such as the 12 ft high masonry walls of the legionary bath-house in Chester destroyed in 1968 (Jones 1984, 3, fig. 1). Episodes like this helped to stimulate the formation of the archaeological pressure group RESCUE, which led to a major increase in government funding for ‘rescue archaeology’. This period saw the establishment of some of the archaeological ‘units’ (full-time professional teams, covering a particular geographical area) which were to dominate rescue archaeology until 1990. Some of these were based in former Roman cities such as Canterbury, Chester, Exeter, Lincoln and York (Jones 1984). From 1973, the Department of the Environment began providing annual block grants for such bodies, so that they could conduct programmes of ‘rescue excavation’ in their areas. This marks the third phase, one in which large amounts of excavation were undertaken in most of England’s major historic towns and cities.This work was almost wholly reactive, done in response to planning decisions which had taken little or no account of archaeological implications. One effect of this phase of work was the accumulation of large backlogs of unpublished urban excavations; dealing with these was to absorb a substantial proportion of English Heritage’s archaeological funding throughout the 1980s (by which time a system of project-based funding had been introduced) (Thomas 2006a, 186–7). The late 1980s saw the early beginnings of what was to come after 1990, in two respects. First, some planning authorities began integrating archaeological considerations into their decisionmaking on new development. Second, especially in London, some archaeological units began to persuade some developers to contribute to the costs of excavations on their sites. This funding

PLANNING, COMMERCIAL ARCHAEOLOGY & THE STUDY OF ROMAN TOWNS IN ENGLAND

9

was purely voluntary, but this was nonetheless an important step (BADLG 1986). The year 1989 was marked by three major archaeological causes célèbres: cases in which development unexpectedly threatened to destroy important archaeological remains. Two of these involved Roman buildings: at the Queen’s Hotel in York (Sheldon 1989) and the Huggin Hill Roman baths in the City of London (Rowsome and Wooldridge 1989). The third was the discovery of remains of Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre on the site of a proposed office block in Southwark, London (Wainwright 1989). This last case caused enormous public and political controversy, and led directly to the publication of PPG 16 in 1990. The government realised that the best way to avoid similar difficulties in future was to integrate archaeological considerations properly into the planning system, and this was what PPG 16 did. PPG 16 AND ITS SUCCESSORS PPG 16 was published on 12 November 1990. It was to transform archaeological resource management, and the archaeological profession, in England. Starting from the premise that archaeological remains are a ‘finite and non-renewable resource’, PPG 16 revolved around five basic principles: • Archaeology is a material planning consideration: that is to say, it is something which planning authorities must take into account when making their decisions. • Archaeological policies should be included in local planning authorities’ development plans (e.g. Local Plans). • The archaeological implications of proposed developments should be assessed before a decision is made on the planning application. • There is a presumption that nationally important remains, whether scheduled or unscheduled, will be preserved in situ. Remains of lesser importance should be preserved if possible. • If preservation in situ is not possible or desirable, planning permission may be given subject to the developer making satisfactory arrangements for the investigation and recording in advance of or during development (so called ‘preservation by record’ and ‘developer-funding’). Each of these principles had an impact on the management of the archaeological resource in the Roman towns of England, as will be seen later. PPG 16 remained in force for nearly twenty years, an unusually long time as such policies go. Changes to the wider planning system, and an increasing emphasis in policy on a single ‘historic environment’ (with archaeological remains, historic buildings and historic landscapes being treated as an integrated whole) meant that PPG 16 began to show its age. In March 2010 it was replaced by Planning Policy Statement 5 (PPS 5), Planning for the Historic Environment. PPS 5 brought policies for the different elements of the historic environment together in a single document with a uniform vocabulary, and with links to the modern planning system. It also made clear that the purpose of ‘development-led investigations’ was to advance understanding of the past, and to make this understanding publicly available. This was a significant shift from the PPG 16 concept of ‘preservation by record’, which had led to an emphasis on the creation of archives and technical reports, arguably resulting in a lack of wider public benefit from the activity (Thomas 2009). PPS 5 also rectified some of the most serious gaps in PPG 16, including a stronger requirement for full publication of excavation results and for the proper deposition of the archive in a museum: both important beneficial developments for Roman urban archaeology. PPS 5 was accompanied by a Practice Guide, which gave more detailed guidance on the application of the policies of PPS 5. After only two years, PPS 5 was itself replaced by the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) in March 2012. This was part of a major government programme of reform, aimed at reducing the quantity of planning policy documents and guidance by distilling them into a shorter form. Happily, the fact that PPS 5 was quite recent meant almost all of its policies were retained intact, albeit reduced in length by over 50 per cent. NPPF also, for the first time, put

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the historic environment on an equal footing with other planning considerations, including the natural environment. The NPPF has been supplemented by the government’s Planning Practice Guidance, an online resource which gives additional guidance on the application of NPPF. Although very brief, it contains important guidance on undesignated archaeological remains (DCLG 2014). Further, more detailed, advice is currently being prepared by English Heritage. THE IMPACT OF PPG 16 The following sections will examine the impact of PPG 16 on Roman urban archaeology, looking at the effects of the five principles of PPG 16 in turn. The impact of PPS 5 and NPPF will also be considered, although the short lifespan of PPS 5 and the relative newness of the NPPF make it difficult to discern any great difference between their effects and that of PPG 16 at this stage. MATERIAL CONSIDERATION AND INCLUSION IN DEVELOPMENT PLANS Because most major historic towns and cities combine concentrations of archaeological remains of the highest importance with continuing development pressure, it was always clear that PPG 16 would have a particular impact in those places. In addition, the coverage of urban areas by local Sites and Monuments Records (now known as Historic Environment Records) was often very weak. This was largely because of the pace of archaeological work in such areas in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, the sheer volume and complexity of the archaeological information that had resulted, and the relative newness of urban archaeology as a discipline. The proper implementation of PPG 16 in historic urban areas clearly required an improved base of information and understanding. To this end, in 1992, English Heritage announced a major programme to undertake intensive ‘Urban Archaeological Strategies’ for around 30 major towns and cities, and ‘Extensive Urban Surveys’ on a county-by-county basis for smaller towns (Thomas 2006b). Collectively, these projects have been the single most important development for archaeological information management in Roman towns since 1990. The intensive projects as originally conceived comprised three distinct phases: the creation of an ‘Urban Archaeological Database’ (UAD), the production of an ‘Urban Archaeological Assessment’ (UAA), and the formulation of an ‘Urban Archaeological Strategy’ (UAS). The Extensive Urban Surveys (EUS) have a broadly similar structure, but with a particular emphasis on the production of ‘assessment reports’ for each individual town. Almost all the completed EUS reports are available online through the Archaeology Data Service (see: http:// archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archives/view/EUS/). UADs are based on a data structure which contains separate, but linked, data tables for ‘events’ (individual episodes of archaeological investigation of different kinds), ‘monuments’ (which are an interpretation of what has been found in the ‘events’), and ‘sources’ (or ‘archives’) which are the underlying information on which event and monument records are based. This structure accommodates the fact that, especially in an urban context, an individual monument (a Roman forum, say) may only be identified from a series of fragmentary sightings in a number of different investigations; those investigations may well have encountered various other monuments, of different periods, as well. The UAD data structure allows this complexity to be disentangled. Another very important aspect of UADs has been the mapping of ‘events’ and ‘monuments’ in Geographical Information Systems (GIS) linked to the database. This allows comprehensive period (and other) maps of the whole city to be created, and to be updated with relative ease as new discoveries are made (Thomas 2006b). fig. 1 shows an extract from the St Albans UAD, which is also available on the Heritage Gateway Website (http://www.heritagegateway.org.uk/gateway/) where details of all UADs can be found. Monuments within the Roman city (structures, insulae, cemeteries and so on) are represented on GIS, linked to database entries which are regularly updated and emended with new information, especially as new fieldwork adds to our knowledge. Of the major Roman towns, Urban Archaeological Assessments (UAAs), or comparable

fig. 1. Extract from the St Albans Urban Archaeological Database (UAD) within the Hertfordshire Historic Environment Record (HER), showing temples and the theatre at Verulamium Roman City. The inset shows the same information on the Heritage Gateway website: www.heritagegateway.org.uk

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volumes, have been produced for Cirencester (Darvill and Gerrard 1994), Colchester (Wise 2013); Lincoln (Jones et al. 2003), London (Museum of London 2000) and St Albans (Niblett and Thompson 2005). Each is a substantial monograph which provides a comprehensive and upto-date synthesis of the archaeology of the town in question. Volumes for Bath and Winchester, and for (non-Roman) Bristol, are currently being produced. It is fair to say that synthesis on this scale has proved challenging, and no further volumes in this series are currently planned. The UADs have also been used as the basis for producing new archaeological planning policies for the centres of historic cities. A good example is the Chester Archaeological Plan (CWACC 2014). Building on an up-to-date UAD and a characterisation of the archaeology of Chester, the Plan sets out policies for archaeology and development in Chester, including defining zones of differing levels of archaeological importance. Such documents, linked to ‘research frameworks’ (Olivier 1996), can help to ensure a systematic approach to the conservation and investigation of Roman (and other) urban remains in the future. ‘PRE-DETERMINATION ASSESSMENT’ PPG 16’s requirement for ‘pre-determination assessment’ (i.e. assessment of archaeological implications before a planning application is determined) spawned a new type of investigation, the ‘pre-determination field evaluation’. This is a limited piece of fieldwork, designed to obtain sufficient information to allow a soundly based planning decision to be taken. The result has been a large number of small investigations. In urban areas, this approach can be problematic. Access may be difficult or impossible (e.g. if the development site is covered by existing buildings). Excavating small trenches through deep and possibly complex stratification is unsatisfactory, and may in itself result in damage to important remains. In some cases, the specification for the work requires excavation to continue only to the top of undisturbed archaeological deposits. Despite all this, such ‘evaluations’ have yielded some academically important information, as well as providing information on which to base a planning decision. For example, the circus at Colchester was identified partly as a result of small-scale evaluation work (Wise 2013, 116–17 and fig. 7.9; Crummy 2008). Other methods of field evaluation include boreholes and geophysical survey techniques. Both are more often used in rural environments, but have been applied in urban contexts on occasion as a supplement to the evidence from excavation trenches. For boreholes, a typical example is the small evaluation at Fetter Lane, York in 1997 where they were used successfully with traditional trial-trenches to identify the depth and nature of the Roman deposits and the extent of modern disturbance (YAT 1997). PRESERVATION IN SITU POLICIES Prior to 1990, the usual archaeological response to urban development was to accept that destruction would occur, and to carry out a ‘rescue excavation’ first. This was often inevitable, given that planning permissions were usually granted with little regard to their archaeological implications. PPG 16’s presumption in favour of ‘preservation of archaeological remains in situ’ (‘PARIS’) changed this radically.The option of preserving remains could now be considered as an alternative to excavation, particularly for nationally important remains (even if unscheduled) but also for less important ones. Crucially, preservation could be achieved whilst at the same time allowing the development to proceed, albeit usually in a modified form (Corfield et al. n.d.; Nixon 2004). This had a significant impact. Deposits which would previously have been excavated and destroyed were now being left undisturbed beneath new buildings (sometimes to the bemusement of developers, who could not understand why archaeologists did not want to excavate). On deeply stratified and/or waterlogged sites, piled foundations were often used as a means of achieving preservation. In York, a policy was adopted that only 5 per cent of the deposits on a site could be destroyed (Ove Arup 1991; YCC 1992). However, PARIS and its application have been controversial within the archaeological profession (e.g. Biddle 1994). The engineering

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solutions involved, such as piled or rafted foundations, do involve some destruction, and adequate recording is often difficult (e.g. of a series of pile-holes). Also, long-term monitoring of the condition of the buried remains (to see if they have been damaged by, for instance, changes in the below-ground environment) is not always undertaken in sufficient detail, and the application of the science of assessing the physical condition of the protected archaeology has not advanced greatly since 1990. In addition, there has been an active school of thought within the archaeology sector which feels that opportunities for research and furthering understanding which excavation (and especially large-scale excavation) provides have been sharply reduced by the application of the ‘PARIS’ policy since 1990 (e.g. Biddle 1994). It is true that the 1970s and 1980s were a particularly important and formative period for the sub-discipline of urban archaeology in Britain. The high costs of excavating urban remains, especially deeply stratified sequences, made preservation in situ (‘PARIS’) an increasingly favoured alternative to excavation during the 1990s for both developers and local authorities. This trend was assisted by the application of targeted sampling strategies, including the use of scientific methods for analysis and dating. These improved the archaeological profession’s ability to characterise urban deposits in terms of their importance and suitability for preservation. ‘PARIS’ has also arguably had its greatest impact on the buried archaeology of major historic towns such as Chester, York and London. The effect has been to reduce the number of urban excavations, especially large-scale excavations of the type often seen within major cities in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s (Jones 1984, 80–96, 121–41). ‘POST-DETERMINATION’ ARCHAEOLOGICAL EXCAVATION AND RECORDING IN ROMAN TOWNS SINCE 1990 Notwithstanding the preservation-oriented policies of PPG 16, there has been a great deal of urban excavation since 1990, as other papers in this volume demonstrate. The high-profile, large-scale Roman urban excavations of the 1960s to 1980s have become less common (outside London), but the total number of archaeological investigations of Roman towns has increased since 1990, in some cases quite dramatically. Some of this increase has been in the form of relatively small-scale evaluations (see above) but there has also been much ‘post-determination’ excavation. In some cases, because of the value of urban land and pressures for regeneration, ‘preservation in situ’ policies appear to have been applied less strictly than they might have been in the countryside, and large or very large excavations have taken place in Roman towns. Very many smaller ones, some of which have nonetheless produced significant results, have also been undertaken. Other chapters in this volume look at this work in more detail. It ranges from small but highly informative interventions, through medium- and large-scale excavations, and includes ‘campaigns’ in which a number of excavations have taken place over a period in a particular area. The tables contained in Chs 1, 5, 6 and 7 give further information about the number and character of excavations in Roman towns since 1990. Undoubtedly, much has been learnt from these excavations, but the developments which occasioned them have also resulted in the removal of large areas of archaeological remains of high importance. If remains of this importance were under fields in open areas, they would almost certainly be scheduled and protected from damaging development (as is the case for Silchester and Wroxeter). As pointed out above, extensive scheduling in modern built-up areas is not practical (nor would it be acceptable either to property owners or to administrators). Nonetheless, the remains involved may often be of national importance, and the question should be asked: even under PPG 16 and its successors, has the removal of important urban archaeological remains been too readily accepted in the interests of redevelopment? There is certainly an argument for a more judicious approach in future. The NPPF (paragraph 139) makes it clear that, for planning purposes, archaeological remains which are demonstrably equivalent to scheduled monuments should be treated as if they were scheduled. This provision, which now has greater policy weight in the planning process than it did in PPS 5, should in theory allow such nationally important remains to be formally protected in an urban planning context without recourse to scheduling, using for instance the ‘PARIS’ approach whereby some

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limited damage is allowed so that development can take place, whilst preserving most of the deposits intact. The NPPF policy should also provide greater impetus for the consideration of alternative forms of designation to scheduling. This could include stronger policy support for the ‘Archaeological Priority Areas’ (or similar) which many local authorities already identify, or having a stronger below-ground archaeological component to Conservation Area designation by local authorities. The removal of permitted development rights by the use of Article 4 Directions would also help to reduce the piecemeal destruction of archaeological deposits from damaging development that falls outside of the formal planning process, such as works by utility companies and the creation of new basements within existing buildings. It remains the case, however, that balancing the wider public interest in continued development in historic towns with the needs of archaeological protection will often be challenging. FROM PPG 16 TO PPS 5 AND NPPF The short-lived PPS 5 and its successor NPPF introduced important changes to the policies of PPG 16. Many of the basic principles of PPG 16 were retained intact (such as pre-determination assessment and the prevention of harm) but new concepts and terminology were introduced: ‘heritage asset’, the notion of ‘significance’, and a new definition of ‘archaeological interest’. Most importantly, PPS 5 and NPPF placed much more emphasis on achieving public benefit from development-led archaeology. Whereas PPG 16 referred to ‘preservation by record’ (in effect, stressing the importance of the archive), NPPF requires that development-led work should ‘advance understanding’, and that the results of investigations should be made publicly available. The emphasis on ‘understanding’ as opposed to ‘record’ marks a major change from PPG 16. It is difficult to assess how much difference these new policies have made so far to what is happening in practice. Much work done under PPG 16 did, of course, result in publication and major advances in understanding, so in terms of outcomes this is by no means entirely new. In addition, in the recession of 2008 onwards, the level of development in England fell sharply, making it hard to see new trends in development-led archaeological work. However, the new emphasis on understanding and public benefit, and the strong policy of protection for unscheduled remains of national importance (see above) should be beneficial for the archaeology of Roman towns. SOME ISSUES The discussion above prompts thought about a number of issues to do with the conduct of archaeology in Roman towns within the present planning-driven and commercial arrangements. URBAN DESIGNATION AND PROTECTION In rural contexts, scheduling can be used to protect the most important monuments, including ones which consist solely of below-ground remains. In urban areas, matters are not so straightforward. Roman urban monuments which still survive above ground often are scheduled, such as city walls. Excavated or partially-excavated monuments may be scheduled (such as the Chester amphitheatre). Some below-ground urban remains are also protected by scheduling, typically of open spaces (such as cathedral closes). Other forms of designation (such as listing of buildings, or Conservation Areas) may also offer ‘incidental’ protection, by preventing damaging large-scale development. A number of Roman major towns are designated as ‘Areas of Archaeological Importance’ (AAIs). AAIs are designated under Part II of the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979; the regime pre-dates PPG 16. Only five AAIs have ever been designated, and four of them are Roman towns: Canterbury, Chester, Exeter and York. The fifth is Hereford, which was not a Roman foundation. In AAIs, developers have to give notice of their intention to do works which will disturb the ground; the ‘Investigating Authority’ (a nominated archaeological organisation, which is sometimes the local authority) can then require time to be allowed for archaeological work. This legislation does not provide for preservation, nor does it require

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the developer to pay for the archaeological work. In practice, the AAI regime has been largely supplanted by PPG 16, although it remains useful for activities which do not require planning permission, such as utilities works by statutory undertakers. LOCAL AUTHORITY ARCHAEOLOGICAL SERVICES The proper application of PPG 16, PPS 5 and now NPFF depends on local planning authorities having access to competent archaeological advice. This is normally provided by expert permanent staff based in local authority archaeological or historic environment teams. These teams maintain the information base, provide archaeological advice on development proposals, specify the requirements for archaeological investigation, and monitor commercial work to make sure that it is properly conducted, and that it is completed through to publication. Such teams may also have a role in the conservation of standing fabric, such as Roman city walls (e.g. Donald Insall Associates 2008). These services are now under considerable pressure from budget cuts and staff reductions (English Heritage et al. 2013). There is an added difficulty, which is that many of the older generation of local authority archaeologists with direct experience of excavating complex or deeply stratified urban sites are ageing and retiring. Succession-planning and the training of a new generation of urban-planning archaeologists are therefore very pressing issues at present. It is also vital that resources are available for the continued maintenance and enhancement of UADs and urban Historic Environment Records (HERS). These records should be further developed as dynamic ‘expert systems’, available as the basis for both planning advice and ongoing academic interpretation, and which incorporate much of the accumulated knowledge of the local authority archaeologists and the many other archaeologists (professional and amateur) who have worked in Roman towns. This will, though, require a concerted collective effort. In short, local authority archaeologists and the databases which they maintain are the mechanism by which coherence and overview are achieved. This is essential, given that the process of commercial archaeological investigation can result in a fragmentation of knowledge and information, a situation which is especially undesirable when dealing with a resource that should be treated as a single archaeological entity, such as a major Roman town. COMMERCIAL ARCHAEOLOGY AND COMPETITIVE TENDERING Competitive tendering has resulted in excavations in any one town being carried out by a range of different organisations. This potentially has both advantages and disadvantages. The advantages are that different organisations are more or less capable, and may be more able to do some types of work than others (for instance, large-scale urban excavation may require a particular emphasis on logistics and on working with construction managers). Tendering may help to ensure the right match between the character of the work and the capabilities of the organisation doing it. Different organisations may also bring different intellectual perspectives to the work. The disadvantages are really the other side of the same coin: if work in one town is done by several different organisations, there may be a fragmentation of research effort, and maintaining consistency (e.g. in sampling methods) may be more difficult. In addition, some urban excavations (e.g. on sites which are in close proximity to each other) may be better written up together, rather than as a series of separate reports. Competitive tendering may make this hard to achieve; consistency in the archaeological briefs produced by local authority archaeologists is important here (see IfA 2013). The competitive systems may also make the maintenance of specialist expertise, and the production of thematic specialist studies, more difficult (see below, and Robinson, this volume). SMALL-SCALE INVESTIGATION Another issue is the value of small-scale investigations. Evaluation and preservation in situ policies have, in some cases, led to small-scale investigations and observations, where there is

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limited disturbance (e.g. from service trenches, pile holes and the like) of deposits which are otherwise being largely preserved. In archaeological terms, trying to observe and record complex stratification in narrow or deep excavations, or in confined spaces, does not always produce very satisfactory results. It can also be relatively costly. It is possible to question the academic value of the results from such work. The answer, though, is not straightforward. It can be taken as read that the purpose of archaeological investigations, including development-led and commercial ones, is to contribute to knowledge. This is made explicit in NPPF, paragraph 141, which requires developers to ‘record and advance understanding of ’ remains which are to be lost to development. It might be argued that a small hole in the middle of a Roman town may simply tell us that there is Roman occupation present, which adds very little to what is already known. In towns in particular, however, archaeological knowledge often develops through the accumulation (and combination) of numerous very small pieces of evidence. The recognition of the Roman forum in London is a classic example of this from the pre-commercial era (Marsden 1987); in the same way, the circus at Colchester was only identified from fragments of evidence derived from a number of small investigations (Wise 2013, 117–19, fig. 7.9; Crummy 2008). Thus, while the results from small investigations can be individually unimpressive, they can, collectively and over time, produce information and understanding of the greatest importance. The answer to this apparent conundrum may lie in recognising that the major towns of Roman Britain are a very small, rare and important category of site, and that almost any evidence from them, even if very fragmentary, is therefore of particular importance; the precise nature of that importance may not, however, become evident for many years or even many decades after its discovery. This is a powerful argument for continuing to undertake even very small investigations in these important urban areas. SPECIALIST STUDIES (ARTEFACTS, ENVIRONMENT AND ECONOMY) State-funded rescue archaeology (especially urban post-excavation) supported the maintenance of a cadre of artefact and environmental specialists, and resulted in the production of numerous important synthetic volumes and articles (e.g. Maltby 1979 on faunal remains; Crummy 1983 on small finds; Holbrook and Bidwell 1991 on pottery). There is a question over whether the present system of commercially-based competition and funding allows for the maintenance and development of this kind of high-level expertise; the very specifically site-based funding certainly does not make it easy to produce thematic publications which draw on material from a number of different development projects. This topic is explored in more detail by Mark Robinson below. English Heritage also continues to provide some support for synthetic work. GREY LITERATURE, PUBLICATION AND ARCHIVING One of the effects of PPG 16 was the growth of archaeological ‘grey literature’ — reports which are not formally published, but are produced in limited number for the purposes of the planning process. There has been much discussion of the value and accessibility of this new genre of archaeological reporting (Bradley 2006; Fulford and Holbrook 2011). The index of such material provided by the Archaeological Investigations Project (currently discontinued for funding reasons) and the OASIS system, along with dissemination via the Archaeology Data Service’s Grey Literature Library (or, in some cases, the web-sites of individual commercial archaeological organisations), have gone some way to addressing this situation. Slow or non-publication of excavations is, of course, a perennial problem in archaeology as a whole, but it may be especially acute in urban areas, because of the complexity of the remains and the volume of artefacts and environmental materials which is often encountered. Many important publicly-funded urban excavations from the pre-PPG 16 era remain unpublished. For the period after 1990, Fulford and Holbrook examined publication rates of commercial excavations dealing with Roman sites, and found many cases of important work remaining unpublished after seven years or more (Fulford and Holbrook 2011, 333). In some cases, though, the combination of

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planning controls, commercial discipline and good professionalism and management has resulted in high-quality reports appearing reasonably soon after the completion of fieldwork, e.g. Oxford Archaeology’s work at the Lankhills Roman cemetery in Winchester (Booth et al. 2010) or that by Cotswold Archaeology at Cirencester (Holbrook 2008). The picture is, therefore, a mixed one. When they work well, the current arrangements — in which archaeological consultants acting on behalf of the developer may monitor the progress of the archaeological work and only release payment when the work is completed, and in which the fulfilment of conditions on the planning permission may depend on the completion of the archaeological reports — may actually be a very effective way of ensuring timely completion. In addition, developments in professional archaeological practice (particularly in the area of project management, e.g. English Heritage 2006) may have helped to improve completion rates. Proper archiving of excavation results, including deposition of the archive in a museum, is a widely-recognised concern in archaeology; one aspect of this is simply the lack of adequate space in which to store excavation archives. This has certainly been seriously exacerbated by the volume of work generated by PPG 16 and its successors; Roman urban sites, with their sometimes great volumes of pottery, ceramic building material and animal bones, may be a major contributor to this problem. The issue in general has been examined in a recent review (Edwards 2013). Given the accretive nature of urban archaeological knowledge (see above), the long-term maintenance and security of the archives of past work is particularly important for urban archaeology. The policies of NPPF are helpful in this respect (see above). THE CONTRIBUTION TO KNOWLEDGE: A SUMMARY What, overall, has been the contribution to knowledge made by development-led commercial archaeological work in the major Roman towns of England? This volume as a whole sets out to explore this question, so this concluding section will simply offer a brief overview. Arguably, one of the greatest advances has come, not from commercial work, per se, but from the impetus which PPG 16 provided to improve the archaeological information base in urban areas. This has been done through English Heritage’s Urban Archaeological Database (UAD) and Extensive Urban Survey (EUS) programmes. These have made high-quality and up-to-date summaries of existing information readily available, often now in a GIS form. This better and more comprehensive base of information and understanding helps to secure better planning decisions affecting archaeology, but it is also a starting point and major resource for future research projects on the towns in question (or on Roman urbanism generally). Some have argued (e.g. Biddle 1994) that the preservation-oriented policies of PPG 16 have had a negative effect on the development of knowledge, because they have reduced the amount of excavation taking place. Two comments may be made. First, this seems a short-term view. Very large amounts of excavation took place up until 1990, some of it still not published and much of it not really synthesised or absorbed into wider thinking about Roman towns. As long as that remains the case, there is a strong argument for being very judicious about the removal of yet more of what is, after all, a very rare and highly important category of archaeological remains (see above). Second, notwithstanding the policies of PPG 16, there has still been a great deal of urban excavation, made possible by the requirement for developers to meet the archaeological costs occasioned by their developments. Notwithstanding significant concerns over the standard of some commercial work, rates of publication and problems of archive deposition, the overall contribution of this work has been substantial. This is clearly shown by the papers in the rest of this volume. It is probably fair to say that urban archaeology in the years since 1990 has been very different from what it was in preceding decades. Urban archaeology in the years from about 1950 to 1990 was often rather heroic, with major and unexpected discoveries being made and dealt with, often under conditions of considerable difficulty and urgency, in a situation in which the character of the urban archaeological resource — in other words, what would be found when excavation began — was often very largely unknown. This ‘heroic’ period also witnessed some serious losses (see above). By contrast, development-led archaeological work in the major towns

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of Roman Britain since 1990 has perhaps been more orderly and more predictable. Nonetheless, it has resulted in the steady accumulation of new and high-quality information, and considerable advances in knowledge. The priorities for the future are two-fold: fuller synthesis of all this new material, and making our new understandings accessible to wider audiences. This volume is a significant contribution to both of those objectives. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We are grateful to Mike Fulford and Neil Holbrook for inviting us to contribute to the Reading conference in November 2013 and to this volume, and for their patience in waiting for our chapter. Neil Holbrook and Barney Sloane kindly commented on our text in draft, and Mike Morris provided valuable input during the preparation. The views expressed in this paper are the personal ones of its authors. fig. 1 is reproduced courtesy of St Albans City and District Council.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Biddle, M. 1994: What Future for British Archaeology?, Oxbow Lecture 1, Oxford Booth, P., Simmonds, A., Boyle, A., Clough, S., Cool, H.E.M. and Poore, D. 2010: The Late Roman Cemetery at Lankhills,Winchester: Excavations 2000–2005, Oxford Bradley, R. 2006: ‘Bridging the two cultures: commercial archaeology and the study of prehistoric Britain’, Antiquaries Journal 86, 1–13 British Archaeologists and Developers Liaison Group [BADLG] 1986: British Archaeologists and Developers Liaison Group Code of Practice, London Cheshire West and Chester Council [CWACC] 2014: Chester Archaeological Plan, Chester. Available online at: http://www.cheshirearchaeology.org.uk/?page_id=165 (Accessed 26 June 2014) Corfield, M., Hinton, P., Nixon, T. and Pollard, M. (eds) n.d. [1998]: Preserving Archaeological Remains in situ: Proceedings of the Conference of 1st–3rd April 1996, London Crummy, N. 1983: The Roman Small Finds from Excavations in Colchester 1971–9, Colchester Crummy, P. 2008: ‘The Roman circus at Colchester’, Britannia 39, 15–32 Darvill, T. and Gerrard, C. 1994: Cirencester: Town and Landscape. An Urban Archaeological Assessment, Cirencester Department for Communities and Local Government [DCLG] 2010: Planning for the Historic Environment, Planning Policy Statement 5, London Department for Communities and Local Government [DCLG] 2012: National Planning Policy Framework. Available online at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-planning-policy-framework--2 (Accessed 27 June 2014) Department for Communities and Local Government [DCLG] 2014: Planning Practice Guidance. Available online at: http://planningguidance.planningportal.gov.uk (Accessed 26 June 2014) Department for Culture, Media and Sport [DCMS] 2013: Scheduled Monuments & Nationally Important but Non-Scheduled Monuments, London. Available online at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/ scheduled-monuments-policy-statement (Accessed 26 June 2014) Department of the Environment [DoE] 1990: Archaeology and Planning, Planning Policy Guidance 16, London Donald Insall Associates 2008: Chester City Walls Conservation Management Plan, unpub. report for Chester City Council Edwards, R. 2013: Archaeological Archives and Museums, Society of Museum Archaeologists. Available at: http:// www.socmusarch.org.uk/docs/Archaeological-archives-and-museums-2012.pdf (Accessed 23 June 2014) English Heritage 2006: Management of Research Projects in the Historic Environment. The MORPHE Project Manager’s Guide, Swindon English Heritage, Association of Local Government Archaeological Officers and Institute of Historic Building Conservation 2013: A Fifth Report on Local Authority Staff Resources. Available online at: http:// www.helm.org.uk/guidance-library/fifth-report-la-staff-resources/ (Accessed 27 June 2014) Fulford, M. and Holbrook, N. 2011: ‘Assessing the contribution of commercial archaeology to the study of the Roman period in England, 1990–2004’, Antiquaries Journal 91, 323–45 Holbrook, N. (ed.) 2008: Excavations and Observations in Roman Cirencester 1998–2007, Cirencester Excavations 6, Cirencester Holbrook, N. and Bidwell, P. 1991: Roman Finds from Exeter, Exeter

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Institute for Achaeologists [IfA] 2013: Standard and Guidance for Archaeological Advice by Historic Environment Services. Available online at: http://www.archaeologists.net/codes/ifa (Accessed 26 June 2014) Jones, B. 1984: Past Imperfect: The Story of Rescue Archaeology, London Jones, M.J., Stocker, D.A. and Vince, A.G. 2003: The City by the Pool: Assessing the Archaeology of the City of Lincoln, Oxford Maltby, M. 1979: Faunal Studies on Urban Sites: the Animal Bones from Exeter 1971–1975, Sheffield Marsden, P. 1965: ‘The County Hall ship’, Transactions of the London and Middlesex Archaeological Society 21 (2), 109–17 Marsden, P. 1987: The Roman Forum Site in London: Discoveries before 1985, London Mattingly, D. 2006: An Imperial Possession. Britain in the Roman Empire, 54 BC–AD 409, London Millett, M. 1990: The Romanization of Britain, Cambridge Museum of London 2000: The Archaeology of Greater London. An Assessment of Archaeological Evidence for Human Presence in the Area now Covered by Greater London, London Niblett, R. and Thompson, I. 2005: Alban’s Buried Towns: an Assessment of St Albans’ Archaeology up to AD 1600, Oxford Nixon, T. (ed.) 2004: Preserving Archaeological Remains in situ? Proceedings of the 2nd Conference, 12–14th September 2001, London Olivier, A. 1996: Frameworks for Our Past: A Review of Research Frameworks, Strategies and Perceptions, London Ove Arup and Partners 1991: York Development and Archaeology Study, unpub. report for York City Council Pilbrow, J. 1871: ‘Discoveries made during excavations in Canterbury in 1868’, Archaeologia 43, 151–64 Rowsome, P. and Wooldridge, K. 1989: ‘Swept under the carpet: excavation and preservation at Huggin Hill’, Rescue News 48, 3 Sheldon, H. 1989: ‘The curious case of the Queen’s Hotel [York]’, Rescue News 47, 1 Shepherd, J.D. 1998: The Temple of Mithras, London: Excavations byW.F. Grimes and A.Williams at theWalbrook, London Thomas, R.M. 2006a: ‘English Heritage funding policies and their impact on research strategy’, in J. Hunter and I. Ralston, Archaeological Resource Management in the UK – An Introduction (2nd edn), Stroud, 179–93 Thomas, R.M. 2006b: ‘Mapping the towns: English Heritage’s urban survey and characterisation programme’, Landscapes 7 (1), 68–92 Thomas, R.M. 2009: ‘Rethinking PPG 16’, The Archaeologist 73, 6–7 Wainwright, G.J. 1989: ‘Saving the Rose’, Antiquity 63, 430–5 Wise, P.J. (ed.) 2013: Colchester. Fortress of the War God. An Archaeological Assessment, Oxford York Archaeological Trust [YAT] 1997: 18A–19 Fetter Lane York – Archaeological Evaluation Report, Field Report 19, unpub. York Archaeological Trust report York City Council [YCC] 1992: Conservation Policies for York: Archaeology, unpub. York City Council report

CHAPTER 3

Recent advances in the understanding of Roman London By Dominic Perring

Commercial archaeology and the study of Roman London London is one of the world’s most intensively studied Roman cities. The need to accommodate high-value construction projects within a rich archaeological landscape has attracted an exceptional level of developer funding, providing for the continuous employment of hundreds of archaeologists over many decades. According to the online catalogue of the London Archaeological Archive Resource Centre (LAARC) a total of 422 excavations of Roman sites were initiated in the City of London and Southwark between 1990 and 2008. Significant Roman remains were encountered in about half of these investigations, whilst summaries published in the journal Britannia describe around 60 more recent excavations of noteworthy Roman sites in London. Steady progress has also been made on the publication of earlier work, much of which was also the product of commercial sponsorship. Developer funding has supported most rescue archaeology in the City of London since around 1979. We do not want for new information, but struggle to make best use of what we have. Published output is inevitably dominated by site-specific accounts, since funding is targeted on individual construction sites. An open policy to the dissemination of unpublished data, promoted by the LAARC, has facilitated some wider reviews (notably Bird et al. 1996; Monteil 2004; Clark et al. 2008; Gerrard 2011b), but resources for such work remain limited. As a consequence, this survey concentrates on the accessible evidence of architectural history, drawing on information won from recent fieldwork to outline a new biography of the Roman town. For reasons of space topics covered elsewhere in this volume, principally funerary archaeology, are not fully addressed. Here our key concern is the planning history of the city, which shows how London’s urban topography was moulded by the needs of the imperial administration. Three main areas of advance in our reading of Roman London are described. Firstly our understanding continues to benefit from precise dendrochronological dating. In a recent overview Tyers (2008) listed 994 dated Roman oak timbers recovered from sites in London. A significant number of these provide exact construction dates, owing to a preference for unseasoned wood felled on demand. The availability of absolute dating, supplemented by tightly dated ceramic assemblages from extended sequences, presents both an opportunity and a challenge. A narrative drawn from such evidence risks subordinating archaeological readings to historical ones, but is a necessary starting point for research. Secondly our description of Roman London is enriched by a wealth of new topographic detail. London’s design was the product of many distinct phases of engineering, incorporating planned components within inherited landscapes. The built landscape was the ordered creation of episodic political intervention, accommodating significant changes in population scale and density, but designed with impressive regard for the topography of the site. Our improving understanding of the urban morphology, especially with regard to the use of streets, boundaries and civic spaces, not only illustrates how profoundly and frequently the landscape was transformed, but

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also suggests new readings of the ideological meaning of the city. Creighton’s work (2006, 93– 107) offers an exciting glimpse of what can be achieved from such study, in particular in his engagement with ideas drawn from social theory such as time-space distanciation, the duality of social structure, and cities as storage containers of authoritative resources. Creighton’s conclusions are compromised, however, by an outdated model of how London’s urban form evolved. Irregularities in the town plan are used to argue that the city’s architecture was chiefly the product of private acts of patronage by individuals who engaged in urban living in ways that mirrored towns elsewhere in the Roman Empire, leading to the conclusion that ‘no grand design need ever have existed’. The evidence brought together here suggests, instead, that these irregularities were the product of a series of separate exercises in urban town planning as the growing city subsumed features inherited from earlier landscapes. An important distinction can be drawn between episodes of politically inspired town planning, which gave shape to the early Roman town, and more subtle processes of change representative of individual actions that gained importance in the later stages of London’s Roman history. Finally the study of the artefactual evidence, set within these refined chronological and topographical frameworks, makes it possible to describe a lived in city, embracing different communities where identities were manifest in patterns of consumption and disposal. Here, as in the architecture of the city, it is easy to recognise the hand of élite social control. Recent work indicates that London remained resolutely alien, enjoying lifestyles that were radically different to those of subject populations within the urban hinterland (Perring and Pitts 2013). Further study stands to benefit from the high-density descriptions of spatial change now achieved, although the potential of this material is unlikely to be realised through developer funding alone. The origins of London (fig. 1) Archaeologists are agreed that London was a Roman foundation, but recent discoveries have renewed debate over how and when the city first came into being (Perring 2011;Wallace 2013). Most contemporary attempts to describe Britain’s urban origins have followed Millett in emphasising the agency of local élite society competing for status within the emerging Roman political structure (Millett 1990). These readings reject earlier models that credited the Roman army with a leading role in engineering Romano-British towns (Webster 1966; Frere 1967; also Grahame 1998). London is a difficult site to accommodate within these competing models. There is negligible evidence for the local presence of an élite of sufficient standing to have engaged in building a new city, whilst Tacitus explicitly observes that London was not a Roman colony (Annals 14.33). Millett consequently argued that London was established by foreign traders as an entrepôt for business affairs in the province (Millett 1990, 88–91; after Haverfield 1911). A similar view had been reached by archaeologists working within the city, following a failure to find settlement evidence predating c. a.d. 50 (Marsden 1980, 17–26; Perring 1991, 16–17). This consensus no longer holds true and there is renewed interest in the role of imperial intervention in the building of London (Wilson 2006a, 26; Pitts 2014). Recent work offers three new strands of evidence that contribute to this argument. These include evidence of an Iron Age settlement south of the Thames, parts of a large ditched enclosure built north of London Bridge, and a date of a.d. 47–48 for the construction of London’s western approach road. Excavations near Bermondsey Abbey show that Bermondsey eyot, south of the Thames, was occupied from the Middle Iron Age onwards (Grange Road/Grange Walk 1989–91: Rayner 2009, 38–40). A farmstead may have stood here at the time of the conquest, and there are some features in neighbouring Southwark that may be contemporary (Cowan 1992, 11). By contrast the north bank remained unpopulated at the time of the conquest, adding weight to the suggestion that London emerged from the geography of Kent and is correctly identified as a place of the Cantiaci by Ptolemy (Millett 1996, 35). If farmers in Bermondsey became friendly to Rome then their geographical knowledge may have helped in the engineering of London: this might even have been the place from which Londinium was named (Coates 1998). It was north of the river, however, where London took urban form. In a recent paper I argued that the town was preceded by a short-lived fort (Perring 2011), in response to which Wallace

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fig 1. Roman London c. a.d. 43.

(2013) has reasserted Millett’s argument for a civilian origin. The evidence at issue consists of two recent sightings of what may have been a double-ditch enclosure within the angle formed by the rivers Thames and Walbrook (7–11 Bishopsgate 1995: Sankey 2002; Walbrook House 2006– 7: Blair 2010; Booth 2007, 291; Booth 2008, 320). On both sites two parallel, V-shaped ditches were found at the base of the sequences. In each case the inner ditch was notably wider than the outer one, a distinctive feature typical of defensive enclosures. Whilst it is not certain that the observations formed part of a single circuit, there are sufficient points of similarity for this to seem likely. Both locations were on the boundaries of Roman London’s inner urban core, as marked by the extent of the orthogonal Claudio-Neronian street grid (e.g. Swain and Williams 2008, fig. 1.4.1), and there are topographical grounds for suggesting that they represent the northern and western boundaries of a defended area of 24–25 ha (Perring 2011, 251). No dating evidence was recovered from Bishopsgate, but Walbrook House finds included a storage jar in Late Iron Age Romanising grog-tempered ware: a transitional fabric dating to the beginning of the Roman period (Thorp 2010). The absence of Romanised products ubiquitous in London assemblages

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from c.a.d. 50 suggests that the ditches had been filled by that date. An early date is also indicated by an extended structural sequence, in which the ditches predated the earliest street system. Wallace has drawn our attention to other observations of V-shaped ditches, most of which were associated with roadside drainage or enclosures alongside roads leading into London, and prefers to treat the Bishopsgate and Walbrook House features as more of the same (Wallace 2013, 286). This fails to account for their particular characteristics, since the double-ditch configuration was clearly occasioned by something other than street building or drainage. To all appearances these were part of a defensive circuit, and whilst there are no parallels from civilian contexts, there are many military ones (Wilson 2006a, 27). Although smaller than typical, at up to 1.8 m deep, the London ditches were similar in scale to those of the Claudian fort at Longthorpe (Frere and St Joseph 1974, 10). The military parallels cannot be ignored and, in the context of affairs in Britain before a.d. 50, encourage two competing hypotheses. One possibility is that the army built a defensive circuit on behalf of a civilian community, following the example suggested for Augustan Waldgirmes (Becker 2003; Wilson 2006a, 25). If so the defences probably date to a.d. 47/48 when an urban site was established at London (see below). A town of sufficient importance to warrant urban defences ought, however, to have housed major public buildings of the sort not seen in London until the Flavian period. The alternative would be to see this as a military rather than a civilian site. If so, its scale only makes sense within the context of troop deployments at the time of the conquest. Although we cannot date the defences to a.d. 43, there was no need for a large military post here once the invading army had advanced on Camulodunum. Later accounts place Plautius’ army close to the Thames for several weeks in the summer of a.d. 43, waiting on the arrival of the emperor Claudius (Dio Cassius 60.20.5–60.21.3), suggesting that a military base of this period exists hereabouts. The topography of the Thames valley suggests few sites equally suited for the river crossing, whilst the later Roman road system, a product of military engineering, was directed through London (fig. 8). London is a sensible location for a Claudian military site. The scale of London’s Claudian defended enclosure fits closely with what would have been needed to house Plautius’ army (Crummy 1997, 35 offers a speculative reconstruction of the successor encampment at Colchester), but exceeds any other known military requirement. The absence of internal evidence dated to a.d. 43 accords with the interpretation of this as a short-lived facility, occupied by an army housed in tents. The subsequent engineering of the Roman town involved extensive landscaping, sometimes reducing the pre-Roman land surface by over 1 m (Milne and Wardle 1993, 28). The case is not proven, but it is difficult to see what else would account for the presence at London of a large defended Claudian site of military style. The first Roman town (fig. 2) Regardless of whether or not London was formed from the site of an earlier fort, the town was built c. a.d. 48. This is implied by timbers felled a.d. 47/48 used in building the main west road (1 Poultry 1994–6: Hill and Rowsome 2011, 258). This route would not have been vital in a.d. 43, when only the route to Colchester mattered, but obtained strategic importance with Rome’s advance west along Watling Street. A foundation date of a.d. 47/48 would make London one of three cities built under the governor Ostorius Scapula: a veteran colony was established at Colchester in a.d. 49 (Tacitus, Annals 12.31–2), whilst Verulamium appears to be contemporary (Frere 1983, 5). A common inspiration for all three cities, despite their different legal status, is suggested by patterns of consumption which distinguished them from other towns of southern Britain but aligned them with sites tied into military networks (Pitts 2014). Recent work shows that major investment in the urban fabric of London was delayed until the early 50s, with energetic building programmes taking place a.d. 52–54. Waterfront timbers suggest that London Bridge was built c. a.d. 52, perhaps in replacement of an earlier pontoon bridge (Regis House 1994–6: Brigham 2001b). Modest waterfront revetments near by were associated with hard-standings suitable for beaching ships (Arthur Street 2001–2: Swift 2008, 19; Brigham 1998, 23). Behind the waterfront a strictly orthogonal street grid regimented a settlement of timber-and-clay houses built in wholly Roman style (Wallace 2013, fig. 1). The

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fig. 2. Roman London c. a.d. 55.

settlement was set within the boundaries of the supposed Claudian encampment, the layout of which apparently influenced the planning of the town. Although the original defences were slighted, smaller Claudio-Neronian ditches reasserted their line at Walbrook House and perhaps marked a city pomerium. A large open space at the heart of the street grid may have constituted a public forum, although the absence of evidence for a basilica has discouraged its description as such (168 Fenchurch Street 1995–2000: Dunwoodie 2004, 23). By a.d. 60 this area benefited from a public water supply (Philp 1977, 15), adjacent buildings were built using distinctive construction techniques suggestive of military design (Perring 2002, 99), and others in the area had tessellated floors (Neal and Cosh 2009, 398–9, 421). This was most probably a planned civic centre, although the modest nature of the architecture shows that it was not a significant place for competitive social display in the public arena. Two buildings incorporating heated rooms, perhaps baths, were built on the edge of town. Although we have not found in-situ remains from either, their presence is marked by concentrations of box-flue and wall tile used in heating systems (Pringle 2007). These tiles,

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which were not produced after a.d. 60/61, were made in local fabrics, presumably for use in London. One building stood just inside the east entrance to the town, where a concentration of pre-Flavian samian inkwells implies an association with official use (Plantation Place 1999–2003: Brigham 2001a; Monteil 2008, 178). The other was represented by demolition debris from a masonry building on the south bank of the river (Winchester Palace 1983–90: Yule 2005, 25; 47). These were both commanding locations where the heated rooms may have been attached to high-status residences, perhaps belonging to leading officials within the administration, although their use as military or public bath-houses cannot be discounted. A palace in Southwark, detached from the affairs of town but overlooking the settlement and its river port, would have been eminently suited to a senior military command. Although civilian ownership of this property cannot be ruled out, various strands of evidence suggest that it was closely associated with the military administration. Roads radiating from this site gave it unusual primacy within the urban topography, whilst later buildings here were decorated with unparalleled luxury. These later buildings also contained finds illustrative of military and official use, including a third-century inscription listing soldiers perhaps attached to the governor (Cowan and Wardle 2009, 97–8; Yule and Rankov 1998; Hassall 2012, 160–2). This site can plausibly be identified as the London seat of the provincial governor, perhaps based here before a.d. 60. Further speculation would place the residence of the imperial procurator north of the river, accounting for the presence of Classicianus’ tombstone in London’s eastern cemetery (Grasby and Tomlin 2002) and giving this office closer involvement in managing civic affairs. The governor and procurator represented distinct, often rival, commands and the geography of early London may have been engineered to accommodate their different spheres of influence. Regardless of such speculations, London’s more imposing buildings were peripheral to the planned core, indicating that power was exercised from plural locations, in which the central forum had a lesser role than normal in Roman urban living. Whilst we may not be sure of London’s legal status, this was the principal seat of government in Roman Britain and was perhaps intended as such from its foundation. In the absence of any local élite society to coopt, political control and architectural patronage depended on government officials rather than civilian associations, generating a particular urban form. London grew rapidly through the 50s, by the end of which it had an estimated population of c. 10,000 (Swain and Williams 2008). Much growth was suburban. Early developments outside the urban core included ditched enclosures flanking the roads leading into London, particularly in the southern and eastern hinterlands of the two higher-status buildings identified above (Wallace 2013, fig. 1). Some of these probably defined temporary military annexes similar to those explored outside Exeter (Holbrook, this volume). Residential suburbs, analogous to the vici set beyond fort gates, developed after c. a.d. 53 in extensive ribbon development along the main roads into London from the south and west (Hill and Rowsome 2011, 274; DrummondMurray et al. 2002). These housed a combination of roadside buildings of imported design, including shops and workshops in strip buildings, and circular houses built following preRoman architectural traditions (Hill and Woodger 1999; Hill and Rowsome 2011, 271–4; Rayner 2009, 40). The circular buildings were clustered in peripheral locations and used in small-scale industrial production. In one case glass beads were being made in traditional Late Iron Age style using imported glass (10 Gresham Street 2001: Casson et al. 2014). These may have been areas of native British settlement, but it is an open question as to whether they housed craftsmen drawn to the city by market opportunity or were associated with slave-run factories. Other industrial production was Roman in character, as the fine-ware pottery (Sugar Loaf Court ware) that wasters and burnt debris suggest was being produced on the west bank of the Walbrook. The potter, Caius Albucius, whose name was found stamped onto the neck of an amphora in this fabric, can be identified as an immigrant from Gaul (modern Burgundy) (Davies et al. 1994, 29; Symonds 2003). His wares were unevenly distributed through London, appearing commonly on sites with a military connection but disappearing at the time of the revolt. Patterns of consumption identify different communities within these suburbs, with some assemblages suggestive of military origin (e.g. Paternoster Square 2000–2001: Watson and Heard 2006, 70–1; Howe and Lakin 2004, 49). Considerable local variation, compounded by the rapid

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pace of urban change, complicates attempts to describe wider differences between London east and west of the Walbrook and south of the Thames. On most measures, however, the inhabitants of the urban core were more likely to use material culture in ways that conformed to ideas imported at the time of the conquest (which ideas soon had currency west of the Walbrook), whilst the urban fringes found more space for lifestyles influenced by pre-Roman practice (e.g. Monteil 2004; Crummy with Pohl 2008). An often described dichotomy between military and commercial influences (Dunwoodie 2004, 37) can be misleading, since provincial business affairs were dominated by military supply and official contracts. The mercantile community was parasitic on the administration and drew its membership from veterans and the familia of government officials, blurring distinctions between soldiers, administrators and merchants. Religious precincts may have been established on the borders of the settled area, assuming that the second-century temple complexes found at the entrance to Southwark and beside the amphitheatre had emerged from earlier ritual sites (Perring 2011, 273–8). The replacement of open-air sanctuaries with temple buildings was a common feature in the evolution of RomanoCeltic religious sites (King 1990), and on balance it seems probable that Roman London’s later Romano-Celtic temples used locations that had obtained ritual potency in earlier periods. Archaeological evidence testifies to the ritual uses of both areas before the Boudican revolt, and the presence of early sanctuaries at these sites would account for local peculiarities in London’s topographic development. The southern approach to London took travellers across a series of Thames channels, where each crossing was a natural location for votive offerings at sacred boundaries. Perhaps the most important of these was where Watling Street first met the Thames at Borough Channel: votive shafts containing sacrificial offerings were dug here from the midfirst century onwards, and in much greater density than has been found anywhere else in London (Swan Street 1998: Beasley 2006). Religious practices at this approximate location were later housed in the temples found at Tabard Square (see below). Another open-air sanctuary may have preceded the amphitheatre and associated temples in the western suburb, occupying one of the highest points of London, where water lay suggestively close to the surface. A large and carefully engineered artificial pond was an unusual and important feature in the early landscape here, and its fills contained a gilt-bronze arm likely to have been a votive deposit (30 Gresham Street 2001: Bayley et al. 2009; Blair et al. 2006). This allows us to speculatively identify a sacred spring on this prominent site overlooking the planned town. The need to provide early access to this area, perhaps embracing festival processions of the sort common to cities throughout the Roman Empire (e.g. Price 1984, 110–13; Rogers 1991, 80–126; Harries 1992, 91–2), would account for the early construction of a road to the site from the Walbrook crossing, an otherwise peculiar aspect of the urban layout (1 Poultry 1994–6: Hill and Rowsome 2011, Road 2). Extramural religious sanctuaries were important throughout the Roman world, and a particular feature of urban geographies in Roman Gaul (Laurence et al. 2011, 44, 135). The examples identified here share common characteristics with such sites, and would have helped locate the new town within the landscape onto which it was imposed. They appear to describe a spatial dialogue between the sacred identity of the planned urban community within the pomerium, and counterpoised sanctuaries at potent landmarks to south and west. It is interesting to note that the supposed palaces of government officials were set far from these tentatively identified sacred sites and the routes that linked them; perhaps an intended discretion. Although speculative, this reconstruction of London’s Claudio-Neronian geography shows how the orthogonally planned town sat at the core of a wider suburban and peri-urban landscape. Later building projects monumentalised aspects of this landscape as it was absorbed into the growing city: providing nodal points for an architectural armature that emerged with greater clarity in building programmes of the second century. Post-war reconstruction (fig. 3) London’s subsequent architectural history continued to mirror imperial involvement in the affairs of Britain, and never more so than in the aftermath of the Boudican revolt. Recent discoveries testify to major works of army engineering a.d. 62–63. Chief amongst these was a 1 ha fort

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fig. 3. Roman London c. a.d. 65.

carved out of the south-east quarter of the town (Plantation Place 1999–2003: Wilson 2006a, 25–6). The fort was built over Boudican destruction debris and may initially have provided winter quarters for troops associated with the re-imposition of military rule north of the Thames (Fulford 2008b, 11; for the context of which see Tacitus, Annals 14.38). The first closely-dated engineering operation involved the building of a timber corduroy in a.d. 62 on an unusual alignment across the upper Walbrook valley (Drapers’ Gardens 2007: Butler and Ridgeway 2009). This was built using ‘native’ woodworking techniques, in contrast with the Roman techniques used elsewhere in early Roman London, and may have carried a track that by-passed the ruined town, presumably to facilitate troop movements (an alternative interpretation would see this as the base of a defensive rampart). The involvement of native craftsmen may point to the use of forced labour (the date makes it unlikely that this would have been a rebel construction). Massive new quays, more imposing than anything of the pre-revolt period, were built along the Thames waterfront from a.d. 63 (Regis House 1994–6: Brigham 1998, 25–7). Finds from

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the construction site included armour, fragments of a military tent, and a timber stamped by the Augustan unit of Thracians, suggesting that military work-gangs were responsible. A row of open-fronted tabernae of the type commonly associated with Roman fora, was built as part of the new quay. These seem likely to have been public facilities tenanted by private contractors. One of the workshops was used by a glassworker, making luxury glass items before a.d. 70 (Shepherd 2008). Lead ingots buried later beneath the floor of an adjacent unit were stamped as the product of British silver mines and the property of the emperor Vespasian, and probably came from an official consignment shipped through London. New waterworks were built on the western hill, just south of the putative sanctuary (30 Gresham Street 2001: Blair et al. 2006). These consisted of wells and water-lifting machines, the earliest of which dated to a.d. 63. Later contraptions on this site could have provided water sufficient for 8,000 people and supplied most of western London. Engineering of this sort is, however, more usually associated with public rather than private demand, and it is possible that the wells were dug to supply the adjacent Cheapside baths (Marsden 1976). Opinion has wavered as to the likely date of this bath-house, excavated in the 1950s, but a date of a.d. 63 is credible. If the army of a.d. 63 had been responsible for building these baths, then it is unlikely to have been for the benefit of troops in the fort on the opposite side of town. It is instead possible that the area south of Cheapside housed officers and administrators, whose presence here is documented in the Flavian period (Perring 2011, n. 49; Millett 1994, 434). The baths might also have been associated with use of the religious precinct to the north (Laurence et al. 2011, 222). Centres of earlier Neronian power were also restored after the revolt. High-status buildings were built by the forum (Marsden 1987, 145), whilst reclamation dumps on the south bank included wall-plaster from a richly decorated building demolished c. a.d. 80 (Winchester Palace 1983–90: Yule 2005, 19, 83, 113). Another important building, marked by substantial earth-foundations and a high density of military finds, was built in Southwark on a site later supposed to have housed a mansio (Cowan 1992, 14). On the north bank gold-working at the confluence of the Walbrook and the Thames may have marked another late Neronian official building (Governor’s House 1994–7: Brigham and Woodger 2001, 45–6). It is possible that activities displaced by the construction of the fort had been relocated here, pioneering the development of the Thames waterfront for public architecture. Evidence of urban renewal within residential districts is more limited. Where rebuilding took place it usually did so within boundaries established in the 50s, showing that London had the institutional capacity to record and regulate property ownership. Building density was, however, reduced and artefacts from after the revolt are generally more utilitarian, with fewer imports (Rayner 2009, 46). The town may also have occupied a smaller area than before. A small cremation cemetery found at Leadenhall Court, of the late 50s or early 60s (Milne 1992, 11), might indicate that the town’s northern boundary had been moved inside the line of the earlier defensive circuit at Bishopsgate. Flavian town planning (fig. 4) A major programme of urban redevelopment took place in the early 70s presumably kickstarted by the arrival of Vespasian’s governor, Petillius Cerialis (Shotter 2004, 1). Once again construction work can be seen as the product of political strategy, directed by an active imperial administration working to an expansionary policy emanating from Rome. Planned improvements included an extension of the street grid, the construction of a new town boundary, and the monumentalisation of the earlier public landscape. Work on the civic infrastructure was most intense in the period a.d. 72–74, with contemporary investment directed towards buildings associated with administration, such as the mansio and amphitheatre. An enclosed forum and basilica was built in the town centre, providing facilities suitable for town government (Marsden 1987), and the port was enlarged with massive new timber quays in an ongoing programme that started soon after a.d. 70 (Milne 1985). The city expanded beyond its original limits in all directions. Early Flavian streets were laid over the line of the outer ditches of the Claudian enclosure in an extension of the street grid that maintained the order and

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fig. 4. Roman London c. a.d. 75.

proportions of the former town (7–11 Bishopsgate 1995: Sankey 2002; Walbrook House 2006– 7: Blair 2010). A massive late first-century ditch probably marked the pomerium of this enlarged town and was perhaps part of a new defensive circuit (Baltic House 1995–6: Howe 2002; Wilson 2006a, 15–17; Cooper’s Row 1999–2004: Hunt 2010, 50), whilst a palisaded stockade built to the north in the early 70s may have been associated with military activities, anticipating later developments in this area (Drapers’ Gardens 2007: Butler and Ridgeway 2009), culminating in the construction of the Cripplegate fort (see further below). The western suburb was now subsumed within the town, where new roads laid a.d. 73–78 established a more ordered street grid within the inherited Neronian layout (Roads 3 and 4 at 1 Poultry 1994–6: Hill and Rowsome 2011, fig. 82; 10 Gresham Street 2001: Bateman et al. 2008, 116–17). This area may also have been enclosed by a formal town boundary, as suggested by burial distributions and a late firstcentury Roman boundary ditch south of the Cripplegate fort (Wood Street 1997: Howe and Lakin 2004, 18–20). London’s amphitheatre was built in a.d. 74 on the northern margin of the enlarged town

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(Bateman et al. 2008). This monument was set next to the supposed early sanctuary west of the Walbrook, where a masonry Romano-Celtic temple was built in the late first century (30 Gresham Street 2001: Bateman et al. 2008, 116). The timber amphitheatre could have been an important destination for ceremonial processions, adding to the significance of this area in civic life (Laurence et al. 2011, 267–82). It also served the nearby military community, whose needs may have encouraged the construction of the Huggin Hill baths to the south (Rowsome 1999). These baths added emphasis to the monumental character of the Thames waterfront. From this period the riverfront was given greater architectural prominence than other ceremonial and civic locations, and the most important views of London were obtained on crossing the river from the south bank. The bridging of the river was itself a symbol of the Roman ordering of space, uniting pre-Roman territories under imperial authority. Flavian renewal is also evident in Southwark. The waterfront was reorganised starting in a.d. 72, probably in a series of smaller ventures in contrast to the larger civic projects on the north bank (51–3 Southwark Street 1996: Killock 2005, 31). Such works paved the way for the construction of a large courtyard building presumed to have been a Roman mansio in a.d. 74 (Cowan 1992, 32–4). These building operations fell within the immediate hinterland of the palatial complex at Winchester Palace, and the development of north-west Southwark may have been framed by the needs of the military administration, perhaps also responsible for nearby metalworking (Hammer 2003). Development along the main road to London Bridge was more typically suburban, where crowded shops and workshops may have included a market hall or macellum (96 Borough High Street 1991–8: Drummond-Murray et al. 2002, 59). The earliest architectural embellishment of the ritual landscape on London’s southern border may also date to the late first century, when a colonnade appears to have been built around an open shrine here (Trinity Street 2009: Killock 2010). The initial spurt of public building works of the early 70s, was followed by a second phase of public construction a.d. 84–90, when the port was further enlarged and London Bridge rebuilt (Brigham and Woodger 2001; Brigham 2001b; Milne 1996). The supposed palace sites north and south of the river were enlarged at this time, and a remodelling of the amphitheatre is dated shortly after a.d. 90 (Yule 2005, 32–41; Brigham and Woodger 2001, 19; Bateman et al. 2008). This chronology suggests that public investment in London continued throughout the Flavian period, although the governor Agricola had less of an impact on the architecture of London than his predecessor and successor in office. A shift can be described from an early interest in extending urban infrastructure a.d. 72–74, to a greater concern for the amenities of urban living a.d. 84–90. Hadrianic town-planning (fig. 5) London’s next phase of urban transformation dates to the 120s, apparently stemming from another planned exercise in extending the city and improving its public architecture. These works, unparalleled in scale and ambition in the history of the Roman town, are sometimes assumed to have followed Hadrian’s visit to Britain in a.d. 122 marking London’s elevation to the rank of colonia (Tomlin 2006). During this period the city was given a massive new forum requiring local adjustments to the surrounding street plan (Milne 1992), whilst the amphitheatre was remodelled in stone giving it increased capacity and greater monumental impact (Bateman et al. 2008). Likewise the south bank palace was extensively rebuilt in the 120s (Yule 2005). At about this time a colonnade was erected to create a covered walkway along the approach road to London bridge (96 Borough High Street 1991–8: Drummond-Murray et al. 2002, 96– 107), giving monumental emphasis to London’s main arterial road. A Romano-Celtic temple and adjacent bath-house were built close behind this road in the early second century (11–15 Borough High Street 2011; 25 London Bridge Street 2010–11, pers. comm. C. Constable), where a statue base dedicated to Silvanus was amongst the finds (Tomlin 2012, 395). The city expanded beyond its previous limits, at least to the north, and the ditch that marked the Flavian town boundary was levelled, probably leaving the city undefended until the end of the century. New streets and houses were built on reclaimed land in the upper Walbrook

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ro

industry

alb

t

pottery kilns

W

Flee

fort

ok

N

amphitheatre mill

baths

Temple

temples

forum

mill baths

?palace

temple(s)

port

warehouses ?shrine

?palace

industry

?mansio

baths and temple

?sacred area 0

200m

Fig. 5

fig. 5. Roman London c. a.d. 125.

valley which became an important area for industrial production. Potters here produced Verulamium region whitewares, primarily for local use (Seeley and Drummond-Murray 2005), whilst London’s glass-makers relocated to the district in the mid-second century (Perez-Sala and Shepherd 2008). As previously, areas of industrial production were located on the fringes of the town and prone to relocation as boundaries shifted. The alignment of the new streets suggests that they were laid out in association with the building of the masonry Cripplegate fort. Recent excavations within this fort have established that it was built from new c. a.d. 120, in an under-developed area north-west of the town (Howe and Lakin 2004; Shepherd 2012). It was probably garrisoned by both legionaries and auxiliary troops, including cavalry, detached from units to serve with the governor. Officers’ quarters were conspicuously absent, and senior ranks were probably quartered elsewhere in the town, perhaps south of the Cheapside baths. Urban garrisons were an extreme rarity in the Roman Empire and the London fort reflects the exceptional importance of London to the military government of Britain. Several hundred Roman skulls, predominantly of young males, have also been found in the

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upper Walbrook valley. Some may have washed out from inhumation cemeteries north of the city (Finsbury Circus 1987–2007: Harward et al. 2014) but others were deliberately deposited in streams, ditches, wells and pits, ranging from Neronian to Antonine in date (Perring 2011, 258). Recent studies show that some had suffered a disproportionate range of injuries before death, with evidence also for decapitation (52–63 London Wall 1989–90: Redfern and Bonney 2014), whilst body parts were sometimes left exposed before ritual disposal (Moor House 1998–2004, Butler 2006). This evidence suggests that the skulls were trophy heads taken from the victims of military justice (Fields 2005). They were found on the north-western margins of the town (a location frequently considered the most mortal), close to the fort and amphitheatre where justice may have been administered, and within the likely range of the city pomerium: an area favoured for the execution and burial of criminals (Campbell 2000, 44–5, 69–70). The main period of deposition coincided with the occupation of the fort where speculatores (military policemen), whose duties included the execution of criminals, were probably based (RIB 19; Hassall 1996). The distribution of these burials suggests that the upper Walbrook valley remained extra-urban until the end of the second century, despite the new streets laid out there. On which basis it seems likely that the formal town boundary continued to follow the line of the now defunct Flavian defences, although an extended pomerium may have been marked by boundary ditches set beneath the line of the second-century town wall (Wilson 2006a, 15–17). This suburban industrial quarter in the upper Walbrook valley was perhaps connected as much to the fort as the city. Roman London was at its most vital at this time, reaching an estimated population of 26,000 (Swain and Williams 2008). The institutions of provincial administration continued to play a dominant role within the urban community, as indicated by a range of tombstones and dedications that refer to government officials. A recent illustration is found in a writing-tablet describing the purchase of a Gallic slave-girl by Vegetus, himself an assistant slave of a slave of the emperor (1 Poultry 1994: Tomlin 2003). Imperial slaves would have staffed the procurator’s office, and their control of estates and taxes put them close to the pinnacle of power. The importance of such functionaries may have robbed oxygen from alternative patronage networks, contributing to a lack of civic euergetism in Britain. These circumstances left ample space, however, for London’s shopkeepers and craftsmen to advance their social standing, as evidenced by the range of reception facilities found in houses of this period. London’s privileged access to provincial wealth called into being a wide range of industries drawing on imported ideas and technologies. Milling and baking offers an example, with bakehouses associated with donkey-mills located within the town centre, and water-mills placed along the lower reaches of the rivers Fleet and Walbrook (Fleet Valley 1990: Milne 1995, 64; Bucklersbury House 2010–12: Watson 2012, 255). Antonine change The established orthodoxy that London witnessed a massive contraction c. a.d. 160/170 has been questioned, but remains tenable (Perring 2011, 269). Whilst some recent excavations show continuous sequences of timber and masonry buildings from the second to fourth centuries (e.g. 1 Poultry 1994–6: Hill and Rowsome 2011, 365–7; 71 Fenchurch Street 1996–7: Bluer et al. 2006), others confirm a picture of reduced occupation density, especially west of the Walbrook and on the Southwark waterfront (e.g. Paternoster Square 2000–1: Watson and Heard 2006, 55; Newgate 1992–2001: Lyon 2007, 45). Urban wastelands started to form in response to reduced building density, and studies of ‘dark earth’ confirm that this represented disused open land where soil formed as a result of bioturbation, accretion and dumping (e.g. Cowan and Seeley 2009). Rubbish disposal following mid-second-century abandonment shows an increased dog population in some peripheral areas, perhaps from culls of feral animals (Reilly 2006). The late second century may also have seen the abandonment of the Cripplegate fort (Howe and Lakin 2004, 25) and associated areas of housing, contributing to the disuse of the Huggin Hill baths. The departure of troops stationed in north-west London might account for a decline in the deposition of trophy heads in the upper Walbrook, before the subsequent construction of the town wall expelled such practices entirely.

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An unexpected feature of the period of contraction was the building of several new temples. A precinct containing two Romano-Celtic temples was built at the southern entrance to Southwark a.d. 160–180 (Tabard Square 2002–3: Durrani 2004). This contained a dedication to Mars Camulus by Tiberinius Celerianus, a citizen of the Bellovaci (Beauvais) and official (moritix) of Londoners involved in trade with Gaul (Grew 2008). Mars, as the guardian of place, was a fitting deity for the location. Another Romano-Celtic temple was built south of the amphitheatre in the late second or early third century (54–66 Gresham Street 2007: Bateman et al. 2008, 118). A temple precinct may also have been built on the banks of the Thames west of the demolished Huggin Hill baths, where a timber felled c. a.d. 165 was used in foundations of a riverside ambulatory (Salvation Army HQ 2001–3: Bradley and Butler 2008). An octagonal temple of this date may have been built outside the west entrance to the city, overlooking the river Fleet (Perring 1991, 81–2). These new buildings gave emphasis to the sacred, and might additionally have established monumental locations along processional routes through London (Perring 2011, 275–7), offering a context for the building of arches or monuments alongside the main north and west roads at Newgate and Bishopsgate (Pitt 2006; Frere 1991, 265). The speed and severity of London’s Antonine contraction may have been influenced by the plague of Galens c. a.d. 165, which is known to have prompted prophylactic investment in religious architecture elsewhere in the Empire (Perring 2011, 279). Fear of this plague is expressed in an inscribed verse found on the Thames foreshore in 1989 (Tomlin 2013, 390), and might also account for the emergence of a cult of Apollo in second-century London (Merrifield 1996). Whatever the cause London a.d. 160–180 was a city in retreat, with a shrinking economy as well as a shrinking population: reflected in the cessation of local pottery production (Symonds and Tomber 1991). Apart from some local waterfront revetments of the late 180s (e.g. Cannon Street Station 1987–9: Brigham 1990b, 136–8; Tyers 2008, 72), London’s public infrastructure was neglected until the end of the century, reflecting as much on the lack of imperial interest in Britain as on any exhaustion of urban resources. The increased availability of space encouraged the consolidation of land-holdings into larger properties, facilitating the construction of grander town-houses (Hill and Rowsome 2011, 367–9). High-status buildings, perhaps suburban villas and rural sanctuaries, were also built in the environs of London in the course of the second century (e.g. Thorney Island, Westminster: Thomas 2008, 105). These improvements to the domestic architecture occurred over several generations, but the late second century saw a significant shift in the way in which status was defined and displayed. Despite the reduced building density, it is important to note that the late secondcentury city covered a much larger area than Neronian London, retaining an infrastructure of streets and buildings inherited from the Hadrianic town. This new urban landscape may have been less evidently dominated by the army, especially after the evacuation of the Cripplegate fort, creating political space for wealthy townsfolk. These circumstances perhaps favoured the rise of immigrant merchants, such as Celerianus, although the architecture of later Roman London continued to benefit from the patronage of government officials (Hassall 1980, 195–8). Severan restoration (fig. 6) London witnessed another major programme of public building at the close of the second century. There is a strong case for seeing this as a consequence of Severan patronage following the defeat of Clodius Albinus, the governor of Britain whose claim to purple ended in death at Lyon in February a.d. 197. It can be no coincidence work started on building new waterfront quays in a.d. 197 (Upper Thames Street 1995: Esmonde Cleary 1996, 424), making the restoration of the port of London one of the first acts in Severus’ settlement of affairs in Britain (Herodian 3.8.1). Further alterations to the port continued into the third century, as part of what Brigham has described as a ‘concerted programme of reconstruction on an unprecedented scale’, with the eastern quays dated to within the period a.d. 209–224 (Brigham 1990b, 138). This would fit a chronology of investment contemporary with the Severan military campaigns in Britain a.d. 208–211. This is also the period when London gained its city wall. Sheldon (2010) has recently challenged

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broo

k

34

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roadside monument

N

industry

?temple

amphitheatre temples

forum ?public buildings temple(s) ?palace

?nymphaeum port

warehouses ?shrine

?palace baths and temple industry

0

200m

?mansio

colonade

temples

Fig. 6

fig. 6. Roman London c. a.d. 225.

the accepted dating of a.d. 190–230 (Marsden 1980, 125–6), preferring a much later thirdcentury date, but his argument does not withstand scrutiny. Results from several unpublished excavations confirm a broadly Severan date for the wall. This is best illustrated by a series of third-century votive and funerary deposits, consistently using vessels dated earlier than a.d. 230, that were placed within the city ditch that accompanied the new masonry town wall (85 London Wall). Whilst we cannot be certain that work on the wall and waterfront were contemporary, it seems likely that these were complementary aspects of a single exercise in giving monumental emphasis to a closely controlled town boundary. The early third-century rebuilding of London included several public buildings along the Thames waterfront, the visual impact of which may have been intended to rival that of the town wall, offering an equivalent declaration of urban status. New works, identified from recent excavations, included additions to the temple precinct in the south-west quarter dated a.d. 205– 233 (Salvation Army HQ 2001–3: Bradley and Butler 2008), and a monumental building terraced into the hillside downstream of London Bridge a.d. 176–221 (Monument House 1998: Blair and

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Sankey 2007). A massive drainage culvert testifies to the importance of running water in the architecture of this building, whilst the pottery assemblage includes vessels frequently associated with ritual use. One possibility is that public buildings here incorporated a nymphaeum: a monument type favoured in Severan patronage (Lusnia 2004). A richly decorated bath-house was also added behind the Hadrianic palace on the south bank at this time, using techniques and materials normally associated with military or official establishments (Yule 2005, 67–72). The topography of the Severan city was in large part inherited, but the new walls and waterfront buildings re-asserted a dominant Roman identity as London was restored to prominence in the exercise of Roman power in Britain. The next major building works took place outside the walled city, at Shadwell, 1 km downstream. The settlement here incorporated a tower-like structure and a large bath-house. The baths were probably built in a.d. 228, the date of a feature apparently associated with the primary water supply (Tobacco Dock 2002: Douglas et al. 2011, 15). Whilst the pottery assemblages hint at an official connection, the absence of military objects is equally notable. Gerrard favours seeing this as a nucleated settlement under élite control, perhaps involving immigrant settlement (Gerrard 2011a, 168–70). There are, however, parallels with earlier arrangements in London, when baths may have been attached to the suburban residences of senior officials. A reorganisation of Britain’s coastal commands, contemporary with the division of Britain into two provinces and implicit in works on sites of the ‘Saxon Shore’ and the evacuation of the Classis Britannica base at Dover, might have occasioned the building of a new administrative palace at Shadwell, along with housing and facilities for a related entourage. This speculative argument assumes that a high-status residence awaits discovery elsewhere at Shadwell. Later Roman change (figs 7–8) New quays were built in parts of Southwark down to a.d. 241 (Wheeler 2009, 76; Perring and Brigham 2000, 133), at which approximate time temples were being built and restored in London (Shepherd 1998; Hassall 1980, 195–8). The period after c. a.d. 250 was, however, one of greatly diminished public building. This was not simply a case of neglect, but the consequence of planned redundancy. This was most evident in the deliberate destruction of London’s port, where quays and landing-stages were deliberately reduced to their foundations c. a.d. 240–270 (Brigham 1990b, 139; Perring and Brigham 2000, 133). The forum basilica was also dismantled in the late third century (Brigham 1990a, 81), whilst the supposed mansio in Southwark had been demolished by the early fourth century (Cowan 1992, 53). The baths attached to the south-bank palace were also redundant in the late third century and demolished after a.d. 287 (Yule 2005, 85). We cannot prove that these different redundancies were contemporary, but the evidence suggests a co-ordinated exercise in decommissioning facilities associated with provincial and civic administration in a decided reversal of the Severan vision for London. This relegation of London appears both ideological and political, presumably consequent on new institutional arrangements that demanded the redundancy of earlier centres of command and supply: London was no longer required as a subordinate centre of imperial power whilst being denied the means to become a rival one. The creation of the Imperium Galliarum, following Postumus’ rebellion of a.d. 259, suggests a political context for these changes that ended London’s privileged relationship with Imperial Rome (Fulford 2008a). From this date onwards public expenditure in London was largely restricted to the city walls, involving the construction of a riverside wall a.d. 268–75, the addition of bastions to the eastern circuit a.d. 351–75, and local modifications to the riverside wall in the 390s (Perring 1991, 124– 7). Each of these defensive refurbishments can tentatively be associated with imperial campaigns in Britain, but none suggests a major investment in making London a permanent site for the exercise of imperial authority. A notable exception to this pattern of architectural patronage occurred in a.d. 294, during the reign of the British claimant Allectus, when construction work started on two large classical temple podia facing the Thames (now better understood through work at the Salvation Army HQ 2001–3: Bradley and Butler 2008). This curious project was never raised above its foundations, but the classical nature of this addition to the monumental

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N

Flee t burials bastions burials

burial(s)

industry

industry tower basilica riverside wall ?ferry

burials burials

0

burials

200m

Fig. 7

fig. 7. Roman London c. a.d. 375.

Severan waterfront suggests an archaising attempt to restore the city to its earlier glory. This presumption, much in keeping with what is known of the ideological ambitions of Carausius and his successor from their coinage, did not outlast Allectus’ brief reign. Here and elsewhere the sites of redundant public buildings were converted to industrial use (Rogers 2011, 78–9). The placing of workshops on public land, from which building materials had been systematically salvaged, would appear to have been a deliberate and widely applied policy. Whether this was a product of commercial decisions aimed at generating rental income, or an expansion of state-controlled production, is unknown. The outcome was a transformation of civic space, in which previously marginal activities were drawn into central locations. It seems likely that this illustrated the diminished importance of centrality as a concept in urban landscapes, rather than any increase in the status of craft production. What persists, however, is the impression that industry preferred lands most likely to have been state controlled. The sites made redundant in the third century were those associated with government, and although power was differently configured, other aspects of ceremonial life may have shown

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N Ermine Street

Lea

Old Ford

t ee

Fl

W g lin at e re St t

Bishopsgate t es

W ne

ur

bo

St. Brides Shadwell

St. Martin-in-the-fields

Thorney Island

Bermondsey

Thames

Greenwich Dartford 0

2km

Fig. 8

fig. 8. Roman London and environs c. a.d. 375.

greater resilience. Such continuities might account for the retention of an apse within the forum basilica, perhaps saved from destruction as a setting for civic ritual (Brigham 1990a, 79). By the middle of the fourth century, however, most former processional uses of urban space must have ceased. It has also been argued that the bridge over the Thames was no longer standing c. a.d. 330, severing road communications between north and south of the river (Rhodes 1991, 190). Some lesser streets within the walled area fell out of use in the late fourth century (Hill and Rowsome 2011, 447). Similarly the amphitheatre, such an important site in the earlier life of the town, was abandoned by the mid-fourth century (Bateman et al. 2008). The armature of public spaces and buildings that dominated the Hadrianic and Severan city had lost social importance, and life refocused around private houses, perhaps providing a context for the construction of a large fourth-century tower in the south-east quarter of the town (Plantation Place 1999–2003: Fitzpatrick 2001, 365). Outside of the domestic arena Roman urban ideologies were now almost uniquely symbolised by the city walls, with little role for other forms of public architecture. A significant exception to this was represented by a large basilica built on the eastern margins of the town after c. a.d. 350, on a site where the coin-loss profile and earlier pottery assemblages imply cult use (Colchester House 1995: Sankey 1998; Gerrard 2011b; Gerrard 2010, 87). The location of this building, in an area that was suburban prior to the building of the town wall, is consistent with wider fourth-century trends in the establishment of cathedrals: usually located pragmatically on the borders of settlements but within the town walls (Cantino Wataghin 1999, 156). The Christianisation of urban space might also have contributed to changes in burial locations in the period a.d. 350–400. Several small cemeteries of the second half of the fourth century were located amidst the ruins of high-status buildings, particularly in Southwark (Cowan 2003, 70–3; Booth 2013, 332). This also occurred on some intramural sites west of the Walbrook, including a small cemetery dated after a.d. 365 within the redundant amphitheatre (Bateman

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et al. 2008, 91). A contemporary decapitated burial found within a roadside culvert next to a precinct on the Walbrook crossing may be an outlier from another such cemetery (1 Poultry 1994–6: Hill and Rowsome 2011, 248). Here too the evidence from London is consistent with wider trends of the period. Rules excluding burial from the city were giving way to a closer relationship between the living and the dead, influenced by Christian practice (Galinié and Zadora-Rio 1996). Whilst the changes in London were comparatively early, there are parallels from Gaul and Italy: for example a small intramural palaeo-Christian cemetery in Poitiers dates to the late fourth century (Le Masne de Chermont 1987). Intramural cemeteries remained a rarity, but cemetery encroachment into suburban areas was a more widespread phenomenon. It is possible that the area west of the Walbrook was no longer considered urban by the second half of the fourth century, as perhaps also indicated by the fact that bastions were only added to the eastern part of London’s walled circuit. Another late fourth-century development involved the rise to prominence of suburban sites. Several important satellite sites were located within walking distance of the walled city, but outside the zone occupied by London’s penumbra of burial grounds. These present some of the best evidence for continuity into the fifth century (St Martin-in-the-Fields 2006: Booth 2007, 294; 274–306 Bishopsgate, Lant Street and Bermondsey Abbey: Gerrard 2011b, 190). Some may have been residential sites, including suburban palaces as is suggested at Shadwell, but others may have incorporated holy sites: burial places of saints and martyrs that became destinations for religious ceremony and hence retained importance into the fifth century. This hypothesis, for which we lack direct evidence, is based on what was happening elsewhere in the Western Empire (Cantino Wataghin 1999). Roman London was denied the opportunity to develop a Christian architecture of the sort known from the cities of Roman Gaul by the collapse of the Roman administration at the beginning of the fifth century, but the evidence summarised here may illustrate an early stage in the transition from Roman to Christian topographies. In this case the emergence of Christian spaces, drawn to previously peripheral locations, took place after earlier architectures were redundant: filling a civic void rather than offering a competing vision of urban space. Study of the end of Roman London is complicated by the paucity of dendrochronological dating, a product of the lack of public constructions using imported timber and itself a notable feature (Tyers 2008), and changes in rubbish disposal as middens replaced pits. Distributions of late pottery and coin assemblages confirm, however, that whilst much of intramural London was still occupied in the closing years of the fourth century, it was abandoned in the course of the fifth century (Symonds and Tomber 1991; Gerrard 2011b). The process of abandonment, underway in the late fourth century, was sometimes abrupt, as implied by finds assemblages associated with building disuse (1 Poultry 1994–6: Hill and Rowsome 2011, 447). In other cases it may have been accompanied by communal acts of departure involving the sacrifice and votive burial of prestigious objects (Drapers’ Gardens 2007: Gerrard 2009, 180). These individual closures accompanied the staged withdrawal of Roman forces and eventual abdication of the Roman administration, and are perhaps better described as the product of evacuation rather than decline. Conclusions This condensed account presents a partial and conjectural reading of Roman London’s architectural history, showing how the topography of the city can be read as the product of episodes of town-planning directed by the Roman administration. In every case changes to the town were integrated with earlier landscapes, generating new visions of London that reflected contemporary political and urban ideologies whilst recognising (if sometimes rejecting) established values. This political narrative is a necessary starting place if we are to use the evidence of the urban environment to understand how London was conceived and experienced. It is clear, however, that other forces were at work in the shaping of London, and a more nuanced reading of the evidence would give greater weight to the ways in which individual lives and identities came to be expressed within this colonial and political (and perhaps finally Christian) landscape.

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The story presented here is based almost entirely on the evidence of developer-funded archaeology, which has transformed our understanding of Roman London. The precise chronologies and detailed topographies described here build from intensive, carefully managed and properly funded research. The bibliography attached to this essay, which only touches on the available literature, gives some indication of the large body of recent scholarship based on this work. Arguments presented here concerning the military origins of the site, the layout and chronology of the planned urban core, the early construction of suburban palaces and baths, the evidence of late Neronian military engineering, the evolution of ritual and ceremonial architectures, the extent of Severan renewal, the importance of late antique satellite sites, and the identification of a possible Christian topography, all depend on these new data. We can now offer a far more ambitious and nuanced description of urban change than was possible 25 years ago (as Perring 1991). Future research will benefit from the exceptionally high standards of publication achieved in London, and the planning authorities deserve enormous credit for making sure that this work is properly resourced and considered integral to the conservation agenda promoted by PPG16. There are, of course, problems still to be addressed. Too many sites remain unpublished, and more of this summary derives from interim reports than is comfortable. Excavations undertaken in the late 1980s and early 1990s are particularly poorly represented in the published sources, whilst there is a considerable time-lag between excavation and publication. As a consequence nearly two-thirds of the important excavations of Roman London undertaken in the course of the last quarter century have yet to be published in full. Much of this unpublished material can be consulted through the LAARC, and has successfully been used as the basis for important doctoral research (as Monteil 2005 and Wallace 2010), but the complexity and relative inaccessibility of the data means that it is an under-used resource. There is also a long-standing complaint that the research agenda in London has failed to advance because studies are ‘tram-lined into similar approaches to the same general questions’ (Millett 1996, 33; Esmonde-Cleary 1999). This is a product of funding arrangements, as much as any failure of invention. Research in London will continue to benefit from rescue opportunities that excite new generations of archaeologists, but the most interesting data are already in our hands. London has rich databases of coherently and consistently described finds, the full potential of which has yet to be realised. Much of these data remain comparatively inaccessible and there are some serious gaps in knowledge (most notably the absence of a full coin list from the Roman city). New work is needed but nowhere is the potential of multi-variate spatial analysis greater, and nowhere do we have a better framework for asking ambitious questions of differences in patterns of consumption and display. This paper is offered as a contribution to the refinement of that framework. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This paper draws on the work of countless colleagues and my debts are legion. For reasons of space it is not possible to give due credit to all, but this paper draws directly on contributions by Ian Blair, Gary Brown, Jay Carver, Chris Constable, Mike Fulford, Jenny Hall, Chiz Harward, Neil Holbrook, Cath Maloney, Martin Pitts, Louise Rayner, Becky Redfearn, Vicki Ridgeway, Kathryn Stubbs, Robin WroeBrown and Tim Williams. My thanks go to all, and particularly to Justin Russel for patiently preparing the excellent illustrations against my ever-changing instructions.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Bateman, N., Cowan, C. and Wroe-Brown, R. (eds) 2008: London’s Roman Amphitheatre: GuildhallYard, City of London, MoLAS Monograph 35, London Bayley, J., Croxford, B., Henig, M. and Watson, B. 2009: ‘A gilt-bronze arm from London’, Britannia 40, 151–62 Beasley, M. 2006: ‘Roman boundaries, roads and ritual. Excavations at the Old Sorting Office, Swan Street, Southwark’, Transactions of the London and Middlesex Archaeological Society 57, 23–68 Becker, A. 2003: ‘Lahnau-Waldgrimes: eine augusteische Stadtgründung in Hessen’, Historia 52, 337–50

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Bird, J., Hassall, M. and Sheldon, H. 1996: Interpreting Roman London. Papers in Memory of Hugh Chapman, Oxbow Monograph 58, Oxford Blair, I. 2010: ‘The Walbrook. St Swithin’s House, Walbrook House and Granite House, London EC4, City of London’, unpub. MoLA post-excavation assessment Blair, I. and Sankey, D. 2007: A Roman Drainage Culvert, Great Fire Destruction Debris and other Evidence from Hillside Sites North-east of London Bridge: Excavations at Monument House and 13–21 Eastcheap, City of London, MoLAS Archaeology Studies Series 17, London Blair, I., Spain, R., Swift, D., Taylor, T. and Goodburn, D. 2006: ‘Wells and bucket-chains: unforeseen elements of water supply in early Roman London’, Britannia 37, 1–52 Bluer, R., Brigham, T. and Nielson, R. 2006: Roman and Later Development East of the Forum and Cornhill: Excavations at Lloyd’s Register, 71 Fenchurch Street, City of London, MoLAS Monograph 30, London Booth, P. 2007: ‘Roman Britain in 2006. I. Sites explored. 7. Greater London’, Britannia 38, 286–94 Booth, P. 2008: ‘Roman Britain in 2007. I. Sites explored. 7. Greater London’, Britannia 39, 315–24 Booth, P. 2013: ‘Roman Britain in 2012. I. Sites explored. 7. Greater London’, Britannia 44, 324–33 Bradley, T. and Butler, J. 2008: From Temples to Thames Street – 2000 Years of Riverside Development; Archaeological Excavations at the Salvation Army International Headquarters, PCA Monograph 7, London Brigham, T. 1990a: ‘A reassessment of the second basilica in London a.d. 100–400: excavations at Leadenhall Court, 1984–86’, Britannia 21, 53–98 Brigham, T. 1990b: ‘The late Roman waterfront in London’, Britannia 21, 99–184 Brigham, T. 1998: ‘The port of Roman London’, in Watson 1998, 23–34 Brigham, T. 2001a: ‘Excavations at Plantation Place, London’, Bulletin of the Association for Roman Archaeology 10, 2–10 Brigham, T. 2001b: ‘Roman London Bridge’, in B. Watson, T. Brigham and T. Dyson (eds), London Bridge, 2000 Years of a River Crossing, MOLAS Monograph 8, London, 28–51 Brigham, T. and Woodger, A. 2001: Roman and Medieval Townhouses on the London Waterfront: Excavations at Governor’s House, City of London, MoLAS Monograph 9, London Butler, J. 2006: Reclaiming the Marsh — Archaeological Excavations at Moor House, City of London, PCA Monograph 6, London Butler, J. and Ridgeway, V. 2009: Secrets of the Gardens: Archaeologists Unearth the Lives of Roman Londoners at Drapers’ Gardens, London, London Campbell, B. 2000: TheWritings of the Roman Land Surveyors: Introduction,Text,Translation and Commentary, Journal of Roman Studies Monograph 9, London Cantino Wataghin, G. 1999: ‘The ideology of urban burials’, in G.P. Brogiolo and B. Ward-Perkins, The Idea and Ideal of the Town between Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, Leiden, 147–63 Casson, L., Drummond-Murray, J. and Francis, A. 2014: Excavations at 10 Gresham Street, City of London, MoLA Monograph 67, London Clark, J., Cotton, J., Hall, J., Sherris, R. and Swain, H. (eds) 2008: Londinium and Beyond: Essays on Roman London and its Hinterland for Harvey Sheldon, Council for British Archaeology Research Report 156, York Coates, R. 1998: ‘A new explanation of the name of London’, Transactions of the Philological Society 96.2, 203–29 Cowan, C. 1992: ‘A possible mansio in Roman Southwark: excavations at 15–23 Southwark Street 1980–6’, Transactions of the London and Middlesex Archaeological Society 43, 2–192 Cowan, C. 2003 Urban Development in North-West Roman Southwark: Excavations 1974–90, MoLAS Monograph 16, London Cowan, C. and Seeley, F. 2009: ‘Contraction and decline of the settlement’, in Cowan et al. 2009, 157–66 Cowan, C. and Wardle, A. 2009: ‘Economy’, in Cowan et al. 2009, 91–118 Cowan, C., Seeley, F., Wardle, A., Westman, A. and Wheeler, L. 2009: Roman Southwark Settlement and Economy: Excavations in Southwark 1973–91, MoLA Monograph 42, London Creighton, J. 2006: Britannia. The Creation of a Roman Province, Abingdon Crummy, N. with Pohl, C. 2008: ‘Small toilet instruments from London: a review of the evidence’, in Clark et al. 2008, 212–25 Crummy, P. 1997: City of Victory: the Story of Colchester – Britain’s First Roman Town, Colchester Davies, B., Richardson, B. and Tomber, R. 1994: The Archaeology of Roman London.Vol. 5: A Dated Corpus of Early Roman Pottery from the City of London, Council for British Archaeology Research Report 98, York Douglas, A., Gerrard, J. and Sudds, B. 2011: A Roman Settlement and Bath House at Shadwell: Excavations at Tobacco Dock and Babe Ruth’s Restaurant, The Highway, London, PCA Monograph 12, London

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Drummond-Murray, J. ,Thompson, P. with Cowan, C. 2002: Settlement in Roman Southwark: Archaeological Excavations (1991–8) for the London Underground Limited Jubilee Line Extension Project, MoLAS Monograph 12, London Dunwoodie, L. 2004: Pre-Boudican and Later Activity on the Site of the Forum: Excavations at 168 Fenchurch Street, City of London, MoLAS Archaeology Studies Series 13, London Durrani, N. 2004: ‘Tabard Square’, Current Archaeology 192, 540–7 Esmonde Cleary, A.S. 1996: ‘Roman Britain in 1995. I. Sites explored. England’, Britannia 27, 405–38 Esmonde Cleary, A.S. 1999: review of Interpreting Roman London and Roman London: Recent Archaeological Work, Britannia 30, 397–8 Fields, N. 2005: ‘Headhunters of the Roman army’, in A. Hopkins and M. Wyke (eds), Roman Bodies. Antiquity to the 18th Century, Rome, 55–66 Fitzpatrick, A.P. 2001: ‘Roman Britain in 2000. I. Sites explored. 7. Greater London’, Britannia 32, 364–8 Frere, S.S. 1967: Britannia: A History of Roman Britain, London Frere, S.S. 1983: Verulamium Excavations 2, Society of Antiquaries Research Report 41, London Frere, S.S. 1991: ‘Roman Britain in 1990. I. Sites explored’, Britannia, 221–92 Frere, S.S. and St Joseph, J.K. 1974: ‘The Roman fortress at Longthorpe’, Britannia 5, 1–129 Fulford, M. 2008a: ‘Imperium Galliarum, Imperium Britanniarum. Developing new ideologies and settling old scores: abandonments, demolitions and new building in south-east Britain, c AD 250–300’, in Clark et al. 2008, 41–5 Fulford, M. 2008b: ‘Nero and Britain: the palace of the client king at Calleva and imperial policy towards the province after Boudicca’, Britannia 39, 1–14 Galinié, H. and Zadora-Rio, E. (eds) 1996: Archéologie du cimetière chrétien, Revue Archéologique du Centre de la France Supplementary Series 11, Tours Gerrard, J. 2009: ‘The Drapers’ Gardens hoard: a preliminary account’, Britannia 40, 163–83 Gerrard, J. 2010: ‘Cathedral or granary? The Roman coins from Colchester House, City of London (PEP89)’, Transactions of the London and Middlesex Archaeological Society 61, 81–8 Gerrard, J. 2011a: ‘Discussion and conclusions’, in Douglas et al. 2011, 165–72 Gerrard, J. 2011b: ‘New light on the end of Roman London’, Archaeological Journal 168, 181‒94 Grahame, M. 1998: ‘Redefining Romanization: material culture and the question of social continuity in Roman Britain’, in C. Forcey, J. Hawthorne and R. Witcher (eds), TRAC 97. Proceedings of the Seventh Annual Theoretical Roman Archaeology Conference, Nottingham 1997, Oxford, 1–10 Grasby, R.D. and Tomlin, R.S.O. 2002: ‘The sepulchral monument of the procurator C. Julius Classicianus’, Britannia 33, 43–75 Grew, F. 2008: ‘Who was Mars Camulus?’ in Clark et al. 2008, 142–50 Hammer, F. 2003, Industry in North-West Roman Southwark: Excavations 1984–8, MoLAS Monograph 17, London Harries, J. 1992: ‘Christianity and the city in Late Roman Gaul’, in J. Rich (ed.), The City in Late Antiquity, London, 77–98 Harward, C., Powers, N., and Watson, S. 2014: The Upper Walbrook Cemetery of Roman London: Excavations at Finsbury Circus, City of London, 1987–2014, MOLA Archaeology Studies Series 32, London Hassall, M.W.C. 1980: ‘The inscribed altars’, in C. Hill, M. Millett and T. Blagg (eds), The Roman Riverside Wall and Monumental Arch in London: Excavations at Baynard’s Castle, Upper Thames Street, London 1974– 76, London and Middlesex Archaeological Society Special Paper 11, London, 195–8 Hassall, M.W.C. 1996: ‘London as a provincial capital’, in Bird et al. 1996, 19–26 Hassall, M.W.C. 2012: ‘The 2nd-century AD garrison of Londinium’, in Shepherd 2012, 158–63 Haverfield, F. 1911: ‘Roman London’, Journal of Roman Studies 1, 141–72 Hill, J. and Rowsome, P. 2011: Roman London and the Walbrook Stream Crossing: Excavations at 1 Poultry and Vicinity, City of London, MoLA Monograph 37, London Hill, J. and Woodger, A. 1999: Excavations at 72–75 Cheapside/83–93 Queen Street, City of London, MoLAS Archaeology Studies Series 2, London Howe, E. 2002: Roman Defences and Medieval Industry: Excavations at Baltic House, City of London, MoLAS Monograph 7, London Howe, E. and Lakin, D. 2004: Roman and Medieval Cripplegate, City of London: Excavations 1992–8, MoLAS Monograph 21, London Hunt, G. 2010: ‘Along the eastern defences: excavations at 8–14 Cooper’s Row and 1 America Square, City of London’, Transactions of the London and Middlesex Archaeological Society 61, 41–80 Killock, D. 2005: ‘Roman river bank use and changing water levels at 51–53 Southwark Street, Southwark, London’, Transactions of the London and Middlesex Archaeological Society 56, 27–44

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Killock, D. 2010: ‘An assessment of an archaeological excavation at 28–30 Trinity Street, London SE1, London Borough of Southwark’, unpub. PCA post-excavation assessment King, A.C. 1990: ‘The emergence of Romano-Celtic religion’, in T. Blagg and M. Millett (eds), The Early Roman Empire in the West, Oxford, 220–41 Laurence, R., Esmonde Cleary, S. and Sears, G. 2011: The City in the Roman West c. 250 BC–c. AD 250, Cambridge Le Masne de Chermont, N. 1987: ‘Les fouilles de l’ancien évêché de Poitiers (Vienne)’, Aquitania 5, 149–75 Lusnia, S.L. 2004: ‘Urban planning and sculptural display in Severan Rome: reconstructing the Septizodium and its role in dynastic politics’, American Journal of Archaeology 108, 517–44 Lyon, J. 2007: Within theseWalls: Roman and Medieval Defences North of Newgate at the Merrill Lynch Financial Centre, City of London, MoLAS Monograph 33, London Marsden, P. 1976: ‘Two Roman public baths in London’, Transactions of the London and Middlesex Archaeological Society 27, 2–70 Marsden, P. 1980: Roman London, London Marsden, P. 1987: The Roman Forum Site in London: Discoveries before 1985, London Merrifield, R. 1996: ‘The London hunter-god and his significance in the history of Londinium’, in Bird et al. 1996, 105–13 Millett, M. 1990: The Romanization of Britain, Cambridge Millett, M. 1994: ‘Evaluating Roman London’, Archaeological Journal 151, 427–35 Millett, M. 1996: ‘Characterizing Roman London’, in Bird et al. 1996, 33–8 Milne, G. 1985: The Port of Roman London, London Milne, G. 1992: From Roman Basilica to Medieval Market: Archaeology in Action in the City of London, London Milne, G. 1995: Roman London, London Milne, G. 1996: ‘A palace disproved: reassessing the provincial governor’s presence in 1st-century London’, in Bird et al. 1996, 49–55 Milne, G. and Wardle, A. 1993: ‘Early Roman development at Leadenhall Court, London and related research’, Transactions of the London and Middlesex Archaeological Society 44, 23–169 Monteil, G. 2004: ‘Samian and consumer choice in Roman London’, in B. Croxford, H. Eckardt, J. Meade and J. Weekes (eds), TRAC 2003: Proceedings of the Thirteenth Annual Theoretical Roman Archaeology Conference, Leicester 2003, Oxford, 1–15 Monteil, G. 2005: Samian in Roman London, unpub. PhD dissertation, University of London Monteil, G. 2008: ‘The distribution and use of samian inkwells in Londinium’, in Clark et al. 2008, 177–83 Neal, D.S. and Cosh, S.R. 2009: Roman Mosaics of Britain III: South East Britain Part 2, London Perez-Sala, M. and Shepherd, J. 2008: ‘The cullet dump and evidence of glass working’, in Bateman et al. 2008, 142–6 Perring, D. 1991: Roman London, London Perring, D. 2002: The Roman House in Britain, London Perring, D. 2011: ‘Two studies on Roman London: A. London’s military origins — B. Population decline and ritual landscapes in Antonine London’, Journal of Roman Archaeology 24.1, 249–82 Perring, D. and Brigham, T. 2000: ‘London and its hinterland: the Roman period’, in Museum of London, The Archaeology of Greater London, MoLAS Monograph, London, 119–70 Perring, D. and Pitts, M. 2013: Alien Cities: Consumption and the Origins of Urbanism in Roman Britain, Portslade Philp, B.J. 1977:‘The forum of Roman London’, Britannia 8, 1–64 Pitt, K. 2006: Roman and Medieval Development South of Newgate: Excavations at 3–9 Newgate Street and 16–17 Old Bailey, City of London, MoLAS Archaeology Studies Series 14, London Pitts, M. 2014: ‘Reconsidering Britain’s first urban communities’, Journal of Roman Archaeology 27, 133– 74 Price, S.R.F. 1984: Rituals and Power: The Roman Imperial Cult in Asia Minor, Cambridge Pringle, S. 2007: ‘London’s earliest Roman bath-houses?’, London Archaeologist 11.8, 205–9 Rayner, L. 2009: ‘Origins and earliest development of the settlement’, in Cowan et al. 2009, 38–52 Redfern, R. and Bonney, H. 2014: ‘Headhunting and amphitheatre combat in Roman London, England: new evidence from the Walbrook Valley’, Journal of Archaeological Science 43, 214–26 Rhodes, M. 1991: ‘The Roman coinage from Roman London Bridge and the development of the City and Southwark’, Britannia 22, 179–90 Reilly, K. 2006: ‘Animal bone’, in Watson and Heard 2006, 113–17 Rogers, A. 2011: Late Roman Towns in Britain: Rethinking Change and Decline, Cambridge Rogers, G. 1991: The Sacred Identity of Ephesos: Foundation Myths of a Roman City, London and New York

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Rowsome, P. 1999: ‘The Huggin Hill baths and bathing in London: barometer of the town’s changing circumstances?’, in J. Delaine and D.B. Johnston (eds), Roman Baths and Bathing: Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Roman Baths held at Bath, England, 30 March–4 April 1992, Journal of Roman Archaeology Supplementary Series 37, Portsmouth RI, 262–77 Sankey, D. 1998: ‘Cathedrals, granaries and urban vitality in late Roman London’, in Watson 1998, 78–82 Sankey, D. 2002: ‘Roman, medieval and later development at 7 Bishopsgate, London EC2: from a 1stcentury cellared building to the 17th-century properties of the Merchant Taylors’ Company’, Transactions of the London and Middlesex Archaeological Society 53, 1–24 Seeley, F. and Drummond-Murray, J. 2005: Roman Pottery Production in the Walbrook Valley: Excavations at 20–28 Moorgate, City of London, 1998–2000, MoLAS Monograph 25, London Sheldon, H. 2010: ‘Enclosing Londinium: the Roman landward and riverside walls’, Transactions of the London and Middlesex Archaeological Society 61, 227–35 Shepherd, J.D. 1998: The Temple of Mithras, London: Excavations byW. F. Grimes and A.Williams at theWalbrook, English Heritage Archaeological Report 12, London Shepherd, J. 2008: ‘Luxury colourless glass vessels in Flavian London’, in Clark et al. 2008, 239–50 Shepherd, J. 2012: The Discovery of the Roman Fort at Cripplegate, City of London. Excavations by W F Grimes 1947–68, London Shotter, D. 2004: ‘Vespasian, auctoritas and Britain’, Britannia 35, 1–8 Swain, H. and Williams, T. 2008: ‘The population of Roman London’ in Clark et al. 2008, 33–9 Swift, D. 2008: Roman Waterfront Development at 12 Arthur Street, City of London, MoLAS Archaeology Studies Series 19, London Symonds, R.P. 2003: ‘Romano-British amphorae’, Journal of Roman Pottery Studies 10, 50–9 Symonds, R.P. and Tomber, R.S. 1991: ‘Late Roman London: an assessment of the ceramic evidence from the City of London’, Transactions of the London and Middlesex Archaeological Society 42, 59–99 Thomas, C. 2008: ‘Roman Westminster: fact or fiction’, in Clark et al. 2008, 102–6 Thorp, A. 2010: ‘The Roman pottery’, in Blair 2010, 48–59 Tomlin, R.S.O. 2003, ‘“The girl in question”: a new text from Roman London’, Britannia 34, 41–51 Tomlin, R.S.O. 2006: ‘Was Roman London ever a colonia? The written evidence’, in Wilson 2006b, 49–64 Tomlin, R.S.O. 2012: ‘Roman Britain in 2011. III. Inscriptions’, Britannia 43, 395–421 Tomlin, R.S.O. 2013: ‘Roman Britain in 2012. III. Inscriptions’, Britannia 44, 381–96 Tyers, I. 2008: ‘A gazetteer of tree-ring dates from Roman London’, in Clark et al. 2006, 69–74 Wallace, L.M. 2010: From Foundation to Destruction. An Archaeology of Early Roman London to AD 61, unpub. PhD dissertation, University of Cambridge Wallace, L.M. 2013: ‘The foundation of Roman London: examining the Claudian fort hypothesis’, Oxford Journal of Archaeology 32.3, 275–91 Watson, B. (ed.) 1998: Roman London: Recent Archaeological Research, Journal of Roman Archaeology Supplementary Series 24, Portsmouth RI Watson, S. 2012: ‘New excavations at Bucklersbury House, City of London. 50th Annual Conference of London Archaeologists, 2013: summary of papers’, Transactions of the London and Middlesex Archaeological Society 63, 254–6 Watson, S. and Heard, K. 2006: Development on Roman London’s Western Hill: Excavations at Paternoster Square, City of London, MoLAS Monograph 32, London Webster, G. 1966: ‘Fort and town in early Roman Britain’, in J.S. Wacher (ed.), The Civitas Capitals of Roman Britain: Papers given at a Conference held at the University of Leicester, 13–15 December 1963, Leicester, 31–45 Wheeler, L. 2009: ‘Infrastructure: waterfronts, land reclamation, drainage and water supply’, in Cowan et al. 2009, 66–77 Wilson, R.J.A. 2006a: ‘Urban defences and civic status in early Roman Britain’, in Wilson 2006b, 1–47 Wilson, R.J.A. (ed.) 2006b: Romanitas: Essays on Roman Archaeology in Honour of Sheppard Frere on the Occasion of his Ninetieth Birthday, Oxford Yule, B. 2005: A Prestigious Roman Building Complex on the Southwark Waterfront: Excavations at Winchester Palace, London, 1983–90, MoLAS Archaeology Studies Series 23, London Yule, B. and Rankov, B. 1998: ‘Legionary soldiers in 3rd-c. Southwark’, in Watson 1998, 67–77

CHAPTER 4

Commercial Archaeology and the study of Roman York 1990–2013 By Patrick Ottaway

INTRODUCTION Roman York represents a combination unique in Britannia, in being the site of both a legionary fortress and a provincial capital (fig.1). Today, York is one of a number of historic towns and cities in Britain which also have a role as medium-sized, regional, urban centres. This means that York’s experience of commercial archaeology has been similar to that of many other English towns and it provides a good example of a case history for assessing what we have learnt about the towns of Roman Britain since 1990. York is located at a point where a ridge of high ground — the York moraine — is cut by the river Ouse, more or less at its former tidal head. The Ouse was navigable from the North Sea, c. 60 km distant, until the mid-eighteenth century. York sits on lacustrine clay and, close to the rivers, on alluvial deposits, but on the moraine there is boulder clay below sands and gravels (BGS 1983). Petillius Cerialis, legate of the Roman Ninth Legion, chose York as the site of a legionary fortress in about the year a.d. 71, probably for strategic purposes, at the beginning of the conquest of northern Britain. In addition to the fortress, located on the north-east bank of the Ouse, Roman York also included a civilian settlement, both north-east and south-west of the Ouse, which would assume an urban character by the mid-second century. South-west of the Ouse there were probably town defences on the line, at least in part, of the medieval walls (RCHMY1, 49). Outside the fortress and urban areas there were extensive cemeteries. Documented events relating to York include the death of the emperor Septimius Severus in a.d. 211 while campaigning in the North. In the reign of his son, Caracalla (a.d. 211–15),York became capital of the province of Britannia Inferior and probably acquired the honorific title of colonia at the same time. In the year a.d. 306 Emperor Constantius I died in York and, perhaps during the reign of his son Constantine, York probably became the headquarters of the Dux Britanniarum, commander of the Roman army in the North, as recorded in the Notitia Dignitatum. In addition, by the early fourth century York had become the seat of a bishop who attended the Council of Arles in a.d. 314. Within the medieval walls of York — the historic core — the archaeological resource is extremely rich. Ancient buildings include parts of the Roman legionary fortress defences and below ground there are up to 5 m of deposits and structural remains in many areas; those of the Roman period, because they are the most deeply buried, can be particularly well preserved from modern disturbance. Furthermore, a high water table, especially adjacent to the rivers, has allowed remarkable preservation of timber structures, artefacts in organic materials, and environmental material (bones, plant material, insects etc.). Outside the historic core, archaeological remains are less well preserved, not usually waterlogged, and not as deep. Close to the core there can be up to 2 m of deposits, but in most suburban areas remains often survive only as features cut into natural. Roman York has been a subject of research for at least 300 years, but the most recent overview (including reference to unpublished sites of the 1980s) is by the author of this paper (Ottaway 2004).

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fig. 1. Roman York and its environs, showing the principal settled areas, cemeteries, roads and streets. (Drawn by Lesley Collett of York Archaeological Trust)

Before 1990 archaeological research in York was funded by a mixture of the local authority, central government and, increasingly during the 1980s, commercial developers. Alongside the setting out of government policy on archaeology in PPG 16, the City of York adopted its own Conservation Policies forYork: Archaeology in 1992 and appointed an Archaeological Officer to put them into practice. Developers would now become the principal source of funding for archaeology in the city. At the same time, new contractors began to work in York; the York Archaeological Trust (hereafter YAT) no longer had the monopoly it had enjoyed since the early 1970s. This paper is a summary review of what has been learnt about Roman York as a result of work generated by the commercial, development-led process. This will focus on the historic core of York within its medieval city walls and on a peripheral zone, immediately beyond the core, up to c. 1.5 km from the city centre (fig. 2).

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YORK: THE STATE OF KNOWLEDGE c. 1990 The RCHME inventory volume Eburacum (1962; RCHMY1) presented an outline history of Roman York and catalogued its archaeological resource. This was based, first of all, on a limited number of excavations (largely in the legionary fortress), secondly, on records of varying quality and reliability for buildings, roads, burials etc. assembled since the eighteenth century, and, thirdly, on a rich resource of inscriptions, sculpture and other artefacts. In the period between the publication of Eburacum and 1990 new excavations would add a great deal to our knowledge of the chronology, topography and many other aspects of Roman York — in retrospect it appears as an archaeological ‘golden age’. No pre-Roman settlement was known in the historic core of York in 1990, although it had

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become clear, largely from aerial photography, that in the surrounding Vale of York the Ninth Legion found a well-populated landscape (Addyman 1984). Whilst the natives may have been elusive, knowledge of the legionary fortress since Eburacum had grown considerably by 1990. At 9 Blake Street, in the praetentura, evidence emerged for short-lived military occupation predating the fortress buildings (fig. 2, 11; Hall 1997). Excavations at both Blake Street (barracks and another building) and (in 1966–73) at York Minster (fig. 2, 8–9; principia basilica and first cohort barracks) produced sequences of the greatest importance for understanding the layout and history of the fortress from the late first to early fifth centuries (Carver 1995; Phillips 1995). In addition, parts of the legionary fortress baths, including the main sewer, were examined in the Church Street/Swinegate area in 1972 (fig. 2, 14; Whitwell 1976) and 1989–90 (fig. 2, 15; Frere 1991, 241). The history of the fortress defences was revised in a number of small-scale excavations (Ottaway 1996a), although the final coup de grâce for the sequence proposed in Eburacum would not be administered until 2006. Immediately outside the fortress, remains of two phases of timber granary were examined on Coney Street (fig. 2, 20; Hall 1986). Further evidence for the civilian settlement north-east of the Ouse emerged at 16–22 Coppergate (fig. 2, 22; Hall et al. 2011) and in a number of other smaller scale investigations (Brinklow et al. 1986). Very little had been known in 1962 of Roman York south-west of the Ouse, but in the 1970s and 1980s a Roman townscape began to emerge. It was one with only a limited extent until the mid-second century, but then expanded rapidly between the Antonine and Severan periods. Excavations, for example, on Bishophill and Skeldergate (fig. 2, 38–9; Carver et al. 1978), at Clementhorpe (fig. 2, 44; Brinklow and Donaghey 1986), at 5 Rougier Street in 1981 (fig. 2, 29), and 24–30 Tanner Row in 1983–4 (fig. 2, 30), revealed terracing, new streets, commercial buildings and houses. However, other than the great baths caldarium, or reception hall, excavated in 1939 at the Old Station (fig. 2, 33; RCHMY1, 55–6; Bidwell 2006), the public buildings remained largely unknown until the discovery of part of a monumental bath-house at 1–9 Micklegate (Queen’s Hotel) in 1989 (fig. 2, 36; Ottaway 2004, 110). In the trenches which reached Roman remains, albeit less than c. 100 m² in extent, several walls 2 m thick and standing c. 3 m high were found. At Wellington Row, near the Ouse bridgehead, the first, and so far only, complete Roman urban building (of uncertain status) in York was excavated in 1988–9 in a trench 20 m by 10 m (fig. 2, 27; Ottaway 2004, 94–7). Erected in c. a.d. 150, it had a long and varied history until the last quarter of the fourth century. Subsequent to its collapse or demolition, an unbroken sequence of deposits and structural remains, running from the latest Roman phase to one of the Anglian period (c. a.d. 600–800) was identified for the first time on any scale outside the fortress. fig. 2 (opposite). Plan of York showing location of sites referred to in the text (date of excavation in brackets). (Drawn by Lesley Collett of York Archaeological Trust) 1. Wentworth House, The Avenue (1999) 2. St Peter’s School, Clifton (1999) 3. 26–28 Marygate (1992) 4. Minster Library (1997) 5. St Maurice’s Road (2005) 6. Layerthorpe Bridge (1995) 7. Peaseholme Green (1995) 8. York Minster: principia (1966–73) and ‘undercroft’ (2012) 9. York Minster: barracks (1966–73) 10. St Leonard’s Hospital and Multangular Tower (2001–4) 11. 9 Blake Street (1975) 12. Goodramgate watching-brief (1996) 13. Low Petergate sewer trench (1997) 14. Church Street/Swinegate (1972) 15. Swinegate (1989–90) 16. Davygate and Little Stonegate (1998–9)

17. Hungate (2007–12) 18. Former Davygate Centre (1996) 19. BHS Store, Feasegate (1998) 20. 39–41 Coney Street (1974–5) 21. 7–15 Spurriergate (2000–5) 22. 16–22 Coppergate (1976–81) 23. Dixon Lane (2006) 24. 41 Piccadilly (1992 and 1998) 25. Barbican Centre (2003) 26. Blue Bridge House, Fishergate (2000–2) 27. Wellington Row (1989–91) 28. North Street pumping station (1993) 29. 5 Rougier Street (1981) 30. 24–30 Tanner Row (1983–4) 31. Cedar Hotel (2008) 32. Royal York Hotel (1999) 33. Old Station (1939) 34. Old Station/Council Offices (2011) 35. Toft Green (2012)

36. 1–9 Micklegate (1989) 37. 127 Micklegate (2000) 38. 58–9 Skeldergate (1973) 39. 37 Bishophill Senior (1973) 40. 14–20 Blossom Street (1991 and 1994) 41. 28–40 Blossom Street (1999 and 2009) 42. 35–41 Blossom Street (1990) 43. All Saints’ School, Nunnery Lane (2002) 44. Clementhorpe (1976–7) 45. Moss Street Depot (2003–4) 46. 89 The Mount (1991) 47. All Saints’ School, Mill Mount (1991) 48. Mill Mount (2005) 49. 3 Driffield Terrace (2004–5) 50. 6 Driffield Terrace (2005) 51. Trentholme Drive (1951–9)

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In 1990 knowledge of York’s cemeteries and funerary practices was still based largely on data of very variable reliability, much of it from burials unearthed in the late eighteenth to early twentieth centuries during suburban expansion and the development of the present railway station (Jones 1984). The most substantial area to have been excavated archaeologically (in the 1950s) was at Trentholme Drive, c. 1.5 km south-west of the Ouse, where 53 cremation burials and 342 inhumations were recorded (fig. 2, 51; Wenham 1968). The inhumations formed the subject of what is still the only large-scale research report on Roman human remains from York (Warwick 1968). Archaeologically excavated burials of the pre-PPG 16 era also included a late fourth-century group of five inhumations at 16–22 Coppergate (fig. 2, 22; Hall et al. 2011, 214–16), and those in a cemetery area at 35–41 Blossom Street, south-west of the Ouse (fig. 2, 42; Ottaway 2011). Established in the third century, the main period of use at the latter was in the early fourth century. In a managed burial ground some 35 graves were ordered in rows with minimal intercutting and a common alignment, not a phenomenon previously recorded in York. Sites examined in the 1960s to 1980s generated research into Roman pottery from the fortress (Monaghan 1993; specialist reports in Phillips and Heywood 1995) and from south-west of the Ouse (Perrin 1981; 1990). In 1997 Monaghan published a compendium volume on York’s Roman pottery excavated up to 1990. Environmental material from Roman deposits was reported on in ground-breaking studies by Buckland (1976), Kenward and Williams (1979), Hall et al. (1980), and Hall and Kenward (1990). Artefacts and architectural materials from the Minster excavations were published by various specialists (in Phillips and Heywood 1995). In addition, selected artefact groups were published by MacGregor (1976; 1978) and Cool et al. (1995); an unpublished report by David Hooley on the rich assemblage of artefacts from 24–30 Tanner Row was summarised by Cool in 2002. ROMAN YORK 1990–2013 In the last twenty years or so the scope of the archaeological investigation of Roman York has changed somewhat. Compared to the previous twenty, there have been relatively few archaeological interventions of any great size in the historic core of the city, although there have been more opportunities than hitherto in areas peripheral to the historic core and in the suburbs. As a result, the balance of achievement between the research themes touched on above has been rather different. THE ORIGINS OF ROMAN YORK It remains the case that there is no pre-Roman settlement known in the historic core of York, although further work in the surrounding area has produced good evidence for a late Iron Age settlement landscape. This has involved not only aerial photography (Horne 2003), but also commercial excavation projects at, for example, Rawcliffe Moor, 4 km north of the city centre (Pearson 1996) and, in particular, at Heslington East, 3 km to the east. Here, extensive excavations in advance of a new university campus have revealed a late Iron Age–early Roman field-system and a number of roundhouses on the south-facing slope of the York moraine (http:// www.york.ac.uk/campus-development/expansion/archaeology/). THE LEGIONARY FORTRESS Since 1990 little has been added to knowledge of the early fortress, except at the York Minster Library site where a street and timber barracks were located (fig. 2, 4; Garner-Lahire 2000). However, knowledge of the mid-second-century and later fortress has fared better. In addition to stone buildings at the Minster Library, more of the stone-built barracks in the praetentura, previously examined in the 1950s and 1960s, were revealed in small-scale excavation and watching-brief work in the Davygate and Swinegate areas (fig. 2, 16; fig. 3; YAT 1998a; 1999a; 1999b). Glimpses of other buildings and streets have come from utility-funded watching-briefs, notably in four sewer repair shafts in Low Petergate where the via principalis was recorded (fig.

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fig. 3. Davygate (1998): Roman fortress barrack wall in a lift shaft trench. (© P. Ottaway)

2, 13; Ottaway 1997). In 2012 small-scale work by YAT in advance of upgrading the display facilities in the ‘undercroft’ below the Minster revealed a street north-east of the principia (the via quintana, fig. 2, 8). The fortress defences were re-examined at the Davygate Centre (Interval Tower SW2) and Feasegate (near the south corner tower) (fig. 2, 18–19; YAT 1997; 1998b), although little new information on construction technique or dating was recovered in either case. However, it should also be noted that work on the fortress defences in the YAT training excavation at St Leonard’s Hospital (fig. 2, 10; 2001–4) produced, perhaps, the most important discovery for the history of Roman York as a whole in recent years. Two timber (alder) piles from below the foundations of the Multangular Tower (west corner tower) were radiocarbon dated to c. a.d. 80–120 (HunterMann 2009). This range may be taken to provide a construction date for the tower itself, and for associated towers and walling in a similar style around the circuit. Construction now appears to have been considerably earlier than previously proposed by RCHME (early fourth century: RCHMY1, 10) or the author (late second–early third century: Ottaway 1996a, 293–4). Furthermore, what this dating exercise shows is that targeted research on unthreatened sites should always have a place alongside the commercial work as it can provide the sort of additional historical context not necessarily obtainable in any other way. URBAN DEVELOPMENT We remain poorly informed about the early history of the Roman urban settlement northeast of the Ouse. A rare example of an excavation took place on Spurriergate in 2004 (fig. 2, 21; Malton Archaeological Projects (hereafter MAP) 2005) on a site previously examined in 1959 (RCHMY1, 59–60). A mitigation strategy was designed to retain 95 per cent of surviving archaeology, but in two trenches, both c. 3 m by 3 m, several phases of Roman building floors and foundations of late first- to late third-century date were found. However, the small scale of the work has made meaningful interpretation of the discoveries difficult. Otherwise, there have been hardly any opportunities to investigate the deeply buried Roman levels around the fortress. Investigation of the core Roman urban area south-west of the Ouse has also been on a fairly small scale. Little new can be said about the origins of the town within the medieval walls, although the picture of rapid urban development in the late second century has been reinforced.

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fig. 4. West Offices (2011): multiphase Roman wall foundations, robber trenches and drains surviving in an area previously truncated for York’s first railway station in the 1830s; south-west at top of picture. (© On Site Archaeology)

A corner of a substantial stone building of that date was found in 2000 at 127 Micklegate (fig. 2, 37; On Site Archaeology (hereafter OSA) 2000), unusual because of an east–west alignment at odds with that of the adjacent main Roman street which has the north-east/south-west alignment observed by most other buildings and topographical features in the area. In the same part of the city, a useful addition to knowledge of the large public building and other structures previously recorded at the Old Station was made in advance of development of the new City Council West Offices, although preservation was poor due to considerable truncation in the 1830s (fig. 2, 34; fig. 4; excavation by OSA in 2011). A short distance to the north-east, there was small-scale work within the Cedar Hotel in advance of refurbishment; it revealed a complex sequence of structural features, pits and deposits, although its significance is uncertain (fig. 2, 31; OSA 2013). Other small excavations and watching-briefs in advance of construction projects and utility works have recorded fragments of streets and buildings. For example, in 2012, more of a mosaic previously recorded in Toft Green in 1840 (RCHMY1, 53–4) came to light in a gas pipe trench (fig. 2, 35; work by Northern Archaeological Associates). Finally, also worthy of special mention is a rare glimpse of the Ouse waterfront made in the excavation of a shaft for a pumping station on North Street (fig. 2, 28; Burnham et al. 1994, 267). A Roman river-retaining wall on timber piles was recorded cut into alluvial deposits 8 m below modern level. THE URBAN PERIPHERY As far as areas peripheral to the core of Roman York are concerned, the post-PPG 16 era has seen a good deal of new information emerge from a succession of what have been, for the

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fig. 5. Peasholme Green (1995): successive dumps of Roman pottery kiln debris. View to the north-west; note that Roman archaeology here is unusually close to modern level. (© Malton Archaeological Projects)

most part, small-scale evaluations. A report on work by YAT, largely in 1990–2005, and also referring to work by other contractors, has recently appeared in the Archaeology of York series (Ottaway 2011). This adds to and refines knowledge of approach roads, settlement, cemeteries (see below), and other activities. Sites of particular interest include one on Peasholme Green, south-east of the legionary fortress, where debris from the legionary pottery industry was recorded (fig. 2, 7; fig. 5; Swan and McBride 2002). In a trench 16 m by 5 m, excavated to a depth 1.5 m, there were successive dumps, sloping down towards the river Foss, of intact, but redeposited, kiln groups of the Hadrianic, Antonine and Severan periods. A short distance away on the river bank itself timbers of what was thought to be a Roman riverside revetment were found during reconstruction of Layerthorpe Bridge (fig. 2, 6). Immediately north-east of the fortress work took place on the corner of Monkgate and St Maurice’s Road (fig. 2, 5) which located traces of a timber building and pits and ditches (OSA 2005). About 0.8 km north-west of the fortress on the main approach road from the north-west, now represented by Clifton, evidence for more than one phase of roadside settlement was found at St Peter’s School (fig. 2, 2; Ottaway 2011, 143–9). Also north-east of the Ouse, but east of the Foss and 550 m south-east of the fortress, a site on Dixon Lane, 25 m by 20 m, was excavated selectively to natural (fig. 2, 23; McComish 2006). A terrace created in the Roman period lay immediately west of the probable line of an approach road from the south-east on the same north–south alignment (Ottaway 2011, 235). On the terrace, pits and traces of timber structures, also on the same alignment, were found, all dating to the second to early third century. South-west of the Ouse it is clear that the Roman settled area extended for least 150 m from the city walls along the line of the main Roman approach road from the south-west, either side of present-day Blossom Street. Excavations and observations at 14–20 Blossom Street produced remains of a monumental stone building, probably of the late second century, along with a minor street and other structures (fig. 2, 40; Ottaway 2011, 275–90). Excavations at 28–40 Blossom

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Street, in 1999 (MAP 2000) and 2009 (by YAT), adjacent to an area previously examined in 1953–4 (Wenham 1965), also produced deeply stratified archaeological remains (fig. 2, 41). They included the main Roman road from the south-west, structural features and debris from metalworking. Finally, what has become particularly striking about all peripheral areas of Roman York is the abundant evidence for land division by means of ditches in a period beginning in the midsecond century and continuing until the early third, although not continuing to any great extent thereafter (Ottaway 2011, 370–3). These ditches may also have served for drainage such as to bring new land into cultivation and would seem to speak of an intensification of agricultural production in a period when the population of Roman York was growing rapidly. BURIALS AND CEMETERIES Because a good deal of the commercial archaeology in York since 1990 has taken place immediately outside the historic core, it is not surprising that there have been investigations of the main Roman cemeteries as well as the recovery of small groups of burials in other areas. A small group of early cremations was found in the Fishergate cemetery, c. 1 km south-east of the fortress, to add to those found in the late nineteenth century (fig. 2, 26; RCHMY1, 69–70; Spall and Toop 2005a). However, the most extensive investigations have taken place in The Mount cemetery south-west of the Ouse. Of particular importance has been the work on Driffield Terrace where at Nos 3 and 6 and in the nearby Mount School premises the burials of some eighty males, most of whom had clearly been executed, were found (fig. 2, 49–50; fig. 6; Ottaway 2005; 2011, 319; Hunter-Mann 2006). It seems that there may have been a dedicated cemetery zone for execution victims which extended over c. 0.5 ha and was in use from the late second to early fourth centuries. There has been some speculation about the status of the deceased, as gladiators or soldiers, for example, which is as yet unresolved. However, the zone’s location on a high point close to the main approach road from the south-west, one in which the legionary tombstone of Baebius Crescens (RCHMY1, 121) and other funerary monuments have been recorded, may suggest the men were themselves of high social status and not necessarily slaves or common criminals. On the opposite side of the main Roman approach road from the south-west, burials have been found at Mill Mount (fig. 2, 48; OSA 2002a; Spall and Toop 2005b) and a little to the north-

fig. 6. 3 Driffield Terrace (2004): decapitated Roman skeleton with iron rings around the ankles. (© York Archaeological Trust)

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east at 89 The Mount in 2005 (fig. 2, 46; work by OSA). At the former thirteen inhumations of third-century date were found, including one in a stone coffin in which the body was covered in gypsum. This is a fairly common occurrence in York, but rarely found in a controlled excavation (RCHMY1, 108–9). 89 The Mount also produced a burial in a stone coffin. A little further from the main Roman road four more inhumations (late second–early third century) were found at All Saints’ School, Mill Mount (fig. 2, 47; MAP 1991). The Mount/Blossom Street cemetery can also be extended to the south-east to take in four late Roman inhumation burials at Moss Street Depot (fig. 2, 45; Toop 2008). Close to the city walls a further burial was found at All Saints’ School, Nunnery Lane, where others have been recorded previously (fig. 2, 43; RCHMY1, 94; OSA 2002b). Rather less that is new can be said about the other great cemetery south-west of the Ouse, in the Railway Station area, except that some eighteen inhumation burials, late second-century and later, were found by OSA at The Royal York Hotel (fig. 2, 32). Remains of a circular structure were interpreted as part of a mausoleum. The work took place partly in advance of new development, and partly as part of a Time Team project in 1999 (Burnham et al. 2000, 396–7). North-east of the Ouse excavations at Wentworth House, Clifton produced a group of about twenty inhumations in The Avenue cemetery, probably of the mid-fourth century (fig. 2, 1; RCHMY1, 74–6; Ottaway 2011, 150–2). Their fairly regular east–west alignment suggests another managed cemetery zone comparable to that on Blossom Street. Some 250 m north-west of the fortress two late third-century inhumations were found at 26–28 Marygate in an area of open land much nearer to settled areas than other cemetery zones in this part of York (fig. 2, 3; ibid., 138–9). Immediately north-east of the fortress a burial was found on the St Maurice’s Road site referred to above (fig. 2, 5; OSA 2005) in an area where other, scattered burials are known (ibid., 193–4). South-east of the fortress a small group of Roman inhumations was found at 41 Piccadilly (fig. 2, 24; MAP 1998, 12–13) and two more were found at the Barbican (fig. 2, 25; OSA 2003), but the principal cemetery zone examined in this part of York in recent years was at Hungate (fig. 2, 17). A very extensive area (c. 0.3 ha) was excavated by YAT in advance of development in 2007–11 which has produced 112 inhumations and eight cremations (Connelly 2011). The inhumations included two richly furnished female graves comparable to others of the third to fourth centuries known from York; one had a necklace of glass and jet beads, the other had over 500 jet beads from a pair of necklaces as well as a bronze bangle, a shale bracelet and a bracelet made of jet plates. Also of particular interest, an inhumation from the site was radiocarbon dated to cal. a.d. 400–540 (2 sigma calibration 95 per cent probability) suggesting, for the first time at York, the use of a Roman cemetery continuing into the fifth century. As a result of the recent work in the cemeteries, many new patterns of development in spatial organisation and burial practice are beginning to emerge. For example, in the third to fourth centuries land previously unoccupied and nearer to the town than earlier burial zones was often taken over for funerary use. Within cemetery zones, the pattern of inhumation graves in the late second to early third centuries often appears disordered with a variety of alignments and frequent intercutting, whereas by the early fourth there is much greater regularity. Reports by a number of different hands have been produced for most of the Roman human remains found since 1990, although, with the exception of those from 6 Driffield Terrace (Tucker 2006) and Moss Street (Tucker 2008), they are only to be found in grey literature reports. In addition, Lauren McIntyre, a doctoral student at Sheffield University, is examining Roman human remains from York as part of her thesis. An analysis (unpublished) of isotopes in tooth enamel was conducted by Janet Montgomery (Reading University) on six skeletons from 3 Driffield Terrace for a BBC television programme in 2005. This revealed a mixture of probable birth places, some local and others in Mediterranean regions. Although not in a development-led context, the research potential of isotope analysis was also illustrated in the study of the late Roman skeleton of a woman of possible North African origin at Sycamore Terrace, York, excavated in 1901 and now in the Yorkshire Museum (RCHMY1, 73; Leach et al. 2010).

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ARTEFACTS The artefactual resource for economic, technological and other themes in the history of Roman York had become substantial by 1990 and has continued to grow, although not, perhaps, at the same pace as in the 1970s and 1980s. There is, none the less, a large quantity of Roman pottery from post-1990 excavations which, for the most part, has been subject to only the most cursory examination for dating purposes in the grey literature reports. As far as small finds are concerned, there are some important grave goods from Hungate (see above). In addition, a most remarkable individual find from this site was a cornelian intaglio on which are carved two fish hanging from the crossbar of an anchor (Henig 2011). This is probably the best archaeological evidence for an individual Christian in Roman York; the anchor recalls the hope of salvation and the fish Christ’s mission to be a ‘fisher of men’, whilst the letters of the Greek word for fish — icthys — were a mnemonic (in Greek) for ‘Jesus Christ, Son of God Saviour’. Two other unusual objects, possibly disturbed from a nearby cemetery, come from the excavations at Dixon Lane: a gold ring with inlaid carnelian gemstone and a small jet bear (McComish 2006). ENVIRONMENTAL MATERIAL Grey literature is the principal repository for the studies of environmental material from Roman deposits since 1990, although a couple of short reports concerned specifically with animal bones from the cemetery sites at 3 and 6 Driffield Terrace have been published online (Foster 2012; Foster and Jacques 2012). There have, however, been no wide-ranging research reports published comparable to those of the pre-1990 era and one feels that the study of the environmental aspects of Roman York has stagnated somewhat. LATE ROMAN YORK Whilst there is good archaeological evidence for the history of Roman York up to the mid-fourth century, for the latest Roman and early post-Roman periods there is far less. In a trench, 2.9 m by 2.7 m, dug in advance of a lift shaft at York Minster an accumulation of ‘dark earth’ was found, in this case probably derived from agricultural soil mixed with demolition material from the fortress principia (fig. 2, 8; Milsted 2012). It could not be closely dated, but must belong to the late Roman or early post-Roman periods. Otherwise, only the briefest of sightings have been possible of sequences in any way comparable to those excavated at the Minster and Wellington Row, on both occasions in watching-briefs in the fortress, one in Goodramgate (fig. 2, 12) and the others in the sewer repair trenches in Low Petergate (fig. 2, 13; Ottaway 1996b; 1997). In the latter the via principalis was overlain by deposits of dark silt, in turn succeeded by what appeared as a rough resurfacing of the street containing a certain amount of reused building stone. Subsequently, there were up to 1.7 m of dark silty deposits, some with a perceptible organic content, before the earliest identifiable surface of Petergate itself, dated to the twelfth century. Unfortunately, there is no resource for the study of the deposit samples which would potentially elucidate environmental conditions throughout the late Roman, early post-Roman and early medieval periods. Another reason for there being little late Roman evidence from recent work is that so much of it has taken place in areas peripheral to the legionary fortress and urban core into which York had retreated after c. a.d. 350. There is virtually no evidence for occupation, whether as features, or even as pottery residual in later deposits, on sites outside the fortress or the medieval walled town south-west of the Ouse. A rare exception from close to the main approach road from the southwest was a series of post-holes and cobbled surfaces, thought to be late fourth century, found at 28–40 Blossom Street (fig. 2, 41). The cemeteries have produced hardly any burials which can be assigned to the late fourth or early fifth centuries, although, as noted, we now have one from Hungate which is probably fifth-century; others may come to light, although this will probably depend on radiocarbon dating.

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RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT A full review of archaeological investigations before 1990 lies outside the remit of this paper. It is worth noting, however, that completing the analysis and publication of such important Roman sites in the historic core as Swinegate (1989–90) in the fortress and 24–30 Tanner Row, Wellington Row and 1–3 Micklegate in the urban core south-west of the Ouse (all largely funded by the developers) remains a challenge for the future for which there appears to be no obvious solution. The research dividend to be drawn from these sites will be considerable and without it the study of Roman York cannot be taken forward as effectively as it should be. Since 1990 commercially-led archaeology has continued to contribute important new material to that study, although it has clearly been very uneven as between one topic and another. However, it has to be evaluated against the pattern of recent development in the city and the types of site which have been available for investigation. The largest archaeological site in York of recent years, in terms of area, has been Hungate, a mixed use, but primarily residential development immediately outside the historic core. There have been many other housing projects in similar peripheral locations, albeit on a smaller scale, in the last twenty years or so reflecting York’s status as a popular residential centre, benefiting from a proximity to Leeds and the West Yorkshire conurbation. Large new developments in retail, and sports and entertainment facilities have usually been sited out of town, close to the trunk roads, rather than in the city centre. Within the core developers have avoided extensive groundworks (such as basements), in part because the city has discouraged them (Conservation Policies 7.11) and partly because of the potential cost of archaeology. The opportunities for archaeological examination of the well-preserved and deeply stratified Roman deposits of the historic core have, therefore, been relatively few since 1990 compared to the 1970s and 1980s. This, in turn, means that in terms of new information, the legionary fortress and, in particular, the Roman urban areas have not been particularly productive, although we have continued both to fill out the picture of the townscape and to enhance the deposit model for York which will aid future responses to development impact. By contrast, the numerous development-led investigations in areas peripheral to the core, both within the c. 1.5 km radius used for this study, and beyond it, often in parts of the city previously silent archaeologically, have yielded a body of new information of great importance. Firstly, there has been the evidence for settlement along some of the main approach roads extending for up to 1 km. Secondly, there has been the emergence of a landscape pattern of ditched enclosures which existed between the mid/late second century and early third century.The implications of this episode for, for example, the relationship between the peripheral and core areas of Roman settlement have yet to be fully realised, but there is an important project for the future here. Thirdly, there have been the investigations in the cemeteries accompanied by the expert scientific examination of the human remains, albeit undertaken in a piecemeal rather than systematic manner. Since 1990 government policy on archaeology has enabled effective management of the resource within the development process in York. The grey literature reports continue to pile up in the City HER. However, what is really required now to take knowledge of Roman York forward is not simply more fieldwork, but a project to maximise the research dividend from already completed fieldwork (both pre- and post-PPG 16). A few of the post-1990 projects cited in this paper have yielded a published research report, fully funded by the developer, which considers all the excavated material in detail and sets it in a wider context; this will also be the case for Hungate. However, the outputs of many other projects will remain as grey literature. Many of them may not be particularly significant in themselves, but collectively they have the potential to support important narratives about the Roman period in the city. In order to realise this potential a good deal of further research work will, however, be required. Anyone who has consulted grey literature reports extensively will know that not only are they of variable quality, but that they rarely provide much more than a stark description of the stratigraphic sequence and a minimal assessment of the archive of finds and environmental material. Extracting the research dividend from commercial archaeology is also hindered by the fragmentation of the archive as a result of the free market in contracting. In a way we have

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returned to the situation as it was in the 1960s in that it is not clear who could or should take responsibility for co-ordinating archaeological research in York over and above what is done on a project by project basis. As one example of the problem, some three hundred Roman burials have been excavated in York since 1990 by four different archaeological contractors. Some have been fully published and those from Hungate will be published in the future, but for many others there is no prospect of publication. Thanks to the work of a postgraduate student, it seems as though we may have some sort of overview of the physical character of the Roman urban population in due course, but there seems little prospect of a corresponding York-wide overview of the cemeteries themselves and of the development of burial practice within them. It is difficult to know how what would be a very important piece of work, setting the very diverse evidence from the city in the wider context of Roman Britain as a whole, is to be undertaken except, perhaps, by another postgraduate. The future course of commercially driven archaeology in York is hard to predict, but in the immediate future one suspects that a pattern of small-scale interventions, largely in areas peripheral to the core and in the suburbs, will continue and will, of course, generate useful information. However, whilst it is in the nature of the archaeological examination of towns that the whole is a good deal more than the sum of the parts, unless there is some way of bringing those parts together and relating them one to another, then the whole that is Roman York will be a lot less coherent than it ought to be. BIBLIOGRAPHY Addyman, P.V. 1984: ‘York in its archaeological setting’, in Addyman and Black 1984, 7–21 Addyman, P.V. and Black, V.E. (eds) 1984: Archaeological Papers from York Presented to M.W. Barley, York BGS 1983: British Geological Survey, Sheet 63, York (1:50,000) Bidwell, P. 2006: ‘Constantius and Constantine at York’, in E. Hartley, J. Hawkes, M. Henig and F. Mee (eds), Constantine the Great:York’s Roman Emperor, York, 31–40 Brinklow, D. and Donaghey, S. 1986: ‘A Roman building in Clementhorpe’, in Brinklow et al. 1986, 54–73 Brinklow, D., Hall, R.A., Magilton, J.R. and Donaghey, S. 1986: Coney Street, Aldwark and Clementhorpe, Minor Sites and Roman Roads, Archaeology of York 6/1, London Buckland, P.C. 1976: The Environmental Evidence from the Church Street Roman Sewer System, Archaeology of York 14/1, London Burnham, B.C., Keppie, L.J.F. and Esmonde Cleary, A.S. 1994: ‘Roman Britain in 1993. I. Sites explored’, Britannia 25, 246–91 Burnham, B.C., Keppie, L.J.F. and Esmonde Cleary, A.S. 2000: ‘Roman Britain in 1999. I. Sites explored’, Britannia 31, 372–431 Carver, M.O.H. 1995: ‘Roman to Norman at York Minster’, in Phillips and Heywood 1995, 177–222 Carver, M., Donaghey, S. and Sumpter, A. 1978: Riverside Structures and a Well in Skeldergate and Buildings in Bishophill, Archaeology of York 4/1, London Connelly, P. 2011: ‘Hungate 2011: the final year!’, Yorkshire Archaeology Today 20, 1–6 Cool, H.E.M. 2002: ‘Craft and industry in Roman York’, in P.R. Wilson and J. Price (eds), Aspects of Industry in Roman Yorkshire and the North, Oxford, 13–20 Cool, H.E.M., Lloyd-Morgan, G. and Hooley, A.D. 1995: Finds from the Fortress, Archaeology of York 17/10,York Foster, A. 2012: 3 Driffield Terrace: Vertebrate Remains Analysis, Unearthed 1, www.yorkarchaeology.co.uk/ resources/unearthed.htm Foster, A. and Jacques, D. 2012: 6 Driffield Terrace:Vertebrate Remains Analysis, Unearthed 3, www.yorkarchaeology.co.uk/resources/unearthed.htm Frere, S.S. 1991: ‘Roman Britain in 1990. I. Sites explored’, Britannia 22, 222–92 Garner-Lahire, J. 2000: Archaeological Excavation and Survey:York Minster Library, unpub. report available in City of York HER Hall, A.R. and Kenward, H.K. 1990: Environmental Evidence from the Colonia: General Accident and Rougier Street, Archaeology of York 14/6, London Hall, A.R., Kenward, H.K. and Williams, D. 1980: Environmental Evidence from Roman Deposits in Skeldergate, Archaeology of York 14/3, London Hall, R.A. 1986: ‘Roman warehouses and other riverside structures in Coney Street’, in Brinklow et al. 1986, 5–20

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Hall, R.A. 1997: Excavations in the Praetentura: 9 Blake Street, Archaeology of York 3/4, York Hall, R.A., Evans, D.T. and Ottaway, P. 2011: ‘16–22 Coppergate’, in Ottaway 2011, 199–221 Henig, M. 2011: ‘Sealed in stone: Roman gem stones excavated in York by YAT’, Yorkshire Archaeology Today 20, 7–9 Horne, P.D. 2003: ‘Case study 2: Rural settlement in Roman North Yorkshire, an aerial view’, in R.A. Butlin (ed.), Historical Atlas of North Yorkshire, Otley, 58–61 Hunter-Mann, K. 2006: An Unusual Cemetery at The Mount,York, Archaeology of York Web Publ. 6, www. yorkarchaeology.co.uk/ Hunter-Mann, K. 2009: ‘New light on the Roman fortress defences’, Yorkshire Archaeology Today 17, 1–4 Jones, R.F.J. 1984: ‘The cemeteries of Roman York’, in Addyman and Black 1984, 34–42 Kenward, H.K. and Williams, D. 1979: Biological Evidence from the Roman Warehouses in Coney Street, Archaeology of York 14/2, London Leach, S., Eckardt, H., Chenery, C., Müldner, G. and Lewis, M. 2010: ‘A lady of York: migration, ethnicity and identity in Roman Britain’, Antiquity 84, 131–45 MacGregor, A. 1976. Finds from a Roman Sewer and an Adjacent Building in Church Street, Archaeology of York 17/1, London MacGregor, A. 1978: Roman Finds from Skeldergate and Bishophill, Archaeology of York 17/2, London MAP (Malton Archaeological Projects) 1991: An Archaeological Evaluation at All Saints School, Mill Mount, York MAP 1998: ‘Projects in 1998, MAP Archaeological Consultancy Ltd’, Forum (Annual Newsletter of CBA Yorkshire) 1998, 12–21 MAP 2000: ‘Recent work by MAP Archaeological Consultancy Ltd’, Forum (Annual Newsletter of CBA Yorkshire) 2000, 18–20 MAP 2005: 7–15 Spurriergate,York, Archaeological Assessment Report McComish, J. 2006: Land at the Junction of Dixon Lane and George Street, Archaeological Excavation Assessment Report, YAT Report 2006/53 Milsted, I.D. 2012: South Transept Lift Shaft, York Minster: Excavation and Fabric Recording Report, YAT Report 2012/29 Monaghan, J. 1993: Roman Pottery from the Fortress, Archaeology of York 16/7, York Monaghan, J. 1997: Roman Pottery from York, Archaeology of York 16/8, York OSA (On Site Archaeology) 2000: Kenning’s Garage, Micklegate: An Archaeological Evaluation, OSA Report OSA00EV01 OSA 2002a: Mill Mount,York: Report on an Archaeological Evaluation, OSA Report OSA02EV12 OSA 2002b: All Saints’ School, Nunnery Lane, York: Report on an Archaeological Excavation, OSA Report OSA02EX01 OSA 2003: The Barbican Centre,York: Report on an Archaeological Evaluation, OSA Report OSA03EV08 OSA 2005: 18–20 St Maurice’s Road,York: Report on an Archaeological Evaluation, OSA Report OSA05EV04 OSA 2013: Former North-Eastern Railway Company Offices, Tanner Row, York: Report on a Programme of Archaeological Fieldwork, OSA Report OSA08EX05 Ottaway, P. 1996a: Excavations and Observations on the Defences and Adjacent Sites 1971–90, Archaeology of York 3/3, York Ottaway, P. 1996b: ‘New streets for old? Recent work in the sewers of York’, Interim (Bulletin of the York Archaeological Trust) 21.4 Ottaway, P. 1997: ‘The sewer trenches in Low Petergate’, Interim (Bulletin of the York Archaeological Trust) 22.3 Ottaway, P. 2004: Roman York (2nd edn), Stroud Ottaway, P. 2005: 1–3 Driffield Terrace, York: Assessment Report on an Archaeological Excavation, YAT Field Report 1213 Ottaway, P. 2011: Archaeology in the Environs of Roman York, Excavations 1976–2005, Archaeology of York 6/2, York Pearson, N. 1996: Archaeological Assessment: a Report on the Yorkshire Water Pipeline – Moor Monkton to Elvington, YAT Report 15 Perrin, J.R. 1981: Roman Pottery from the Colonia: Skeldergate and Bishophill, Archaeology of York 16/2, London Perrin, J.R. 1990: Roman Pottery from the Colonia 2: General Accident and Rougier Street, Archaeology of York 16/4, London Phillips, A.D. 1995: ‘The excavations’, in Phillips and Heywood 1995, 33–170 Phillips, D. and Heywood, B. 1995: Excavations at York Minster, Vol. 1: From Roman Fortress to Norman Cathedral, London

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RCHMY1 1962: Royal Commission on Historical Monuments for England, An Inventory of the Historic Monuments in the City of York: 1, Eburacum, Roman York, London Spall, C.A. and Toop, N.J. 2005a: Blue Bridge House and Fishergate House,York. Report on Excavations: July 2000–July 2002, published online at http://www.archaeologicalplanningconsultancy.co.uk/mono/001/ index.html Spall, C.A. and Toop, N.J. 2005b: Post-excavation Assessment, Mill Mount,York, FAS Report Swan, V.G. and McBride, R.M. 2002: ‘A Rhineland potter at the legionary fortress of York’, in M. AldhouseGreen and P. Webster (eds), Artefacts and Archaeology: Aspects of the Celtic and Roman World, Cardiff, 190– 234 Toop, N. 2008: ‘Excavations at Moss Street Depot, Moss Street, York’, Yorkshire Archaeological Journal 80, 21–42 Tucker, K. 2006: ‘The inhumations from 6 Driffield Terrace’, in Hunter-Mann 2006 Tucker, K. 2008: ‘The human bone’, in Toop 2008, 39–40 Warwick, R. 1968: ‘The skeletal remains’, in Wenham 1968, 113–216 Wenham, L.P. 1965: ‘Blossom Street excavations, 1953–5’, Yorkshire Archaeological Journal 41, 524–90 Wenham, L.P. 1968: The Romano-British Cemetery at Trentholme DriveYork, Ministry of Public Buildings and Works Archaeology Report 5, London Whitwell, J.B. 1976: The Church Street Sewer and an Adjacent Building, Archaeology of York 3/1, London YAT (York Archaeological Trust) 1997: Former Davygate Centre, Davygate,York: Report on an Archaeological Excavation and Watching Brief, YAT Field Report 28 YAT 1998a: 3–5 Davygate,York: Report on an Archaeological Excavation and Watching Brief, YAT Field Report 42 YAT 1998b: BHS Store, Feasegate,York: Report on an Archaeological Excavation and Watching Brief, YAT Field Report 30 YAT 1999a: 1–5 Davygate and 9 Little Stonegate, YAT Field Report 27 YAT 1999b: Former Primitive Methodist Chapel, 3 Little Stonegate, YAT Field Report 29

CHAPTER 5

The Towns of South-East England By Michael Fulford

Introduction Five major towns including their extramural territoria are included within this regional survey of the South-East of England: the colonia at Colchester, the municipium of Verulamium at St Albans, and the cantonal capitals at Canterbury, Chichester and Winchester. In addition there is the small town of Caesaromagus at Chelmsford, Essex, which, though lacking the evidence for public buildings and street grid, Wacher argued, on the basis of the name, might have been an embryonic civitas capital of the Trinovantes, and therefore included it in his The Towns of Roman Britain (1995, 207–14). However, this review is focused on the larger towns, all of which, notwithstanding their legal status, have evidence of street grids and public buildings and may also have served as tribal capitals of, respectively, the Belgae, Cantiaci, Catuvellauni, Regni and Trinovantes. Otherwise ‘small’ towns, including Caesaromagus, which deserve collective consideration in their own right, are excluded from this review. Silchester, civitas capital of the Atrebates, is also excluded here as it is a scheduled greenfield site which has not seen significant development-driven excavation since 1990. The same is true of Verulamium as regards the intramural area, but the extramural territory has seen one major development-led excavation since 1990 at Folly Lane. The contributions that recent research-led excavations, undertaken within towns not affected by development, have made to perspectives and methodologies will be discussed in the concluding chapter of the book. All of the major towns of the South-East have seen significant excavation within and without their walls, but publication is patchy with reports on significant excavations from within walled areas limited to Colchester and Winchester, while those on large-area excavations are awaited for Canterbury and Chichester. On the other hand, there is published work of major international significance on the suburbs from all of the major towns with the exception of Canterbury, where, nonetheless, the results of important work since 1990 are now in the public domain. The inclusion of excavations from extramural territoria begs the question of where limits to the scope of this survey should be set and this issue is complicated by the character of the late Iron Age origins of all of our major towns. The polyfocal, landscape character of the late Iron Age territorial oppida means that discoveries which may be quite distant from the walled area of the successor Roman towns may have profound importance for our understanding of their character and of their transition into the period of direct Roman political control (cf. Cunliffe 2005, 149–77, 402–6; Haselgrove and Millett 1997; Hawkes and Crummy 1995). For the Roman period, the distinction between intra- and extramural is also not straightforward: Colchester was walled in the later first century and Winchester was also defended by an earthen rampart and ditch at this time. Following the filling of the first-century ‘1955 ditch’ by the expanding town, Verulamium was subsequently defended by an earthen rampart and ditches by the late second century, these subsequently replaced by masonry walls by the late third century. At Canterbury and Chichester, the latter investigated more recently (CDC 2012), it seems that masonry wall and earthen rampart were contemporary and date to or after the late third century. Prior to the construction of defences, therefore, the extent of the street grid will be considered as defining the

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urban nucleus in conjunction with the discovery of burials and cemeteries whose location was prescribed by law to be outside the town. While the emphasis of this survey is on larger scale development-led excavations which were undertaken and published after the implementation of PPG 16 in 1990, it also draws on results of earlier, development-led work which have only been published since 1990. This reflects the often long gestation period between the execution of urban projects and their eventual publication. As a result, important work, particularly some intramural, but also extensive extramural investigations, carried out in Winchester, and also around Chichester at Fishbourne, regarding developments associated with their late Iron Age phases, is considered here. The latter includes the results of research excavations carried out since 1990, but which were prompted by the results of rescue excavations of the 1980s. It should also be emphasised that the focus on the larger scale projects reflects the scope of the volume as a whole and in no way diminishes the cumulative contribution of smaller scale work. With the exception of archive reports of relevant work published online as pdfs by the Colchester Archaeological Trust (http://cat.essex.ac.uk/reports), the publications are of traditional, print form, typically either monographs or articles in international, national and county journals. Excavations which have only so far been published in very summary form, as in ‘Roman Britain in …’ in Britannia, are listed in the Appendix to this chapter along with other significant investigations, 1990–2013. Late Iron Age CAMULODUNUM Major discoveries since 1990 from around all our towns, but to a lesser extent in the case of Canterbury, shed important light on their character in the pre-Roman Iron Age, particularly between the second half of the first century b.c. and the first half of the first century a.d. (Crummy 2014). At Colchester major redevelopment of land formerly occupied by the Colchester Garrison to the south of the Roman colonia (fig. 1), as well as the extension of the Stanway Quarry immediately to the west of the oppidum at Gosbecks have allowed the excavation of significant areas of landscapes which provide evidence of isolated, sub-rectangular enclosures and roundhouses dating from the Middle Iron Age (from c. 200 b.c.), as at the Stanway Quarry, Abbotstone and Ypres Road sites (Crummy et al. 2007, 7–13; Pooley and Benfield 2005; Brooks and Masefield 2005). The subsequent development of a network of droveways is indicated at Ypres Road where the MIA enclosure was cut by a late Iron Age/early Roman trackway. However, while ditched droveways and associated fields dating from the late Iron Age and continuing into the Roman period have been discovered in the Garrison excavations (Area 6) (Brooks 2005), no associated houses of either LIA or Roman date have been found, despite the presence of inhumation burials close to field boundaries. The chronology of the occupation of the Middle Iron Age settlements is not clear: without more closely datable imports, such as ceramics, or radiocarbon dates, establishing the duration of the MIA phase of occupation is difficult. Nevertheless, as the network of droveways within the oppidum implies, by the late Iron Age cattle husbandry was a major element of the agricultural economy. Evidence of occupation of the nucleated Sheepen site earlier than c. a.d. 10, the date of its foundation as argued by Hawkes and Hull (1947) and reasserted more recently by Hawkes (in Hawkes and Crummy 1995, 6–7) was recovered from excavations along its eastern edge in 2006 on the site of the Colchester Institute. Material in small quantities dating c. 50 b.c.–10 b.c. was recovered from a well and a ditch (Brooks and Holloway 2009). The Stanway Quarry has also produced remarkable evidence of high-status burials adjacent to the Gosbecks site and dating between the second half of the first century b.c. and the mid-first century a.d. (Crummy et al. 2007) (figs 2 and 13). These discoveries were made over a number of years between 1987 and 1997. A Middle Iron Age, sub-rectangular settlement enclosure was followed by the establishment of a rectangular enclosure which contained the remains of a small wooden burial chamber and a cremation burial in a single pot. Around the middle of the first century a.d. a further three rectangular enclosures were laid out, each containing a single

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fig. 1. General plan of the oppidum, legionary fortress and colonia of Camulodunum (Colchester) showing the extent of the Colchester Garrison development (© Colchester Archaeological Trust)

wooden burial chamber. The grave goods in the chambers had been smashed prior to deposition. In addition to the chambers, there were six secondary burials in this phase, each with exceptional grave goods: one with surgical instruments, one with spear and shield, and one with an inkwell. Ritual activity is indicated by the hundreds of sherds of smashed pottery, particularly in the ditches along the eastern side of the enclosures. The dating evidence assigns these burials to the Claudio-Neronian period, c. a.d. 40–60, very probably after a.d. 43 and before the Boudican rebellion of a.d. 60/1 (ibid., 438–43). The authors concluded that the burials were probably of members of the Trinovantian élite associated with the oppidum of Camulodunum, rather than of incoming Romans. The site produced only limited evidence of later first-century activity. Altogether the burials give remarkable insight into the continuity of the local élite in the shadow of the development of the nearby legionary fortress and its subsequent early transformation into a colonia between a.d. 43 and the Boudican revolt. ST ALBANS – VERULAMIUM A very close parallel to the Stanway burials was found at Folly Lane, 0.5 km north-east of the Roman town of Verulamium, in 1991 (Niblett 1999) (figs 3 and 10). Around the middle of the first century a.d. a large rectilinear enclosure was laid out over the course of a late preRoman Iron Age ditch and the remains of an associated settlement. With a single entrance facing south-west towards the river Ver and the emerging Roman town, the enclosure surrounded a funerary shaft containing the remains of an elaborate funerary chamber, the remains of a pyre 10 m north-west of the shaft and a high-status cremation burial on the north-east edge of the shaft. The funerary chamber was then destroyed and both shaft and burial were covered by a substantial deposit of gravel and turf, probably to form a barrow or turf stack. As at Stanway,

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fig. 2. The élite burial site at Stanway, Camulodunum (Colchester): speculative sequence and dates for the development of Enclosures 3–5. (© Colchester Archaeological Trust/Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies)

smashed pottery was a distinctive feature of the material filling the burial pit and shaft. However, in contrast to Stanway where it is suggested that the burial was that of a member of the local, preRoman élite connected with the oppidum of Camulodunum, the classic positioning of the burial, overlooking the site of the developing Roman town and close to the Colchester–Verulamium road, suggests someone who had had a major role in the early post-conquest development of the town. That individual may have earlier served in a Roman auxiliary regiment (Foster 1999, 176).

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fig. 3. Folly Lane, Verulamium: the ceremonial enclosure with élite burial site and temple showing the main features and excavated areas. (© Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies)

The burial site was subsequently marked by the construction of a Romano-Celtic temple in the early Flavian period which continued in use until the later third century (see further, below, p. 75). While both Stanway and Folly Lane belong to a shared burial tradition with strong connections with northern France, notably the Champagne region, and with other close parallels in Essex and Hertfordshire, the positioning of the graves and the differences in the associated material culture point up the likely differences in the status and affiliations of the deceased. Whereas activity ceased at the Stanway site before the end of the first century a.d., the Folly Lane burial was marked, respected and probably integrated with rituals associated with the town, which it overlooks, for a further 200 years.

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CHICHESTER As with the landscapes defined by the dyke systems associated with the oppidum at Camulodunum, so, too, the Chichester Entrenchments provide a framework in which to investigate the late Iron Age origins of Chichester, which is located west of the river Lavant at the southern end of a group of earthworks that enclose territory which extends west to the Bosham stream, but which centres on Fishbourne Creek at the head of which lies Fishbourne Roman Palace, some 2 km west of the Roman town (Bradley 1971; Manley and Rudkin 2003, fig. 3) (fig. 4). The excavations of the palace produced significant quantities of pre-conquest ‘Arretine’ sigillata (Dannell 1971, 260–4), though the earliest structural evidence on the site was later and associated with the Claudian invasion of a.d. 43 (Cunliffe 1971a). Further finds of pre-conquest imports emerged from a number of rescue excavations from Chichester itself in the 1980s to give a second possible focus of late Iron Age, pre-conquest activity (Cunliffe et al. 1996, 15; Rigby 1996). Associated structural evidence remained in short supply. However, in 1983 and 1985–6, through excavations conducted in advance of the A27 Chichester bypass (Down 1996, 9–61), further evidence of pre-conquest and early Roman activity emerged which stimulated fresh research excavations by the Sussex Archaeological Society immediately to the east of the Roman palace between 1995 and 1999 and in 2002 (Manley and Rudkin 2003; 2005) (fig. 5a). A significant discovery of both phases of investigation was that of a V-profiled ditch aligned east– west and thus parallel with two of the dykes located further to the north (Manley and Rudkin 2005). It was traced over more than 100 m east of the palace, providing the first securely dated late Iron Age, pre-a.d. 43 context in the wider Fishbourne and Chichester landscape (figs 5a–b). Notable among the finds was a large assemblage of pottery with a significant proportion of imports, including sigillatas and Gallo-Belgic wares, dating between c. 10 b.c. and a.d. 25 (Lyne with Dannell 2005). The faunal remains included a high proportion (72 per cent) of pig as well as some domestic fowl, with wild fauna and oyster also present, thus distinguishing the collection from typical, southern English, Iron Age assemblages, but linking it with continental practice (Sykes 2005; Allen and Sykes 2011). To conclude, the Fishbourne ditch has significantly added to our knowledge of the development of the local landscape and of the cultural associations of the consumers of the material deposited in the ditch. It leaves, however, a substantial question as to the nature of the contemporary occupation and what followed between a.d. 25 and 43. Excavations in the north-east quadrant of the Roman town by Pre-Construct Archaeology between 2004 and 2007 produced evidence of a major north–south-aligned ditch with a later

fig. 4. Plan showing the location of Chichester, Fishbourne Roman Palace and the Chichester Dykes. (© Sussex Archaeological Society)

fig. 5. (a) Plan of all excavations carried out east of Fishbourne Roman Palace in the 1980s and 1990s; (b) Outline plan of Fishbourne Roman Palace showing the location of the late Iron Age ditch in Area B. (© Sussex Archaeological Society)

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finds assemblage indicating a pre-Flavian and, possibly, therefore, an immediate pre-conquest date for it (PCA forthcoming). This feature may represent remains of one of the north–south ‘legs’ representing the eastern limit of the Fishbourne-centred dykes. It is probably to be linked to a similar, north–south ditch with a pre-Flavian finds assemblage found further to the south outside the walled town on the Cattlemarket site (Down 1989, 60–6). Yet another major ditch, dated to about the mid-first century a.d., was found further to the east beyond the town walls (Seager Smith et al. 2007). Elsewhere in the wider landscape south of the dykes which extend eastward from the Fishbourne complex, parallel with and to the south of the South Downs, the Devil’s Ditch and War Dyke, a notable discovery in 1992, and potentially relevant to the development of the oppidum, was the first-century b.c. cremation cemetery at Westhampnett where the pottery indicates strong links across the Channel to Normandy (Fitzpatrick 1997). WINCHESTER The third town where there has been a significant increase in knowledge of its pre-Roman antecedents since 1990 is Winchester. Although much has been learned of the character and chronology of the Oram’s Arbour enclosure before and after 1990 (Qualmann et al. 2004), particularly to the west of the walled Roman town, excavations on the site of Northgate House between 2002 and 2007 revealed important new evidence from within the Roman town (Brown and Biddulph 2011). Earlier work had established that the enclosure was constructed sometime between the late fourth century b.c. and the mid-first century b.c. The bank and ditch enclosed some 20 ha and continued in use until the late first century a.d. Only a very small proportion of the interior had been excavated before 2002, producing some evidence of internal features, including the remains of roundhouses, and a small quantity of cultural material. Two phases of Iron Age occupation were revealed by the Northgate House excavations, the earlier dating from c. 700 b.c. and pre-dating the enclosure and the second, of Middle Iron Age date, c. 400–100 b.c., and thus contemporary with the enclosure. The remains of up to five Middle Iron Age roundhouses were recorded on the same north-east–south-west alignment as that of a holloway on the adjacent Discovery Centre site which passed through the northern entrance of the enclosure (ibid., 47–8) (fig. 6). The line of this trackway was followed by that of the Roman street which passed through the north gate, approximately in the same position as its Iron Age predecessor. Whether there was continuous occupation within the enclosure up to the formation of the Roman town is uncertain but the evidence at present suggests that there was a gap in occupation between the first century b.c. and the first century a.d. Since a key source of evidence for dating activity between the later first century b.c. and the Roman occupation in southern England is provided by the presence of Mediterranean and Gaulish imported pottery, its absence is assumed to indicate an absence of occupation. However, it may be that the settlement in question was simply not in receipt of such goods and that occupation continued into the first century a.d. Although the project obtained two radiocarbon dates from the surface of the holloway, the results were inconclusive. Nevertheless, the late Iron Age to early Roman period at Winchester is one where radiocarbon dating could profitably be deployed in the future. Roman Intramural INTRODUCTION In addition to minor excavations and watching-briefs, there have been major area excavations within the walled circuits of all the major towns of the South-East since 1990, but only two projects of significance, undertaken in, respectively, Colchester in 2000 and Winchester between 2002 and 2007, have seen ‘full’ publication (Brooks 2004; Ford and Teague 2011). Winchester has also seen the publication of a major rescue excavation of 1987–88, as it happens published since 1990 (Zant 1993), as well as a report on excavations shedding light on the Iron Age enclosure of Oram’s Arbour where it is overlain by the Roman town (Qualmann et al. 2004). A major excavation within Colchester at 29–39 Head Street has been reported (Brooks 2004).

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fig. 6. Winchester: Northgate House excavations in the wider context of the Iron Age enclosure and settlement of Oram’s Arbour. (© Oxford Archaeology)

Other excavations with potentially very significant results, judging by draft and interim reports, such as the Canterbury Whitefriars site and the Chichester Shippams site, where fieldwork was completed between five and ten years ago, remain unpublished. While we are very conscious of a backlog of unpublished urban excavations undertaken between the 1960s and the 1980s, there clearly remains a major problem in bringing large and complex urban excavations with their associated finds and environmental assemblages to publication. One approach has been to publish thematically: thus the Roman structural remains of The Brooks, Winchester, 1987–88 have been published (Zant 1993), but, to date, none of the associated finds. On the other hand, Oram’s Arbour (Qualmann et al. 2004) reports inclusively on finds and environmental evidence as well as the structural sequence where it relates to the Iron Age. However, Winchester – A City in the Making with a CD of supplementary data (Ford and Teague 2011) is a model for a ‘complete’ publication of structures and associated finds of all periods from the prehistoric through to the post-medieval and modern periods. Closely comparable is the report on 29–39 Head Street, Colchester which also includes accounts of the major categories of finds, but with evidence — for example there is no commentary on the

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catalogue of samian ware — of insufficient resourcing to develop these to a level comparable with, say, Winchester – A City in the Making (Brooks 2004). As with the latter report the competitive environment of commercial archaeology has led to a shift away from thematic reporting that characterised pre-PPG 16 work through the ‘in-house unit’, the Colchester Archaeological Trust or Winchester City Museum Service, to an inclusive, individual, project-led approach where site reports include research on the finds and environmental data. COLCHESTER The excavations at 29–39 Head Street, Colchester have also provided valuable insights into the life and character of the Roman fortress and the colonia (Brooks 2004). In addition to a description of the stratigraphic sequence, there are reports on the major categories of finds, including the faunal and botanical remains. The sequence was severely fragmented by later developments and the late Roman levels had been completely truncated. Nevertheless, it was possible to trace the development through five periods between the foundation of the fortress after a.d. 43 and the later third century, with evidence of the Boudican destruction interrupting the early development of the colonia in a.d. 60/1. Subsequently in the Flavian period, from c. a.d. 70, a new building, comprising at least seven rooms, was constructed in timber. With modifications this continued into the late second century when it was replaced with a new, masonry-founded building with remains of a hypocaust and an unusual basin, perhaps part of a nymphaeum. Among an important set of specialist reports on the material culture and environmental remains, where, inter alia, Curl reports on the very rare find of a bone of Brown bear in a late second-century context and of the Black rat, also from a second-century context (2004, 143), it is that on the pottery which has proved in the first instance to have a wider significance and impact beyond Colchester itself. Although Paul Bidwell had drawn attention to the differences between the pottery consumed at Sheepen after a.d. 43 and that consumed in the fortress and pre-Boudican colonia, attributing them to chronological factors (1999), Jane Timby’s report (2004) on the pottery other than the samian (which is reported on by Bird (2004) and Dickinson (2004)) draws close and detailed attention to the fundamental differences in the pre-Flavian assemblages between Colchester and Sheepen, for example with the lack of GalloBelgic wares in the fortress and colonia, but a comparative abundance of South Gaulish samian and Dressel 20 amphorae. At the same time Timby also draws attention to the small quantities in total of imported pottery among the fortress-period pottery alongside the evidence for the early, local manufacture of fine wares, table wares, mortaria and cooking wares by military potters. An important implication of her work is that a relative absence of imported wares from a site where a conquest-period military occupation is suspected or assumed, as for example at London, may not mean that such an occupation did not take place. This pottery report has provided an important reference point in Martin Pitts’ developing analysis of variability in pottery assemblages and material culture, such as brooches, in late Iron Age and early Roman contexts in South-East England (e.g. Pitts 2007; 2010; 2014; Perring and Pitts 2013; Pitts and Perring 2006). In essence he has taken forward the observations of Bidwell and Timby to show that there were two very different and distinct patterns of consumption of table wares, including drinking vessels, as well as other types of pottery such as mortaria, across South-East England in the aftermath of the Claudian invasion of a.d. 43. On the one hand, Gallo-Belgic table and drinking wares have a pattern of consumption strongly associated with Iron Age settlements and cemeteries; on the other, South Gaulish terra sigillata, along with mortaria and certain types of amphorae, particularly Baetican Dressel 20 olive oil carriers, have a clear association with the Roman military, as has now been shown to be the case with the legionary fortress and pre-Boudican colonia at Colchester. CANTERBURY Well-developed mitigation strategies have resulted in little significant excavation within the walled area of Canterbury, the exception being the unpublished Whitefriars site excavated between 2001

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and 2003 (Appendix 1). This revealed a complex sequence through the Roman period from first-century clay quarry pits to early Roman timber buildings subsequently replaced by at least five later Roman masonry structures. Here, where an internal masonry tower was discovered, and at St Mildred’s Tannery, where a postern gate was identified (Pratt 2009), new light has been shed on the town’s defences. CHICHESTER There is a small number of published, developer-funded excavations from within the walls since 1990. A draft report exists for the large-area excavations in the north-east quadrant of the Roman town undertaken between 2004 and 2007 on the sites of the Shippam’s factory and the Sports and Social Club. These produced evidence of occupation across two insulae from the later first through to the late fourth century (PCA forthcoming). Occupation of the later first and second centuries, following the establishment of the streets by the later first century a.d., was relatively intense. It was characterised by simple, clay-floored, timber-built structures along with numerous hearths and wells. Documented activities included evidence of ferrous and nonferrous metalworking, horn-working and the processing of animal bone to extract marrow and grease. There was also some evidence for animal husbandry, for example the keeping of goat and pigs. With the exception of some chaff from later Roman deposits, the assemblages of charred cereals were clean of crop-processing debris. However, and in contrast, excavations of late Roman deposits at Pallant House Gallery in the south-east quadrant of the town produced high densities of glume chaff, mostly of spelt wheat (Stevens 2008). The Shippam sites produced no evidence of masonry buildings and little, in general, for use of the areas investigated in the third and fourth centuries. Ritual activity, some interpreted as foundation deposits, was documented at the Shippam sites, particularly the burial of complete or partial skeletons of polled, female sheep, including one where the remains had been burnt. This recalls similar evidence observed by Maltby from suburban Winchester (below, p. 79). WINCHESTER The Winchester reports provide significant new information on the development of the urban community of Venta Belgarum through the Roman period. In the case of The Brooks, where an area straddling two insulae in the centre of the northern half of the town was investigated, the emphasis of the fieldwork was to recover the development of the structural sequence (Zant 1993) (figs 7–8). This revealed a sequence, typical of southern towns in Roman Britain, of timberframed buildings being replaced by stone-footed ‘town-houses’ from the late second century onwards. Occupation within the excavated area was at its most dense in the first half of the fourth century. The sequence begins in the Flavian (late first century a.d.) period with the construction of an east–west and a north–south street (fig. 7a). At the same time timber strip buildings were constructed fronting the north–south street with the northernmost building (VIII.13) continuing in use until the later second century. While the others may not have lasted beyond the end of the first century before being demolished, a small, winged timber house (VIII.14) was not built on this site until around the middle of the second century, but it did not survive beyond the turn of the second and third centuries (fig. 7b). Drainage of this low-lying area of the town was addressed through the construction of a substantial timber-lined drain along the edge of the east–west street which remained in use until the later second century. However, a significant area to the south of the intersection of the two streets remained unoccupied throughout the Roman period. Further evidence of the process of drainage and reclamation of the low-lying land of the Itchen floodplain was recovered further to the south from excavations in the gardens of the Pilgrim’s School within the precinct of Winchester Cathedral. Here systematic drainage was found to have started by the late second century a.d., but not to have been completed by the late fourth century when there is evidence for the breakdown of the drainage system (Champness et al. 2012). Returning to The Brooks, towards the end of the second century the timber building of

fig. 7. Winchester, The Brooks site: (a) in the last quarter of the first century a.d.; (b) in the mid-second century a.d. (© Winchester Museums)

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fig. 8. Winchester, The Brooks site: (a) in the early third century a.d.; (b) in the mid-fourth century a.d. (© Winchester Museums)

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Flavian origin was replaced by a stone-footed building of double-corridor plan (VIII.10) which continued in use until the beginning of the fourth century (fig. 8a). It was only at this time that the western and northern parts of the site were occupied with the construction of a stone-footed, double-corridor house (XXIII.1) which was occupied into the early fourth century, when it was replaced by a single-corridor building (XXIII.2). A further, winged-corridor house (XXIII.3) was also built at this time in this insula, fronting on the north–south street. In Insula VIII to the south a large, L-shaped, stone-footed house (VIII.9a) was built over VIII.10. This house was later extended (VIII.9b) to create a courtyard-type arrangement and was refurbished internally with new walls, tessellated and mosaic floors, painted wall-plaster and heating systems. Remains of a further, late Roman town-house were also discovered in the south-east corner of the site (fig. 8b). The second half of the fourth century saw the gradual abandonment and demolition of all of the town-houses, but with evidence of some continuing occupation and activity, including possible metalworking, to the late fourth or early fifth century. The latest, securely dated Roman activity consisted of the digging of cesspits against the south wall of House VIII.9b in the very late fourth or early fifth century. In the case of the Northgate House and Discovery Centre excavations in the north-west quarter of the town, as a consequence of the combination of the mitigation strategy and the impact on the Roman stratigraphy of medieval and later development, a much more fragmented picture of urban development has emerged with three principal phases of Roman activity defined (Ford and Teague 2011). However, in contrast with The Brooks, an occupational context is provided for the structural remains with a rich array of finds and environmental evidence. As at The Brooks, Roman developments began in the late first century a.d. with the laying out of a principal NNE/SSW trending street associated with a stone-lined water channel, fed perhaps from an external aqueduct to the north of the town. The truncated remains of three timber buildings were found constructed at right angles to the street. Away from the street frontage the first building with stone foundations is dated to the third century. Importantly this also provided evidence of a timber structure comprising large timbers infilled with wattle and daub, a rare example confirming the combination of timber superstructure on masonry foundations. The excavators observed an increase in activity and density of settlement in the first half of the fourth century, with buildings extending along both sides of a newly metalled street at right angles to the main NNE/SSW street (fig. 15). Further buildings were located to the north and south of this side street. Buildings in general were abandoned in the second half of the fourth century and ‘dark earths’ derived from middening with inputs of animal dung developed across the site. With Winchester – a City in the Making we have for the first time for Winchester an excavation where all categories of recovered evidence are reported on. These give valuable insights into the character of the occupation and the life of the inhabitants in the north-west quarter of the town. To give some examples: a fully quantified pottery report, paying attention to both fabric and form, gives insight into both social practice and the wider, economic relations of the town (Biddulph and Booth 2011). A set of four, fourth-century, square weaving tablets, with a fifth, triangular plate, is an important discovery among the other fully reported categories of finds (Cool 2011). Analysis of bulk and microscopic slags shows that iron-working, particularly smithing, was an important activity throughout the Roman period, but particularly in the fourth century (Starley 2011). Further analysis of hearth bottoms may reveal, as Allen has shown with those recovered from Silchester (2012), that smelting was also an important aspect of metalworking in the north-west quarter. Among the environmental reports, that on the charred and mineralised plant remains provides evidence of malting in the early Roman period. Also, a large deposit of bread wheat points to the storage of grain within the excavated areas, while the recovery of, predominantly, barley samples points to the use of this crop for animal fodder throughout the Roman period (Carruthers 2011). As noted above, the report on the soil micromorphology provides valuable illumination of the origin of the late Roman ‘dark earth’ (Macphail and Crowther 2011). In combination the reporting of the material culture and the environmental data provides invaluable insights into the life and work of Roman Winchester. Although applied with more effect to the Saxon occupation, radiocarbon dates were obtained for

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a few stratigraphically isolated features within the Roman sequence and beneath the late ‘dark earth’. This innovative use of C14 dating in the Roman period could usefully be deployed more widely, particularly at the ‘early’ and ‘late’ ends of the sequence (Griffiths et al. 2011, 234–6). Roman extramural INTRODUCTION Since 1990 excavations have shed important light on the occupation of the suburbs of the major Roman towns of the South-East, particularly Colchester, St Albans and Winchester. Not surprisingly, work has very significantly expanded our knowledge and understanding of the cemeteries of these towns and of the changing character of burial practice over time (see Pearce, Ch. 8, below). However, the large areas which have been examined outside the walled circuits have also illuminated our knowledge of the layout of the landscape, with fields and lanes defined in the hinterland as well as more robust, metalled, suburban streets closer to town defences. The first discovery of the remains of a circus from Roman Britain is a further find of exceptional importance, in this case from the colonia of Colchester. In general, since these suburban areas have not been subjected to the same intensity of post-Roman development as the core urban areas, archaeological deposits have suffered less fragmentation with corresponding good preservation. COLCHESTER With Colchester we are concerned with both the development of the suburbs of the Roman colonia and also with that of the hinterland of the oppidum of Camulodunum. As a result of redevelopments of the Colchester Garrison much has been learned about the development of the landscape extending over 2 km south of the Roman colonia and to the east-north-east of Gosbecks. There is no evidence for a Roman re-organisation of the landscape, rather continuity from the late Iron Age through to the third century, with implied continuity of agricultural regime and a presumed emphasis on cattle husbandry (cf. Holbrook 2010, 4). At Earlswood Way, for example, a ditched droveway crossed the excavated area. Flanked on both sides by rectilinear fields and dating from the late Iron Age, it continued in use through the Roman period (Brooks 2005). Elsewhere in the Garrison further ditches forming part of a field-system and on a south-east/north-west orientation similar to that at Earlswood Way were recorded in Area S2 (Benfield and Masefield 2012). While inhumations in the ditches at Earlswood Way indicated that a settlement existed close by, more tangible evidence of structures and a more complex sequence of five periods were recovered at Goojerat Barracks. Here finds associated with two enclosures dating from the late Iron Age through to the mid-second century suggested a building, perhaps a farmstead, in close proximity, while a well, pits, post-holes and beam slots indicated a timber building in an adjacent, third enclosure. Between the mid-second and mid-third century the enclosures were replaced with two new enclosures, perhaps suggesting a change in land use. In the late third century a ring ditch was placed centrally in one of the enclosures, similar to ring ditches associated with cremations found south of the circus and to inhumations within ring ditches in Garrison Area A1 (Brooks et al. 2012). Closer to the town, and to the north-west, more substantial suburban development was recovered from the former St Mary’s Hospital site at the top of Balkerne Lane and close to the walled town. On both sides of a hitherto unknown street, which led north-westwards out of the Balkerne Gate, a sequence of buildings dating from the mid-first century a.d. to c. a.d. 300 was revealed in excavations undertaken by the Colchester Archaeological Trust (CAT) (Benfield 2008; Crummy 2002; 2003; Crummy, N. 2004). Further excavations undertaken by Wessex Archaeology to the north and south of the area investigated by CAT revealed evidence of more buildings, though these gave way in the north to an inhumation cemetery from the late third century. In the southern area, closer to the town, the latest phase of building was constructed after a.d. 293. In an earlier phase, dating to the second half of the second century, Building 7 was found to contain well-constructed ovens in one room, while a second had three complete pots,

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fig. 9. (a) Roman Colchester and the location of the circus (© Colchester Archaeological Trust/Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies); (b) Plan of the Roman circus at Colchester (May 2014) (© Colchester Archaeological Trust)

one with graffiti, set into its floor, their necks flush with the surface of the floor. The excavators speculated whether this and the overlying, fourth-century, Building 9 might have been shrines (Birbeck 2009). Much has also been learned about the funerary landscape around the colonia. It was already known that cremation burials were more distant from the town than inhumations as a consequence of the disappearance of extramural developments around the town from the later third century and the resulting release of land for inhumation cemeteries close to the town. The following is therefore intended to give an indication of the scale of what has been discovered since 1990. At the St Mary’s Hospital site, for example, 104 inhumations were recovered from immediately to the north of the town (Benfield 2008). However, with the shift of development in the 1990s towards the modern suburbs much more has been learned about the size and character of cremation cemeteries than ever before. Some of these were located over 500 m from the town, as at Handford House to the west, where at least 51 cremations were excavated (Orr 2010), and at the Abbey Field sports track to the south, where 71 cremations were excavated (Crossan 2001a and b), while at least 139 cremations were recovered from the Colchester Garrison (Pooley et al. 2011). The ASDA site to the north of the town produced some 60 cremations (Shimmin 2009). A temple tomb was found in the grounds of the Colchester Royal Grammar associated with six cremation burials (Brooks 2006). The implications of these cemeteries and their associated burial practice are further considered by Pearce (below, Ch. 8). A discovery, so far unique to Roman Britain, is that of Colchester’s circus, oriented east–west and located some 500 m south of the town on the site of the Colchester Garrison (figs 9a–b and 14). The complete plan of the building was recovered by a series of small-scale investigations.

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At 450 m it proved to be of average length, but it was narrower (71.1–74.3 m) than normal because it was fitted out with only eight, rather than the customary twelve gates. The circus was constructed in the early second century when Colchester was at its most prosperous and it ceased to be used during the late third century as the town started to decline (Crummy 2005; 2008a; 2008b; 2009; 2011). VERULAMIUM At Verulamium, the most significant advances in knowledge are captured by the discoveries on the Folly Lane site to the north of the Roman town and in the area between it and the river Ver to the south (Niblett 1999). As has been noted above (p. 63) a masonry-founded RomanoCeltic temple was constructed on the site of the Period 3 (mid-first-century a.d.) pyre within the Ceremonial Enclosure (fig. 10). Its entrance faced on to the site of the high-status burial and it was built probably in the early Flavian period and certainly by the middle of the second century (Period 4/5). At the same time the Ceremonial Enclosure ditch was filled in and probably replaced by a palisade surrounding the temple on three sides with an entrance aligned with that of the enclosure and thus facing the town. The enclosure itself seems to have fallen into disrepair in the mid-to-late third century and was eventually abandoned in the first half of the fourth century. The area to the south-west of the Ceremonial Enclosure was also investigated with trenches and limited-area excavations to reveal considerable evidence of occupation from the early Hadrianic period through to the fourth century (Niblett 1999, 73–119). Scattered sherds of grass-tempered and later Saxon pottery indicate some continuing post-Roman occupation from the fifth century onwards. These sample excavations extended some 250 m south-west of the Enclosure and covered some 4.5 ha (11 acres). From the perspective of the town they have given important insight into suburban occupation up to about 750 m from the walls. Occupation and activity was clearly influenced by the road between Verulamium and Colchester whose changing positions and courses were traced within the area under excavation. Although a road between the towns is indicated by the progress of the Roman conquest after a.d. 43, notably with the discovery of an early fort further west at Alchester (Oxon.) dating from a.d. 44 (Sauer 2001), the earliest evidence at Folly Lane is of a road dating from the later first century a.d. but which was abandoned for a new road a little further to the east in the later second or early third century, a course which shifted yet further to the east to form a holloway in the late Roman period. In addition to quite extensive evidence of iron-working from the second century and through the Roman period, the lower slope produced waste on a scale indicative of commercial butchery as well as a small quantity of bone-working debris, including of ivory. Distinctive features of the occupation were the numerous ‘shafts’ over 2 m deep, as well as several wells, dating between the mid-second and mid-third century. Since some of these had notable deposits or finds, including a defleshed human cranium, but also contexts with near-complete pots, including fragments of face pots, or with massive deposits of butchered cattle bone, the excavator was inclined to interpret the whole area as part of a ritual or ceremonial complex (Niblett 1999, 99), linking the temple and Ceremonial Enclosure with the theatre and temple in the town in Insulae XVII and XVI. However, such deposits are not now seen as unusual, but a commonplace of urban life in Roman Britain (see also Winchester suburbs, below, p. 79) (cf. Fulford 2001; Eckardt 2006). CANTERBURY Excavations since 1990 outside the walled area at Canterbury have yielded valuable evidence of land use and occupation in the Roman suburbs. At North Lane in 1996, following evaluation in 1993, an area of >400 m2, only some 100 m west of the walled area on the western side and 150 m north of the Roman road leading out of Westgate (Rady 2009), was excavated, while at Market Way, St Stephens (1998–9), an area of 1.2 ha, some 750 m north of the walled town, was investigated (Helm and Rady 2010). Both excavations were in areas where earlier work had produced evidence of early Roman tile-making and pottery kilns. While the more distant of the two investigations at Market Way revealed evidence of the establishment of a field-system by

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fig. 10. Folly Lane, Verulamium: the Romano-Celtic temple, funerary shaft and turf stack. (© Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies)

the late first century b.c. which remained in use until the third or fourth century, that at North Lane produced evidence for the development of a previously unrecorded north–south-oriented, suburban road or street which was metalled by the mid-second century and continued to be resurfaced to the late third or fourth century. Both areas produced evidence of early Roman quarry pits, for gravel at North Lane, and for brickearth at Market Way, where there was also a scatter of early Roman rubbish pits across the whole of the excavated area. Inhumations of later third- and fourth-century date were recovered from both areas: two from Market Way, which respected the still surviving field boundaries, and five from beside the road at North Lane. Subsequent to the above reports, Weekes (2011) has published a survey of the cemeteries of the

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town, with records for 95 sites up to June 2010. He notes that there are only single examples of cemeteries with, respectively, between 51 and 100 burials, and with more than 100 burials. CHICHESTER An important excavation to the east of the walled town revealed a large (5.5 m wide), mid-firstcentury defensive ditch (above, p. 66), followed by domestic settlement associated with cropprocessing with continuity of occupation and activity, including quarrying for clay and gravel, through the fourth century (Seager Smith et al. 2007). An excavation some 300 m north of the north gate revealed late second- to late third-century activity, including some cremation burials (Thorne 2012). WINCHESTER At Winchester research on the cemeteries and the Roman suburbs more generally has been a major focus of development-led excavation and publication since 1990. First, excavations undertaken between 1971 and 1986 by Winchester City Museums have been published between 2008 and 2012. These include the results of work which has contributed much to the characterisation of the occupation, burials and cemeteries to the north, west and east of the Roman town (fig. 11). The publications take the form of separate monographs on the ‘small finds’ (Rees et al. 2008), the environmental evidence (Maltby 2010), and the excavations themselves (Ottaway et al. 2012). At the time of writing, the pottery is the only major remaining category of material yet to be published. Second, since 1990, excavations of great significance, which took place between 2000 and 2005 in the northern suburbs on the site of the late Roman inhumation cemetery at Lankhills School, some 500 m along the road to Cirencester, which leads out of the north gate of the Roman town, have also been comprehensively published in one volume (Booth et al. 2010 (see further this volume, Pearce, Ch. 8); however, a further 56 burials excavated by Wessex Archaeology on an adjacent site in Worthy Lane in 2008 remain unpublished (Appendix 1)) (figs 11– 12). An innovation in this project and publication is the inclusion of research on the carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and strontium isotope analyses of samples of the human remains (fig. 12b). This Lankhills project complemented earlier investigations by Giles Clarke and the Winchester Excavation Committee undertaken in the 1970s. However the major publication which followed did not include a report on the human remains (Clarke 1979). What distinguishes Lankhills from other urban cemeteries of the late Roman period from Winchester and from southern Britain more generally is the high proportion of burials which were furnished with grave goods. Among these furnished burials were two groups which Clarke interpreted as of intrusive elements in the population, one Pannonian, the other Anglo-Saxon (Clarke 1979, 174–5 and 377–403), but both representing groups of officials, rather than soldiers, in the late Roman town (fig. 12a). The recent developments in isotope analysis have provided the opportunity to test these interpretations with the result that it has not been possible to sustain the claim that intrusive groups can be identified on the basis of their associated grave goods and their disposition within the grave (Evans et al. 2006; Eckardt et al. 2009; Chenery et al. 2010). In combining the results of the 1971–86 work with the 2000–05 excavations at Lankhills it can be seen that there has been a very substantial increase in knowledge about the cemeteries of Roman Winchester. This is particularly the case with the late Roman period where pre1990 excavations, but excluding Lankhills, had already recorded some 440 inhumations from cemeteries to the north, west and east of the town with groups of over 100 burials from Victoria Road West and Chester Road (Ottaway et al. 2012, 341). Adding the total of some 750 inhumations from the combined excavations at Lankhills (Booth et al. 2010, 533) brings the overall number from Winchester to almost 1,200 inhumations. By contrast only one, substantial, early Roman cremation cemetery has so far been published, that just to the north of the town at Victoria Road East where 118 cremations were recorded (Ottaway 2012). These therefore amount to less than 10 per cent of all the Winchester Roman burials. In addition, just as in Colchester and elsewhere, the practice of inhumation is also reported from the early Roman

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Lankhills

fig. 11. Winchester: location of Roman cemetery excavations between 1971 and 2005. (© Winchester Museums)

period, as, too, is the rite of cremation also a feature of the late Roman period. In looking at the overall distributions of burials, a striking feature of the Winchester evidence is the lack of burials from within what remained of the Oram’s Arbour Iron Age enclosure outside the later defended area of the town. However, the enclosure also had other influences as far as burial practice was concerned: first, no burials were interred within the enclosure where it extended beyond the walls to the west and, second, its silted-up ditch was used for the interment of late Roman inhumations where their orientation generally respected the alignment of the ditch, rather than following the north–south or east–west orientations adopted in the inhumation cemeteries elsewhere in the town (Qualmann and Scobie 2012, with summary on p. 171; also Ottaway and Rees 2012, 342). While discoveries from the 1970s, the 1980s and post-1990 relating to the development of the cemeteries dominate the archaeological record from the Roman suburbs, there are also other important finds to note, such as the development of the roads radiating out from the town from soon after the conquest in a.d. 43, and occupation in the suburbs, especially between the midsecond and the mid-fourth century (Qualmann and Ottaway 2012). While it cannot always be certain whether deposits of material from ditches, pits and wells can necessarily be related to occupations practised close by in the suburbs, rather than resulting from the dumping of rubbish from within the town, it would seem that the crafts from the suburbs include horn- and leatherworking, spinning and weaving, bone-working, smithing, copper alloy and silver refining, and, possibly, glass-working. However, only evidence of bone-working, with an important assemblage of debris from the western suburbs at Crowder Terrace, bone-processing for the extraction of marrow and grease, butchery waste, smithing slag and scrap iron have been found in any great quantities (Rees et al. 2008, 182–94, 387; Maltby 2010, 245–54). Both Maltby (2010, 246–8), in relation to the faunal remains, and Rees et al. (2008, 380–1),

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fig. 12. Winchester: the late Roman cemetery at Lankhills. (a) Distribution of graves with belt sets and crossbow brooches; (b) distribution of graves with Sr and O analyses by broad isotopic character. (© Oxford Archaeology)

in relation to certain artefacts, draw attention to unusual or ‘structured deposits’ similar to those reported from the eastern suburbs of Verulamium (above, p. 75; Niblett 1999). Where animal burials are concerned, interesting and variable practice has been identified. In the case of dogs, possible interpretations include deliberate culling to account for large numbers of deaths from single contexts (Maltby 2010, 246–7). Maltby also notes the unusual treatment of sheep, where bone groups of complete carcases with evidence of butchery and cooking were buried as discrete groups under floors of buildings, perhaps as foundation deposits, as well as in features associated with boundaries (above, p. 69 for Chichester) (2010, 247–8).

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Maltby’s magisterial report (2010) on the faunal remains from the suburbs also makes an invaluable contribution to the study of the meat supply to the Roman town, with cattle providing at least half of that consumed. Mortality profiles show a marked peak of slaughter as adults that had not reached very old age, with a possible deliberate selection of females for the urban meatmarket. While cattle were subjected to specialist butchery, there is little evidence of comparable practice with the other two principal components of the meat diet, sheep and goat, where there is also evidence of a clear preference for the selection of animals for slaughter aged between two and six years of age, and with pigs, the third most important component of the meat diet, where animals were commonly slaughtered in their second or third year. Maltby’s Winchester study also includes an invaluable overview of the zooarchaeological evidence for the feeding of Roman towns in Britain more generally (2010, 255–304) which draws on material excavated both before and after 1990. Irrespective of date of publication, the great majority of the material in question was excavated and reported in the context of rescue archaeology funded by English Heritage and its predecessor bodies or by developer-funded projects. Conclusions To conclude, discoveries of national and international importance have been fully reported on from work undertaken in Roman towns and their suburbs in the South-East since 1990, notably from Colchester, St Albans (Verulamium) and Winchester. There have also been major publications in the last 20–25 years of development-led excavations carried out before 1990, particularly from Winchester. For the pre-Roman Iron Age and our knowledge of the development of the territorial oppida of the South-East, the discoveries of settlements, trackways and field-systems in the Colchester hinterland have made a major contribution to our knowledge of Camulodunum. The richly furnished cremation burials from Stanway, Colchester and Folly Lane, Verulamium provide powerful insights into the élite of the conquest period. While the rites suggest a common ancestry in burial customs with the Champagne region of northern France, there can hardly be a more powerful and poignant contrast in location, Stanway obscurely positioned adjacent to the oppidum at Gosbecks and distant from the fortress and colonia, Folly Lane on a hill, conspicuously adjacent to a major Roman road and overlooking the developing Roman town of Verulamium. There are also distinctive differences in grave goods’ assemblages between the burials in the two locations. Major discoveries from the suburbs of the Roman towns range from the circus at Colchester, the first of its kind in Roman Britain, to the extensive excavation of cemeteries of early and late Roman date, with major publications from Winchester, including that of Lankhills, still unique in its character in an urban context in Roman Britain. The evidence for the continuation into the Roman period of the pre-existing organisation of the landscape in the vicinity of the fortress, later colonia, of Colchester is also an important conclusion arising from the work undertaken since 1990 to the south and west of the Roman city. What has been learned from the suburbs of our towns makes a very substantial addition to the state of knowledge summarised by Esmonde Cleary (1987) shortly before the implementation of PPG 16. This picture contrasts with that from within the walls of our towns where only two major excavations undertaken since 1990 have been published. Both add valuable knowledge, more to our understanding of the character of urban life in Roman Britain than to the plans and histories of individual structures. However, the absence of other reports of major excavations since 1990 reminds us of the difficulties encountered in bringing urban excavations to publication and of the legacy of unpublished work from the 1960s onwards. Even within our small, intramural sample from the South-East there are distinct contrasts between the reporting of the Colchester and Winchester excavations by, respectively, the Colchester Archaeological Trust and Oxford Archaeology, particularly among the finds, where there is a greater range of materials reported from Winchester than Colchester, for example of metalworking residues and building materials (see also above, pp. 68, 72). If limited resources do not allow for a comprehensive approach, it is helpful for the researcher to know what strategies were employed to recover finds and whether

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fig. 13. Reconstruction of the Stanway (Camulodunum) warrior burial by Peter Froste. (© Colchester Archaeological Trust)

absences of certain categories of material, such as metalworking residues, commonly found elsewhere, are substantive or not. Sieving was carried out at Head Street, Colchester, but was it only the faunal remains which were retrieved from the samples? Of scientific approaches infrequently applied in the Roman period, it is refreshing to see the application of radiocarbon dating in the Oxford Archaeology Winchester reports. Even if the

fig. 14. Reconstruction of the Roman circus at Colchester by Peter Froste. (© Colchester Archaeological Trust)

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fig. 15. Winchester: The Northgate House, Staple Gardens and former Winchester Library, Jewry Street sites; reconstruction of the sites within the north-west corner of the Roman town during the midthird to early fourth century by Mark Gridley. (© Oxford Archaeology)

results in these cases were inconclusive, there is clearly potential, particularly in the Iron Age to Roman and the Roman to early medieval transitions, for more extensive and focused programmes of radiocarbon dating. The Oxford Archaeology Winchester reports also show the potential for more extensive sampling for the micromorphological and chemical characterisation of soils. These approaches have contributed much to our understanding of late Roman ‘dark earths’, but there are clearly opportunities for wider applications to characterise other aspects of urban life. Finally, the Oxford Archaeology publication of the Lankhills cemetery has been pioneering in the application of isotope analyses as part of the post-excavation process and the potential for the integration of this approach in future cemetery excavations is manifest. A new and very welcome development in the publication of excavations undertaken since 1990 in the South-East has been publication of archive reports as pdfs on the web, notably by the Colchester Archaeological Trust. The inclusion of artistic reconstructions in colour of both the high-status, early Roman burials of Folly Lane and Stanway, of major buildings, such as the Colchester circus, and of urban environments, such as the sequence reported in Winchester – City in the Making is also to be welcomed (figs 13–15). Such illustrations help to interpret the ‘hard’ archaeological data and to stimulate yet further reflection. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am very grateful to Philip Crummy, Neil Holbrook and James Kenny (Chichester City Archaeologist) for their help towards the preparation of this contribution.

1999–2002, 2004–2011

2001–2003

2002–2004

2009

2010

St Mildred’s Tannery

Whitefriars

Rose Lane

The Friars

18 High Street

1993–1996

2002

2002

2004

North Lane

27 St Dunstan’s Terrace

10 Wincheap

Market Way

Canterbury Extramural

1992

Year

Longmarket

Canterbury Intramural

Site

Canterbury

Canterbury

Canterbury

Canterbury

Canterbury

Canterbury

Canterbury

Canterbury

Canterbury

Canterbury

Organisation

Early Roman field-system with later inhumation burial accompanied by an inscribed marble plaque. Wasters from nearby tile kiln.

Metalled areas and butchery deposits suggest roadside yards. Little activity after mid-third century.

Cemetery: at least 92 cremations, mostly urned of late first- to early third-century date, and 23 inhumations.

Quarry pits and five inhumations flanking a road.

First-century timber building rebuilt in stone, and a second masonry building. Buildings replaced by further timber buildings which were burnt in the later second century.

Second-century masonry house with hypocaust and painted wall-plaster.

Fourth-century masonry building destroyed by fire; subsequent timber building.

First-century clay quarry pits and agricultural activity; early Roman timber buildings replaced by at least five later Roman masonry buildings. Roads and tracks. Internal masonry tower of town defences. A number of scattered early Roman burials.

Postern gate; fragments of buildings including possible bath-house and aisled building.

LPRIA and early Roman timber buildings replaced by second- to fourth-century a.d. bathhouse.

Principal Findings

F

F

N/S

F

N

N

F

N

S

N

Helm and Rady 2010

Shand and Hicks 2013

Fitzpatrick 2003, 356; Weekes 2011

Rady 2009

Booth 2011, 394

Booth 2010, 406

Weekes 2012

Fitzpatrick 2002b, 352–3; Fitzpatrick 2003, 355–6; Fitzpatrick 2004, 313

Pratt 2009

Esmonde Cleary 1993, 309

Documentation References

Key: Organisation: ASE = Archaeology South East; Canterbury = Canterbury Archaeological Trust; Colchester = Colchester Archaeological Trust; Oxford = Oxford Archaeology; PCA = Pre-Construct Archaeology; St Albans = St Albans Museum Service; Wessex = Wessex Archaeology; WinMus = Winchester Museum Service. Documentation/References: F = final report; S = summary/interim; N = note; GL= grey literature report.

APPENDIX: SIGNIFICANT INVESTIGATIONS 1990–2013

THE TOWNS OF SOUTH-EAST ENGLAND 83

2007

2011

Augustine House

25–27 St Dunstan’s Street

2004–2007

East Street, Shippams site

2008

Festival Theatre

2005–2007

Pilgrims’ School

2000–2001

2000–2005

2008

Hyde Street

Lankhills

Worthy Lane, Winchester Hotel

Folly Lane

1991–1993

Verulamium Extramural

1998

Andover Road, former Eagle Hotel

Winchester Extramural

2002–2007

Northgate House

Winchester Intramural

2002

Rowe’s Garage

Chichester Extramural

2003

Pallant House Gallery

Chichester Intramural

Year

Site

St Albans

Wessex

Oxford

Wessex

WinMus

Oxford

Oxford

ASE

Wessex

PCA

Wessex

Canterbury

Canterbury

Organisation

N

F

N

N/GL

LPRIA and early Roman ceremonial site replaced by a Romano-Celtic temple in the Flavian period.

Cemetery: 56 inhumations and a mortuary enclosure

Cemetery: 307 inhumations and 25 cremations.

Road leading towards Silchester; roadside structures; two early Roman and two later Roman cremations.

Cemetery: 38 fourth-century inhumations, one in a lead coffin.

Evidence for floodplain management.

Iron Age occupation within Oram’s Arbour; early Roman timber buildings; later Roman masonryfounded building with timber superstructure.

Ditched trackway; pits and a single late thirdcentury cremation burial.

F

N

F

F

F

F

F

F

Niblett 1999

Booth 2009, 273

Booth et al. 2010

Birbeck and Moore 2004

Teague 2012

Champness et al. 2012

Ford et al. 2011

Thorne 2012

Seager Smith et al. 2007

Booth 2008, 328–9

Godden 2008

Booth 2012, 351–2

Booth 2008, 334 (N); Helm 2012 (GL)

Documentation References

Mid-first-century a.d. defensive ditch; small-scale F domestic and agricultural activity, crop-processing and quarry pits.

Town defences; streets; timber buildings; masonry building.

Ditch and two wells.

Cemetery: 137 later Roman inhumations.

Early Roman quarry pits; later Roman suboctagonal timber structure associated with five inhumations and 212 fourth-century coins.

Principal Findings

84 THE TOWNS OF ROMAN BRITAIN

2000

29–39 Head Street

1990

1991–97

1996

1996–1999

2000

2001–2004

2002–2012

2005

2007

2003

2 St John’s Street

Stanway

Gosbecks, Barbour Gardens and Tumulus Way

Turner Rise

Abbey Field

St Mary’s Hospital, Balkerne Hill

Garrison

Lexden Road, Royal Grammar School

Sheepen Road

Balkerne Heights

Colchester Extramural

1989–1990

East Stockwell Street

Colchester Intramural

Wessex

Colchester

Colchester

Colchester

Colchester

Colchester

Colchester

Colchester

Colchester

Colchester

Colchester

Colchester

N

S/N/GL

N

N/GL

N/GL

N

F

F

N/GL

F

Timber buildings, wells and metal-working N evidence. Earlier Roman buildings; later Roman inhumation F cemetery.

Temple tomb with six associated cremations.

Sampling of the Berechurch dyke; Iron Age and early Roman agricultural landscape, with some settlement; masonry circus; 800+ burials, both cremations and inhumations.

Cemetery comprising 104 inhumations. Sequence of buildings from mid-first century a.d. to c. a.d. 300.

Cemetery: mid-Roman cremation cemetery of 51 burials which continued in use into the later fourth century.

Cemetery: c. 60 cremation burials.

Cemetery: ten late first- or early second-century cremations, one contained within a ditched enclosure. Seven later inhumations.

Late Iron Age and early Roman richly appointed cremation burials.

Traces of occupation and buildings adjacent to road leading out of Head Gate, mid-first to midthird century.

Fortress building; Flavian and second-century houses.

Masonry building of at least ten rooms.

Birbeck 2009

Booth 2008, 313

Booth 2008, 312 (N); Brooks 2006 (GL)

Crummy 2005; 2008a; 2008b; 2009 (all S); Brooks and Masefield 2005 (GL); Brooks 2005 (GL); Brooks et al. 2007 (GL); Pooley et al. 2011 (GL); Benfield and Masefield 2012 (GL); Booth 2013, 323 (N)

Fitzpatrick 2002a, 325 (N); Crummy 2002 (S); 2003 (S); 2004 (S); Benfield 2008 (GL);

Fitzpatrick 2001, 361 (N); Crossan 2001 (GL)

Esmonde Cleary 1997, 434 (N); Esmonde Cleary 1998, 408 (N); Shimmin 2009 (GL)

Esmonde Cleary 1997, 432

Crummy et al. 2007

Benfield and Garrod 1992, 33–7

Fitzpatrick 2001, 362 (N); Brooks 2004 (GL)

Benfield and Garrod 1992

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Crossan, C. 2001b: ‘Roman burial ground: cremation cemetery under a sports field’, The Colchester Archaeologist 14, 5–7 Crummy, N. 2004: ‘Music and dancing at St Mary’s’, The Colchester Archaeologist 17, 29 Crummy, P. 2002: ‘Major excavations begin at St Mary’s Hospital’, The Colchester Archaeologist 15, 10–15 Crummy, P. 2003: ‘The western suburb’, The Colchester Archaeologist 16, 10–15 Crummy, P. 2005: ‘The circus at Colchester (Colonia Victricensis)’, Journal Roman Archaeology 18, 267–77 Crummy, P. 2008a: ‘The Roman circus at Colchester’, Britannia 39, 15–31 Crummy, P. 2008b: ‘An update on the excavations (2005–7) on the site of the Roman circus at Colchester’, Journal Roman Archaeology 21, 336–9 Crummy, P. 2009: ‘The Roman circus at Colchester, England’, in J. Nelis-Clément and J.-M. Roddaz (eds), Le cirque romain et son image, Actes du Colloque international tenu à Bordeaux du 19 au 21 octobre 2006, 213–32 Crummy, P. 2011: ‘The Roman circus’, in Pooley et al. 2011 Crummy, P. 2014: ‘Colchester: the years 1993–2008’, The Society for Essex Archaeology and History 3 (for 2012), 6–72 Crummy, P., Benfield, S., Crummy, N., Rigby, V. and Shimmin, D. 2007: Stanway: an Elite Burial Site at Camulodunum, Britannia Monograph 24, London Cunliffe, B. 1971a: Excavations at Fishbourne 1961–1969, Vol. 1: The Site, Report of the Research Committee of the Society of Antiquaries of London 26, Leeds Cunliffe, B. 1971b: Excavations at Fishbourne 1961–1969, Vol. II: The Finds, Report of the Research Committee of the Society of Antiquaries of London 27, Leeds Cunliffe, B. 2005: Iron Age Communities in Britain (4th edn), Abingdon & New York Cunliffe, B., Down, A. and Rudkin, D. 1996: Excavations at Fishbourne 1969–1988, Chichester Excavations 9, Chichester Curl, J. 2004: ‘Faunal remains’, in Brooks 2004, 131–65 Dannell, G. 1971: ‘The samian pottery’, in Cunliffe 1971b, 260–316 Dickinson, B. 2004: ‘Samian potters’ stamps’, in Brooks 2004, 108–11 Down, A. 1989: Chichester Excavations 6, Chichester Down, A. 1996: ‘Rescue excavations on the line of the A27 road in 1983 and 1985–6’, in Cunliffe et al. 1996, 9–61 Eckardt, H. 2006: ‘The character, chronology and use of the late Roman pits’, in M. Fulford, A. Clarke and H. Eckardt, Life and Labour in Late Roman Silchester: A Report on Excavations Undertaken since 1997, Britannia Monograph 22, London, 221–45 Eckardt, H., Chenery, C., Booth, P., Evans, J.A., Lamb, A. and Müldner, G. 2009: ‘Oxygen and strontium isotope evidence for mobility in Roman Winchester’, Journal Archaeological Science 36 (12), 2816–25 Esmonde Cleary, S. 1987: Extramural Areas of Romano-British Towns, BAR British Series169, Oxford Esmonde Cleary, S. 1993: ‘Roman Britain in 1992. I. Sites explored. 9. Southern counties’, Britannia 24, 305–9 Esmonde Cleary, S. 1997: ‘Roman Britain in 1996. I. Sites explored. 6. East Anglia’, Britannia 28, 430–5 Esmonde Cleary, S. 1998: ‘Roman Britain in 1997. I. Sites explored. 6. East Anglia’, Britannia 29, 402–8 Evans, J., Stoodley, N. and Chenery, C. 2006: ‘A strontium and oxygen isotope assessment of a possible fourth century immigrant population in a Hampshire cemetery, southern England’, Journal Archaeological Science 33, 265–72 Fitzpatrick, A.P. 1997: Archaeological Excavations on the Route of the A27 Westhampnett Bypass, West Sussex, 1992. Vol. 2. The Late Iron Age, Romano-British and Anglo-Saxon Cemeteries, Wessex Archaeology Report 12, Salisbury Fitzpatrick, A.P. 2001: ‘Roman Britain in 2000. I. Sites explored. 6. East Anglia’, Britannia 32, 358–64 Fitzpatrick, A.P. 2002a: ‘Roman Britain in 2001. I. Sites explored. 6. East Anglia’, Britannia 33, 320–6 Fitzpatrick, A.P. 2002b: ‘Roman Britain in 2001. I. Sites explored. 9. Southern counties’, Britannia 33, 347–54 Fitzpatrick, A.P. 2003: ‘Roman Britain in 2002. I. Sites explored. 9. Southern counties’, Britannia 34, 351–9 Fitzpatrick, A.P. 2004: ‘Roman Britain in 2003. I. Sites explored. 9. Southern counties’, Britannia 35, 309–16 Ford, B.M. and Teague, S. with Biddulph, E., Hardy, A. and Brown, L. 2011: Winchester – a City in the Making. Archaeological Excavations between 2002 and 2007 on the Sites of Northgate House, Staple Gardens and the Former Winchester Library, Jewry St, Oxford Archaeology Monograph 12, Oxford Foster, J. 1999: ‘The funeral finds – general discussion’, in Niblett 1999, 175–6 Fulford, M.G. 2001: ‘Links with the past: pervasive “ritual” behaviour in Roman Britain’, Britannia 32, 199–218

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Godden, D. 2008: ‘Romano-British and medieval occupation at Pallant House Gallery, Chichester’, Sussex Archaeological Collections 146, 89–91 Griffiths, S., Bayliss, A., Ford, B.M., Hounslow, M., Karloukovski, V., Bronk Ramsey, C., Cook, G. and Marshall, P. 2011: ‘Overview of the scientific dating evidence’, in Ford and Teague 2011, 225–36 Haselgrove, C. and Millett, M. 1997: ‘Verlamion reconsidered’, in A. Gwilt and C. Haselgrove (eds), Reconstructing Iron Age Societies, Oxbow Monograph 71, Oxford, 282–96 Hawkes, C.F.C. and Crummy, P. 1995: Camulodunum 2, Colchester Archaeological Report 11, Colchester Hawkes, C.F.C. and Hull, M.R. 1947: Camulodunum. First Report on the Excavations at Colchester 1930–39, Reports of the Research Committee of the Society of Antiquaries of London 14, Oxford Helm, R. 2012: Augustine House, Canterbury Christ Church University, Rhodaus Town, Assessment Report, http://www.canterbury.ac.uk/projects/augustine-house/Documents/Reports/AHRTC-EV-06_REPORT_ V01.pdf Helm, R. and Rady, J. 2010: Excavations at Market Way, St Stephen’s, Canterbury, Canterbury Archaeological Trust Occasional Paper 8, Canterbury Holbrook, N. 2010: ‘Assessing the contribution of commercial archaeology to the study of Roman Essex, 1990–2004’, Essex Archaeology and History 41, 1–15 Lyne, M. with Dannell, G. 2005: ‘The pottery from the fills of the early ditch at Fishbourne’, in Manley and Rudkin 2005, 64–75 Macphail, R. and Crowther, J. 2011: ‘Soil micromorphology, chemistry and magnetic susceptibility’, in Ford and Teague 2011, 376 Maltby, M. 2010: Feeding a Roman Town. Environmental Evidence from Excavations in Winchester, 1972–1985, Winchester Museums, Winchester Manley, J. (ed.) 2008: The Archaeology of Fishbourne and Chichester. A Framework for its Future. Fishbourne Research and Conservation Framework, Lewes Manley, J. and Rudkin, D. 2003: Facing the Palace. Excavations in Front of the Roman Palace at Fishbourne (Sussex,UK) 1995–99, Sussex Archaeological Collections 141, Lewes Manley, J. and Rudkin, D. 2005: ‘A pre-a.d. 43 ditch at Fishbourne Roman Palace, Chichester’, Britannia 36, 55–99 Niblett, R. 1999: The Excavation of a Ceremonial Site at Folly Lane, Verulamium, Britannia Monograph 14, London Orr, K. 2010: Archaeological Excavations at 1 Queens Road (Handford House, now ‘Handford Place’), Colchester, Essex, 2003 and 2004–5, CAT Report 323 Ottaway, P.J. 2012: ‘Victoria Road’, in Ottaway et al. 2012, 33–118 Ottaway, P.J. and Rees, H. 2012: ‘The cemeteries of Roman Winchester’, in Ottaway et al. 2012, 340–70 Ottaway, P.J., Qualmann, K.E., Rees, H. and Scobie, G.D. 2012: The Roman Cemeteries and Suburbs of Winchester. Excavations 1971–86, Winchester Museums, Winchester PCA forthcoming: Excavations on the Site of Shippam’s Factory and Sports and Social Club, Chichester 2004–7 Perring, D. and Pitts, M. 2013: Alien Cities: Consumption and the Origins of Urbanism in Roman Britain, Portslade Pitts, M. 2007: ‘Consumption, deposition and social practice: a ceramic approach to intra-site analysis in late Iron Age to Roman Britain’, Internet Archaeology 21 [http://intarch.ac.uk/journal/issue 21/2/toc.html] Pitts, M. 2010: ‘Re-thinking the southern British oppida: networks, kingdoms and material culture’, European Journal of Archaeology 13(1), 1–31 Pitts, M. 2014: ‘Reconsidering Britain’s first urban communities’, Journal of Roman Archaeology 27, 133– 74 Pitts, M. and Perring, D. 2006: ‘The making of Britain’s first urban landscapes: the case of late Iron Age and Roman Essex’, Britannia 37, 189–212 Pooley, L. and Benfield, S. 2005: Excavations at Abbotstone Field, Bell House Pit, Tarmac Colchester Quarry, Warren Lane, Stanway, Colchester, Essex, 1999–2001, CAT Report 312 Pooley, L., Crummy, P., Shimmin, D., Brooks, H., Holloway, B. and Masefield, R. 2011: Archaeological Investigations on the ‘Alienated Land’, Colchester Garrison, Colchester, Essex, May 2004–October 2007, CAT Report 412 Pratt, S. 2009: ‘Two “new” town gates, Roman buildings and an Anglo-Saxon sanctuary at St Mildred’s Tannery, Canterbury’, Archaeologia Cantiana 129, 225–38 Qualmann, K. and Ottaway, P.J. 2012: ‘The suburbs of Roman Winchester’, in Ottaway et al. 2012, 371–5 Qualmann, K. and Scobie, G.D. 2012: ‘The western suburb’, in Ottaway et al. 2012, 133–73 Qualmann, K., Rees, H., Scobie, G.D. and Whinney, R. 2004: Oram’s Arbour. The Iron Age Enclosure at Winchester,Vol. 1, Investigations 1950–1999, Winchester City Museums, Winchester

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Rady, J. 2009: Excavations at North Lane Canterbury 1993 and 1996, Canterbury Archaeological Trust Occasional Paper 6, Canterbury Rees, H., Crummy, N., Ottaway, P.J. and Dunn, G. 2008: Artefacts and Society in Roman and Medieval Winchester. Small Finds from the Suburbs and Defences, 1971–1986,Winchester Museums Service,Winchester Rigby, V. 1996: ‘Early imported, traded and locally produced fine and specialist wares’, in Cunliffe et al. 1996, 117–36 Sauer, E. 2001: ‘Alchester, a Claudian “vexillation fortress” near the western boundary of the Catuvellauni, new light on the Roman invasion of Britain’, Archaeological Journal 157 (for 2000), 1–78 Seager Smith, R., Cooke, N., Gale, R., Knight, S., McKinley, J.I. and Stevens, C. 2007: ‘Archaeological investigations on the site of the former Rowe’s Garage, Chichester, West Sussex’, Sussex Archaeological Collections 145, 67–80 Shand, G. and Hicks, A. 2013: ‘Roman and medieval development of a Canterbury suburban area: excavations at land adjoining No. 10 Wincheap’, Archaeologia Cantiana 133, 33–65 Shimmin, D. 2009: Archaeological Investigations at Turner Rise 1996–99, CAT Report 322 Starley, D. 2011: ‘The metalworking debris’, in Ford and Teague 2011, 336–8 Stevens, C.J. 2008: ‘Plant remains’, in D. Godden, ‘Romano-British and medieval occupation at Pallant House Gallery, Chichester’, Sussex Archaeological Collections 146, 89–91 Sykes, N. 2005: ‘Animal bones’, in Manley and Rudkin 2005, 78–86 Teague, S.C. 2012: ‘Eagle Hotel, Andover Road’, in Ottaway et al. 2012, 120–7 Thorne, A. 2012: ‘Roman activity at the Chichester Festival Theatre site, Oaklands Park, Chichester’, Sussex Archaeological. Collections 150, 109–22 Timby, J. 2004: ‘The prehistoric and Roman pottery’, in Brooks 2004, 50–88 Wacher, J.S. 1995: The Towns of Roman Britain, London Weekes, J. 2011: ‘A review of Canterbury’s Romano-British cemeteries’, Archaeologia Cantiana 131, 23–42 Weekes, J. 2012: ‘Additional evidence of Roman (and later) occupation adjacent to the Marlowe Arcade, Canterbury: excavations at Rose Lane, 2002–4’, Archaeologia Cantiana 132, 235–58 Zant, J.M. 1993: The Brooks, Winchester, 1987–88. The Roman Structural Remains, Winchester Museums Service Archaeological Report 2, Stroud

CHAPTER 6

The Towns of South-West england By Neil Holbrook

INTRODUCTION In this paper I will consider the gains in knowledge that have accrued from commercial archaeological investigations since 1990 at the principal Roman towns of the South-West of England: Dorchester, Exeter, Ilchester, Bath, Cirencester and Gloucester. Gloucester was a colonia; Dorchester, Exeter and Cirencester civitas capitals (the latter might conceivably have been a municipium, but evidence is lacking: Frere 1984, 68; Holbrook 1998, 91; Wilson 2006a, 32). Ilchester may have become a civitas capital, although this is not certain (Fulford 2006). There is no reason to believe that Bath ever attained this level of administrative status, but it would be perverse to exclude it from any assessment of the Roman urban archaeology of the region. I have adopted a loose definition of the extramural areas of the towns, so that the consideration of Exeter includes work at Topsham (6.5 km from the city centre) and at the former St Loye’s College site (2.6 km distant). The settlement and burials at Poundbury Farm near Dorchester on the other hand clearly fit within the pattern of rural settlements ringing the town and so this evidence is not further considered (Egging Dinwiddy and Bradley 2011). The level of knowledge available (or perhaps more precisely published) from work prior to 1990 varies considerably across the towns (Wacher 1995 for the major towns, Burnham and Wacher 1990 for Bath and Ilchester, and Esmonde Cleary 1987 for the extramural areas provide good syntheses of the evidence up to the start of the developer-funded era). In some cases the pre-PPG 16 work is published quite fully, and the conclusions presented in those reports provide a valuable reference point against which to benchmark the achievements of the last quarter century. Dorchester, Ilchester, Bath and Cirencester fall into this category (the most significant reports on pre-PPG 16 work published since the syntheses cited above are Leach 1994; Davenport 1991; Davenport 1999; Holbrook 1998). At Exeter and Gloucester, however, most of the extensive work which took place from the 1960s onwards has not been fully published and knowledge of the findings stems from a variety of interim reports and synthetic accounts. A similar variable applies to the quantity, and scale, of archaeological work undertaken after 1990 and the degree to which this has been published (either formally or as grey literature). Ilchester has experienced the least developer-funded work (that to 2004 is summarised in Holbrook 2010, 39–40); Exeter seemingly the most. Appendix 1 details the principal sites investigated since 1990 and the degree to which the results had been published by the end of 2013. Inclusion within the appendix is inevitably a matter of some personal subjectivity, influenced for the unpublished sites by the availability of summary accounts of the principal findings. In the following sections I will examine the South-Western evidence against a small number of themes and conclude with a broader assessment of the success of the implementation of developer archaeology in these towns since 1990. Deposit Preservation and Integrity As extant urban settlements almost all the work discussed in this paper was associated with

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fig. 1. Excavations at Princesshay, Exeter, 2005–6, the largest excavation undertaken within the walls of a Roman town in South-West England since 1990. The degree of disturbance of Roman levels by later features is apparent. (© Exeter City Council)

the redevelopment of previously built-up land, and consequently the degree to which Roman deposits had been impacted by later activity is pertinent. This includes both activity which we would term as later archaeology (of the medieval and post-medieval periods) as well as the effects of more recent nineteenth- or twentieth-century development. Post-War developments of the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s are now being replaced in many towns and this provides opportunities to revisit sites where some (often quite low) levels of archaeological work occurred prior to the original construction of those schemes. In parts of Dorchester and Cirencester car parks have served to seal and preserve Roman deposits beneath blankets of post-Roman and medieval soils. Elsewhere the effects of development have been more severe, although total destruction of Roman deposits is rare. The largest intramural excavation since 1990 was at Princesshay, Exeter, in 2005–6 (fig. 1). The whole site occupied c. 4.7 ha, lying mainly within the walled city but also extending some distance beyond it. Much of the site had been disturbed by Georgian basements

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and 1950s developments, with only 1600 m2 of archaeological deposits within the walls remaining for investigation (Steinmetzer et al. forthcoming). In that area earlier Roman levels were better preserved and more intelligible than the later Roman ones, a typical occurrence in Exeter. Elsewhere Roman deposits often survive in a better state of preservation than might initially have been expected, or indeed suggested by the preliminary evaluation. Examples include Bath where work on both sides of Beau Street has revealed good preservation of stratigraphy associated with two separate Romano-British public buildings. This recent work thus afforded an opportunity to build upon the observations made by James Irvine in 1864–7 during the construction of the buildings that have now been replaced (Irvine’s records are reproduced in Cunliffe 1969, 151–4; the recent work is reported in Davenport et al. 2007 and Booth 2009, 270–1). Alongside physical preservation, it is also important to consider the quality of the archaeological deposits investigated. For instance, waterlogged strata where anaerobic conditions proved suitable for the preservation of organic materials have to date been little explored. There is only a single accurate dendrochronological date from a South-Western town, and that from a sample recovered from Exeter in 1982, compared to almost 1,000 from London (Henderson 1988, 115; Tyers 2008). There are, however, hints at the largely untapped potential that exists. In Gloucester excavations at Upper Quay Street in 1989–90 revealed a first-century a.d. planked landing area on an inlet of the river Severn with good preservation of timber structures (Atkin 1991, 16–18; for discussion of this frontage see Hurst 1999, 123–4, although his contention that the main channel of the Severn flowed as far east as this is dismissed by Rhodes 2006, 12–13). The City Bank area within the south-eastern sector of the walled area of Cirencester has also been shown by evaluation trenching to contain braided channels of the river Churn which preserved plant material, branchwood, a writing-tablet and leather (Holbrook 1998, 8–9, fig. 30; Holbrook 1994, 77). Elsewhere isolated features can have potential for the preservation of organic deposits, such as a well at the former St Loye’s College site in Exeter which yielded a wooden writing-tablet reused for an ink text (Booth 2011, 384–5; Tomlin 2011, 444–5). Late Iron Age and Roman Military Origins It has long been recognised that most of the sites which became the principal urban centres of the South-West had origins as forts or fortresses. The role that the army played in the transformation of their establishments into towns is still not clear and probably varied from place to place. The idea that the inhabitants of vici outside of the forts formed the nucleus of the new urban population was effectively challenged by Millett (1990, 74–8) who argued that the location of many forts was heavily determined by pre-existing centres of population. Existing orthodoxy would regard Dorchester, Cirencester and Ilchester as examples of a localised shift in location from Late Iron Age centres necessitated by a need to fit more comfortably with the emerging road network of the province (those centres are respectively Maiden Castle, Bagendon and the sizeable defended enclosure to the south of Ilchester which is sometimes referred to as an oppidum, although this is a premature classification given the lack of knowledge about the site; Leach 1994, 117–20). Even this picture may not be straightforward, however, as occupation at Maiden Castle was seemingly in decline from the first century b.c., while the function of Bagendon, and its relationship with early Roman Cirencester, may not be as clear cut as is often suggested (Sharples 1991; Moore 2012; Holbrook 2008a). Bath is reasonably assumed to be the site of a pre-Roman sacred spring, although the only evidence so far is a handful of Iron Age coins from the mud of the King’s Bath spring, perhaps associated with a gravel ridge which might have served as a causeway extending out to the spring (Cunliffe 1988, 1–3, 279–80). The scarcity of Late Iron Age pottery from the numerous sites excavated in Bath, however, surely precludes any substantial settlement here in the immediately pre-conquest period. Exeter and Gloucester are usually regarded as essentially new sites selected by the army, a picture which still largely holds true. Two possible roundhouses beneath the legionary fortress at Exeter discovered in 1972–4 appear isolated with no other associated evidence (Bidwell 1980, 16). Another probable Iron Age roundhouse was excavated in 2002–3 at Southernhay East, outside the South Gate of the later Roman town. Radiocarbon dating of residues on two sherds

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fig. 2. Late Iron Age enclosure and overlying Neronian to early Flavian defended structures at the former St Loye’s College site, Exeter. Note how the Iron Age enclosure is directly overlain by the large Roman courtyard building. (© Exeter City Council and AC Archaeology)

of pottery suggests that occupation dates to the second or first century b.c., and thus that the site had been abandoned at least half a century prior to the Roman invasion (Stead 2004). Some 2.6 km south-east of the legionary fortress at the former St Loye’s College site at least two phases of enclosure ditches surrounding a single, centrally placed, roundhouse were discovered underlying a military-period establishment (fig. 2). The ditch of the later enclosure, following what appears to have been a short period of abandonment, was deliberately infilled in preparation for the construction of timber buildings in the mid-first century a.d. (Booth 2011, 384–6; Salvatore et al. forthcoming). While there was undoubtedly Iron Age activity in the Exeter area therefore, this was seemingly on a level such as might be found over much of East Devon, and there is no suggestion of a nucleated centre here in the immediate pre-Roman period. At Gloucester Hurst (1999, 115–20) has argued that finds of Iron Age coins from the Kingsholm area suggest a sizeable pre-Roman community there. Attempts to elevate the Late Iron Age activity at Kingsholm and its environs to the status of an oppidum or similar are, however, difficult to justify and the coins could have been brought to the site by the Roman army (Moore 2006, 150–1, 200; Haselgrove 1993, 57–9). A combination of research-driven and developer-funded work in the environs of Cirencester has now shown that Bagendon did not exist in isolation but was rather part of a complex of sites occupied in the first half of the first century a.d. (Holbrook 2008a; 2008b, 134–6; Moore 2012 provides a summary of this evidence). These included two rectilinear enclosures examined in advance of the Cirencester bypass and a seemingly isolated pit in Stratton water meadows found during sewer renewal. Reece (2003) has also suggested that two earthen barrows known as Tar Barrows to the east of Cirencester may be Late Iron Age rather than Bronze Age and may have been influential in determining the layout of the road system hereabouts and the siting of the fort and subsequent town (see also Holbrook 2008a and Booth 2009, 267–9 for the results of more recent aerial photography and geophysical survey around Tar Barrows). In an assessment of the evidence in 1987 only Dorchester of the South-Western towns was not regarded as being either the certain or probable location of a pre-Flavian military base (Maxfield 1987, fig. 1). It is now reasonably assured that a fort did not exist within the area later enclosed

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by the town defences of Dorchester as excavations at Greyhound Yard, Charles Street and the former County Hospital were all sufficiently thorough to have detected timber military buildings if they had been present (Woodward et al. 1993; Adam et al. 1992; Adam and Butterworth 1993; Trevarthen 2008). Despite these findings, Putnam (2007, 28–32) continued to promote the case for a fort at Dorchester in the Victoria Park suburb to the west of Maumbury Rings amphitheatre. There has been no recent archaeological investigation in that area and alternative explanations are possible for the pre-Flavian material recovered from the town (see below). The presence of a fort at Bath has also long been assumed, not by the hot springs but rather to the north near the likely Roman crossing point of the Avon just south of Cleveland Bridge. Locations on the east bank at Bathwick or west bank close to the intersection of London Road, Julian Road and Walcot Street have been suggested (Davenport 2000, 9). Despite a reasonable amount of developer work close to the latter point (principally the unpublished excavations at Nelson Place in 1989 and Hat and Feather Yard in 1989–1995), no conclusive structural evidence for a fort has so far been found (Davenport 2007, 418). Instead it would appear that timber buildings typical of a roadside settlement were constructed here from c. a.d. 50 onwards (Davenport 2000,

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fig. 3. The relationship of the Kingsholm and Gloucester fortresses. (© Cotswold Archaeology)

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16–18). The existence of a fort cannot be excluded, however, and the unpublished pottery from Hat and Feather Yard and Nelson Place has close similarities with the military assemblages from Kingsholm, Usk and Cirencester, along with evidence for local flagon manufacture (P. Bidwell pers. comm.). If Henig (1999) is correct that Bath lay at the western edge of the client kingdom of Togidubnus, and his patronage can be detected in the temple-baths complex, then the fort might have provided protection for this ambitious venture which was not too far removed from areas of active campaigning. The by now familiar disposition and chronology of military sites in Gloucester was in the main elucidated by rescue work in the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s, and relatively few new discoveries of note have been made since 1990. The earliest Roman activity in the city was at Kingsholm to the north of the city centre site later occupied by a legionary fortress and subsequent colonia (fig. 3). Pre-Flavian timber buildings, ditches and other features sharing a common alignment and belonging to a military installation have been found over an area of c. 18 ha in Kingsholm; samian ware dates this occupation to c. a.d. 50–65, while the coins indicate abandonment and demolition c. a.d. 67–71 (fig. 4). There has been considerable difficulty in tracing the defences of this fortress, and in differentiating internal structures from possible extramural activity. The north and south defences were located in small trenches in the 1980s which provide for a distance across the ramparts on this axis of 275 m. Atkin (1986) suggested that the long axis of the fortress lay east–west and inferred an internal area of up to 10 ha. Given the absence of structures to the east of Kingsholm Road, however, the present author suggested that the long axis may have lain north–south and that the fortress was not much larger than c. 6.9 ha (Holbrook in Burnham and Davies 2010, 185–6). Some support for this view has come from the recent evaluation of the only remaining substantially undeveloped site in the vicinity of the fortress, the former Civil Service Playing Fields which lay to the east of Kingsholm Road and

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between the A38 and Denmark Road (Cotswold Archaeology 2014). On Atkin’s reconstruction the eastern defences of the fortress should have passed through this area. Evaluation proved that the site had been heavily disturbed by a mass of post-medieval sand pits, but as these were rarely more than 1 m deep, it might be supposed that if the defensive ditches on the east side of the fortress had been present, some trace of them would have survived. In the event no features of clearly Roman date were found in the evaluation, although residual Roman pottery was plentiful. While not conclusive, the evaluation does suggest that the eastern defences lay further to the east and supports the idea that the fortress was somewhat smaller than has previously been thought. A cremation cemetery at Wotton Pitch, 900 m south-east of the Kingsholm fortress has produced three stylistically pre-Flavian inscribed tombstones (fig. 3). Those of a soldier of Legion XX and of a trooper of cohors VI Thracum quingenaria equitata are old finds (RIB 121–2). More recently a further two tombstones were discovered in excavations at 120–122 London Road in 2004 (RIB 3072–3; Henig and Tomlin 2008). One of these named a second soldier of Legion XX (although Hurst (2010) questions whether the tombstones can be confidently dated to the pre-Flavian period rather than later in the first century a.d.). These two regiments could conceivably have been in garrison at either Kingsholm or the subsequent city centre fortress, but if the former, Kingsholm would only have been large enough to have accommodated a vexillation of the legion, which might have been brigaded together with the Thracians in a similar fashion to that suggested at Longthorpe. Much remains to be learnt about the pre- and early Flavian occupation of the Gloucester area, and it would be a surprise if significant new discoveries are not made over the coming years which challenge existing orthodoxy. It is Exeter, however, which stands out as the town where by far and away the most important new evidence has been recovered for first-century a.d. military occupation and the mechanics of army supply. The legionary fortress as we currently know it was brought to light by a sustained period of rescue excavation in the city from 1971–90, but it is now clear that this did not exist in isolation. To the east of the fortress on either side of the road to the port at Topsham there were two areas of military buildings which probably formed part of extramural stores or works depots (for that to the south of the road see Henderson 2001, 45–56; Frere 1991, 281–3; for that to the north Salvatore 2001; Frere 1989, 314 (Acorn roundabout site)). With the exception of the legionary bath-house, all this high-quality evidence from the pre-1990 investigations is sadly unpublished in detail (Henderson 1988 and Bidwell 1980 provide summaries). Since 1990, however, a further four important sites have been investigated which reinforce the significance of the Exeter evidence (fig. 5). The fortress was occupied between c. a.d. 55/60 and 75, although some of the extramural compounds and other forts in the South-West such as Tiverton were not finally abandoned until c. a.d. 80 (Holbrook and Bidwell 1991, 3–8; Holbrook and Bidwell 1992, 37). Exeter occupied a strategic location on the Exe estuary which was well placed to receive supplies from shipping routes across the Channel and along the Atlantic seaboard. In the Roman period it would appear that the Exe estuary was not routinely navigable to sea-going craft above Topsham, 6.5 km downstream. The port is, therefore, likely to have been at Topsham, with goods being brought by road to the fortress and its ancillary installations. The defences of a previously unknown fortress-period military site on the cliffs above the channel of the Exe at Topsham were examined in 2000 (Sage and Allan 2004). This appears to be somewhat smaller than other auxiliary forts in the South-West and may have been either a fortlet or a stores depot (we have no knowledge of the interior layout). Closer to Exeter, and on the line of the road from Topsham, another remarkable fortress-period installation was examined at the former St Loye’s College site in 2010 and 2013 (the site is not as yet fully published but summaries are available in Booth 2011, 384–6; Tomlin 2011, 444–5; Steinmetzer and Salvatore 2010; Stead and Payne 2013; Salvatore et al. forthcoming). The site contained a series of timber buildings, the largest directly overlying the Late Iron Age enclosure and roundhouse mentioned above (fig. 2). That structure comprised three ranges set around a courtyard, with an aisled hall to the west and an accommodation block to the north. The excavators interpreted the building as a fabrica, similar to that known within the Exeter fortress. To the north of it further rectangular strip buildings fronted the Exeter to Topsham road, with a second row behind them separated, seemingly, by

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fig. 5. Plan of the first-century a.d. legionary fortress and associated military installations at Exeter. (After Henderson 2001, with additions; © Cotswold Archaeology)

a street flanked by timber porticos (fig. 6). The buildings were enclosed (on two sides at least) by a pair of ditches, the inner of Punic and the outer of V-shaped profile, and presumably an internal bank or rampart, which extended for over 200 m. Corner and interval towers, invariably components of fort defences, were absent. St Loye’s is a site which defies ready interpretation or classification into the canon of Roman military establishments, with large expanses of open space enclosed by the defences. An interpretation as a works and/or supply depot has been proposed in the interim accounts and this is certainly plausible. While detailed discussion of this intriguing site is best deferred until the full report is published, there are manifestly a number of curious features. In particular, it is not clear whether the site is of a single period or whether the defences were a later addition. We might also note that if a timber building of courtyard plan, and indeed potentially of winged corridor type, was found directly overlying the site of a Late Iron Age roundhouse in the countryside of southern Britain, then an interpretation as a villa house where there was continuity of ownership either side of the Invasion would be a commonplace interpretation (as for instance Millett 1990, 92, citing sites such as Gorhambury, Herts.; Neal et al. 1990). The presence of substantial defences, timber buildings of post-in-

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fig. 6. First-century a.d. post-in-trench timber buildings under excavation in 2013 at the former St Loye’s College site, Exeter. (© AC Archaeology)

trench constructional technique and a finds assemblage including military antefixes clearly point to military involvement in the construction of the complex, yet the architectural forms would be equally at home in a first-century a.d. urban context. The army could be involved in the construction of civilian centres, as the Augustan military town at Waldgirmes in Germany or the incipient urban settlement of Oppidum Batavorum at Nijmegen demonstrate (von Schnurbein 2003; Willems and van Enckevort 2009). The latter settlement covered c. 20 ha and was defended by a Punic-profiled ditch, but this was a later addition perhaps associated with the Batavian Revolt of a.d. 69/70. Perhaps the St Loye’s College site was a purpose-built civilian settlement located, for some reason, a few kilometres downstream of the fortress. Perhaps the area around the fortress was a military exclusion zone given over to the importation, storage and marshalling of supplies? And if we may go further, perhaps at some point there was sufficient insecurity (the Boudican Revolt perhaps) to require the military to construct defences for the settlement. Whatever the truth may be of this, the St Loye’s College complex was clearly utterly dependent upon the military for its raison d’etre, and once the fortress was abandoned it is no surprise that this site was as well. At Princesshay to the north of the fortress part of a defended installation defined by a rampart with interval towers and an external ditch has been found (Booth 2007, 295–6; Steinmetzer et al. forthcoming). Three phases of ditch were represented, although no internal buildings could be detected within the small area of the interior available for examination (which had also been heavily disturbed by later features). The line of the excavated defences ran at a rough right angle to the north-east side of the fortress and faced towards the road which led from the northeast gate (fig. 5). The absence of recognisable internal buildings hinders interpretation of the Princesshay enclosure, which pottery shows to be contemporary with the fortress rather than

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fig. 7. Plan of a large first-century a.d. timber courtyard building, perhaps a praetorium, at Mount Dinham, Exeter. (© AC Archaeology)

earlier. It could conceivably have been an auxiliary fort just outside the legionary fortress, or alternatively some manner of works compound or annexe. Wasters demonstrate that this area was used in the second century as a tile works and it is a possibility that this activity might have commenced here in the period of military occupation. The final site to consider in Exeter is Mount Dinham which lies on a flat plateau 500 m west of the city centre and separated from it by the valley of the Longbrook stream. The site commands good views over the river Exe. Small-scale excavations in 2007–9 revealed a fortressperiod building of typical post-in-trench construction. Only a fragmentary plan was revealed but it appears to have been a sizeable building of courtyard plan with an aisled hall and flanking rooms and corridors (fig. 7). Just inside one of the rooms was a pit containing a purse hoard of 22 bronze coins terminating with issues of Claudius and quantities of pottery and glass which had been broken prior to deposition in the pit (Portable Antiquities Scheme reference DEV– EFF581). In the preliminary report the pit is suggested to be a cremation burial later than the abandonment of the building (Passmore 2013). The absence of any evidence of burning and the isolated location of the pit suggest that it may more plausibly have been a structured foundation or closure deposit associated with the building. Over 50 per cent by weight of the pottery assemblage recovered from the site was amphora, well above average for a military assemblage in the South-West, suggesting that the contents were being dispensed or decanted nearby. In the interim report Paul Bidwell draws comparison between the Mount Dinham building and the plans of timber praetoria within the Augustan fortresses at Haltern and Marktbreit in Germany (Reddé et al. 2006, figs 62–3). There is no suggestion that a further fort lay on Mount Dinham, but rather the building might have lain within yet another ancillary enclosure and provided accommodation for a high ranking official, perhaps someone involved in military supply. The military occupation of Exeter is manifestly important on an international scale. The

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agglomeration of different installations and structures outside of the legionary fortress and stretching 6 km downstream to the port at Topsham brought to light by recent work is without comparison in Britain. At Inchtuthil in Scotland two external defended enclosures were built close to the Flavian legionary fortress, but it is unclear whether these were temporary construction depots or were intended to remain in use alongside the fortress (Pitts and St Joseph 1985). Exeter provides an excellent opportunity to investigate the archaeology of military supply in the Neronian/early Flavian period, as well as at the St Loye’s College site the interaction between the Roman state and the local population. It also highlights the value of archaeological examination of areas away from the established later foci at sites which were militarily important in the first century a.d. Further discoveries are also to be expected, as the absence of granaries and warehouses in the riverside corridor to store imported grain and other foodstuffs is surprising and surely likely to be rectified by future work. The first-century grain warehouses on the bank of the river Ouse at Coney Street outside of the York fortress demonstrate the type of high quality evidence which might be expected (Hall 1986; Kenward and Williams 1979). Even in the current state of knowledge the complexity revealed at Exeter invites comparison with continental nodal locations such as Nijmegen in Lower Germany, where there was considerable pre-Flavian military activity on the Kops plateau 400 m east of the legionary fortress on the Hunerberg, including a defended military site (sometimes referred to as a command post) which contained an impressive timber praetorium (Willems and van Enckevort 2009). Other encampments lay between the Hunerberg fortress and the Oppidum Batavorum to the west. Nijmegen therefore serves to demonstrate the further potential that exists in Exeter for exciting new discoveries in the future. Chronologies and Transformations Within the walled areas of the South-Western towns the application of policies of preservation in situ have generated relatively little work of scale compared to the two decades preceding 1990, although substantial excavations have taken place in Exeter (Princesshay), Dorchester (former County Hospital) and Bath (New Royal Baths). Each of these sites provides a wealth of information to assist in the development of individual urban biographies, although some broader themes can be drawn out. Of course small-scale investigations can also produce results of significance, although in some cases the limited areas examined render interpretation beyond the very local almost impossible. There have been some gains in knowledge of major public buildings and urban defences since 1990, but on a much reduced scale to previously and the results are often of ambiguous interpretation. Investigations on the site of the forum in Cirencester and limited exposures of the town defences in Cirencester and Dorchester illustrate the difficulties in contextualisation frequently posed by small-scale work (Simmonds and Smith 2008; Hancocks et al. 2008; Adam et al. 1992). The chronology and form of the early Roman towns of South-West England remain poorly understood. In 1989 Malcolm Todd questioned Wacher’s assessment that the origin of many of the major towns of southern Britain was an early Flavian phenomenon, preferring the late Flavian and Trajanic period as that when most of the urban infrastructure came into being (Todd 1989). This view has been largely upheld by work since 1990. Before looking at the higher ranking centres, however, it is worth examining what is known from Bath, which by any measure was an exceptional place with an idiosyncratic history. The temple-baths are dated to c. a.d. 70 or a little earlier and work for the New Royal Baths development provided an opportunity to investigate a site adjacent to the main complex (Cunliffe and Davenport 1985, 65; Davenport et al. 2007). Interestingly the plot lay undeveloped until the mid-second century which suggests official control of the temple temenos because market forces would surely not have allowed this prime piece of real estate to have lain vacant for 80 years or so. In the mid-second century the site was developed for a public building and architectural fragments reused in its foundations perhaps derived from one or more wealthy residences built around the temple-baths, but not on the New Royal Baths site itself, rather than from the headquarters of a military administration as has been suggested. Turning to the early history of the civitas capitals, reinterpretation of earlier work at Cirencester

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prompted by limited developer investigations at Trinity Road suggests that findings previously adduced as evidence for an annexe and vicus associated with a mid-first-century a.d. fort might in fact fit better as elements of a slowly evolving Flavian town which was of somewhat different character to the familiar town plan which in large part was a creation of the early second century (Holbrook 2008a, 312–13). Similarly the origins of Dorchester are poorly understood. A date of c. a.d. 65 for the foundation of the town was suggested on the basis of the evidence from Greyhound Yard, although firmly stratified and sealed pre-Flavian assemblages are lacking and this date derives to some degree from an assessment of likely historical contexts for urban formation in South-West England (Woodward 1993, 359–62). Pre-Flavian pottery is regularly recovered from the town, and this has been used to support the case for a military origin discussed above. It is telling, however, that purely Claudian samian is almost entirely absent from Charles Street and the former County Hospital sites (it was not published in detail in the Greyhound Yard report), yet this would be expected if a military garrison was present in Dorchester at the same time as the other forts in Dorset were occupied (Dickinson 1992; 1993; Mills and Dickinson 2008; Mills in Powell forthcoming). If a military context for the pre-Flavian material is discounted, then we must infer either that the town had a Neronian origin or else that there was some other form of pre-urban activity here. The possible existence of a Late Iron Age religious shrine in Dorchester which continued as a centre of veneration into the post-conquest period has been suggested on the basis of structured ritual deposition in pits and shafts at Greyhound Yard (Woodward and Woodward 2004), but such deposits are now widely recognised across the province and need not indicate a shrine (see Fulford pp. 202–3). Given the absence of any other evidence for a shrine, a Neronian origin for Dorchester should not be dismissed. It is against this uncertainty over the chronology and nature of the earliest Roman activity in Dorchester that the results from excavations at the former County Hospital should be considered. The site lay in the south-western quadrant of the walled area and provided an opportunity to partially examine a 90 m-long length of street frontage and back land areas. Some of the work is published in a semi-popular format with specialist reports available from the Wessex Archaeology website (Trevarthen 2008); some of it is not (Hulka and Hodgson 2000 for a note on findings immediately to the north of the Wessex Archaeology site). The frontage was far from intensively developed in the first century a.d. with two small timber buildings, 45 m apart, separated by an open area containing a scatter of pits (fig. 8). There were at least two further buildings in the back lands. Both were semi-cellared buildings dug into the natural chalk, a local architectural type encountered in Late Iron Age and Roman rural contexts in the Dorchester region and considered to be non-domestic stores or outbuildings (as at Poundbury Farm, Maiden Castle Road, Fordington Bottom and Alington Avenue (Egging Dinwiddy and Bradley 2011, 163–4; Smith et al. 1997, 61–2, 213, 301–2; Davies et al. 2002, 65–70)). This sequence is clearly of importance to a consideration of the urban origins of Dorchester, but unfortunately the information available (either in the publication or the specialist downloads) is not sufficiently detailed for a full consideration of this evidence to be made. The pits were seemingly being filled up to the middle of the second century, although the earliest (1547) is said to have been ‘probably infilled during, or shortly after, the third quarter of the 1st century a.d.’ (Trevarthen 2008, 16). This might, therefore, be one of the earliest stratified ceramic assemblages from the town, but little further detail can be gleaned from it. The broad periods of subsequent transformation at the former County Hospital were the second half of the second century, when stone houses were erected on the frontage and a cobbuilt aisled building in the back lands, and the late third or early fourth century. By that time the houses on the frontage had been demolished, seemingly not to be replaced, and new masonry buildings erected to the rear. While this broad phasing doubtless holds true, it is far from clear whether these were events of wholesale replanning or (as seems inherently more plausible) piecemeal and incremental rebuilding, with different buildings abandoned at different times. The irregularity in planning, with some structures not aligned on the street grid, and the lack of emphasis on the frontage in the fourth century (when there was a house with mosaics in the centre of the insula) might challenge some preconceptions of the urban geography of RomanoBritish towns, but in reality this irregularity is much more likely to have been the norm (as, for

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fig. 8. Development of a part of an insula at Dorchester, as revealed by excavations at the former County Hospital in 2000–1. (© Wessex Archaeology)

instance, the detailed aerial photographic and geophysical evidence from Wroxeter makes plain; White et al. 2013). The former County Hospital provides some of the best evidence recovered since 1990 for the layout and development of an urban insula. Elsewhere in the South-West the evidence for domestic housing, craft and industrial processes is much more piecemeal with few substantially complete building plans, although there have been useful observations which help to build a picture of when different insulae where developed for the first time, or houses built at least partly in stone rather than entirely from timber or cob. Other than at Dorchester the only other complete building plan to be recovered is that of a town-house at Princesshay in Exeter, the first complete house plan known from that city (Steinmetzer et al. forthcoming). It was a simple row-type building which in its original form comprised three rooms and a verandah. Almost abutting it part of a larger building was found, squeezed hard up against the back of the rampart of the city defences. Two rooms contained channelled hypocausts and formed a heated bi-partite

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winter dining-room (Cosh 2001, 233–6). Both buildings date to after the late third century and had been abandoned by the end of the fourth century. Also in Exeter, work at Market Street in the southern quadrant of the early Roman town, whilst limited, yielded valuable results (Stead 2002). Overlying the abandoned fortress buildings was a deposit of cultivation soil, presumably testimony to market gardening. On the Insula XII frontage (the insula numbering is after Bidwell 1980, fig. 37) this soil was sealed by a masonry building, most likely a house, which was probably built in the mid to late second century (the time when the abandoned fortress defences were being levelled and the city wall constructed to enclose a larger area). On the opposite side of the street (Insula XVI) another area of garden soil extended back from the frontage with no evidence for any structures. The early Roman town, which lay within the bounds of the former legionary fortress, was therefore far from intensively developed and while there was some later Roman expansion, an area in the core of the town was always devoted to agricultural or horticultural activities and never built-up. Given the widespread adoption of strategies to ensure the preservation in situ of archaeological remains, it is not uncommon for archaeological work to cease at the uppermost surfaces associated with the latest Roman structures so that concrete rafts for new constructions can be founded at this level. It might therefore be expected that a number of insights would have been gained into the nature of activity in the South-Western towns in the later fourth and fifth centuries. In reality new evidence for this period is meagre. A timber building was constructed on a Roman street surface at the former County Hospital in Dorchester, but nothing more can be said of its form or chronology until the excavations are published (Hulka and Hodgson 2000 provide a brief summary). Elsewhere on that site a Theodosian coin hoard assembled in the early decades of the fifth century was discovered within the demolition deposits of a barn. The hoard was perhaps originally concealed within the superstructure of the barn and dispersed over its interior during demolition, which suggests activity into the early fifth century at least (Cooke 2007; Trevarthen 2008, 39–41). There have been surprisingly few attempts at the scientific dating of biological remains from the latest ‘Roman’ structural layers (or indeed the deposits themselves via archaeomagnetism). The only published results derive from research work by Gerrard who radiocarbon dated four animal bones recovered from excavations in 1978–84 in the temple precinct at Bath (Gerrard 2007). This suggests that the temple of Sulis Minerva was demolished in the second half of the fifth century and demonstrates the value that could be derived from the more widespread application of this approach elsewhere. Similarly little or no progress has been made on understanding the formation processes and chronology of so-called dark earth (MacPhail 2010): attempts have been made at Bath and Cirencester but so far with little success. The absence of post-Roman grass-tempered pottery from the numerous test pits sampling the dark earth in Cirencester over the last two decades now assumes greater significance given the recovery of this fabric at four locations just outside the walls, in one case in association with a sunken feature in the former cemetery area at Old Tetbury Road (Holbrook 2013, 32–3, 44). Suburbs Some of the biggest advances in knowledge have come from the extramural areas, through the investigation of both burial practice and suburban occupation and industry. The work in Bath on the Walcot Street/London Road suburb has already been mentioned. The suburb appears to have covered an area of c. 25 ha at its maximum extent compared to 10 ha within the walls (Davenport 2007, 419). A series of strip buildings fronted onto the road leading north from the walled town; they were initially of timber construction replaced in stone in the second century. The buildings achieved some level of architectural pretension with stone and timber porticos, at least one tessellated pavement and piped water. Activities undertaken included blacksmithing and pottery making (Davenport 2000; 2007). Work on the opposite side of the Avon crossing at Bathwick in 2012 confirmed the presence of a substantial suburb on this side of the river as well, in the form of masonry roadside strip buildings containing ovens, latrines and pits (information from the Context One Archaeological Services website).

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Gloucester had substantial extramural suburbs in contrast to Cirencester where the large walled area was never fully built-up, a contrast that has been remarked upon by a number of commentators such as Hurst (2005, 294–6). Work outside the South Gate at Gloucester in 1989–90 revealed later first- to second-century timber structures replaced by at least three masonry buildings, one of aisled plan, in the second/third century. They lay just outside the defensive colonia ditch and extended for c. 70 m from the gate, with ditched plots beyond (Atkin 1990, 3–4; 1991, 14–15). Such evidence is lacking at Cirencester: except for a single workshop outside the Bath Gate, suburban activity was limited until recently to two villas just beyond the walls (McWhirr et al. 1982, 50–68; RCHME 1976, Cirencester inventory 1 and 7). Excavations at Kingshill in 2009, half a kilometre beyond the walls on the eastern side of the town, revealed two stone buildings of probable second- or third-century construction: an aisled building containing tanks and hearths and an apsidal structure of uncertain function (finds included industrial residues and partial sheep remains; fig. 9). The buildings were situated within what appears to have been an agricultural landscape of ditched paddocks, terraces, corn-driers and four scattered inhumation burials (Booth 2010, 396). The buildings lay away from the main roads leading from Cirencester and in many respects would not be out of place in an agricultural setting in the Cotswold countryside. Despite their proximity to the town the buildings, therefore, appear to have been intimately involved in agricultural production and can be contrasted with the ribbon development at Gloucester which was focused upon the major roads leaving the town. The burial and cemetery evidence is considered on a national scale by John Pearce elsewhere in this volume and I will therefore restrict discussion to a few specific points. Of the South-Western towns, Dorchester, Ilchester, Gloucester and Cirencester all had extensive cemeteries, with work on varying scales since 1990 at Gloucester (at least 382 burials excavated), Cirencester (87), Dorchester (29) and Ilchester (3). There has been no modern investigation of a cemetery in Bath where the study of skeletal remains would surely tell us much not only about diseases in the Roman world but also potentially the geographic origins of those who died there. A ‘backyard’

fig. 9. Extramural apsidal building under excavation at Kingshill South, Cirencester, in 2009. (© Oxford Archaeology)

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burial excavated in the Walcot Street suburb hints at the potential as DNA and lead isotope analysis of a male buried in a lead-lined timber coffin suggest that he may have had a Near Eastern or Mediterranean origin (Davenport 2000, 24–5; Fitzpatrick 2001, 370; the scientific analyses are seemingly unpublished and are not included in the overview of lead isotope work produced by Montgomery et al. 2010). Exeter stands apart from the other South-Western towns in its absence of extensive later Roman inhumation cemeteries and in this respect has much closer affinity with Caerwent and Carmarthen in South Wales. Recent work in the environs of the walled area has done nothing to change the picture. Occasional scattered burials have been found at a few sites but the absence of an organised cemetery is telling. Mount Dinham provides a convenient example. There a 6 m-square ditched mortuary enclosure was found containing a single central grave (although no human bone was preserved), but this was an apparently isolated feature and no other burials were found on the site (Passmore 2013). Perhaps the most unexpected discovery has been the mass grave at 120–122 London Road, Gloucester, which is unique in Roman Britain (unless two poorly recorded pits discovered in York in the nineteenth century are other examples). Excavations within this previously identified cemetery area recovered over ten cremations and 64 individual inhumations, the latter dating from the late first or early second century a.d., but most surprisingly a further 91 inhumations had been dumped haphazardly into a large pit at some point in the late second century (Simmonds et al. 2008). In the report the excavators postulated that these might have been the hurriedly buried victims of a plague or epidemic, perhaps the historically recorded Antonine plague of a.d. 165 and following years. This interpretation has not found favour with reviewers such as Esmonde Cleary (2009) and Hurst (2010) who note that the demographic profile of those in the pit is no different from the remainder of the cemetery, and more generally doubt the validity of attempting to tie an imprecisely dated archaeological feature to a historically recorded event that is not certainly attested in Britain. In the report the excavators considered, but rejected, the burial of slaves and paupers in mass grave pits (puticuli) outside of the walls of Rome as a possible parallel for the Gloucester evidence, although this is the interpretation promoted by Hurst (2010) in his review of the evidence. Pearce (2010, 87–8), however, notes the rarity of mass graves in the Roman world and regards the Gloucester pit as evidence for catastrophic rather than attritional mortality. Stable isotope analysis of 21 individuals from the cemetery (10 from individual inhumations, 11 from the mass grave) suggests that six or seven of them spent their childhood in a warmer/more coastal climate than Roman Britain, two most probably in the Mediterranean (Chenery et al. 2010; Eckardt 2010a, 118–19, 122–3). Assessment In the preceding sections I have summarised what appear to me to be the highlights brought about by developer-funded investigations since 1990. I will now provide a broader critique of the contribution this work has made to knowledge of the South-Western towns through examination of three themes: degree and scale of work undertaken, priorities and research questions, and publication and dissemination. Scale of Work The presumption in favour of the physical preservation in situ of nationally important archaeological remains where these are affected by developments requiring planning permission enshrined in various wordings in PPG 16 and its successor policies has undoubtedly been highly successful in conservation management terms, but what have been the consequences in the South-West of England for urban archaeological research? Fears that this approach would stifle, or indeed eliminate, opportunities for substantive investigations in the historic towns have proved unfounded, as the preceding sections of this paper have hopefully demonstrated. New and important discoveries continue to be made, and the research possibilities of each investigation should inform the design and execution of that work. In many cases work in town centres has been on a small scale (especially when compared with the decades before 1990) and usually this is

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as part of an engineered design which allows construction to proceed alongside the preservation of the vast majority of buried archaeological deposits. Such work can have a strong research value, but usually only through integration with previous work. The Urban Archaeological Databases are the best means of capturing this information, although the level of detail recorded in these important sources is variable. In this review I have inevitably concentrated on the larger investigations because they are more readily susceptible to a higher level of synthesis. As will have become apparent, the majority of those excavations took place outside of the walled areas. In some cases trial evaluation followed by full excavation has delivered impressive results of a type which could have been broadly (but never precisely) predicted, as for instance at the Brunswick Road cemetery in Gloucester (Booth 2014, 380), but the capacity for genuine surprises is never far away. Notable examples include the complexes at St Loye’s College and Mount Dinham in Exeter which were contemporary with the mid-first-century a.d. legionary fortress and the mass grave at London Road, Gloucester. This emphasis on the suburbs looks set to continue, not least because it is rare in these districts for the same build-up of stratigraphy to be encountered as within the walled area. The requirement for excavation rather than preservation is more frequent in these extramural areas therefore and the costs of investigation can more readily be accommodated within development budgets. Preservation in situ is not only a conservation and sustainability argument, but frequently an economic one as well. Work in the suburbs has the potential to address a whole variety of important research questions, especially if evidence for houses, trade and industry survives. The distinction between intra- and extramural areas of course only strictly applies from the second century onwards when town defences were constructed and there is high potential in the areas beyond that subsequently defended for important evidence of pre-urban Late Iron Age or military activity, and also for features contemporary with the early decades of the new towns. Such deposits are usually deeply buried within the walled area and thus seldom examined, so the suburban zone provides important opportunities to obtain valuable contextual data for later first- or early second-century a.d. activity. Priorities and Research Directions Successful commercially-driven fieldwork is invariably undertaken as an active piece of research as there is never unlimited time or finance available and decisions have to be made, often whilst on site and in conjunction with the curatorial archaeologist, about where attention is to be focused and where an element of sacrifice can be allowed. The work discussed above has concentrated on urban geography and chronology, which is both inevitable and essential, because without these fundamental building blocks of study no more nuanced account of urbanism would be possible. While this is a traditional approach it should be the springboard for further analysis rather than just an end in itself. To what degree has developer work in the South-West moved beyond these considerations to look at the broader urban landscape as a whole and create a better understanding of what was going on in different parts of each town at different periods? In short just what was it like to live in a Romano-British town in South-West England? As is apparent from excavations at the former County Hospital site in Dorchester, and to a lesser extent Market Street, Exeter and Stepstairs Lane, Cirencester (Brett and Watts 2008), there were considerable open spaces within the towns and it is important to understand what was going on in these areas as well as within individual buildings. This knowledge is likely to derive in large part from the detailed examination of selected high quality deposits, particularly artefacts and biological data captured through the appliance of archaeological science. The potential of scientific analyses for urban reconstruction has been demonstrated in a research context at Silchester, but they have seemingly been little applied in a commercial context at the South-Western towns (Fulford and Clarke 2011). Techniques such as soil micromorphology and geochemistry appear to have made next to no impact: whether this is due to a lack of appropriate deposits, lack of application stemming from concerns about affordability or a lack of final detailed publications is unclear. The early Roman pits at the former County Hospital site might be examples of deposits which could help contextualise the activities being undertaken nearby.

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Isotope analyses have been applied to human remains recovered from developer-funded investigations in Gloucester and Bath, as well as fresh analysis of older discoveries in Gloucester and Dorchester. This work has begun to provide telling insights into the cosmopolitan nature of the urban populations in these places (Chenery et al. 2010; Chenery and Evans 2012; Molleson et al. 1986; Eckardt 2010a). The prevalence of such analyses is only likely to increase in the future and it will be particularly instructive to apply these techniques in Exeter if a suitable human skeletal population is eventually recovered. Artefacts demonstrate Exeter’s trading links along the Atlantic seaboard and we might reasonably expect these to be reflected in the make-up of the population (Holbrook and Bidwell 1991, 21). There are, of course, considerations of what level of analysis, especially scientific, it is reasonable to expect developers to fund and where the boundary is crossed into what might be termed pure research. On the one hand few would argue that the application of absolute dating techniques should not be part of routine developer requirements, although thus far the application of these techniques has made very little impact on understanding of late fourth- and fifth-century deposits in the South-Western towns. Radiocarbon dating of the stratigraphically latest burials within late Roman cemeteries or archaeomagnetic dating of hearths and ovens associated with the uppermost surfaces revealed in excavation seems not to have occurred. The application of more novel techniques such as isotope analyses of humans and animals are areas where partnerships between archaeological contractors and academic institutions could be profitable (the partnership between Oxford Archaeology and the University of Reading to deliver the isotope analyses of the London Road, Gloucester, burials is a good example of what can be achieved). Isotope analyses might also be fruitfully applied to the cattle bones from military deposits in Exeter, which are currently the subject of a fresh study by Mark Maltby. The crucial role that Exeter played in the supply and provisioning of the army during its garrisoning of the South-West peninsula is apparent and it is inherently unlikely that the agricultural economy of the region could have been developed almost overnight to meet the demands of a standing army conceivably in the order of 10,000 men. Supply from elsewhere, most probably from outside of the province, surely occurred and isotope analysis might help in elucidating this. Publication and dissemination Appendix 1 makes plain both the number of significant investigations that have occurred since 1990 but also that full and final reports on this work are still comparatively few. The reports on sites that have been published as monographs or journal papers are often of high quality (such as, for example, the 120–122 London Road cemetery in Gloucester and miscellaneous investigations in Cirencester). Elsewhere some sites are reported only in grey literature and this seems to be their final outcome (such as Market Street, Exeter, which is a good report but one lacking in environmental analyses). A number of other reports are in active preparation and will doubtless appear in the coming years, the existing grey literature accounts forming postexcavation assessments or summary interim accounts. The work of analysis and publication can be a lengthy one. A national survey of both urban and rural sites showed that publication within five to ten years of the completion of site work to be the norm, with a sizeable percentage not advancing beyond grey literature (or in some cases not documented at all; Fulford and Holbrook 2011, 333–4). In the towns of the South-West there are a number of significant investigations where there is little prospect that full publication will occur anytime soon (sites excavated in the early 1990s in Bath and Gloucester for instance). There are also plenty of important sites excavated in the two decades before 1990 which are unpublished (and are likely to remain so in the near future, at least). If properly analysed these pre-PPG 16 investigations would not only make a major contribution to knowledge but also allow for the much better design and contextualisation of new work. Exeter, Gloucester, and to a lesser extent Bath, stand out as the towns where the information loss from the lack of publication of pre-1990 work is greatest and most regrettable. Overall it can be maintained that it is the lack of publication of significant excavations over the last quarter of a century which has been the principal weakness of the developer-funding system:

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until it is remedied we will not fully deliver on all of the dividends that the introduction of PPG 16 seemed to herald. There is no one reason behind this state of affairs. Factors include problems in obtaining adequate funding from developers during post-excavation; practical difficulties in securing enforcement of planning conditions years after the completion of fieldwork (and often after the development has long since been finished); as well as differing levels of post-excavation capability and expertise amongst archaeological contractors. The quantities of material recovered from urban projects are likely to require increasing use of web-based modes of dissemination in the future, but where this is supplementary information to a conventionally published report the two must dovetail together so that readers can find the information they are seeking. For instance, there has been renewed academic emphasis in recent years on the ability of artefacts to inform considerations of topics such as the expression of personal identity and pervasive ritual behaviour. Artefact assemblages from commercial investigations therefore need to be adequately catalogued and analysed, and this information made available in a useable format, so that researchers undertaking more detailed levels of analysis and synthesis can use these data to explore new research directions. This survey has demonstrated, without question, that the potential of commercial archaeology to elucidate the biographies of the Roman towns of the South-West of England is exciting, important and on-going. That potential has not been realised to its full extent, however, due to differential levels of analysis and dissemination. This work is not lost without hope but we do need to find better ways of making the fruits of the significant sums of money expended on developer investigations available to the various communities of people, with their differing interests and requirements, who care about the Roman archaeology of these significant places. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am grateful to numerous individuals who have provided information on their work, sometimes ahead of full publication, allowed me to reproduce images from their publications or shared their knowledge and insights on the archaeology of particular towns. I would like to thank the following individuals in particular. Dorchester: Andrew Crockett (Wessex Archaeology). Exeter: John Allan, Paul Bidwell, Andrew Pye (Exeter City Council), John Salvatore, Mark Steinmetzer and John Valentin (AC Archaeology). Bath: Paul Bidwell and Peter Davenport (Cotswold Archaeology). Gloucester: Ian Barnes (Cotswold Archaeology). Cirencester: Paul Booth (Oxford Archaeology) and Laurent Coleman (Cotswold Archaeology). Paul Bidwell and Michael Fulford kindly commented on an earlier draft of this paper, much to its benefit, but naturally responsibility for errors or misunderstandings remains my own. Finally I am grateful to Jon Bennett, Lorna Gray and Lucy Martin of Cotswold Archaeology for assistance with the figures.

2000

2011

Former County Hospital North

Charles Street

2001–2002

2005–2006

Market Street

Princesshay

Topsham, Topsham School

2000

1993

South Gate

Exeter Extramural

1990

Lower Coombe Street

Exeter Intramural

Little Keep

2007

2000–2001

Former County Hospital

Dorchester Extramural

1990

Year

Charles Street

Dorchester Intramural

Site

Exeter

Exeter

Exeter

Exeter

Exeter

Wessex

Wessex

AC

Wessex

Wessex F

GL

Defences of first-century a.d. military installation; 13 later Roman graves.

First-century a.d. defended military enclosure outside of the fortress (auxiliary fort; works depot?); wasters from late first- to secondcentury tile works; later Roman street and two masonry buildings.

Fragments of military buildings inside the legionary fortress; later Roman street and fragmentary remains of three masonry buildings.

South gate of town defences.

First-century a.d. military compound (stores base?) outside of the legionary fortress.

Cemetery: 29 inhumations and a mortuary enclosure.

Partial plan of late Roman town-house.

F

N

GL

F

S/N

F/GL

F

Sage and Allen 2004

Booth 2007, 295–6 (N); Steinmetzer et al. forthcoming (F)

Stead 2002 (GL)

Henderson 2001

Henderson 2001, 56 (S); Frere 1991, 281–3 (N)

McKinley and Egging Dinwiddy 2009 (F); Egging Dinwiddy 2009 (GL)

Powell forthcoming

Hulka and Hodgson 2000

Trevarthen 2008

Adam and Butterworth 1993

Documentation References

Three stone buildings; inter-insulae street with N timber building constructed over it.

Sequence of 13 early to late Roman houses, buildings and surrounding areas.

Street, buildings.

Organisation Principal Findings

Key: Organisation: AC = AC Archaeology; Bath = Bath Archaeological Trust; Bristol = Bristol and Region Archaeological Services; Context One = Context One Archaeological Services; Cotswold = Cotswold Archaeology; Exeter = Exeter Museums Archaeological Field Unit/Exeter Archaeology; Foundations = Foundations Archaeology; Glos CC = Gloucestershire County Council Archaeology Service; Gloucester = Gloucester Archaeology Unit; Hollinrakes = C. and N. Hollinrake; Oxford = Oxford Archaeology; Wessex = Wessex Archaeology. Documentation/References: F = final report; S = summary/interim; N = note; GL= grey literature report.

APPENDIX: SIGNIFICANT INVESTIGATIONS 1990–2013

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2007–2009

2010 2013

Mount Dinham

Former St Loye’s College

2002

Northover Manor Hotel

1999

2007–2008

Bellott’s Hospital

Beau Street, Gainsborough Building

1989–1995

1991 1998–2000

1998–2000

1997–2000

Walcot Street, Hat and Feather Yard

130–132 Walcot Street (St Swithin’s Yard/Aldridge’s)

Tramsheds (Beehive Yard)

Prospect Place (Oldfield Boys School)

Bath Extramural

1998–1999

Beau Sreet, New Royal Baths

Bath Intramural

1995

Great Yard

Ilchester Extramural

Year

Site

Bath

Bath

Bath Bath

Bath

Cotswold (fieldwork); AC (postexcavation)

Bath

Bath

Hollinrakes

Bristol

Exeter AC

Exeter (fieldwork); AC (postexcavation) N; GL

GL

Suburban villa.

First-century a.d. timber roadside structures replaced in stone in the later Roman period.

Three masonry buildings, two on the road frontage. Fourth-century tile kiln and two inhumation burials.

Occupation from mid-first century a.d. adjacent to road. Parts of three later Roman masonry strip buildings.

Partial re-examination of public baths recorded by Irving in 1864–6. Hoard of c. 17,500 coins dated to c. a.d. 270 in one room.

Timber and stone buildings, one used as a smithy.

Second-century masonry courtyard building, probably with public function.

Traces of late first- and second-century a.d. structures in the back lands adjacent to the Fosse Way in the northern suburb.

S

S

S/N

S/N

N/S

S

F

GL

Davenport 2000; 2007, 422–3

Davenport 2000; 2007, 412–15

Davenport 2000; 2007 (S); Frere 1992, 296 (N); Fitzpatrick 2001, 369–70 (N)

Davenport 2000; 2007 (S); Frere 1991, 278 (N); Frere 1992, 296 (N)

Booth 2009, 270–1 (N); Current Archaeology 278 (May 2013), 26–32 (coin hoard)

Lewcun and Davenport 2007

Davenport et al. 2007

Leach 2002

Broomhead 1999

Booth 2011, 384–6 (N); Tomlin 2011, 444–5 (N); Steinmetzer and Salvatore 2010 (GL); Stead and Payne 2013 (GL)

Passmore 2013

Documentation References

Road, structures, and three inhumation burials F in the western suburb.

Late Iron Age enclosure and roundhouse; first-century a.d. fortress-period site containing timber buildings defended on at least two sides by double ditches.

Timber building (praetorium?) contemporary with occupation of first-century a.d. fortress; later Roman mausoleum.

Organisation Principal Findings

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2001

2002

2004–2006

2013

2013

Parliament Street

124–130 London Road

120–122 London Road

Brunswick Road

167 Barnwood Road

1992

1998–1999

2001–2002

Watermoor House

Cotswold Mill

Trinity Road

Cirencester, Intramural

1997–8

Tanner’s Hall

Cotswold

Cotswold

Glos CC

Cotswold

Cotswold

Oxford

Foundations

Cotswold

Glos CC

Gloucester

1990

Upper Quay Street

Glos CC

Context One

Gloucester

1995

2012

Southgate Gallery, Southgate 1989–1990 Street

Gloucester Extramural

Ladybellgate Street

Gloucester Intramural

Bathwick Street/ Henrietta Road, Bathwick

S

S

N

F

F

Section through town defences.

Part of masonry public building.

Partial excavation of masonry portico and shops flanking Ermin Street.

Small pre-/early Flavian ditched enclosure adjacent to Ermin Street and 3 km south-east of the Kingsholm fortress; interior contained a lead cremation vessel.

Field-system replaced by a later Roman cemetery containing c.150 inhumations and three cremations.

Cemetery: at least ten cremations; 64 single inhumations and 91 further inhumations in a mass grave pit. Two first-century a.d. tombstones (RIB 3072–3).

F

F

F

N

F

Cemetery: 39 inhumations and 19 cremations. GL; F

Cemetery: eight inhumations and one cremation.

Extramural road to the north of the colonia with evidence for timber structures and metalworking.

First-century a.d. timber wharf on inlet of S river Severn; subsequent land reclamation and later Roman masonry building.

Timber then masonry roadside structures outside of the South Gate.

Masonry building (town-house?)

Road and flanking masonry strip buildings (workshops?).

Hancocks et al. 2008

Holbrook and Thomas 2008

Parry 1998

Ian Barnes, Cotswold Archaeology, pers. comm.

Cotswold Archaeology website; Booth 2014, 380

Simmonds et al. 2008; Chenery et al. 2010 (isotope analyses)

Foundations Archaeology 2003 (GL); Ellis and King 2014 (F)

Holbrook and Bateman 2008

Vallender 2009

Atkin 1991, 16–18

Atkin 1990, 3; 1991, 14–15

Parry and Reilly 1996

Context One website

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2002

2002–2003

2004–2006

2008

King Street, Bingham Hall

Stepstairs Lane

Lewis Lane

Corn Hall

1991

2004–2006

2008

2009

2011

Kingsmeadow

Old Tetbury Road

Kingshill North

Kingshill South

Old Tetbury Road, Bridges Garage

Cirencester, Extramural

Year

Site

Cotswold

Oxford

Oxford

Cotswold

Oxford

Cotswold

Oxford

Cotswold

Cotswold

Cemetery: three cremations; 71 inhumations; mausoleum.

Two masonry buildings (one aisled; one with apse) set within agricultural landscape. Four inhumations and numerous neonates.

Late Iron Age settlement abandoned in first century a.d.; subsequent agricultural activity and a single cremation.

Cemetery: nine cremations and two inhumations.

One or two cremation burials.

Masonry portico and shops flanking Ermin Street.

Limited investigation of deposits associated with the forum.

Part of a masonry building.

Section across Ermin Street and flanking portico.

Organisation Principal Findings

N/S

N

F

F

F

N

F

F

F

Booth 2012, 337–8 (N); Current Archaeology 281 (August 2013), 28–34 (S); McSloy and Watts 2013 (S)

Booth 2010, 396

Biddulph and Walsh 2011

Holbrook et al. 2008

Roberts 1995

Booth 2009, 266–7

Simmonds and Smith 2008

Brett and Watts 2008

Havard and Watts 2008

Documentation References

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BIBLIOGRAPHY Adam, N.J., Butterworth, C.A., Davies, S.M. and Farwell, D.E. 1992: Excavations at Wessex Court, Charles Street, Dorchester, Dorset 1989, Wessex Archaeology Report W310a Adam, N.J. and Butterworth, C.A. 1993: Excavations at Wessex Court, Charles Street, Dorchester, Dorset 1990, Wessex Archaeology Report W310b Atkin, M. 1986: ‘Excavations in Gloucester 1985 – an interim report’, Glevensis 20, 3–12 Atkin, M. 1990: ‘Excavations in Gloucester 1989 – an interim report’, Glevensis 24, 2–13 Atkin, M. 1991: ‘Archaeological fieldwork in Gloucester 1990: an interim report’, Glevensis 25, 4–32 Biddulph, E. and Walsh, K. 2011: Cirencester before Corinium. Excavations at Kingshill North, Cirencester, Gloucestershire, Thames Valley Landscapes 34, Oxford Bidwell, P.T. 1980: Roman Exeter: Fortress and Town, Exeter Booth, P. 2007: ‘Roman Britain in 2006. I. Sites explored. 8. South-western counties’, Britannia 38, 294–6 Booth, P. 2009: ‘Roman Britain in 2008. I. Sites explored. 8. South-western counties’, Britannia 40, 266–71 Booth, P. 2010: ‘Roman Britain in 2009. I. Sites explored. 8. South-western counties’, Britannia 41, 396–8 Booth, P. 2011: ‘Roman Britain in 2010. I. Sites explored. 8. South-western counties’, Britannia 42, 380–6 Booth, P. 2012: ‘Roman Britain in 2011. I. Sites explored. 8. South-western counties’, Britannia 43, 337–41 Booth, P. 2014: ‘Roman Britain in 2013. I. Sites explored. 8. South-western counties’, Britannia 45, 380–4 Brett, M. and Watts, M. 2008: ‘Excavations at Stepstairs Lane, 2002–3’, in Holbrook 2008b, 70–83 Broomhead, R.A. 1999: ‘Ilchester, Great Yard archaeological excavations 1995’, Proceedings of the Somerset Archaeological and Natural History Society 142, 139–91 Burnham, B.C. and Davies, J.L. (eds) 2010: Roman Frontiers in Wales and the Marches, RCAHMW, Aberystwyth Burnham, B.C. and Wacher, J. 1990: The ‘Small Towns’ of Roman Britain, London Chenery, C. and Evans, J. 2012: ‘Results of oxygen, strontium, carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis for the “Kingsholm Goth”’, Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society 130, 89–98 Chenery, C., Müldner, G., Evans, J., Eckardt, H., Leach, S. and Lewis, M. 2010: ‘Strontium and stable isotope evidence for diet and mobility in Roman Gloucester, UK’, Journal of Archaeological Science 37, 150–63 Cooke, N. 2007: ‘A late Roman coin hoard from the County Hospital site, Dorchester’, Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society 128, 61–7 Cosh, S.R. 2001: ‘Seasonal dining rooms in Romano-British houses’, Britannia 32, 219–42 Cotswold Archaeology 2014: Civil Service Playing Field, Denmark Road, Gloucester. Archaeological Evaluation, Cotswold Archaeology Report 13723 Cunliffe, B. 1969: Roman Bath, Reports of the Research Committee of the Society of Antiquaries of London 24, Oxford Cunliffe, B. 1988: The Temple of Sulis Minerva at Bath, Volume 2: The Finds from the Sacred Spring, Oxford University Committee for Archaeology Monograph 16, Oxford Cunliffe, B. and Davenport, P. 1985: The Temple of Sulis Minerva at Bath, Volume 1:The Site, Oxford University Committee for Archaeology Monograph 7, Oxford Davenport, P. 1991: Archaeology in Bath 1976–1985, Oxford University Committee for Archaeology Monograph 28, Oxford Davenport, P. 1999: Archaeology in Bath. Excavations 1984–1999, BAR British Series 284, Oxford Davenport, P. 2000: ‘Aquae Sulis. The origins and development of a Roman town’, Bath History 8, 7–26 Davenport, P. 2007: ‘How dare they leave all this unexcavated!: Continuing to discover Roman Bath’, in C. Gosden, H. Hamerow, P. de Jersey and G. Lock (eds), Communities and Connections. Essays in Honour of Barry Cunliffe, Oxford, 404–25 Davenport, P., Poole, C. and Jordan, D. 2007: Archaeology in Bath. Excavations at the New Royal Baths (The Spa) and Bellott’s Hospital 1998–1999, Oxford Archaeology Monograph 3, Oxford Davies, S.M., Bellamy, P., Heaton, M.J. and Woodward, P.J. 2002: Excavations at Alington Avenue, Fordington, Dorchester, Dorset, 1984–87, Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society Monograph 15, Dorchester Dickinson, B. 1992: ‘Samian potters’ stamps’, in Adam et al. 1992, 102–4 Dickinson, B. 1993: ‘Samian potters’ stamps’, in Adam and Butterworth 1993, 61–2 Eckardt, H. 2010a: ‘A long way from home: diaspora communities in Roman Britain’, in Eckardt 2010b, 99–130 Eckardt, H. 2010b: Roman Diasporas. Archaeological Approaches to Mobility and Diversity in the Roman Empire, Journal of Roman Archaeology Supplementary Series 78, Portsmouth RI Egging Dinwiddy, K. 2009: A Late Roman Cemetery at Little Keep, Dorchester, Dorset, Wessex Archaeology Report, Salisbury

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Hurst, H.R. 1999: ‘Topography and identity in Glevum colonia’, in H.R. Hurst (ed.), The Coloniae of Roman Britain. New Studies and a Review, Journal of Roman Archaeology Supplementary Series 36, Portsmouth RI, 113–35 Hurst, H.R. 2005: ‘Roman Cirencester and Gloucester compared’, Oxford Journal of Archaeology 24.3, 293– 305 Hurst, H.R. 2010: review of Simmonds, Márquez-Grant and Loe 2008, Journal of Roman Archaeology 23, 633–8 Kenward, H.K. and Williams, D. 1979: Biological Evidence from the Roman Warehouses in Coney Street, Archaeology of York 14/2, London Leach, P. 1994: Ilchester Volume 2: Archaeology, Excavations and Fieldwork to 1984, Sheffield Leach, P. 2002: An Archaeological Excavation at the Northover Manor Hotel, Northover, Ilchester, Glastonbury Lewcun, M. and Davenport, P. 2007: ‘Bellott’s Hospital: salvage excavation’, in Davenport et al. 2007, 153–63 Macphail, R. 2010: ‘Dark earth and insights into changing land use of urban areas’, in D. Sami and G. Speed (eds), Debating Urbanism.Within and Beyond the Walls A.D. 300–700, Leicester Archaeological Monograph 17, Leicester, 145–65 Maxfield, V.A. 1987: ‘The army and the land in the Roman South West’, in R. Higham (ed.), Security and Defence in South-West England Before 1800, Exeter, 1–25 McKinley, J.I. and Egging Dinwiddy, K. 2009: ‘“Deviant” burials from a late Romano-British cemetery at Little Keep, Dorchester’, Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society 130, 43–61 McSloy, E.R. and Watts, M. 2013: ‘Excavations at Bridges Garage, Tetbury Road, Cirencester’, Glevensis 46, 32–6 McWhirr, A., Viner, L. and Wells, C. 1982: Romano-British Cemeteries at Cirencester, Cirencester Excavations 2, Cirencester Millett, M. 1990: The Romanization of Britain, Cambridge Mills, J.M. and Dickinson, B. 2008: Suburban Life in Roman Durnovaria. Additional Specialist Report. Finds: The Samian Pottery and Samian Potters’ Stamps http://www.wessexarch.co.uk/projects/dorset/dorchester_ hospital/specialist_reports [Accessed 28/01/15] Molleson, T., Eldridge, D. and Gale, N.H. 1986: ‘Identification of lead sources by stable isotopes ratios in bones and lead from Poundbury Camp, Dorset’, Oxford Journal of Archaeology 5, 249–53 Montgomery, J., Evans, J., Chenery, S., Pashley, V. and Killgrove, K. 2010: ‘Gleaming, white and deadly: using lead to track human exposure and geographic origins in the Roman period in Britain’, in Eckardt 2010b, 199–226 Moore, T. 2006: Iron Age Societies in the Severn–Cotswolds, BAR British Series 421, Oxford Moore, T. 2012: ‘Beyond the oppida: polyfocal complexes and late Iron Age societies in southern Britain’, Oxford Journal of Archaeology 31, 391–417 Neal, D.S., Wardle, A. and Hunn, J. 1990: Excavation of the Iron Age, Roman and Medieval Settlement at Gorhambury, St Albans, English Heritage Archaeological Report 14, London Parry, C. 1998: ‘Watermoor House, Watermoor Road, excavation 1992’, in Holbrook 1998, 211–16 Parry, C. and Reilly, S. 1996: ‘Proposed Magistrates’ Court site: 1995 excavation’, Glevensis 29, 27–8 Passmore, A. 2013: Discovery Quarter, Mount Dinham Exeter (NGR SX 91511 92766). Results of Archaeological Excavation and Recording, AC Archaeology report, Bradninch Pearce, J. 2010: ‘Burial, identity and migration in the Roman world’, in Eckardt 2010b, 79–98 Pitts, L.F. and St Joseph, J.K. 1985: Inchtuthil.The Roman Legionary Fortress, Britannia Monograph 6, London Powell, A. forthcoming: ‘The development of properties inside the southern defences of Roman Durnovaria: an excavation at Charles Street, Dorchester’, Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society Putnam, B. 2007: Roman Dorset, Stroud RCHME 1976: Iron Age and Romano-British Monuments in the Gloucestershire Cotswolds, London Reddé, M., Brulet, R., Fellmann, R., Haalebos, J.-K. and von Schnurbein, S. 2006: L’Architecture de la Gaule romaine. Les fortifications militaires, Documents d’Archéologie Française 100, Paris/Bordeaux Reece, R. 2003: ‘The siting of Roman Corinium’, Britannia 34, 276–80 Rhodes, J. 2006: ‘The Severn flood plain at Gloucester in the medieval and early modern periods’, Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society 124, 9–36 RIB. Collingwood, R.G. and Wright, R.P. 1965: The Roman Inscriptions of Britain, Vol. I, Oxford; Tomlin, R.S.O, Wright, R.P. and Hassall, M.W.C. 2009: The Roman Inscriptions of Britain Vol. III. Inscriptions on Stone found or notified between 1 January 1955 and 31 December 2006, Oxford Roberts, M. 1995: ‘Excavations at King’s Meadow near Cirencester’, Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society 113, 61–71

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Sage, A. and Allan, J. 2004: ‘The early Roman military defences, late Roman burials and later features at the Topsham School, Topsham’, Proceedings of the Devon Archaeological Society 62, 1–39 Salvatore, J.P. 2001: ‘Three Roman military cremation burials from Holloway Street, Exeter’, Proceedings of the Devon Archaeological Society 59, 125–39 Salvatore, J.P. et al. forthcoming: ‘The Iron Age settlement and Roman military works depot at the former St. Loye’s College, Topsham Road, Exeter’, Proceedings of the Devon Archaeological Society Sharples, N. 1991: Maiden Castle, Excavations and Field Survey 1985–6, English Heritage Archaeological Report 19, London Simmonds, A. and Smith, A. 2008: ‘Excavations on the site of the forum’, in Holbrook 2008b, 45–62 Simmonds, A., Márquez-Grant, N. and Loe, L. 2008: Life and Death in a Roman City. Excavation of a Roman Cemetery with a Mass Grave at 120–122 London Road, Gloucester, Oxford Archaeology Monograph 6, Oxford Smith, R.J.C., Healy, F., Allen, M.J., Morris, E.L., Barnes, I. and Woodward, P.J. 1997: Excavations along the Route of the Dorchester Bypass, Dorset, 1986–8, Wessex Archaeology Report 11, Salisbury Stead, P.M. 2002: Archaeological Excavations at Market Street, Exeter. Summary Report, Exeter Archaeology Report 02.90, Exeter Stead, P.M. 2004: Archaeological Excavation of Southernhay Street Car Park, Exeter, Exeter Archaeology Report 04.24, Exeter Stead, P. and Payne, N. 2013: Land at and adjacent to Fairfield House, St. Loye’s, Topsham Road, Exeter, Devon (NGR SX 9375 9080). Summary Results of Archaeological Excavation and Proposals for Further Work, AC Archaeology Report, Bradninch Steinmetzer, M.F.R. and Salvatore, J.P. 2010: Archaeological Excavation of an Iron Age Enclosure and a Roman Military Establishment at the Former St. Loye’s College,Topsham Road, Exeter, 2010. A Summary Report, PostExcavation Assessment Report and Updated Project Design, Exeter Archaeology Report 11.39, Exeter Steinmetzer, M.F.R., Stead, P.M., Pearce, P. and Allan, J. forthcoming: ‘Excavation of the Roman deposits at Princesshay, Exeter, 2005–6’, Proceedings of the Devon Archaeological Society Todd, M. 1989: ‘The early cities’, in M. Todd (ed.), Research on Roman Britain 1960–1989, Britannia Monograph 11, London, 75–89 Tomlin, R.S.O. 2011: ‘Roman Britain in 2010. III. Inscriptions’, Britannia 42, 439–66 Trevarthen, M. 2008: Suburban Life in Roman Durnovaria. Excavations at the Former County Hospital Site, Dorchester, Dorset, 2000–2001, Salisbury Tyers, I. 2008: ‘A gazetteer of tree-ring dates from Roman London’, in J. Clark, J. Cotton, J. Hall, R. Sherris and H. Swain (eds), Londinium and Beyond: Essays on Roman London and its Hinterland for Harvey Sheldon, Council for British Archaeology Research Report 156, York, 69–74 Vallender, J. 2009: ‘Archaeological excavation adjacent to Tanner’s Hall, Gloucester, in 1997 and 1998’, Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society 127, 131–93 von Schnurbein, S. 2003: ‘Augustus in Germania and his new “town” at Waldgirmes east of the Rhine’, Journal of Roman Archaeology 16, 93–107 Wacher, J. 1995: The Towns of Roman Britain (2nd edn), London White, R.H., Gaffney, C. and Gaffney, V.L. 2013: Wroxeter and the Cornovii. Final Report on the Wroxeter Hinterland Project 1994–1997.Volume 2: Characterizing the City, Oxford Willems, W.J.H. and van Enckevort, H. 2009: Vlpia Noviomagvs: Roman Nijmegen.The Batavian Capital at the Imperial Frontier, Journal of Roman Archaeology Supplementary Series 73, Portsmouth RI Wilson, R.J.A. 2006a: ‘Urban defences and civic status in early Roman Britain’, in Wilson 2006b, 1–47 Wilson, R.J.A. 2006b: Romanitas: Essays on Roman Archaeology in Honour of Sheppard Frere on the Occasion of his Ninetieth Birthday, Oxford, 65–71 Woodward, P.J. 1993: ‘The Roman town of Durnovaria’, in Woodward et al. 1993, 359–75 Woodward, P. and Woodward, A. 2004: ‘Dedicating the town. Urban foundation deposits in Roman Britain’, World Archaeology 36.1, 68–86 Woodward, P.J., Davies, S.M. and Graham, A.H. 1993: Excavations at the Old Methodist Chapel and Greyhound Yard, Dorchester, 1981–4, Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society Monograph 12, Dorchester

CHAPTER 7

THE TOWNS OF THE MIDLANDS AND THE NORTH By Paul Bidwell

INTRODUCTION The towns of the Midlands and North described here are of various origins and in at least two instances of uncertain status. Lincoln (Lindum) was a colonia which, after the Lower Enclosure was added to the original defended area in the late second century, had a walled area of 39 ha. Leicester (Ratae Corieltavorum) was a civitas capital, with a walled area slightly larger than that of Lincoln; the town perhaps became the seat of a provincial administration in the fourth century. Chester (Deva) was a legionary fortress; there are no signs that its canabae developed into a town large enough to be designated a colonia or municipium as at many other long-lived fortresses. The status of Brough-on-Humber (Petuaria), which had a walled area of only 5.6 ha, is uncertain (Wilson 2003b, 261–3). Finally, Carlisle (Luguvalium) is thought to have been the civitas capital of the Carvetii though proof of this is lacking. Three other civitas capitals — Wroxeter, Aldborough and Caistor-by-Norwich — are not considered here because they have been largely unaffected by modern development, and Corbridge, possibly a civitas capital, is excluded for the same reason. York is the subject of another paper in this volume. Any assessment of the effectiveness of PPG 16 must acknowledge that at many towns it turned on the taps of developer funding when there was much less that needed funding than before 1990, at least as far as excavation in the historic cores of cathedral cities was concerned. At Lincoln, for example, 67 large sites were dug by the archaeological unit in the 15 years between 1972 and 1987 but only ‘another 10 or so subsequently’ in the following decade (Jones et al. 2003, 5). There was a similar or possibly greater fall in the number of sites excavated in Carlisle (excluding the Millennium excavations of the fort which did not result directly from the provisions of PPG 16) and Chester (excluding the research excavations at the amphitheatre). Circumstances at Leicester have been entirely different: in the last decade, the regeneration of the modern city has led to excavations on a scale only matched by those in London. Brough-on-Humber, much smaller than the other towns discussed here, has only seen one large-scale excavation. There has also been a shift in the location of archaeological work, with much more activity in the areas beyond the historic cores (see Appendix). Once cities had been supplied with new retail facilities in their centres, new development opportunities were found in the Victorian fringes. In the 1970s and 1980s, when so much of the archaeology within the walls of Roman towns was under threat, the outer areas, unless known to be cemetery sites, probably seemed of less importance. It is fortunate that, when the attention of developers turned from ancient High Streets to the run-down Commercial Roads and London Roads of their cities, PPG 16 supplied mechanisms for evaluating the archaeological potential of these poorly-known areas. This survey concentrates on topics where the most important advances since 1990 have been made, which are very much a product of where developments have been located. Not a great deal that is new can be said about the beginnings of the towns and even less about their endings. It is increasingly clear that in the late Iron Age the area on the west side of the river Soar at Leicester was occupied by ‘a significant settlement of high status’; recent finds include fragments of clay trays used for casting coin blanks (Morris et al. 2011, 15). The other towns considered

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here were preceded by or developed alongside Roman military occupation, as discussed below, and indeed the town at Leicester, it seems, was also preceded by military occupation, though its character and extent remain elusive, as does its relationship to the Iron Age settlement. Various factors, not least the truncation of the latest Roman and early post-Roman levels by subsequent building activities, have obscured the final phases of the towns.

THE EXTRAMURAL AREAS The essential base-line for assessing results from the extramural areas is Esmonde Cleary’s study — a research assessment and framework avant la lettre, though also much more — which was published late enough (in 1987) to include most of the work by archaeological units before the appearance of PPG 16. His model for the development of these areas at the larger towns postulated the existence of a ‘blank band’ beyond the insulae which was possibly reserved for expansion, and then an outer zone where the cemeteries were located. It should be noted that at first most of the larger towns in Britain had no defences, and the term ‘extramural’ at this early stage refers in effect to the areas beyond the street grid. Along the roads radiating from the core area of occupation, there was some ribbon development, but what effect that might have had on the planning of the early cemeteries was unclear (ibid., 174–6). The original arrangements might have been disrupted by two series of events: first, the erection of defences around the towns, and then, more decisively according to Esmonde Cleary (ibid., 174–6), the development of late Roman inhumation cemeteries which, because of their size, impinged on some areas previously used for other purposes. These changes would have required spatial reorganisations and presumably large-scale alterations in the legal titles to land (cf. ibid., 194–6, on the legal and administrative aspects of the extramural areas). Work since 1990 has added much supporting detail to Esmonde Cleary’s model. Inevitably, other aspects of it have been contradicted. A parallel to his blank band is the ‘clear strip’ some 150 m in width around the legionary fortress at Chester which was partly reserved for what are described as official buildings (fig. 1) — for example, the amphitheatre and the Watergate Street baths — but was otherwise used for transient activities (Carrington 2012, 308–9). The investigation of quarry-pits for sandstone at Gorse Stacks in 2005–7 illustrated the nature of some of these activities, which might also have included pottery-making in the Flavian to early Hadrianic period (Cuttler et al. 2012). At other towns, for example Lincoln and Leicester, it is in these blank bands that we might expect to find the amphitheatres and other buildings such as mansiones (cf. Jones 2011, 72–3 for the possible location of the amphitheatre at Lincoln). Boundary ditches have been encountered in most of the excavations in the extramural areas. They are usually laid out at right angles to the roads radiating from the towns. Some were plots occupied by strip buildings, but many seem to have been allotments or small fields with few remaining traces of activity. At Leicester a number of adjacent sites have been explored along the roads running south of the town to Tripontium and Godmanchester in the direction of Colchester, and west to Mancetter (Cooper and Buckley 2003, 37–8 with references to reports published in the 1990s; see also Finn 2004 for the Bonners Lane site). Occupation extended for a distance of 350 m from the south gate. The boundary enclosures at all the excavated sites were ‘contemporary with, and correspond[ed] to, the urban street grid’. Buildings found on the plots had generally been abandoned by the end of the second century. The only exception was at Bonners Lane and in its vicinity, where occupation dating to the later third or fourth century was preceded by an ironworking hearth and a possible corn-drier or kiln; split or fragmented long bones of cattle found in pits on the site were possibly debris from the preparation of glue (Finn 2004, 12–15, 132). At most of the sites, the boundary ditches were maintained until at least the late fourth century, and in some of the areas excavated at Newarke Street they eventually defined an inhumation cemetery. Similar land divisions along the roads approaching towns have also been recorded at Carlisle (Botchergate: Giecco et al. 2001; Zant et al. 2011b), Brough-on-Humber (Hunter-Mann 2000), Lincoln (Jones 2003 et al., 121; and in the last year or so to the west of Newport, opposite Bishop Grosseteste University, information from M.J. Jones), and Chester (Hayes 2005; Carrington 2012, 304).

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fig. 1. The fortress at Chester and its immediate environs. (© David Mason)

The plans of the buildings that occupied some of these plots are often fragmentary but generally seem to have represented strip-houses. Perhaps the best-preserved examples are at Lincoln (fig. 2) where in 1976 a series of such houses was excavated west of Ermine Street at St Mark’s church in the transpontine suburb of Wigford (Steane 2001, 219–86). Similar buildings were found at St Mark’s Station in 1986 (ibid., 179–218; Jones 2011, fig. 52) and in 1994–6 (Jones et al. 2003, 107). In 1982 this settlement was traced as far as Monson Street, 800 m south of the Lower City (Steane 2001, 17–36; Jones et al. 2003, fig. 7.55), where in 2009 stone and timber buildings were succeeded after the late second century by at least two pottery kilns and then inhumation burials (Wilson 2010, 369; and recently more kilns and burials at Anchor Street (information from M.J. Jones)). Other building types are yet to be identified; whether the fragmentary plans at Broughon-Humber are those of aisled structures seems doubtful (Hunter-Mann 2000). Esmonde Cleary characterised the extramural settlements as mainly commercial and industrial. This is certainly borne out by more recent discoveries, not least by the excavation of a hearth for smelting lead ore at Botchergate, Carlisle (Zant et al. 2011b, 77–9, 95–8, 108–13). The ore used

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fig. 2. The colonia at Lincoln in its wider setting. (© Michael Jones)

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in this very noxious process would have been transported a considerable distance, either from the Lake District or more probably from the North Pennines, perhaps from Tynehead, some 40 km from Carlisle, where similar ores are known. At some point along the approach roads, the cemeteries and commercial and industrial activities would have given way to an agricultural landscape. At Lincoln, this change occurred at least 800 m south of the colonia at Monson Street. To the north, stone buildings were found in 1995 at Bishop Grosseteste College c. 600 m beyond the walled area; they were perhaps part of a villa estate or farm which was separated from the town by a cemetery (Jones et al. 2003, 121). The existence of another villa 1.8 km north-west of the colonia at Long Leys Road (fig. 2) has been confirmed by recent discoveries (Jones et al. 2003, 121; Wilson 2011, 352–3; Jones 2011, 101); there was no activity on its site until the mid- to late second century when boundary ditches were dug, with stone buildings following in the early to mid-third century. A third, very elaborate villa has long been known at Greetwell, c. 2 km east of the colonia (Jones 2011, 101– 2). Whether these villas mark a zone of transition on the outskirts of the extramural areas at Lincoln is uncertain. Carlisle provides a stark contrast: an unpublished excavation in 1994 at the Infirmary, 1 km north-east of the town, explored a roundhouse settlement which though apparently occupied into the second century, produced very few Roman finds (Esmonde Cleary 1994, 263; McCarthy 2002, 101–2). During the fourth century, occupation and cemeteries in the extramural areas had seemed to Esmonde Cleary (1987, 198) ‘as extensive or larger than they had ever been’. This now seems not to have been the case at Leicester where, except in part of the southern suburb (Finn 2004; Fitzpatrick 2006, 406), extramural occupation seems to have diminished ‘after a spurt in the early to mid-second century’ (Cooper and Buckley 2003, 37). At Lincoln some buildings were occupied or rebuilt in the third or early fourth centuries but in other areas they were superseded by inhumation cemeteries, as at Monson Street. It is telling that at the towns discussed here few new areas of settlement have been identified in the later Roman period. The cemeteries, it seems, replaced rather than displaced the activities of the living. At Carlisle the only occupation that can be regarded as extramural or at least very much on the fringe of the town, which was at Botchergate, came to an end in the second century, after which the area reverted to its former use as a cemetery (Zant et al. 2011b). Activities outside the fortress at Chester were closely tied to the fortunes of the legion, but it is worth noting the apparent diminution in activity in the eastern canabae in the third and fourth centuries (Carrington 2012, 310). Finally, at Brough-onHumber occupation east of the town had come to an end by the early fourth century (HunterMann 2000). THE LOCATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF CEMETERIES The dead dominated the extramural areas, their tombs and graves lining the roads leading to the towns, but the location of their cemeteries changed over time. At Canterbury and Chichester (Esmonde Cleary 1987, 175), and also at Colchester (Fulford, Ch. 5), the earlier cremation cemeteries seem to have been farther out from the core areas than the later inhumation cemeteries, and the same distribution of burials also occurs in the environs of York (Ottaway 2011, 367–8). Until recently, Leicester displayed a reversal of this pattern (Cooper and Buckley 2003, 39), but there have been recent discoveries of cremations on sites more distant from the town (information from Lynden Cooper). What effect changes in the location of cemeteries had on the settlement and agricultural areas outside the towns is uncertain. One problem is that much more is known about the later cemeteries than the earlier, as at Leicester where by 1996, 200 inhumations and only 60 cremations had been recorded (Cooper 1996), with a further 128 inhumations found in the next few years (Cooper and Buckley 2003, 38), comprising 97 at Clarence Street (Gardner 2005) and another 31 at Newarke Street (Derrick 2009). The total number of inhumations now exceeds 400, including 58 from Western Road, the radiocarbon dating of which showed that some burials were of later first- and second-century date (Booth 2013, 308, and information from Lynden Cooper). At Newarke Street (Cooper 1996) and elsewhere, the late cemeteries were established on sites where there had previously been domestic occupation or, probably

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in some instances, cultivation within small plots. A particular complication in a modern urban environment, where usually only limited areas are designated for excavation by way of mitigation, is indicated by the likelihood that the inhumations at Bonners Lane were associated with the adjacent extramural buildings and were not part of a general cemetery for the townspeople (Finn 2004). It will sometimes be impossible to know with what sort of cemetery isolated finds of burials or groups of burials were associated. There could also be changes in the extent of earlier cemeteries, as shown by excavations at Botchergate in Carlisle in 1998–9 and 2001 (Zant

fig. 3. Brough-on-Humber. (By kind permission of Pete Wilson)

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et al. 2011b, also referring to an unpublished excavation on an adjacent site in 1998–9). The site, bordering the east side of the main road approaching from the south, was used as a cremation cemetery in the Flavian–Trajanic period but was then given over to industrial activities, including the lead-smelting which has already been mentioned; by the early third century it was back in use again as a cemetery. At Lincoln and Chester there has been little excavation in the cemetery areas since 1990, although very useful analyses of previous discoveries have been published (Lincoln: Jones 2011, Jones et al. 2003, 113–18, fig. 7.59; Chester: Mason 2012a; Carrington 2012). At Brough-onHumber (fig. 3), four burials preceded or were associated with the settlement immediately east of the town (Hunter-Mann 2000, 2.8.1). The date of its abandonment, which had taken place by the early fourth century, is much the same as that of many military vici in the North (Bidwell 1991, 12). Another shared characteristic is the absence of any signs that, during what remained of the Roman period, cemeteries had encroached on the abandoned areas to any great extent, despite the fact that the site at Brough-on-Humber was close to the road leading from the east gate. At many forts, the disappearance of the vicani and reductions in the size of units presumably meant that there was still plenty of space left in the third-century cemeteries. The abandonment of the area east of the town would certainly be in accordance with Wacher’s argument (1995, 398–9) that by the later Roman period occupation within the walled area of Brough-on-Humber had become entirely military in character. For a more detailed survey of town cemeteries, see Pearce in this volume (Ch. 8). THE DEFENCES It is only at Leicester, following earlier work (Buckley and Lucas 1987), that much has been learnt about the form and date of the town defences (though see Colyer et al. 1999 for work mainly before 1990 on the defences of the Lower City at Lincoln). The rampart explored in 1997 on the north side of the town at Cumberland Street had timber strapping (Cooper 1998). This excavation also established that the town wall was cut through the front of the rampart; it was previously thought possible that the rampart and wall had been built at the same time. Subsequent work at Bath Lane and West Bridge Wharf traced the same sequence, establishing the line of the defences on the west side of the town, where the defences had supplemented the natural boundary formed by the river Soar (Burnham 2004, 287; cf. Cooper and Buckley 2003, 37). Excavations on the northern defences at Sanvey Gate examined a substantial length of the wall and rampart, and an internal tower or staircase (Fitzpatrick 2006, 406). At Carlisle, the question is whether the Roman town was ever provided with defences and, if so, at what date (fig. 4). It has long been thought that the medieval town wall followed the course of a Roman predecessor which was proudly shown to St Cuthbert by the townspeople in the late seventh century, though the wall might actually have been that of the fort (McCarthy 2002, 153). There have been few chances to examine the town wall and the results have not been clear-cut: at Rickergate in 1998–9, the poorly-preserved remains were judged likely but not certainly to be medieval (Zant et al. 2011a). A complication was the discovery in 1981–2 in the Southern Lanes of an unfinished rampart and ‘possible ditches’, thought to date to the early third century but on an entirely different line to that of the later town walls (McCarthy 2000, 44–7, 59, figs 38 and 47). The building of defensive circuits, though probably the largest and most long-lasting public works at any town in Britain, had little influence, it seemed to Esmonde Cleary (1987, 165– 72), on the subsequent development of areas beyond the new ramparts and walls. He argued that in general all the areas that had already been built up were enclosed, apart from isolated buildings and ribbon development along the roads leading to the towns. There was no major dislocation of property holdings and no widespread tendency for occupation to retreat within the defensive circuits. Circumstances now appear to have been different at Leicester. The cessation of occupation in the suburbs, except at Bonners Lane which has already been noted above, was attributed by Cooper and Buckley (2003, 37–8) to the building of the defences. Another result of this construction programme was to disrupt property holdings around the core of the town. At Bosworth House, Southgates, to the west of the south gate, the rampart sealed timber buildings

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fig. 4. The fort and town at Carlisle. (© Oxford Archaeology)

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occupied apparently until the late second century (Booth 2011, 358); the northern defences at Cumberland Street sealed previous occupation and a much earlier excavation near by had found a timber building under the rampart (Cooper 1998). Beyond the south gate, at Oxford Street, early Roman occupation around an east–west crossroads suggested that the street grid might have originally extended beyond the area later enclosed by defences (Booth 2009, 242). At Lincoln the defences of the Lower City, which were an addition to the original circuit of the colonia, cut through a stone house with painted walls south of the east gate (Burnham 2004, 283); a little further to the north what was probably part of the same house had been excavated by Wacher in 1973 (Wilson 1974, 421–2, figs 7–8; see also Colyer et al. 1999, 27–9, for timber buildings of two phases succeeded by cremations under the rampart at The Park on the west side of the defences). None of these observations, except perhaps at Bosworth House in Leicester, is necessarily of buildings along the main roads out of the towns. They show that the building of the defences caused much more dislocation of long-established occupation than was previously apparent. PUBLIC BUILDINGS AND PUBLIC INFRASTRUCTURE Exploration of public buildings since 1990 has been mainly confined to Leicester where the results have been spectacular. First, though, the publication of earlier work on the basilica and forum at Lincoln should be noted (Jones et al. 2003, 65–81; Steane 2006, 113–211; Jones 2011, 65–71). Also, in 1989 there was further work on the Watergate Street baths immediately west of the fortress at Chester (Mason 2012a). They were probably for use only by certain groups in the legion but their area seems to have been as large as that of some public baths in towns. The macellum at Leicester was first encountered by Wacher in 1958 (Richmond 1959, 113–14, fig. 10; Wacher 1995, 352). The part which he uncovered consisted of the western end of a large basilican hall apparently colonaded and the adjacent corner of a courtyard which was built in the late second or early third century. It was at first thought to have represented the basilica and forum of the town, but following the identification of that complex on an adjacent insula, the remains found in 1958 were plausibly re-interpreted as those of a macellum. A small evaluation in 2001 (Meek 2002) contacted what was possibly an internal colonnade on the north side of the courtyard which Wacher had seen in 1958. A much larger piece of work in 2007 yielded remarkable results (Booth 2008, 295–8, figs 16–18; Morris et al. 2011, 22–3). Towards the end of the Roman period, hearths had been cut into the street at the eastern end of the basilican hall; they were sealed by layers of earth and rubble containing Early to Middle Saxon pottery which also covered the remains of a wall along the western edge of the street. Over these layers was the articulated collapse of what appears to have been part of the eastern gable wall of the basilican hall of the macellum. The wall had been built of granite rubble laced with tile courses and incorporated a large relieving arch which had taken the weight above the lintel of a window or door. Taking account of the missing lower portion, the fallen masonry seems to represent a wall at least 16 m in height. A particularly interesting feature was the stub of a second arch which had projected at right angles from what would have been the inner face of the wall when it was standing. Its position seems to have been roughly in line with the northern side of the nave of the hall and suggests that it had been divided from its aisles by arcuate rather than trabeated colonnades. This is vital new information about an important development in the Roman architecture of the Western provinces. There are many early Imperial examples of trabeated colonnades in basilicas and many arcuate colonnades from the late Roman period, but very little to establish when the latter first began to appear. Also at Leicester, excavations at Blackfriars, Bath Lane, have revealed a large aisled hall. The aisles are defined by stone and concrete piers, two preserving plinths of millstone grit (information from Lynden Cooper). The purpose of the building is uncertain. The absence of any new religious sites from the list of discoveries since 1990, though striking, is surely fortuitous. Turning to public infrastructure — meaning water supply and structures concerned with communications and transport, such as roads, bridges and quays — there is little to report. At Carlisle the possible embanked conduit of an aqueduct was found west of Botchergate in 1997 (McCarthy 2002, 85, 87, fig. 43), and a study of water and effluent management at Lincoln has been published by Jones (2003). Investigations of the waterfront at

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Lincoln which came to an end in 1991 (Jones et al. 2003, 97–104) illustrated the great potential of the waterlogged deposits. DOMESTIC BUILDINGS AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT Since 1990 it is only at Leicester that there have been town-centre excavations on a large scale. The results have been remarkable and rank alongside the most important research on RomanoBritish urban development which preceded PPG 16. The sources of the following account of excavations connected with the Highcross development are interim statements (mainly in Fitzpatrick 2006, 406–10, figs 16–18 and Booth 2008, 295–301) and chapters from the draft of the final report kindly made available by N. Cooper. Much else of importance has emerged about town life at Leicester — for example, the remains of the so-called delicatessen at Castle Street (Score et al. 2010) and an apsidal building on the west side of the town, originally interpreted as an early bath-house and now regarded as a town-house (Booth 2008, 301–4, fig. 22; information from Lynden Cooper) — but the results of the work at Highcross are pre-eminent. Before the early second century, Roman activity was concentrated along the riverside, which had been the focus of occupation in the late Iron Age. In the north-east quarter of the town, this early stage saw the digging of quarry-pits and a few other pits which were filled with domestic refuse; only one building has been encountered. In the next phase, parallel ditches marked out the line of the streets, but they seem only to have been metalled after enough time had passed to allow turf to develop over their lines. At Vine Street, in the south-west corner of Insula V, there were three small rectangular buildings with stone foundations which probably supported timber

fig. 5. Vine Street, Leicester. (a) The early masonry phase; (b) The urban courtyard house. (© University of Leicester Archaeological Services)

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superstructures. They were surrounded by metalled yards and fence lines which enclosed small fields or stock pens. Micromorphological analysis showed that soil from these areas was mixed with pig slurry (see Morris et al. 2011, 29). In c. a.d. 160–170/200 these buildings were levelled and three detached row-houses were built around a metalled yard (fig. 5a). To the north there seems to have been a small courtyard house and to the east another house, possibly aisled, with a bath-suite which was probably not completed and was converted into a workshop making bone pins and needles. The new buildings represented a complete replanning of the insula which ignored the property divisions of the previous phase. The three row-houses had a short life and parts of them ended up as hay-stores and open latrines. In the early third century their floors were removed and material was dumped to raise their surfaces to the same level as the surrounding streets. They now became part of a large courtyard house measuring 40 m by 39 m (fig. 5b). Its principal range to the north, an entirely new building, contained five main rooms, some with hypocausts; the central room, which had an apse, was identified by the excavators as a dining-room. The kitchen seems to have been in the south-west corner of the house. Few of the original floor levels survived and the walls had been robbed, but thousands of loose tesserae and numerous fragments of wall-paintings, some figurative, show that the house was richly decorated (for the source of the chalk tesserae, see Tasker et al. 2013). In the mid-third century another range of heated rooms was added to the north, and to the east of the new range was a portico which might have overlooked a walled garden (fig. 6a). Renovations in the early fourth century included the laying in the portico of tessellated pavements with tile insets in front of the doors, and new schemes of wall-painting. By the mid-fourth century, the north range had been demolished (fig. 6b). Other ranges housed

fig. 6. Vine Street, Leicester. (a) The later masonry phase; (b) Decline and abandonment. (© University of Leicester Archaeological Services)

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workshops making bone and copper-alloy objects and one room became a smithy. The latest Roman deposits had been truncated, but there were few late coins from the site of the house. Fragments of other buildings were explored to the east and north. Building 1N (fig. 6a) dates from the early fourth century (Fitzpatrick 2006, 410, fig. 16; Booth 2008, 301, fig. 20). With massive walls and an overall width of 12 m, the building consisted originally of just two rooms with floors of plain concrete. It was perhaps a large warehouse or granary. At a later stage, the north room was divided into two and a walled courtyard was built to the east. Coins from this area, running down to the House of Theodosius, were later than those from the courtyard house. The excavations produced some extraordinary finds which say something about the identity of those who lived on the site. From Roman demolition material near the north-east corner of the site came a lead curse tablet: in addition to Servandus, the person making the curse, it named sixteen men and three women, their names of Roman and Celtic derivation, one of whom had stolen a cloak belonging to Servandus (Tomlin 2008, Tablet 1). They were from the paedagogium, a term which Tomlin thought most likely to mean the slave-quarters. In his words, ‘the implication is that in Roman Leicester, … the slaves of a single household numbered no fewer than twenty persons, including the owner of the cloak, Servandus. No doubt he suspected all his colleagues, and by listing them provides this unique roll-call of the household’. A second curse tablet was found in the robber trench of the wing added to the back of the principal range (ibid., Tablet 2). It was directed at two men and a woman who had stolen silver coins from Sabinianus. According to the curse, they were to be victims of ‘a god [that] will strike down in this septizonium’. Part of a septizodium at Rome appears on the Marble Map, where it seems to have taken the form of a nymphaeum with an ‘elaborate columnar screen, three orders high’; its architectural purpose was to mask buildings behind it (Boëthius and Ward-Perkins 1970, 273). Three other examples are known, one in Sicily and two in North Africa. The name septizodium or septizonium refers to the seven planetary deities after whom the days of the week were named. Leicester too, we now know, had one of these shrines, though doubtless on a more modest scale than in the Mediterranean areas. Equally unexpected was the recovery from the site of two lead sealings of the Twentieth and Sixth Legions (Tomlin and Hassall 2007, nos 15–16). In 2005 another sealing of the Sixth Legion was found in an evaluation trench to the east of the site (ibid., no. 17); on its reverse was a mould-impression from a seal of the Third Legion Cyrenaica which was at Bostra (Bosra) from the reign of Hadrian until the end of the Roman period. It seems likely that this sealing was associated with the posting of a centurion from the legion in Syria to York. Five other military sealings were already known from Leicester (Clay 1980): one of the Twentieth Legion found south of the forum with second-century material (RIB II, 2411.79); one of the Sixth Legion and another of the ala Augusta Vocontiorum, both from a context of the mid-second to early third century at an extramural site west of the town (RIB II, 2411.69 and 90); and two of cohors I Aquitanorum (RIB II, 2411.95–6), found with two other apparently civilian sealings (RIB II, 2411.286 and 297) on a site adjacent to the find-spot of the two legionary sealings. Cohors I Aquitanorum was at Brough-on-Noe, near the Derbyshire lead-fields, by a.d. 158 but had moved to the coastal fort at Brancaster by the early third century. Legionary and auxiliary sealings are almost entirely unknown at other towns in Britain (and, with the exceptions of Brough-underStainmore and South Shields, rare finds at military sites). The presence of eight at Leicester, scattered across intra- and extramural sites, surely means that at least in the late second and earlier third century army supply was very prominent in the mercantile life of the town. FORTS, FORTRESSES AND ROMAN TOWNS At Lincoln, and probably also at Leicester, military occupation preceded the establishment of Roman towns. Further north, the Roman army was an enduring presence. At Chester, of course, the civilian settlement depended on the fortress. The last sizeable intervention in the interior of the fortress was at Bridge Street in 1988 where a sequence of unidentified buildings was found to the west of the baths (Garner 2008). In passing, recent publications of earlier excavations must be noted, not least because all three reports are relevant to the study of public architecture

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in towns. The plan of the fortress baths (Mason and Petch 2005) has some resemblances to those of the baths at the fortresses at Exeter and Caerleon. They in turn have close parallels in the legionary fortress at Vindonissa and in the town of Avenches (both in modern Switzerland) which demonstrates that this specific type of plan was equally at home in military and civilian contexts. Excavations which explored the Elliptical Building have also been published (Mason 2000). The report argued that it served as some form of monument to imperial power, but Fulford (2005) has put forward a more prosaic but far more compelling identification of the building as a macellum — an example of a civilian building-type in a military context. Finally, work in 1978–1990 on the fortress defences has been reported on by LeQuesne (1999). The north wall to the east of the North Gate survives to the height of the cornice which marked the level of the wall-walk, 4.7 m above the foundation level. Holbrook (1999) has compared the Chester fortress wall to the town walls at Gloucester and Cirencester, finding similarities in the form of the cornices and parapets at Chester and Cirencester. The presence of a pre-Hadrianic fort at Carlisle had been long suspected, but its site was not discovered until the 1970s. By the mid-1980s, it was clear that the fort had continued in existence after the building of Hadrian’s Wall and of Stanwix, the largest and least-explored of all the Wall forts, on a site less than 1 km north of the Carlisle fort. In 1997–2001, large areas in the centre and south-western quadrant of the Carlisle fort were excavated in advance of the Millennium Project. This was an ambitious scheme designed to link the medieval castle to the town centre, from which it had been sundered by a dual carriageway built in the early 1970s; it was during the building of this road that the fort had been discovered. The Millennium Project, much reduced in its scope when actually carried out, was not a commercial development but its archaeological aspects conformed broadly to the principles of PPG 16. Building of the original timber fort began in a.d. 72/3, with extensive alterations following in a.d. 83–4 and about a decade later. Much of the dating evidence for these phases depended on dendrochronology, and organic finds preserved in these levels across the fort included leather, wood, and ink writingtablets equal in interest to those from Vindolanda. A new timber fort was built c. a.d. 105 and was partly adapted to industrial uses when Hadrian’s Wall was built (Zant 2009). In c. a.d.140, when the frontier was advanced into Scotland, the second fort was demolished; there was little activity on the site until the early third century when a new military base was built in stone. Part of the headquarters building was explored; its plan was of conventional type and included a forecourt and a veranda along its street frontage, also a feature of the early third-century headquarters building at Vindolanda. It remained standing until the end of the Roman period. Two aspects of the Carlisle fort are of particular relevance to urban economies in the North. First, the town was almost certainly a civitas capital, perhaps achieving that status as early as the reign of Hadrian, and yet it sat alongside a military base. There was a similar arrangement at Corbridge, possibly also a civitas capital, where two legionary compounds, later amalgamated, lay at the heart of the civilian settlement. Elsewhere in the North-Western provinces, forts or other military bases are only found in major towns where it was necessary to accommodate soldiers placed at the disposal of the provincial governor, as at London. That cannot have been the purpose of the military bases at Carlisle and Corbridge. Another aspect of the base at Carlisle might well point to one of its functions. From the area of streets around the headquarters building there were 250 coins, mainly Constantian issues of the 330s and 340s with some later coins running down to the House of Valentinian. A similar distribution of 248 coins, generally of the same date-range as those at Carlisle, was found on the via praetoria and in front of the headquarters building in the fort at Newcastle. They were not a dispersed hoard, and the scattering of coins was seen as the result of this part of the fort having been used as a market (Bidwell and Snape 2002), an interpretation which was followed in the Carlisle report. Corbridge and Carlisle stood on the most important roads running north beyond the Wall, and Bidwell and Snape argued that there was also a road running north from Newcastle. At Newcastle and Carlisle, there were markets in the forts under the most direct military supervision that was possible, and it seems probable that at least some of the trading was with the population north — and perhaps far north — of the Wall. Priscus, the fifth-century historian, describes a market in a fort near the Danube which was visited by traders from the Hunnic territories in the winter of a.d. 440/1 (Fragments 6.1). They

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seized the fort, beginning the incursions of the Huns across Europe. Nothing quite so disastrous was likely on the northern frontier of Britain, but all transactions with those north of the Wall probably required constant regulation, and that would have been at least part of the duties of the units based at Carlisle and Corbridge. Cross-border transactions also probably played an important part in the economies of the two towns. THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF TOWNS AND DEVELOPMENT CONTROL: NEEDS AND OPPORTUNITIES Some of the sites described above are sufficient illustrations of the enormous potential of what remains of our Roman towns. Above all, the Vine Street sequence of houses at Leicester has produced as rich and varied a picture of Roman town life as from any previous excavation in Britain. Something more, however, needs to be said about the potential of extramural areas where since 1990 there has probably been more work overall than in the town centres. The results have emphasised that there was occupation on a considerable scale, particularly in the second century, that changes in land-use were common, and that the areas along the roads approaching the towns were usually parcelled out into enclosures defined by ditches, often long-lived and of a substantial size. Any advances in understanding the archaeology of towns, especially their economic organisation, can now be seen to depend on knowledge of their entire inhabited area and not mainly on the areas within their walls or street grids. One question which has not been raised in this survey is how the limits of extramural areas might be determined. A functional definition would be a zone in which all the activities directly serviced the day-to-day needs of the town-dwellers and those visiting the towns. Shops in strip-buildings could have served customers passing to and from the towns but were no doubt combined with workshops that also supplied the urban population. The extramural areas were also used for various industrial processes usually excluded from the core of the town such as pottery manufacture and lead smelting, the latter, as at Carlisle, a source of poisonous fumes. Agriculture and animal husbandry would also have been of great importance, supplying products with a short life such as milk, grazing for animals such as horses and draught oxen used by the town-dwellers, and fruit and vegetables. Finally, there were the cemeteries. At none of the towns studied here are the limits of the occupation areas and cemeteries known. The furthermost extent of recorded finds from town centres is bound to be partly the result of modern factors such as the petering out of intensive development in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as shops and factories gave way to suburban housing, the building of which involved less ground disturbance. Even so, occupation and cemeteries are known to have extended over very large areas, at Leicester, for example, covering some 250 ha (though this includes the river Soar), which is more than five times the size of the walled area (Esmonde Cleary 1987, fig. 41). Relatively little of the extramural areas has been investigated, leaving some important questions unanswered, such as the relationships between the burial and occupation areas. Few large areas have been excavated and it is at present impossible to say whether the ditched enclosures were laid out in regular patterns and sizes or developed haphazardly as ownership or leases were granted to individuals. Attention has understandably been focused on areas bordering the roads approaching the towns, and little is known about the areas between the radiating spokes of those roads. Distribution maps show burials clustering along the roads, as at Lincoln (fig. 2), but this may be a distortion produced by modern developments along the present-day London Roads and Commercial Roads which followed Roman routes. More interventions are needed in the areas between the Roman roads and beyond the known areas of occupation. Negative evidence will be important in defining the limits of the extramural zones. The Historic Environment Records include the basic information on which programmes of archaeological mitigation can be based. At Lincoln the records are supplemented by the Urban Archaeological Database and the relational database known as LARA (Lincoln Archaeological Research Assessment, Jones et al. 2003), and at Chester, in addition to the Chester Archaeological Plan (Beckley et al. 2014) and an Urban Archaeological Database, there are specifically for the extramural areas a comprehensive published gazetteer and what amounts to a detailed research

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assessment (Carrington 2012). No such studies of Carlisle and Leicester have been published, though general accounts of the towns were published about a decade ago (McCarthy 2002; Cooper and Buckley 2003). They figure in regional research assessments but, as might be expected in such wide-ranging documents, there is no detailed analysis of their topography and research potential (Brennand 2006; Taylor 2006). This is a particular problem for the extramural zones. The walled towns and their defensive envelopes are known quantities, but the limits of the areas of interest beyond these cores and the locations of occupation and cemeteries are at present uncertain. To understand fully the archaeological potential of these areas, we need to have as much information as possible about previous discoveries together with analyses of their significance. A great obstacle to progress is the lack of publication. There are many reasons why contracting organisations are sometimes unable to place the results of their work fully in the public domain, amongst them the intransigency or bankruptcy of clients, failure of planning authorities to insist on the complete discharge of all the planning conditions, the closure of archaeological units, and shortage of the skills necessary to bring projects to publication. On the other hand, often because of contractual obligations, projects which have been published tend to appear in print much more rapidly than before 1990 and with no diminution of quality (and the publication backlog still includes many projects undertaken before the introduction of PPG 16, some dating back to the 1950s). The extramural areas are in many respects the natural territory of developer-funded urban archaeology — the setting for watching-briefs and small-scale evaluations which will always be much more numerous than in the smaller walled areas with their conservation zones. Site by site, the results of work in the extramural areas are often unspectacular, but cumulatively they are indispensable to our understanding of how towns worked. Ottaway’s study (2011) of the environs of York is a model of what is required for the towns discussed in this paper. This sort of overview cannot depend on developer funding, and academic research grants will only sometimes be available in the right place and at the right time. A system is needed which recognises that there is always a stage beyond the successes and failures of developer funding if the full potential of urban archaeology is to be realised. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am grateful to the following for guidance and unpublished information: Peter Carrington (Chester), Lynden Cooper and Nick Cooper (Leicester), Michael Jones (Lincoln) and Rachel Newman (Carlisle).

Year

1997

2004

12 Cave Road

49 Station Road and 5 The Burrs

1997

1997–2001

2001

2001

2002

40–78 Botchergate (Collier Lane)

Carlisle Millennium Project

53–55 Botchergate

Mary Street/Tait Street

Fisher Street

2004

2005–7

to 2009

Rylands Garage, City Road

Gorse Stacks

Various extramural sites

Chester Extramural

1993, 1997

Cumberland Infirmary

Carlisle

1994

Welton Road

Brough-on-Humber Extramural

Site

Mainly Chester Archaeology

Birmingham Archaeology

Gifford

CFA

Carlisle Archaeology

Oxford

Oxford

Carlisle Archaeology

Carlisle Archaeology

Humber Field Archaeology

NAA

York AT

Organisation

GL

F

F

F

N

N

Numerous excavations and watching-briefs summarised in gazetteer.

Stone-quarrying pits producing a large assemblage of Flavian–early Hadrianic finds.

Industrial building, boundary ditches.

Pottery kilns and associated structures.

N

F

F

F

Buildings and cremations on outskirts of town. GL

Buildings, lead-ore roasting hearth, burials.

Excavation of fort: principia, barracks, defences; occupation from a.d. 72/3 to early fifth century.

Possible aqueduct embankment, cremations, rubbish dumps.

Large-scale excavation of native settlement continuing into second century; few Roman finds.

Carrington 2012

Cuttler et al. 2012

Hayes 2005

Johnson and Anderson 2008; Johnson et al. 2012 (pottery)

Giecco et al. 2001

Zant et al. 2011b

Zant 2009; Howard-Davis 2009

Britannia 29 (1998), 381–2

Britannia 25 (1994), 263; 29 (1998), 382

Britannia 36 (2005), 414–15; 37 (2006), 396

Mackey 1997

Hunter-Mann 2000

Documentation References

Part of possible projecting tower, defensive N ditches and foreshore; ditch, timber then stone buildings in walled area.

Watching-brief on fourth-century (?) building.

Enclosures, buildings, pottery production, isolated burials.

Principal Findings

Key: Documentation/References: F = final report; S = summary/interim; N = note; GL= grey literature report. Note: this list excludes the excavations on the Chester amphitheatre which were not developer-funded.

APPENDIX: SIGNIFICANT INVESTIGATIONS 1990–2013

132 THE TOWNS OF ROMAN BRITAIN

1997

2001

2003

2005

2005–7

2005

2007

2007

2010

Cumberland Street

Vaughan Way

Bath Lane/West Bridge Wharf

Castle Street

Vine Street

Sanvey Gate

Freeschool Lane/Highcross Street

Bath Lane, Merlin Works

Blackfriars, Bath Lane

Newarke Street

Leicester Extramural

1993

Bosworth House, Southgates 2010

1991

Causeway Lane

Leicester Intramural

Leicester AU

ULAS

Birmingham Archaeology

ULAS

ULAS

ULAS

ULAS

ULAS

ULAS

ULAS

ULAS

Leicester AU

F

S

N

N

N

N

N

On a site 110 m south of town defences, first- F century occupation and 39 late fourth-century graves, many with nailed coffins and stone linings, clearly part of a large cemetery.

Timber buildings possibly of two phases under the town defences.

Trial-trenching contacted the town defences and stratified Roman deposits 2 m deep; one trench uncovered a large column base apparently in situ.

Activities relating to LPRIA settlement, early timber buildings, apsidal structure, western defences.

Fallen gable wall of macellum basilica.

Northern town defences and internal tower or stairacase.

Courtyard house preceded by buildings of two N earlier periods, other buildings, curse tablets, lead military sealings.

Second-century building behind colonnade S/GL fronting street, cesspit produced debris from a Roman ‘delicatessen’.

Existence of defences on western (riverside) side of town confirmed. At Merlin Works, stone building with tessellated floor.

Northern side of macellum?

Northern town defences consisting of rampart F with timber strapping fronted by later stone wall.

Site covering adjacent corners of four insulae. Timber buildings from the late first century, stone buildings from the later second century.

Cooper 1996

Britannia 42 (2011), 358

Britannia 42 (2011), 357–8

Britannia 39 (2008), 310–14

Britannia 39 (2008), 295–8; Morris et al. 2011

Britannia 37 (2006), 406–8

Britannia 37 (2006), 406–10; 39 (2008), 298–301; Morris et al. 2011

Score et al. 2010

Britannia 35 (2004), 287

Meek 2002

Cooper 1998

Connor and Buckley 1999

THE TOWNS OF THE MIDLANDS AND THE NORTH 133

N

N

F

F

F

1994–6

2003

2009

2009

St Mark’s Station

Anchor Street/Gaunt Street

9–11 Monson Street

116 High Street

Lincoln Extramural

Allen Archaeology

Allen Archaeology

Lincoln AU/ Mike Jarvis Archaeological Services

Lincoln AU

Archaeological Part of a late Roman town-house in the Lower N Project Services City, corridor(?) mosaic with a chequerboard design.

2003

Danesgate

Third-century pottery kiln in southern suburb.

Timber and stone buildings succeeded by two pottery kilns and then burials.

Large ditch, pottery kilns, cremations and inhumations in the southern suburb.

Fragments of four or five ‘trader’s houses’, some occupied into the late fourth century.

N

N

N

S

N

Lincoln AU

Broadgate/ Free School Lane 2003

Stone house with painted walls demolished to make way for Lower City defences.

Lincoln AU

Britannia 41 (2010), 369

Britannia 41 (2010), 368–9

Britannia 35 (2004), 283; 39 (2008), 292

Britannia 28 (1997), 423; Jones et al. 2003, 107

Britannia 35 (2004), 284

Britannia 35 (2004), 283

Britannia 24 (1993), 288

Britannia 42 (2011), 359; 44 (2013), 308

Britannia 37 (2006), 406

Derrick 2009

Gardner 2005

Finn 2004

Documentation References

Wall probably forming the western side of the N forum separated by a street from parallel walls apparently associated with another public building.

Extensive, mainly late Roman cemetery between the Fosse Way and river Soar; some notably early inhumations.

Near Bonners Lane. First-century cremations and third- and fourth-century timber buildings

Boundary ditches and 31 graves, some stonelined, and two possible mausolea.

Cemetery established in the early third century; 91 graves excavated.

Occupation continuing into the late third– fourth century, iron-working, possible corndrier, processing of cattle bones.

Principal Findings

1992

Westgate

Lincoln Intramural

2010 and 2012

40–46 Western Road

ULAS

ULAS

2005

Herts Archaeological Trust

Grange Lane

2001

Clarence Street

ULAS

ULAS

1993–4

Bonners Lane

Organisation

21–27/29–33 Newarke Street 2003

Year

Site

134 THE TOWNS OF ROMAN BRITAIN

2009

2010

Newport

Land off Long Leys Road

Allen Archaeology

Boundary ditches succeeded by a stone building with an apse and stone architrave, which taken with previous discoveries suggest a villa.

Archaeological Boundary ditches and burials 600 m north of Project Services the colonia. N

N Britannia 42 (2011), 352–3

Britannia 41 (2010), 369

THE TOWNS OF THE MIDLANDS AND THE NORTH 135

136

THE TOWNS OF ROMAN BRITAIN

BIBLIOGRAPHY Beckley, R., Campbell, D. and Collens, J. 2014: Chester Archaeological Plan, Chester (http://www. cheshirearchaeology.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/ Chester_Archaeological_Plan.pdf) Bidwell, P. 1991: ‘Roman barracks in Britain’, in V.A. Maxfield and M.J. Dobson (eds), Roman Frontier Studies 1989. Proceedings of the 15th International Congress of Roman Frontier Studies, Exeter, 9–15 Bidwell, P.T. and Snape, M.E. 2002: ‘The history and setting of the Roman fort at Newcastle upon Tyne’, Archaeologia Aeliana (5th series), 31, 251–81 Boëthius, A. and Ward-Perkins, J.B. 1970: Etruscan and Roman Architecture, Harmondsworth Booth, P. 2008: ‘Roman Britain in 2007. I. Sites explored. 5. The Midlands’, Britannia 39, 292–304 Booth, P. 2009: ‘Roman Britain in 2008. I. Sites explored. 5. The Midlands’, Britannia 40, 240–53 Booth, P. 2011: ‘Roman Britain in 2010. I. Sites explored. 5. The Midlands’, Britannia 42, 355–69 Booth, P. 2013: ‘Roman Britain in 2012. I. Sites explored. 5. The Midlands’, Britannia 44, 304–18 Brennand, M. (ed.) 2006: The Archaeology of NorthWest England. An Archaeological Research Framework for the North West Region (2 vols), Archaeology North West 8 (Issue 18) Buckley, R. and Lucas, J. 1987: Leicester Town Defences, Leicestershire Museums Publications 85, Leicester Burnham, B.C. 2004: ‘Roman Britain. I. Sites explored. 4. Northern counties’, Britannia, 35, 275–86 Carrington, P. 2012: ‘The extramural settlements: an overview’, in Ward et al. 2012, 301–37 Clay, P. 1980: ‘Seven inscribed lead sealings from Leicester’, Britannia 11, 317–20 Colyer, C., Gilmour, B.J.J. and Jones, M.J. 1999: The Defences of the Lower City. Excavations at The Park and West Parade 1970–2 and a Discussion of Other Sites Excavated up to 1994, The Archaeology of Lincoln Vol. VII-2, Lincoln Connor, A. and Buckley, R. 1999: Roman and Medieval Occupation in Causeway Lane, Leicester, Leicester Archaeological Monograph 5, Leicester Cooper, L. 1996: ‘A Roman cemetery in Newarke Street, Leicester’, Transactions of the Leicestershire Archaeological and Historical Society 70, 1–90 Cooper, L. 1998: ‘New evidence for the northern defences of Roman Leicester: an archaeological excavation at Cumberland Street’, Transactions of the Leicestershire Archaeological and Historical Society 72, 92–109 Cooper, N.J., and Buckley, R. 2003: ‘New light on Roman Leicester (Ratae Corieltauvorum)’, in Wilson 2003a, 31–43 Cuttler, R., Hepburn, S., Hewitson, C. and Krawiec, K. 2012: Gorse Stacks – 2000 Years of Quarrying and Waste Disposal in Chester, BAR British Series 563 (Birmingham Archaeology Monograph Series 13), Oxford Derrick, M. 2009: ‘The excavation of a Roman cemetery at 21–33 Newarke Street, Leicester’, Transactions of the Leicestershire Archaeological and Historical Society 83, 63–102 Esmonde Cleary, S. 1987: Extra-Mural Areas of Romano-British Towns, BAR British Series 169, Oxford Esmonde Cleary, A.S. 1994: ‘Roman Britain in 2003. I. Sites explored. 3 and 4. Hadrian’s Wall, Northern Counties’, Britannia, 25, 261–9 Finn, N. 2004:The Origins of a Leicester Suburb. Roman, Anglo-Saxon, Medieval and Post-Medieval Occupation on Bonners Lane, BAR British Series 372, Oxford Fitzpatrick, A. 2006: ‘Roman Britain in 2005. I. Sites explored. 5. The Midlands’, Britannia 37, 405–13 Fulford, M. 2005: ‘The “Elliptical Building” at Chester; a special role for Chester?’, Journal of Roman Archaeology 18, 685–9 Gardner, R. 2005: ‘A Roman cemetery in Clarence Street, Leicester’, Transactions of the Leicestershire Archaeological and Historical Society 79, 27–89 Garner, D. 2008: Excavations at Chester, 25 Bridge Street. Two Thousand Years of Urban Life in Microcosm, Archaeological Service Excavation and Survey Report 14, Chester Giecco, F.O., Zant, J.M. and Wigfield, N. 2001: Interim Report on Archaeological Excavations between Mary Street and Tait Street, Botchergate, Carlisle, unpub. report Carlisle Archaeology Ltd Hayes, L. 2005: ‘Excavation at the former Rylands Garage, City Road, Chester’, Journal of the Chester Archaeological Society 70, 91–137 Holbrook, N. 1999: ‘The Roman town wall of Cirencester’, in LeQuesne 1999, 136–7 Howard-Davis, C. 2009: The Carlisle Millennium Project, Excavations in Carlisle, 1998–2001.Vol. 2:The Finds, Lancaster Imprints 14, Lancaster Hunter-Mann, K. 2000: ‘Excavations on a Roman extra-mural site at Brough-on-Humber’, Internet Archaeology 9 http://intarch.ac.uk/journal/ issue9/brough_toc.html Johnson, M. and Anderson, S. 2008: ‘Excavation of two Romano-British pottery kilns and associated structures, Fisher Street, Carlisle’, Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society (3rd series) 8, 19–35

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Johnson, M., Croom, A., Hartley, K.F. and McBride, R. 2012: ‘Two Flavian to early Antonine RomanoBritish pottery kilns at 7a Fisher Street, Carlisle’, Journal of Roman Pottery Studies 15, 96–139 Jones, M.J. 2003: ‘Sources of effluence: water through Roman Lincoln’, in Wilson 2003, 111–27 Jones, M.J. 2011: Roman Lincoln. Conquest, Colony and Capital, Stroud Jones, M.J., Stocker, D.A. and Vince, A.G. 2003: The City by the Pool: Assessing the Archaeology of the City of Lincoln, Lincoln Archaeology Studies 10, Oxford LeQuesne, C. 1999: Excavations at Chester, The Roman and Later Defences, Part 1. Investigations 1978–1990, Chester Archaeology Excavation and Survey Report 11, Chester Mackey, R. 1977: Watching-Brief at 12 Cave Road, Brough-on-Humber, EastYorkshire, unpub. report Northern Archaeological Associates 97/81 Mason, D. 2000: Excavations at Chester. The Elliptical Building: An Image of the Roman World?, Chester Archaeology Excavation and Survey Report 12, Chester Mason, D. 2012a: Roman Chester. Fortress at the Edge of the World, Stroud Mason, D. 2012b: ‘Sedan House’, in Ward et al. 2012, 219–60 Mason, D. and Petch, D. 2005: Excavations at Chester. The Roman Fortress Baths, Excavation and Recording 1732–1998, Chester Archaeological Service Excavation and Survey Report 13, Chester McCarthy, M.R. 2000: Roman and Medieval Carlisle: The Southern Lanes, Excavations 1981–2, Department of Archaeological Sciences, University of Bradford, Research Report 1, Bradford McCarthy, M. 2002: Roman Carlisle and the Lands of the Solway, Stroud Meek, J. 2002: ‘Vaughan Way, former Maxim and Stibbe Buildings’, Transactions of the Leicestershire Archaeological and Historical Society 76, 87–91 Morris, M., Buckley, R. and Codd, M. 2011: Visions of Ancient Leicester. Reconstructing Life in the Roman and Medieval Town from the Archaeology of the Highcross Leicester Excavations, Leicester Newman, R. (ed.) 2011: Carlisle: Excavations at Rickergate, 1998–9, and 53–55 Botchergate, 2001, Cumbria Archaeological Research Reports No. 2 , Bowness on Windermere Ottaway, P. 2011: Archaeology in the Environs of Roman York: Excavations 1976–2005, The Archaeology of York, Vol. 6, Fasc. 2: Roman Extra-Mural Settlement and Roads, York RIB II Collingwood, R.G. and Wright, R.P. (eds Frere, S.S., Roxan, M. and Tomlin, R.S.O.), 1990–1995: The Roman Inscriptions of Britain. II, Instrumentum Domesticum, Oxford Richmond, I.A. 1959: ‘Roman Britain in 1958. I. Sites explored’, Journal of Roman Studies 49, 102–35 Score, V., Browning, J., Johnson, E., Monckton, A. and Kipling, R. 2010: ‘A Roman “delicatessen” at Castle Street, Leicester’, Transactions of the Leicestershire Archaeological and Historical Society 84, 77–94 Steane, K. 2001: The Archaeology of Wigford and the Brayford Pool, Lincoln Archaeological Studies, 2, Oxford Steane, K. 2006: The Archaeology of the Upper City and Adjacent Suburbs, Lincoln Archaeological Studies, 3, Oxford Tasker, A., Wilkinson, I.P., Williams, M., Morris, M., Cooper, N.J. and Fulford, M.G. 2013: ‘Provenance of chalk tesserae from a Roman town-house in Vine Street, Leicester’, Britannia 44, 219–46 Taylor, J. 2006: ‘The Roman period’, in N. Cooper (ed.), The Archaeology of the East Midlands. An Archaeological Research Assessment Research Agenda, Leicester Archaeological Monographs 13, 137–60 (http:// www.english-heritage.org.uk/publications/archaeology-east-midlands/em-res-framework.pdf) Tomlin, R.S.O. 2008: ‘“Paedogogium and Septizonium”: two Roman lead tablets from Leicester’, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 167, 207–18 Tomlin, R.S.O. and Hassall, M.W.C. 2007: ‘Roman Britain in 2006. III. Inscriptions’, Britannia 38, 345–65 Wacher, J. 1995: The Towns of Roman Britain (2nd edn), London Ward, S., Mason, D. and McPeake, J. 2012: Excavations at Chester: The Western and Southern Extramural Settlements, BAR British Series 553 (Chester Archaeological Excavation and Survey Report 15), Oxford Wilson, D.R. 1974: ‘Roman Britain in 1973. I. Sites explored’, Britannia, 5, 396–470 Wilson, P. (ed.) 2003a: The Archaeology of Roman Towns, Oxford Wilson, P. 2003b: ‘The Roman towns of Yorkshire: 30 years on’, in Wilson 2003a, 258–69 Wilson, P. 2010: ‘Roman Britain in 2009. I. Sites explored. 4. Northern England’, Britannia 41, 359–72 Wilson, P. 2011: ‘Roman Britain in 2010. I. Sites explored. 4. Northern England’, Britannia 42, 344–54 Zant, J. 2009: The Carlisle Millennium Project, Excavations in Carlisle, 1998–2001. Vol. 1: The Stratigraphy, Lancaster Imprints 14, Lancaster Zant, J., Miller, I., Mould, Q. and Howard Davis, C. 2011a: ‘The northern defences of medieval Carlisle: Excavations at Rickergate, 1998–9’, in Newman 2011, 4–69 Zant, J., Miller, I., Murphy, S. and Hughes, V. 2011b: ‘Archaeological excavations on a Roman cemetery, industrial site and medieval suburb at 53–55 Botchergate, Carlisle, 2001’, in Newman 2011, 70–124

CHAPTER 8

Urban exits: commercial archaeology and the study of death rituals and the dead in the towns of Roman Britain By John Pearce

Introduction Since 1990 more than 4,000 burials have been excavated from Roman towns in Britain under the PPG 16 framework and its successors. When added to more than c. 7,000 from the preceding three decades, the last half century’s work endows Britain with one of the richest urban burial datasets of any Roman province. This recent achievement is not to be measured in numbers alone, but also in the potential for significantly improved understanding of ancient demography, ritual process and urban social structure, a marked contrast with the characterisation of Roman funerary archaeology in the period preceding PPG 16 as an under-developed and insular field of enquiry (Morris 1992; Reece 1982; 1988, 187). This development is a product of new data, both from cemeteries excavated since 1990 and from key sites investigated in the preceding period, and of transformations in the wider research environment for funerary archaeology. ‘Urban’ burials can only be fuzzily defined. The inner edge of the urban margins where burial takes place may be defined by town walls, but otherwise this zone where burials intersperse with public buildings, domestic occupation, craft and quarrying, farming and rubbish disposal shades off gradually and discontinuously into a wider hinterland (Goodman 2007; Willis 2007). Those burials considered here are typically located within a kilometre or so of urban boundaries; on occasion examples are drawn from the more extended urban periphery. The main focus lies on the major towns of Roman Britain (the colonies, municipium at Verulamium and civitas capitals), including their military phases; comparable sites are served to varying degrees by other syntheses, evidence from the two legionary fortresses, Caerleon and Chester, being more recently summarised than the major small towns (Pollock 2006). Of those other towns which may have played the role of civitas capital in the late Roman period, only Water Newton has produced significant new funerary evidence in the review period (Casa-Hatton and Wall 2006). In this period excavation of tombs has yielded some of the most evocative Roman objects discovered in recent years, for example the jet bears and polychrome cockerel figurine buried with children at Colchester and Cirencester respectively (fig. 8), the mosaic glass bowl from Prescot Street, London, or the carved eagle from the Minories near by (fig. 7), an extraordinary funerary sculpture. Likewise some skeletal groups, for example victims of martial or judicial violence from York, or (perhaps) of plague from Gloucester, vividly illuminate the precarious and brutal character of the period. Space precludes close attention to these, but in any case such a focus would risk falling foul of the criticism that funerary archaeology of the Classical period attends more to the exceptional than the typical (Morris 1992). After a general characterisation of the new data, the burial evidence is briefly put in its wider urban historical context (other papers more extensively review suburban topography). Settlements with nucleated populations of permanent residents numbering several thousand had not, with occasional exceptions,

URBAN EXITS: ARCHAEOLOGY & THE STUDY OF DEATH IN THE TOWNS OF ROMAN BRITAIN 139

previously been seen in Britain and may have been characterised by demographic, cultural and socio-economic dynamics in general lacking precedents in British prehistory. Using the evidence for ritual process and from osteological and biomolecular study, the discussion will highlight key questions and challenges in understanding their socio-economic, cultural and demographic history from recent cemetery excavations. Fieldwork on urban cemeteries: burials and their setting The variable dissemination of fieldwork results makes precise quantification of the number of urban burials excavated since 1990 impossible. No single source, for example the annual catalogues of work by the Archaeological Investigations Project (AIP), fieldwork reports in the journal Britannia or references in local government Historic Environment Records (HERs), is complete, all having varying criteria for inclusion and uneven participation in their compilation. Nonetheless an outline may be given of the new excavation data, using references to Roman period cemetery excavations in Britannia. This may exaggerate the significance of projects for which activity takes place in several stages, for instance at Hungate, York, or where multiple discrete projects sample the same burial area in (near-)adjacent developments, for instance in Moorfields and Finsbury Circus, north London. However, its inclusion of reports on most key projects allows general trends to be documented. The frequency of excavation over time follows general trends in fieldwork on sites of Roman and other periods, larger numbers of projects being undertaken from the mid-1990s with a significant decrease after 2006–7 (fig. 1) (see also Booth and Boyle 2008). London, Colchester and, to a lesser extent,York, Canterbury, Gloucester and Leicester, have seen significantly greater levels of work than other sites, reflecting the general variability in fieldwork activity in suburban areas of Roman towns (i.e. on the margins of the historic centres of English cities), as quantified by number of reports submitted to the AIP (fig. 2). In most cases the numbers of burials are small, either because of the limited extent of excavation or disturbance and truncation of strata of Roman date; fieldwork at Lankhills, Winchester (see Ch. 5, Fig. 12) and south of Colchester (figs 3 and 4) is unusual in its examination of more extensive areas with lesser damage of this type. Although the precise number of excavated graves is likely to be modified by final

18 16 14

12 10 8

6 4 2

fig. 1. Number of investigations of (extramural) burials, Britannia fieldwork reports 1990–2012 (isolated infant burials are excluded).

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

2007

2006

2005

2004

2003

2002

2001

2000

1999

1998

1997

1996

1995

1994

1993

1992

1991

1990

0

THE TOWNS OF ROMAN BRITAIN

140

120 100 80 60 40 20 0

fig. 2. Number of excavations of burials (black) from Roman towns in Britain, Britannia fieldwork reports 1990–2012, and number of investigations within 1 km of walled area (grey), as reported to the AIP 1990–2012 (see Appendix, Table 1).

publication, most of the larger fieldwork projects have also taken place in these cities as well as in Cirencester, reinforcing existing biases in the distribution of burial data (Appendix, Table 1). Of all the projects tabulated a minority has so far been fully published in print, although substantial digital resources are available in some other cases, especially from Colchester. Two related matters are of potentially greater significance than speed of dissemination, the fragmentation of analysis and the challenge to print publication. Colchester is somewhat exceptional in the responsibility of a single contractor for almost all recent excavations considered: elsewhere burial areas have usually been investigated by multiple contractors, especially at London and York. The most obvious example of fragmentation is for only one of adjacent excavations to have so far been published, for example at Lankhills, Winchester (Booth et al. 2010). Where burial areas are sampled intermittently and on a small scale, the results may be thought to be of limited value and not taken beyond assessment-level analysis or remain unpublished. In such cases the integrated study of what may, cumulatively, be a substantial resource, will depend on research grants and/or exploitation by doctoral students as thesis material, for example for recent samples from the Railway Station cemetery at York (McIntyre in prep.), assuming that access is not compromised where a licence has stipulated reburial of human skeletal material (Parker Pearson et al. 2013). Notwithstanding the existence of guidelines on recording (Brickley and McKinley 2004), this fragmentation also risks amplifying the diversity of modes of publication of human skeletal material from the same cemetery populations, a persistent problem in the synthetic study of ancient populations. Even for small numbers of burials, good survival of evidence for ritual process and its setting allied to the expanding range of analytical techniques create publications which barely fit between two covers (e.g. Niblett 1999; Crummy et al. 2007). In particular, it is impossible for print publication to disseminate the skeletal data compiled during post-excavation analysis, although these are essential for detailed comparison between cemetery populations. Large-scale manipulation of skeletal and other data is only possible, realistically, where disseminated digitally, but there has been limited exploration of digital publication of cemetery data in formats more susceptible to manipulation than texts and tables presented as PDFs (Pearce 2013b, 471–2). As well as some non-urban projects disseminated through the Archaeology Data Service (e.g. Foreman 2009), other exceptions which facilitate demographic

fig. 3. Plan of excavation area J1 North (Colchester Garrison Alienated Land), showing roadside ditches and a burial space used mainly from the first to third centuries a.d. (© Colchester Archaeological Trust)

URBAN EXITS: ARCHAEOLOGY & THE STUDY OF DEATH IN THE TOWNS OF ROMAN BRITAIN 141

142

THE TOWNS OF ROMAN BRITAIN

fig. 4. Plan of excavation area C2 (Colchester Garrison Alienated Land), showing burials of mainly late Roman date, barrow ring ditches and a mausoleum, south of the circus. (© Colchester Archaeological Trust)

syntheses based on human skeletal material include examples from London, the Wellcome Trustsponsored WORD database, and Rome, where an Access-based database is shared between a network of scholars, enabling large-scale comparison of samples (Minozzi and Zabotti 2008; Redfern and Bekvalac 2013, 87–8). Outside an institutional framework such repositories raise perennial questions related to their long-term preservation and accessibility. This evidence from recent fieldwork may be briefly set within a spatial and historical context.

URBAN EXITS: ARCHAEOLOGY & THE STUDY OF DEATH IN THE TOWNS OF ROMAN BRITAIN 143

Burials or monuments confidently dated to the pre-Flavian period are rare occurrences among the new data, as they are in general (e.g. Gascoyne and Radford 2013; Orr 2010; Simmonds et al. 2008). Most significant for the study of urban foundations is the discovery of major funerary complexes dated to the conquest period. The scale and complexity of rituals documented at Folly Lane, St Albans, and Stanway, Colchester, involving the destruction of feasting gear, weaponry and regalia, suggest a political role for the funeral, perhaps orchestrated by the successors of dynasts attested on Late Iron Age coins. The size and setting of the associated complexes make them major elements of the monumentalised space of the new urban communities (Creighton 2006; Crummy et al. 2007; Fulford, above, Ch. 5; Haüssler 2010; Niblett 1999). Recent fieldwork shows the configuration of burial space for the common dead to be closely tied to the structuring elements of suburban landscapes — roads and field boundaries, ditches and streams (see also other contributions) — an impression amplified by prospection at Silchester (J. Creighton pers. comm.) and Cirencester (Chapman et al. 2009, 267–9; Holbrook 2008a; Pearce 2013a; Winton 2009). Burials vary in numbers from small groups in ‘backlands’ of houses to the ‘fields of the dead’ of Late Antiquity (Esmonde Cleary 2000). The clustering of first- and second-century burials along roadsides has been documented in the review period from Carlisle, Cirencester, London and especially Colchester, where some burials in the circus environs occur in a strip of land on the margins of a route leading south from the crossroads south-west of the Balkerne Gate (fig. 3). At Colchester this same crossroads endures as a focus for funerary monuments into the late Roman period (Brooks 2006). Southwark supplies the main recent evidence of monumentalised Gräberstrassen, where tombs were built in walled enclosures running parallel to Watling Street (Mackinder 2000; Thrale 2008). Likely funerary enclosures have also been detected close to the course of the Fosse Way west and east of Cirencester. Although badly truncated by the construction of a garage in the 1960s, the excavation of one such enclosure at the Bridges Garage site revealed a high density of inhumation and cremation burials dating from c. a.d. 100 to the later fourth century, as well as the robber trenches of a possible mausoleum within it (fig. 5) (Holbrook et al. 2013; McSloy and Watts 2013; Winton 2009). In excavations prior to and since 1990 inhumation burials of late Roman date outnumber those of the early to middle Empire. The multiplicity of factors responsible makes this an unreliable index for changing urban population size; the most that can be said is that it suggests the continuing role of towns as social and ceremonial centres in the third and fourth centuries a.d. (cf. Mattingly 2006, 343; Millett 1990, 142; Pearce 2013a, 126–8). While cemeteries often extend much further from the roads and overlie boundaries of earlier date, the enduring influence of these other elements of peri-urban landscapes is visible in the orientation of graves, whether on similar or multiple alignments, illustrated respectively at Leicester, Canterbury and Winchester and at London Road, Gloucester, Colchester (e.g. areas J1 north and C2), north of London and Southwark (Appendix, Table 1 for references) (figs 3, 4 and 6). Within the late Roman period limited dating evidence hinders an evaluation of changing burial numbers over time. Stratified relationships between burials are generally uncommon and closely datable objects often absent; some artefact assemblages comprise almost entirely residual pottery from activity predating burial, for example at Houndsditch, London, or south-east of Leicester (Cooper 1996; Derrick 2009; Sankey and Connell 2007). Even where more generous furnishing exists, many artefact types cannot be more closely dated than to the nearest half century and deposition in burials of coins minted in the later fourth century a.d. is less frequent than for earlier periods, albeit with local variability (Philpott 1991, 210–12; Booth et al. 2010, 261–6). The application of radiocarbon dating has illuminated the chronology of inhumation as a burial practice (see below), but in contrast to rural and small town cemeteries radiocarbon dating has been applied to urban cemeteries on a very limited basis; in one major exception the dates obtained were incompatible with other evidence, suggesting a possible effect of marine consumption on the isotopic characteristics used in dating (Booth et al. 2010, 458–9). Key changes in the relationship between living and dead mapped elsewhere for Late Antiquity have a limited echo in Britain, which remains impoverished in its evidence for extramural churches; neither in research excavations at St Albans Abbey nor elsewhere has substantial new evidence been acquired for martyrial shrines (Biddle and Kjølby-Biddle 2001; Schmidt 2000).

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fig. 5. Plan of the Bridges Garage site, Tetbury Road, Cirencester, excavated in 2013, showing cremation and inhumation burials as well as robber trenches related to foundations of a possible mausoleum within a ditched enclosure. The orientation of burial features suggests that Tetbury Road, immediately north-west, may overlie a Roman road which represents the earliest course of the Fosse Way which later moved to the south. (© Cotswold Archaeology)

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fig. 6. The London Road cemetery, south of the junction at Wootton Hill, Gloucester, in use from the first to fourth centuries a.d. Nine cremation burials, more than sixty inhumations and one mass burial (beneath the cluster of burials in the south-east corner of the site) were excavated in the central, southern and eastern parts of the site which had escaped later truncation. (© Oxford Archaeology, Simmonds et al. 2008, fig. 4.1)

Some further evidence has accumulated for encroachment of burial on (sometimes intramural) occupied areas, for example in West London and in Southwark (Bateman et al. 2008, 93; Cowan et al. 2009, 33, 36–7; Perring, this volume, Ch. 3; Watson 2006, 64–8). In general, however, evidence is limited for this signature motif of the ‘de-structuring’ of the classical city associated with changing land use, population decline and the toleration of the closer proximity of the buried corpse associated with Christianity (Leone 2007; Rogers 2011, 170–4).

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Burial rituals Although only some results of excavations in the survey period are in the public domain, our understanding of burial ritual has been significantly enriched. A richer and more complex characterisation of burial practice can be given, both in relation to the variety of burial practices observed and to the reconstruction of ritual process, especially with regard to cremation burials. In this respect, as in other aspects of ritual behaviour, the greater ability to establish ‘archaeologies of acts rather than just things’ (Chadwick 2012, 303) puts the description of provincial mortuary rituals on a stronger basis than might be provided by extrapolation from the problematic textual references from Rome (Scheid 2005, 161–88). Save for a small number of exceptional items, the objects buried with the dead mainly fall into the repertoire exhaustively documented by Philpott (1991); it is in their association with aspects of social identity that new insights have been derived. The larger sample of burials with osteological documentation and biomolecular analysis allows closer comparison of ritual, both grave good deposition and other aspects, with age, sex, geographical origin, diet and health. A simple narrative of cremation as the dominant ritual, in towns and beyond, until replaced by inhumation in the third century a.d. must be set aside; inhumation can be confidently identified as a widespread ritual in the early Roman period. Poverty of dating information makes it difficult to assess its significance but substantial numbers of early inhumation burials are documented at several urban cemeteries listed in Appendix, Table 1, including Southwark, London Road, Gloucester, and the Colchester Garrison site among the published examples. These inhumations take varied forms, occasionally crouched, as at London Road, Gloucester, more commonly extended and supine, and sometimes subject to secondary rituals (see below). The frequency of inhumation in the early Roman period echoes other recent findings in the Western provinces and at Rome, where it accounts for many modest burials of early to mid-Imperial date (Faber et al. 2004; Buccellato et al. 2008). Conversely, late Roman cremation burials of diverse forms, including busta, occur in small numbers in the majority of late Roman cemeteries listed in Appendix, Table 1, undermining explanations of their presence as an isolated archaism (cf. Philpott 1991, 50–2). The complexity of cemeteries as depositional environments is increasingly apparent. Research agendas for cemeteries typically focus on expanding the size and diversity of grave samples, but the grave is only one of a number of features containing the residue of funerary ritual. Recent fieldwork in Colchester’s cemeteries has been especially productive of other burial-related features such as pyre pits, busta, pyre debris deposits, and assemblages related to commemorative feasting, all of which significantly enrich an understanding of ritual process (Brooks 2006; Orr 2010; McKinley 2013; Pooley et al. 2011). Similar deposits have been documented elsewhere (e.g. Holbrook et al. 2008, 109–31; Mackinder 2000; Passmore 2013; Thrale 2008; Simmonds et al. 2008, 136–7; Zant et al. 2011, 103–4). ‘Structured’ or ‘placed’ deposits of whole objects are a recurring characteristic of burial areas, only some of which can be plausibly interpreted as cenotaphs (Cool 2011; Simmonds et al. 2008, 137–8). The frequent discovery in London’s cemeteries of horses and dogs, sometimes in pits or shafts dug for the purpose, sometimes in boundary ditches, illustrates the wider deposition of whole and part animal carcasses (Hiller and Wilkinson 2005, 47–9; Maltby 2010, 302). These deposits raise recurring issues of interpretation, both to identify the phase of ritual to which a deposit is linked and to distinguish the residues of ritual from those of profane activities, including rubbish dumping, quarrying, craft-working or crop-processing, often taking place in or close to cemeteries (Barber and Bowsher 2000; McWhirr et al. 1982; Ottaway et al. 2012; see other contributions in this volume). One key source for reconstructing behaviour in burial areas, the cemetery surface, is little represented in recent fieldwork, meaning for example that unburied residues of pyre debris or commemorative activity are lacking. Although typically truncated, the deposits recorded in East London and over late Roman graves at St Albans Abbey exemplify the potential for such contexts sometimes to survive (Barber and Bowsher 2000; Biddle and Kjølby-Biddle 2001). A focus on the grave at the expense of other features, prompting the machining of overlying layers, may have a deleterious effect here (Weekes 2007).

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Understanding of cremation rituals has perhaps benefited most from investigation of these diverse deposit types, in conjunction with analyses of burnt human skeletal material, animal and plant remains. The examination of the deposit of burnt and broken material placed in a small pit on the edge of a likely mortuary chamber at Folly Lane, St Albans, is a torchbearer for the insights potentially to be derived from pyre residues (Niblett 1999, 56–64). Cremation processes and rituals of more common character are also now much better, if patchily, attested. Newly documented evidence for cremation fuels comprises non-arboreal plant remains, including common weeds of grassland and disturbed ground, cereal plants derived from kindling and plant communities on pyre margins. Among fuel woods oak is the most frequently attested, with occasional variation (e.g. Challinor in Booth et al. 2010, 441–3; Pooley et al. 2011, passim). The white or near-white colour of the majority of cremated human bone samples indicates com-bustion at a temperature over 700° C with near-complete burning away of soft tissue (e.g. Marquez Grant in Simmonds et al. 2008, 77–8). A slightly greater degree of colour variability in Romano-British assemblages than those of other periods may indicate limitations on fuel (McKinley in Cool 2004, 293–5; Birbeck and Moore 2004, 101). As for the presentation of the dead on the pyre, Colchester again supplies likely representative examples. A nailed wooden bier may have borne some individuals to the flames, but reused timber as pyre fuel and wooden boxes placed with the dead may also account for some nails found with pyre residue. The presence of hobnails from footwear and staining of cremated bone or burnt or broken dress items, for example brooches or hairpins, suggest the dressing of the corpse in some cases. Joints of meat are otherwise the most frequently attested items burnt with the dead. Fragments of pots and, less commonly, molten glass, usually from unguentaria, are also a recurring accompaniment (Brooks et al. 2007; Pooley et al. 2011). Some ceremonies are marked by more extensive destruction of objects and commodities. At Colchester, for example, the burnt and broken artefact assemblage associated with CRNG8, a late first- or early second-century bustum, comprised at least seven ceramic vessels, unguent bottles, two ivory distaffs and fittings from a wooden box, as well as a coin, hobnails and nails (Pooley et al. 2011, 1142–6). Other assemblages reveal an abundance of plant and animal material as the residue of sacrifice or consumption, for example the stone pine, figs, almond, date and cereals as well as chicken bones from a bustum in Southwark, or whole pigs from single cremation graves at Gloucester (Mackinder 2000; Worley in Simmonds et al. 2008, 121–2). An assemblage of Flavian date from a roadside enclosure at Old Tetbury Road, Cirencester illustrates the dining material used in richer ceremonies, comprising ceramics dominated by continental finewares, including South Gaulish samian, and sherds from at least two amphorae, as well as oak and lime charcoal, animal bone, many nails and heat-damaged and molten glass and copper alloy (Holbrook et al. 2008, 109–31). Inhumation burials occasionally preserve evidence for feasting of this type; for example, the fills of unfurnished graves from the corner of a nearby funerary enclosure on the Fosse Way contain amphorae, tazze and flagons from rituals associated with burial (Holbrook et al. 2013; McSloy and Watts 2013). In other respects, too, publication of pre-PPG 16 projects and recent fieldwork have patchily enhanced understanding of ritual process. Exceptional preservation of textiles, such as gold thread-embroidered silk or wool dyed with Tyrian purple, reveals significant investment in burial ritual, though even in these instances it is difficult to determine whether individuals were buried dressed or shrouded (Davies et al. 2002, 133–5; Swain and Roberts 2001). Where more typical evidence survives, such as textile remains preserved in plaster impression or mineral replacement, footwear, dress ornaments or the configuration of limbs, it is rarely possible to be conclusive (Booth et al. 2010, 474–6; Pearce 2013b, 450–1). Closer documentation of skeletal articulations during excavation may offer greater future insights into the decay process and, inferentially, into the original burial form and its lost perishable elements (Duday 2009). Oak coffins, the commonest containers for the dead, have been shown to take quite diverse forms. The most common are of simple nailed construction, but the range spans from re-used boxes and hollowed logs to massive coffins with boards up to 75 mm thick and substantial metal fittings (Barber and Bowsher 2000, 92–5; Booth et al. 2010, 320–31; Ridgeway 2009, 10; Crummy et al. 1993, 210–11; Farwell and Molleson 1993, 114–27; Watson 2003, 33–4).

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Stone coffins and lead liners were reserved for exceptional burials; in excavations in London since the 1980s, for example, only two and three complete examples respectively have been documented (Barber and Bowsher 2000; Russell 2010; Thomas 2004). They are similarly scarce from cemeteries at other cities, though in Leicester’s cemeteries slab-lined graves are unusually common (Cooper 1996; Derrick 2009). Further analyses of the white mineral in ‘plaster burials’ have shown its diversity; gypsum is uncommon and in London calcium carbonate in the form of marine chalk is clearly the preferred material (e.g. Barber and Bowsher 2000, 101–3; Mackinder 2000, 29; Sparey-Green 2003). Emerging evidence for the associated use of diverse aromatic resins to anoint or preserve the corpse connects Britain to a wider imperial élite practice and has significant implications for resources expended in burial ceremonies (Brettell et al. in prep.). New fieldwork has produced many examples of decapitated corpses (Boylston et al. 2000; Taylor 2008). From examination of the exceptional burials at Driffield Terrace, York and reassessment of other samples, Tucker (in Hunter-Mann 2006; in Ottaway et al. 2012, 240–2) argues that many such individuals were executed rather than decapitated after death. In other cases, however, ante-mortem decapitation is unlikely (McKinley and Dinwiddy 2009; Booth et al. 2010, 480). The post-mortem rite is sometimes attributed to the ‘deviant’ status of the living or the inauspicious circumstances of their death, but Crerar’s (2013) analysis reveals that rituals associated with decapitated burials were otherwise little different from local norms. Prone burials more commonly exhibit limited care (e.g. Simmonds et al. 2008, 21–2). Secondary rituals associated with inhumation burials are also revealed in recent work, most commonly the occasional re-deposition of major skeletal elements from a single individual (Booth et al. 2010, 37–8; Simmonds et al. 2008, 24; Pearce 2013b, 461–2). On Roman London’s northern margins evidence for burial disturbance is exceptional in its scale and form. Here numerous single bones, sometimes gnawed, found in and close to the bed of Walbrook tributaries, as well as burial location on stream banks, suggest deliberate placing of the dead so as to be susceptible to water erosion. While this choice of burial site may be attributed to cultural factors, the poverty of the burying community, exploiting a marginal landscape, may also apply (Butler 2006, 38–44; Perring this volume, Ch. 3). Single skeletal elements are also documented sporadically outside funerary contexts, mostly in ‘structured deposits’ in sanctuaries and elsewhere (e.g. Beasley 2007; Birbeck 2009, 107; Connor and Buckley 1999, 365; Fulford 2001; Niblett 1999, 86–7). However context, pathology and taphonomy suggest skulls deposited in pits by the Upper Walbrook at London Wall are the remains of individuals denied formal burial as a final humiliation related to their status as noxii (Redfern and Bonney 2014; cf. Fulford 2000, 356). The limited intercutting between graves in many cemeteries suggests that burials were commonly marked. Cemeteries at Colchester again illustrate the more abundant evidence for ephemeral markers now to hand; examples from south of the town include single and multiple post-hole settings and stake-holes around graves (Anon 2013b; Pooley et al. 2011, 210). Elements of superstructures discovered in the survey period include inscribed stelae from Gloucester (RIB 3072–3) and plaques from London, Canterbury and Colchester (RIB 3009, 3012, 3026, 3131; Tomlin 2008, 370–1, no. 3), as well as occasional fragments of funerary sculpture, again from London (e.g. Mackinder 2000). Of the latter the free-standing sculpture of an eagle entwined with a snake, from the Minories, in Londinium’s Eastern Cemetery, buried adjacent to the foundations of a building interpreted as a mausoleum, is the best preserved example (fig. 7). Its solar symbolism is clearly appropriate to a funerary setting, although other instances of the same pairing derive primarily from non-funerary contexts (cf. Beeson 2003). The masons responsible for these monuments have been shown to exploit stones of varied sources from the province and beyond (Hayward 2009). In-situ evidence of monuments is documented for more cities and over a longer period (Appendix, Table 2). Much of the surviving evidence falls into two groups, stone foundations (surviving or robbed) from roofed mausolea and enclosures, and ditches, some of which may have accommodated timber structures. Features documented in pre-PPG 16 excavations at Monson Street, Lincoln, have been interpreted as settings for stelae, a rare occurrence, associated with a possible walled enclosure (Steane 2001, 19–21). Barrows documented near Colchester circus are unusual both for their urban setting and late

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fig. 7. A funerary sculpture of eagle and snake entwined from the Minories, London, excavated by staff of Museum of London Archaeology in 2013. The lack of weathering suggests it may have decorated the interior of a mausoleum. (© MOLA/Andy Chopping)

Roman date (fig. 4, cf. Struck 2000). For mausolea where stone foundations survive, modest tower and temple tombs similar to those of neighbouring provinces can be reasonably postulated (Blagg 2002; Mackinder 2000). It is difficult to establish what if any above-ground presence characterised the substantial timber-lined burial pits documented at London, Colchester and Dorchester (Birbeck 2009; Davies et al. 2002; Thomas 2004, 18–29). In several cases the funerary function of monuments is not definitively established, both for structures detected by prospection, like those around the Tar Barrow Cirencester, and excavated examples, for instance at Rhodaus Town, Canterbury or Shadwell, east London (Appendix, Table 2). Rituals and urban societies The enriched evidence for ritual possesses significant potential for investigating urban identities, although the confessional status of urban populations is less often illuminated than other aspects.

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Artefacts with Christian iconography remain rare discoveries, a possible example from Leicester being a recent exception, and claims of Christian affiliation continue to be made from the absence of grave goods with late Roman inhumation cemeteries (Anon 2013a; Cooper and Buckley 2003, 38–9). The difficulties of such identifications are well rehearsed (Petts 2003; Yasin 2009). As argued by Scheid (2005), Roman funerary rituals were directed at re-instating the boundaries between the living and dead through a sacrificial sequence, rather than articulating eschatologies. This may be a more productive perspective to explore in relation to the funerary behaviour documented in previous paragraphs; it also offers a context for the many objects or practices with likely apotropaic properties buried with the dead. At the different stages of ritual, for example at the procession, pyre or graveside, representations of the dead were created which embodied the traditions of the burying group in relation to the deceased and which in turn served to reproduce them (cf. Ekengren 2013). These are now briefly considered in relation to status, age, gender and cultural identity. Informal disposal of bodies, a consequence of poverty or the noxious status of the deceased, is rarely attested among the new data; the collective grave in which at least 91 individuals were deposited within the burial area at London Road, Gloucester, remains exceptional (see below). Resources required for commonplace burials were substantial, both the matériel for rituals and a burial place, even if of limited duration. Whatever the mechanism, household, work/religious association or patronage, the dead were commonly integrated in networks that provided for funerals, the proper conduct of the occasion perpetuating the cohesion of such groups. Funerals also differentiated between the dead to a greater degree than is commonly allowed for through conspicuous use of resources, whether in pre-interment rituals, markers or grave goods. The latter are generally commonplace objects, selected with some variation by context from the repertoire of objects in circulation, as recent studies of ceramics illustrate (e.g. Biddulph 2005; Pitts 2005; Willis 2011). Some are, however, distinguished by material, craftsmanship, rarity or symbolic importance and their number is extended by recent data. For example, glass vessels buried with the dead in late Roman cities, especially London, include many types which are otherwise little represented in the province (Barber and Bowsher 2000, 125–30; Cool in Booth et al. 2010, 270–1; Shepherd in Ridgeway et al. 2013, 36–8; Shepherd and Hunt 2009; Thomas 2004, 18–29). Excavations at Lankhills and beyond have revealed a handful of further burials furnished with symbols of late Roman military or bureaucratic authority, including crossbow brooches, belts and spurs (Booth 2014; Cool in Booth et al. 2010, 278–91). Status cannot be studied in isolation as its material expression is clearly conditioned by the age and gender of the deceased, including selection for burial in a formal cemetery setting (see below). Analysis of the relationship between age, gender and ritual at Lankhills (Clarke excavation) revealed an association between generous provision of grave goods, including but not limited to gender-specific dress items, and graves of children and older adolescent and young adult women (Gowland 2001). Similar patterning is documented elsewhere, for example in the Oxford Archaeology excavations at Lankhills, whilst the richest burials on the C2 and Abbeyfield sites at Colchester were those of young children, furnished with artefacts of amuletic character such as jet bears, echoing the deposition of apotropaic objects in exceptional burials in other provinces (Cool in Booth et al. 2010, 307; Crummy 2010; Martin-Kilcher 2000). In other cemeteries with less frequent furnishing, children, adolescents and younger women are similarly distinguished by richer object assemblages (figs 8 and 9) (e.g. Cool in Simmonds et al. 2008, 111; McSloy and Watts 2013; Ridgeway et al. 2013, 79; Thomas 2004, 18–29). Whatever the specific significance of such objects, perhaps endowed with a liminal symbolism from their association with rites of passage such as marriage, Gowland’s (2001) application of a life-course approach demonstrates how burial contributes to the construction of cultural norms in relation to these dimensions of identity. Similarly the varying traditions of the burying group will influence the representation of other aspects of identity. Diversity in this respect is a well-established characteristic of Roman burial, especially in the first two centuries a.d.; practice at London Road, Gloucester, for example, in the first century a.d. includes both crouched inhumation with echoes of Iron Age burial, and cremation with accessory objects such as lamps, unguent bottles, and coins as well as Latin

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fig. 8. An enamelled figurine of a cockerel (c. 125 mm high) from the burial of a two- to three-year-old child in the cemetery at Bridges Garage, Old Tetbury Road, Cirencester. The best preserved of the few known examples of its kind, the figure was perhaps created as a toy but in the grave may have acquired an additional significance as a sacrifice. (© Cotswold Archaeology)

epitaphs, more typical of colonial settings (Cool 2010; Jones 1993; Pooley et al. 2011; Simmonds et al. 2008). While such evidence hints at cultural diversity, it does not easily illuminate geographical origin, as the example of the bustum shows with its multiple places of possible derivation, and it is intrinsically unlikely that rituals will be transplanted without significant modification, either of form or of interpretation (Pearce 2010; Struck 1993a). Analysis of stable isotopes of strontium and oxygen from burials at Lankhills serves as a key ‘spoiler’ in this regard, revealing considerable migration to late Roman Winchester but no connection between geographical origin and burial ritual (Eckardt et al. 2009). It is more profitable to focus on burial tradition as an active element in the construction of group identity than as a key to population origin. For this and other aspects of identity, ‘object biography’ has further potential (Gosden and Marshall 1999). Evidence such as inscriptions, wear and adaptation, or significant age at the time of deposition not uncommonly suggests a complex history of circulation and use for objects buried with the dead. A crossbow brooch from Lankhills with inlaid exhortations (bene vivas, utere felix) or the surviving element of a snakethread glass flask from Gloucester, both with evidence of significant modification during their use-life, provide vivid if not quite representative examples (figs 9 and 10) (Cool in Booth et al. 2010, 279–82; Cool in Holbrook and Bateman 2008, 96–100). Their ‘biographies’ may have endowed these objects with a mnemonic capacity, prompting recall of earlier occasions on which their exchange, display or use was significant for the burying group and the creation of its shared history, sometimes including a perceived ancestry in a distant place (e.g. Cotton 2008; Leach et al. 2010; Williams 2004).

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0

50 mm

fig. 9. A glass flask with snakethread decoration buried with an adult female inhumation south of the colonia at Parliament Street in Gloucester. It was once part of a larger flask within which it was contained, its reduced state perhaps suggesting burial at a later period than its manufacture in the late second/early third century. (© Cotswold Archaeology)

Urban demography Changes in the wider field of study, including the reinvigoration of ancient demography, methodological advances in human osteology including biomolecular analysis and the espousal of a biocultural approach, integrating skeletal characteristics with socio-cultural context, give new data on ancient urban populations an interest well beyond the study of Roman Britain (Bramanti 2013; Chamberlain 2006; Holleran and Pudsey 2011; Scheidel 2013; Gowland and Redfern 2010). Factors associated with Roman towns such as high population density, poor sanitation and living conditions, nodal positions on communications and poverty are often considered to have facilitated rapid transmission of infection, compromised ability to resist it, and caused high mortality rates and decreased life expectancy and thus high levels of inward migration. This Fig. 7 characterisation depends in part on comparative evidence from cities with population densities significantly higher than those likely for Roman Britain; the significance of the ‘urban graveyard effect’ is therefore uncertain (Scheidel 2004; 2013). Key surveys of skeletal characteristics from Roman Britain, mainly using late Roman urban cemeteries, reveal a mixed picture (Roberts and Cox 2003; 2004). Compared to previous periods higher frequencies occurred among some indicators of poorer health, including those related to infectious disease, metabolic disorders, and non-specific indicators of health status such as cribra orbitalia, linear enamel hypoplasia, periostitis, and dental health. On the other hand, average male stature, for example, was found by Roberts and Cox to be greater in the Roman period than in the Iron Age, although where stature has been consistently calculated from the same skeletal element more complex trends emerge;

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fig. 10. Gilded copper-alloy cross-bow brooch, spurs and gilded silver belt fittings (buckle, strap-end) from Grave 1846, Lankhills, Winchester. (© Oxford Archaeology)

in Dorset, mean male stature decreased but the variation in male stature was wider than in the previous period (Redfern 2008, 175). A wider range of contexts is represented in the new sample, albeit with variable preservation (London and Colchester being affected respectively by truncation and soils inimical to bone preservation), with stable isotope analysis often complementing osteological reporting. Their integration with the results of the earlier surveys is beyond the scope of this paper and key urban sites are not yet published or published in a way that facilitates comparison. This is not to mention the difficulty of extrapolating from osteological data to the health status of the living and from this to the socio-economic, cultural or ecological factors that may have impinged upon it (Gowland and Garnsey 2010; Scheidel 2013). Instead selective observations are made in the following paragraphs concerning the possible inferences to be drawn from recent data in relation to the age and sex profiles of cemetery samples, health status and migration. Selective burial practice, variable survival and differences in analysis and reporting have traditionally complicated extensive comparison of age-at-death between cemetery populations, but some observations on cemetery population structure are possible. The low numbers of

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infant burials and, sometimes, other sub-adult burials characterise the major cemetery groups examined here as well as most from previous decades (Pearce 2001). Fewer infant burials have been documented on intramural occupation sites than on rural settlements, although individual projects in several cities have reported larger numbers. In these cases the depositional contexts are similar to those of farms and villas, burials being placed by walls, thresholds and in yards (e.g. Lewis in Fulford and Clarke 2011, 241–3; Ridgeway 2009, 10; Trevarthen 2008; Rogers in Woodward et al. 1993, 314–15; Snelling in Fulford et al. 2006, 200–5). The impossibility of estimating infant mortality remains a significant impediment to any demographic analysis. Where samples are documented to consistent standards then greater confidence in comparison of adult ages at death between cemeteries is possible. The re-analysis of inhumation burials of Late Iron Age and Roman date from Dorchester and environs revealed, for example, fewer individuals reaching late adulthood in the Roman period and suggested too that age at death and extrapolated mortality risk can be linked to social status as indicated by burial treatment (Redfern 2008, 179; Redfern and DeWitte 2011). Some cemetery samples of Late Iron Age and Roman date also reveal age at death distributions characteristic of a catastrophic rather than attritional population in the percentage of young and younger mature adults represented. In two such cases, Maiden Castle, Dorchester (first century b.c.–first century a.d.), and Driffield Terrace, York (second–fourth centuries a.d.), the latter a sample comprised almost exclusively of males, the association with frequent evidence for ante- and peri-mortem trauma suggests many deaths by violence, although imprecision of dating obstructs an association with specific historical episodes (Hunter-Mann 2006; Montgomery et al. 2011; Redfern and Chamberlain 2011). At London Road, Gloucester, the explanation of plague is preferred by the excavators for the skeletons in the mass grave but can be contested (fig. 11). Their age profile is not different

fig. 11. Excavation in progress on the mass burial pit of later second- or early third-century date at London Road, Gloucester. (© Oxford Archaeology)

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100 90 80

70 60 50 40

30 20 10 0

M

F

fig. 12. Sexed inhumations from recent Roman urban cemetery excavations in Britain, including probable and confident identifications from skeletal remains.

to a statistically significant degree from the single burials within the cemetery, the date range for the filling of the pit is very wide, given the limited artefactual evidence, and the contemporaneity of deposition of the bodies within it is not certain (Hurst 2010; Loe et al. in Simmonds et al. 2008, 69–70). fig. 12 displays the numbers of male and female burials reported in the post-1990 sample. For some sites the quantities of sexed burials are based on preliminary assessment rather than full analysis and the figure includes possibly as well as confidently sexed skeletons, the two categories not always being straightforwardly distinguished in the sources of data used. In earlier studies of skeletal remains from Roman Britain a skewed sex-ratio has been documented which has been (partly) attributed to methodological factors, supported by re-analysis of the Lankhills sample excavated by Clarke which suggested near parity in numbers of men and women rather than the 112:71 ratio recorded in the first study (Booth et al. 2010, 346; Davison 2000; Gowland 2001). The manifestation of a continued discrepancy in the post-1990 sample is therefore somewhat surprising. When the less confidently sexed skeletons are set aside, a less skewed sex-ratio is sometimes apparent, for example in some samples from Colchester and Gloucester, but this is not always the case. Explanations for this discrepancy vary in the weighting given to ancient demographic factors, to cultural factors such as place or mode of burial and to methodological bias, including the potential difficulty posed by varied sexual skeletal dimorphism between populations, but whatever its causes, the distorted sex ratio also qualifies the demographic inferences to be drawn from the material (e.g. Mattingly 2006, 344–5; Simmonds et al. 2008, 141–2; Redfern 2008, 179–80). The osteological analyses conducted on recent samples provide occasional further examples for the mapping of specific infectious diseases through osseous response, such as tuberculosis (e.g. McKinley in Birbeck 2009, 131; Redfern 2008, 177). More useful for characterising general

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health status are the non-specific indicators which are composite markers of nutritional state and pathogen load. Some examples are given below of results, but few of the synthetic studies cited have made use of the post-1990 data. The sometimes poor preservation of skeletal material, delayed publication and the dissemination of extrapolated statistics rather than raw data (e.g. for stature) and of aggregate figures for pathological indicators compiled variably as crude or true prevalence rates continue to bedevil comparison between samples (cf. Roberts and Cox 2003). Redfern and Roberts’ (2005) survey of Roman urban health and regional studies from this perspective have supported the impression of a poorer health status for Roman period than pre-Roman and rural populations, albeit with variability according to osteological criteria and some differentiation by gender (Peck 2009; Redfern 2008). By contrast Pitts and Griffin (2012) infer better urban than rural health from the lower frequencies of pathologies documented in urban skeletal populations, but the rural sample is very small. The significant variability between individual urban samples also suggests considerable diversity in health status. This is visible in individual characteristics and across samples as a whole. For example, the very high percentage of periostitis, a non-specific infection marker, among the individual burials at London Road, Gloucester, contrasts with the much lower rates at Lankhills and elsewhere (e.g. Booth et al. 2010, 383–5; Simmonds et al. 2008, 71). Cribra orbitalia and linear enamel hypoplasia occur with exceptionally high frequency in the cemeteries of London (Gowland and Redfern 2010). For non-adults, very high frequencies of many indicators of poor health status and trauma characterise the sample at Poundbury, a widely referenced provincial Roman skeletal population because of its large sample size, good skeletal preservation and extensive published analysis, but unlikely to be typical (Lewis 2010; Redfern and DeWitte 2011; Redfern et al. 2012). A more consistent picture currently emerges from analyses of stable isotopes of carbon and nitrogen for terrestrial and marine plant and animal dietary sources. Comparison of Iron Age and Roman samples reveals a significant shift which can be attributed to a greater seafood intake in the latter period, occasionally differentiating within populations in relation to gender and status (Müldner 2013; Cummings and Hedges in Booth et al. 2010, 419). The analysis of stable isotopes, especially of oxygen and strontium, has also given key insights into mobility. While these have undermined associations made between particular burial rites and geographical origins, studies from York, Gloucester, London and Winchester have shown that a significant proportion of individuals, male and female, typically c. 40–60 per cent of those sampled, had spent their earlier years either in other regions of Britain or outside the province; occasionally long-distance migrants comprise an exceptionally high proportion of burials, especially at Driffield Terrace, York (Eckardt et al. 2010; Müldner et al. 2011; Ridgeway et al. 2013). Atypical diets revealed through analyses of nitrogen and carbon also occasionally identify individuals of extra-provincial origin, as may lead isotopes (Montgomery et al. 2010; Müldner 2013). Similar diversity of population origins is suggested by studies of skull morphology and metrics (e.g. Booth et al. 2010, 356–7; Leach et al. 2009). This phenomenon has wider implications; as Gowland and Redfern (2010) observe from other data, high levels of migration to towns qualify the usefulness of urban cemeteries for insights into the relationship between specific urban environments and mortality. However, it is crucial to note the key biases to urban contexts of late Roman date in the isotope samples so far studied from the province. Origins of individuals are identified with significant margins of uncertainty, obstructing precise differentiation between local, regional and long-distance migrants. It is also not yet possible to establish how far this mobility is specifically urban; only with larger samples from more diverse contexts will it be possible to establish how far migration in relation to these towns is distinct from general human mobility in antiquity. Conclusion Assessing the impact of PPG 16 and its successor policies on understanding of the urban dead of Roman Britain is complicated by the variable publication of projects undertaken since 1990 and its coincidence with other key developments, especially changes of methodology and theoretical perspective. The number of burials excavated under this framework is also

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not as large as in previous periods, and some samples are compromised by poor preservation, especially of skeletal remains. However numbers in isolation mislead. The insights which can be derived from cemetery excavations of this period are significantly enriched through better understanding of ritual process (in part by decentring the grave as the unit of analysis) and its associated material symbols and of skeletal populations, enhanced by the study of stable isotopes; biomolecular analysis is likely to be further extended by the examination of ancient DNA from buried individuals and their pathogens. The expanding Roman period dataset, including skeletal analyses, from other settings, especially the countryside (Fulford and Holbrook 2014), and the large-scale osteological analyses from other periods of occupation of the same cities also offer significant future opportunities to contextualise the Roman urban data from a demographic and cultural perspective. Currently, however, the achievements of the last 25 years are most significant at the level of individual and local communities. What is not yet clear is how far these new data cumulatively inform the understanding of urbanism as a wider demographic, socio-economic or cultural phenomenon (cf. Millett 2001). A perspective focused on urbanism obliges an emphasis on comparability, and current publication modes for human remains in particular, perhaps the most analytically rich of all the evidence gathered through fieldwork, do not lend themselves to synthesis. Such data are crucial as even for well-funded projects the scope to re-examine key samples (assuming they have not been reburied) is curtailed by time and expense (Steckel et al. 2002); mechanisms for sustainable and comparable dissemination of digital data from individual post-excavation projects require development. The variability in publication is in part a consequence of a fragmentation of approach associated with competitive tendering. For the study of funerary rituals, recent work in France shows how greater coherence can be established between research questions, their methodological corollaries and application in developmentrelated fieldwork. An approach inspired by Scheid’s (2005; 2008) advocacy of a focus on ritual sequence has been applied in excavation and subsequent analysis across different projects. Its success is manifested in the greater harvest of well-documented para-funerary features such as pyre sites and ritual debris deposits, and enhanced understanding of taphonomic processes (e.g. Blaizot 2009). In previous generations of scholarship ‘iconic’ cemeteries epitomised certain key interests, for example Lankhills the passing of Roman power to transfrontier migrants in the late fourth century a.d., or Poundbury or Butt Road Colchester the conversion to Christianity (Clarke 1979; Crummy et al. 1993; Farwell and Molleson 1993). It would be invidious to identify a specific cemetery that best evokes the Zeitgeist of PPG 16 and its successors, but the key note is, perhaps, the growing integration between the study of human skeletal material and the evidence for ritual and setting. Though they are so far few in number, this is best embodied in the ‘osteobiographies’ or similar analyses which link the lived experience of the individual marked in their skeleton and the representation of them created in ritual by the burying group (e.g. Booth et al. 2010, 401– 2; Cotton 2008; Gowland 2004; Leach et al. 2010). The enriched archaeology of individuals thus reconstructed also lends itself to public engagement, demonstrated by the success of exhibitions like ‘London’s Buried Bones’, a collaborative project between the Wellcome Trust and the Museum of London in 2008 (Sargent 2008). The challenge remains to transform these individual stories into a history of urbanism. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am indebted to the editors for their comments and for help in sourcing images, to Rhea Brettell for allowing me to read and refer to a paper in advance of its publication, to Paul Booth, Philip Crummy, Neil Holbrook and Nicola Kallimeris for making available and permitting use of images respectively from Oxford Archaeology, Colchester Archaeological Trust, Cotswold Archaeology and Museum of London Archaeology excavations and to Rebecca Redfern and Rebecca Gowland for reading a draft, supplying references to recent work and, especially, for saving me from errors in relation to the discussion of human skeletal material. Responsibility for any remaining mistakes remains my own.

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APPENDIX table 1. Burial groups comprising 25 or more graves excavated from 1990 to summer 2013, compiled from Britannia, AIP entries, other grey literature and publications. In the many cases of unpublished cemeteries, numbers are provisional and may change substantially. Groups have been amalgamated where context information showed a provenance from the same burial area, in particular for the Garrison Alienated Land sites at Colchester. Site

No. of samples

No. and type of burial

Date

References

Canterbury St Dunstan’s (Telephone Repeater, Hallett Garage)

2

93 CR and 161 IN

First to fourth century a.d.

Diack 2003; Gollop 2012; Weekes 2011

Carlisle (Botchergate and associated sites)

1

43 CR and 23 IN

First to fourth century a.d.

Zant et al. 2011

Cirencester (Old Tetbury Road)

1

4 CR and 71 IN

First to fourth century a.d.

Holbrook et al. 2013; McSloy and Watts 2013

Colchester South incl. circus environs (Abbeyfield + Circular Road north, C2 + Napier Road, J1 and J1 north; Butt Road car park)

4

290 CR and 257 IN + 350 U

First to fourth century a.d.

Anon. 2013b; Crossan 2001; Pooley et al. 2011

Colchester West (Handford House, Balkerne Heights incl. St Mary’ Hospital)

3

59 CR and 115 IN

First to fourth century a.d.

Orr 2010; Birbeck 2009

Dorchester (Little Keep)

1

29 IN

Fourth century a.d.

McKinley and Dinwiddy 2009

Gloucester (London Road)

3

27 CR and 211 IN

First to fourth century a.d.

Clough 2003; Ellis and King 2014; Simmonds et al. 2008

Gloucester (Brunswick Road)

1

3 CR and c. 150 IN

Third to fourth century a.d.

Britannia 45 (2014), 380

Leicester West (40–46 Western Road)

1

58 IN

Late first to fourth century a.d.

Britannia 42 (2011), 359; Britannia 44 (2013), 308

Leicester South/South-east (21–33 Newarke Street; Newarke Street (‘Elfed Thomas Law School’))

2

69 IN

Fourth century a.d.

Cooper 1996; Derrick 2009

Leicester East (Clarence Street)

1

91 IN

Fourth century a.d.

Gardner 2005

London West (Atlantic House)

1

29 IN and 19 CR

Second to fourth century a.d.

Watson 2003

London East (Prescot Street)

1

c. 40 CR and 50 IN

London North (Houndsditch Telephone Exchange; Spitalfields Market; 16–18 Finsbury Circus; 18–31 Eldon Street (+adjacent sites); Artillery Lane Spitalfields;Worship Street, Hackney)

5

20 CR and 166 IN, c. 200 burials + abundant disarticulated material

LP Archaeology n.d.; Shepherd and Hunt 2009 Second to fourth century a.d.

Sankey and Connell 2007; Thomas 2004, 18–29; Britannia 37 (2006), 419; Britannia 38 (2007), 288; Britannia 43 (2012), 330; Britannia 44 (2013), 330; Butler 2006; Douglas 2005

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Site

No. of samples

No. and type of burial

Date

References

London Southwark (Great Dover Street; Lant Street; Trinity Street; America Street)

4

7 CR and 158 IN + c. 165 burials

Second to fourth century a.d.

Mackinder 2000; Ridgeway et al. 2013; Britannia 41 (2010), 393–4; AIP

(St Albans Abbey)*

(1)

(50 IN)

(Fourth century a.d.)

(Biddle and Kjølby-Biddle 2001)

Winchester (Lankhills, Wessex and Oxford Archaeology; Swan Lane)

3

25 CR and 345 IN + 56 burials

Fourth century a.d.

Booth et al. 2010; Ottaway et al. 2012, 120–7

York (nos 3 and 6 Driffield Terrace)

2

16 CR and 80 IN

Second to fourth century a.d.

Hunter-Mann 2006; Müldner et al. 2011

Total: 37 groups. 703 cremation burials; 2013 inhumation burials; 771 burials of unspecified type *Excavation 1982–4, 1991, 1994–95 in context of restoration and research at St Albans Abbey.

table 2. Examples of Roman period funerary monuments documented from recent urban cemetery excavations in Britain. Site

Description

Reference

Canterbury, Late Roman polygonal timber enclosure 11 m x 11 m, Augustine House, with possible ambulatory, with inhumation burials within Rhodaus town enclosure. Role as funerary monument uncertain.

Helm 2012

Cirencester, Tar Barrow

Many ditched and stone-walled enclosures to the west, south and east of the Tar Barrow; the largest enclosing an area 21 m wide by at least 31 m long, with a further enclosure or building foundation in its centre, the rest square or nearly so in form and varying between 5 m and 10 m square in size. Funerary purpose not confirmed.

Winton 2009; Holbrook 2008; Britannia 40 (2009), 267–9

Cirencester, Tetbury Road

Stone-built roadside burial enclosure, c. 15 m square, with inhumation burials of possible early second-century date in south-east corner.

Holbrook et al. 2013; McSloy and Watts 2013

Colchester, Site C2, south of circus

Fourth century a.d., 10 barrows with ring ditches, enclosing areas 4 to 6.5 m in diameter, with central cremation burials.

Pooley et al. 2011, 32–34

Colchester, Site C2, south of circus

Late Roman monument, rectangular ragstone foundation 10 m by 7 m, possible associated marble veneer. The primary burial is perhaps an (unexcavated) inhumation within a lead-lined wooden coffin.

Pooley et al. 2011, 34

Colchester, Lexden Road

Third century a.d., outer wall encloses area c. 9 m square, Brooks 2006 within the foundation of a hexagonal structure (maximum width 5.2 m), with six associated cremation burials.

Dorchester, Little Keep

Fourth century a.d., single ditched enclosure, c. 16 m square, with inhumation burial in corner.

McKinley and Dinwiddy 2009

Exeter, Mount Dinham

Late second–third century, a 6 m-square ditched enclosure with a c. 1.8 m-long shallow depression at its centre, possible cremation burial. Ditch fills contain plaster and mortar.

Passmore 2013, 6–7

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Site

Description

Reference

Leicester, 21–33 Newark Street

Fourth century a.d., two beam-slot and post-hole structures, possible timber mausolea.

Derrick 2009

Lincoln, Monson Street

Funerary structure, comprising wall foundation 5 m long at angle to Ermine Street, robbed by second century a.d., associated with cremation burials and two possible slots for tombstones.

Steane 2001, 19–21

London, Southwark (Watling Street)

Foundations of five structures of late first- to mid-secondcentury a.d. date excavated adjacent to road (west side), all heavily robbed; four in close proximity at 165 Great Dover Street, with some evidence for superstructure materials including sculptural fragments, and a fifth 800 m south at 82–96 Old Kent Road. Their location and associated burials and related deposits identify them as likely mausolea. 165 Great Dover Street Building 2. An outer wall encloses a c. 8 m square area with walled structure, well and stone base within. Structure 1. A c. 11 m x 9 m outer wall enclosing central masonry foundation and bases for other monuments. Structure 2. A c. 6 m x 5.8 m stone structure with buttresses on north-west and south-east sides. Structure 3. A c. 9 m x 4 m outer wall and central masonry foundation. 82–96 Old Kent Road A stone-built mausoleum c. 6.4 m x 5 m, with internal projection on north-east side and adjacent pits containing a burial and material from funerary ceremonies.

Mackinder 2000; Thrale 2008

London, 201 Bishopsgate, west of Ermine Street

Foundations for two heavily robbed structures of mid- to late Roman date, associated with inhumation burials, one associated with a well, the best preserved c. 8 m x 7 m.

Swift 2003

London, Shadwell

A 9 m-square-plan structure, heavily robbed, buttressed on one side, adjacent to second-century a.d. cremation burials, interpreted as possible tower tomb.

Lakin 2002, 7–11

Winchester, Lankhills

Fourth century a.d. A shallow ditched enclosure on three sides of an inhumation burial (28), similar to those found in excavations by Clarke (1979).

Booth et al. 2010, 35–40

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Pearce, J., Millett, M. and Struck, M. (eds) 2000: Burial, Society and Context in the Roman World, Oxford Peck, J. 2009: The Biological Impact of Culture Contact: a Bioarchaeological Study of Roman Colonialism in Britain, unpub. PhD dissertation, Ohio State University http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_ num=osu1237945824 [Accessed 10.13] Petts, D. 2003: Christianity in Roman Britain, Stroud Philpott, R. 1991: Burial Practices in Roman Britain. A Survey of Grave Treatment and Furnishing A.D. 43–410, BAR British Series 219, Oxford Pitts, M. 2005: ‘Pots and pits: drinking and deposition in late Iron Age south-east Britain’, Oxford Journal of Archaeology 24, 143–61 Pitts, M. and Griffin, R. 2012: ‘Exploring health and social well-being in late Roman Britain: an intercemetery approach’, American Journal of Archaeology 116, 253–76 Pollock, K.J. 2006: The Evolution and Role of Burial Practice in Roman Wales, BAR British Series 426, Oxford Pooley, L., Crummy, P., Shimmin, D., Brooks, H., Holloway, B. and Masefield, R. 2011: Archaeological Investigations on the ‘Alienated Land’, Colchester Garrison, Colchester, Essex May 2004–October 2007, Colchester Archaeological Report 412 http://cat.essex.ac.uk/summaries/CAT-0412.html [Accessed 10.11] Redfern, R. 2008: ‘A bioarchaeological investigation of cultural change in Dorset, England (mid–late fourth century b.c. to the end of the fourth century a.d.)’, Britannia 39, 161–91 Redfern, R. and Bekvalac, J. 2013: ‘The Museum of London: an overview of policies and practice’, in Giesen 2013, 87–98 Redfern, R. and Bonney, H. 2014: ‘Headhunting and amphitheatre combat in Roman London, England: new evidence from the Walbrook Valley’, Journal of Archaeological Science 43, 214–26 [doi: 10.1016/j. jas.2013.12.013] Redfern, R. and Chamberlain, A. 2011: ‘A demographic analysis of Maiden Castle hillfort: evidence for conflict in the late Iron Age and early Roman period’, International Journal of Paleopathology 1(1), 68–73 [doi:10.1016/j.ijpp.2011.02.004] Redfern, R. and Dewitte, S. 2011: ‘Status and health in Roman Dorset: the effect of status on risk of mortality in post-conquest populations’, American Journal of Physical Anthropology 146, 197–208 Redfern, R. and Roberts, C. 2005: ‘Health in Romano-British urban communities: reflections from the cemeteries’, in D. Smith, M. Brickley and W. Smith (eds), Fertile Ground: Papers in Honour of Susan Limbrey, Association of Environmental Archaeology Monograph 22, Oxford, 115–29 Redfern, R., Millard, A.R. and Hamlin, C. 2012: ‘A regional investigation of subadult dietary patterns and health in late Iron Age and Roman Dorset, England’, Journal of Archaeological Science 39.5, 1249–59 Reece, R. 1982: ‘Bones, bodies and disease’, Oxford Journal of Archaeology 1, 347–58 Reece, R. 1988: My Roman Britain, Cirencester Ridgeway, V. 2009: Secrets of the Gardens, London Ridgeway, V., Leary, K. and Sudds, B. 2013: Roman Burials in Southwark. Excavations at 52–56 Lant Street and 56 Southwark Bridge Road, London, PCA Monograph 17, London Roberts, C.A. and Cox, M. 2003: Health and Disease in Britain from Prehistory to the Present Day, Stroud Roberts, C.A. and Cox, M. 2004: ‘The human population: health and disease’, in M.Todd (ed.), A Companion to Roman Britain, Oxford, 242–72 Rogers, A. 2011: Late Roman Towns in Britain: Rethinking Change and Decline, Cambridge Russell, B. 2010: ‘Sarcophagi in Roman Britain’, Bollettino di Archeologia on line Volume Speciale http: //151.12.58.75/archeologia/bao_document/articoli/2_RUSSELL. pdf [Accessed 10.13] Sankey, D. and Connell, B. 2007: ‘Late Roman burials and extra-mural medieval and later development at Premier Place, Devonshire Square, Houndsditch, London EC2’, Transactions of the London and Middlesex Archaeological Society 58, 53–79 Sargent, E. 2008. London’s Buried Bones, London Scheid, J. 2005: Quand faire c’est croire: les rites sacrificiels des Romains, Paris Scheid, J. (ed.) 2008: Pour une archéologie du rite, Collections de l’Ecole Française de Rome 407, Rome Scheidel, W. 2004: ‘Human mobility in Roman Italy, I: the free population’, Journal of Roman Studies 94, 1–26 Scheidel,W. 2013: ‘Physical wellbeing’, in W. Scheidel (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Economy, Cambridge, 321–33 Schmidt, W. 2000: ‘Spätantike Gräberfelder in den Nordprovinzen des römischen Reiches und das Aufkommen christlichen Bestattungsbrauchtums. Tricciana (Ságvár) in der Provinz Valeria’, Saalburger Jahrbuch 50, 213–441 Shepherd, J. and Hunt, G. 2009: ‘Glorious glass from Prescot St’, London Archaeologist 9.5, 136–7

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Shimmin, D. 1998: ‘ASDA superstore site ’, Colchester Archaeologist 11, 12 Simmonds, A., Márquez-Grant, N. and Loe, L. 2008: Life and Death in a Roman City. Excavation of a Roman Cemetery with a Mass Grave at 120–122 London Road, Gloucester, Oxford Archaeology Monograph 6, Oxford Sparey-Green, C. 2003: ‘Where are the Christians? Late Roman cemeteries in Britain’, in M. Carver (ed.), The Cross Goes North: Processes of Conversion in Northern Europe, AD 300–1300, Woodbridge, 93–107 Steane, K. 2001: The Archaeology of Wigford and the Brayford Pool, Lincoln Archaeology Series 2, Oxford Steckel, R.H., Spencer Larsen, C., Sciulli, P.W. and Walker, P.L. 2002: ‘A history of health in Europe over the past 10,000 years: a research proposal’ http://global.sbs.ohio-state.edu/docs/Proposal-09-03-01.pdf [Accessed 09.13] Struck, M. 1993a: ‘Busta in Britannien und ihre Verbindungen zum Kontinent. Allgemeine Überlegungen zur Herleitung der Bestattungssitte’, in Struck 1993b, 81–94 Struck, M. (ed.) 1993b: Römerzeitliche Gräber als Quellen zur Religion,Bevölkerungsstruktur und Sozialgeschichte, Mainz Struck, M. 2000: ‘High status burials in Roman Britain (1st to 3rd century AD) – potential of interpretation’, in Pearce et al. 2000, 85–96 Swain, H. and Roberts, M. 2001: The Spitalfields Roman (2nd edn), London Swift, D. 2003: Roman Burials, Medieval Tenements and Suburban Growth, 201 Bishopsgate, City of London, MoLAS Archaeology Studies Series 10, London Taylor, A. 2008: ‘Aspects of deviant burial in Roman Britain’, in E. Murphy (ed.), Deviant Burial in the Archaeological Record, Oxford, 91–114 Thomas, C. 2004: Life and Death in London’s East End: 2000 Years at Spitalfields, London Thrale, P. 2008: ‘Roman stone building, ditches and burials along Watling Street’, London Archaeologist 12.1, 19–22 Tomlin, R. 2008: ‘Roman Britain in 2007. III. Inscriptions’, Britannia 39, 369–89 Trevarthen, M. 2008: Surburban Life in Roman Durnovaria. Excavations at the Former County Hospital Site, Dorchester, Dorset 2000–2001, Salisbury Watson, S. 2003: An Excavation in the Western Cemetery of Roman London: Atlantic House, City of London, MoLAS Archaeology Studies Series 7, London Watson, S. 2006: Development on Roman London’s Western Hill: Excavations at Paternoster Square, City of London, MoLAS Monograph 32, London Weekes, J. 2007: ‘A specific problem? The detection, protection and exploration of Romano-British cremation cemeteries through competitive tendering’, in B. Croxford, N. Ray, R. Roth and N. White (eds), Proceedings of the 16th Annual Theoretical Roman Archaeology Conference, Oxford, 183–91 Weekes, J. 2011: ‘A review of Canterbury’s Roman cemeteries’, Archaeologia Cantiana 131, 23–42 Williams, H. 2004: ‘Potted histories – cremation, ceramics and social memory in early Roman Britain’, Oxford Journal of Archaeology 23, 417–27 Willis, S. 2007: ‘Roman towns, Roman landscapes: the cultural terrain of town and country in the Roman period’, in R. Hingley, A. Fleming and C. Dyer (eds), Prehistoric and Roman Landscapes: Landscape History after Hoskins, Macclesfield, 143–64 Willis, S. 2011: ‘Samian ware and society in Britain and beyond’, Britannia 42, 167–242 Winton, H. 2009: Tar Barrow, Cirencester, Gloucestershire. A Roman or Iron Age Ceremonial Area. Aerial Photo Interpretation and Mapping, English Heritage http://services.english-heritage.org.uk/ ResearchReportsPdfs/051_2009WEB.pdf [Accessed 01.12] Woodward, P.J., Davies, S.M. and Graham, A.H. 1993: Excavations at the Old Methodist Chapel and Greyhound Yard, Dorchester, 1981–1984, Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society Monograph 12, Dorchester Yasin, A. 2009: Saints and Church Spaces in the Late Antique Mediterranean: Architecture, Cult and Community, Cambridge Zant, J.M., Miller, I., Murphy, S. and Hughes, V. 2011: ‘Archaeological excavations in a Roman cemetery, industrial site and medieval suburb at 53–55 Botchergate, Carlisle’, in R. Newman (ed.), Carlisle: Excavations at Rickergate, 1998–9 and 53–55 Botchergate, 2001, Cumbria Archaeological Research Report 2, Bowness on Windermere, 70–124

CHAPTER 9

THE PLACE OF DEVELOPER-FUNDED ARCHAEOBOTANY IN ELUCIDATING THE FOOD SUPPLY OF THE TOWNS OF ROMAN BRITAIN By Mark Robinson

Introduction This review will concentrate on evidence from the provincial capital of London, the civitas capitals and the coloniae, but evidence will also be brought in from smaller towns to illustrate points that are regarded as applicable to the larger towns. The historical development of archaeobotany and recent research-funded work on food plant remains from Romano-British towns will be considered in order to place the developer-funded work in its context. Archaeobotanical research on diet in Romano-British towns can be divided into three periods. The pioneering phase in which a basic plant record was established spanned 75 years from c. 1900 until c. 1975. There was then very rapid progress in the 15 years from 1975 until 1990 when archaeobotanical sampling became normal on excavations, techniques were developed and standards were established. These advances were greatly facilitated by substantial funding from the DoE (Department of the Environment), then English Heritage. With the replacement of state-funding of rescue archaeology by developer-funding, firstly under PPG 16, briefly under PPS 5 and most recently under the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), the knowledge base has expanded but arguably there has been a stagnation or even decline in the standards of the investigation of food plant remains from individual development-led excavations in England. Period 1 Serious investigation of food plant remains from Romano-British towns began with Reid and Lyell at Silchester. Reid was recording the history of the British flora and Lyell sent him seeds recovered from the Society of Antiquaries excavations of the town (Reid 1899; Robinson 2012). Subsequently Reid (1901–9) identified a wide range of seeds of fruits and flavourings preserved by waterlogging showing a considerable Roman influence on the diet of the population of the town. They included fig, plum, cherry, mulberry, walnut, dill, fennel, coriander and celery (probably for consumption of its aromatic seeds). The results corresponded with preconceptions about Romanisation. Reid’s work did not, however, cover staple cereals. Reliable work on cereals from a Roman town in Britain did not occur until Helbaek (1952), following earlier work which included Roman Britain, investigated a mid-second-century deposit of carbonised grain at St Albans. It mostly comprised spelt wheat but there was also a presence of six-row hulled barley, bread-type wheat, rye and Celtic/horse bean. Evidence for the use of food plants in religion in Roman towns came with the discovery of carbonised cone fragments of a stone pine from a second-century pit in the Triangular Temple at St Albans (Wheeler and Wheeler 1936, 118–19). It was subsequently identified from a late second/third-century context at the London Mithraeum in the early 1950s (Grimes 1968, 114).

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Surprisingly, despite the importance of the early discoveries being widely recognised and much quoted in works on Roman Britain, little effort was made to generate additional data even with the initial expansion of rescue excavation on Roman towns in the 1960s. However, another aspect of the food supply of Roman towns was revealed by the discovery of grain beetles including Sitophilus granarius (grain weevil) in a mid to late second-century waterlogged pit at Alcester (Osborne 1971). Period 2 The very rapid growth of rescue archaeology in the late 1970s facilitated the development and expansion of environmental archaeology. This growth of environmental archaeology was initially promoted by the newly-founded town and county archaeology units which relied on local authority and Department of the Environment funding. Subsequently the DoE/Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England (English Heritage) contributed major funds and set up regional environmental archaeology laboratories in universities. The work of these laboratories included many archaeobotanical investigations on rescue excavations in Roman towns. Willcox (1977) showed that waterlogged remains of exotic food plants were not just to be found at Silchester. He identified seeds of many of the same fruits, nuts and flavourings from London along with cucumber, peach and olive. Evidence for the importation of grain to London from further south in Europe was given by a mid-second-century deposit of carbonised spelt wheat from the forum which also contained a slight presence of Vicia ervilia (bitter vetch) (Straker 1984). Spectacular remains were found from the Boudican burning of Colchester in a.d. 60–1. There was a cluster of carbonised dates from Lion Walk (Murphy 1984a), while the identification of remains from an earlier excavation of ‘Currey’s Pottery shop’ showed its stock included seeds of coriander, dill, anise, celery and opium poppy (Murphy 1984b). Probably the most detailed and thorough archaeobotanical work of this period was done by the Environmental Archaeology Unit of the University of York. The now familiar range of fruits and flavourings was found in wells of mid and late Roman date in York at Skeldergate (Hall et al. 1980) and the Bedern (Kenward et al. 1986), including fig, grape, plum, cherry, coriander, celery, dill and in addition seeds of Satureja hortensis (summer savoury). Charred food plant remains at York were limited to a few rich deposits of clean grain with very little chaff (Hall and Kenward 1990), whereas waterlogged cereal chaff was of widespread occurrence. Hall developed techniques of sampling; for example, demonstrating that bulk sieving of waterlogged deposits recovered some uncommon large items such as olive stones and pine nuts which were rarely if ever found in small samples analysed in the laboratory. Waterlogged cereal bran was found to be a typical component of human sewage, usually along with the broken remains of cereal weed seeds such as Agrostemma githago (corn cockle). Effort was made to identify small fragments of plant tissue on the basis of cell structure from those plant foods such as leeks where vegetative parts rather than fruits or seeds are consumed, although unfortunately this research was largely confined to Anglo-Scandinavian York. One aspect of the urban food supply which was thoroughly investigated at York was insect infestation of stored grain. Exotic grain beetles were found in most waterlogged deposits where there were remains of food plants. However, exceptionally high concentrations of four species of grain beetle, including Sitophilus granarius and Oryzaephilus surinamensis, were found associated with a granary on the bank of the river Ouse near the fortress (Kenward and Williams 1979). The granary was demolished in the late first century. By 1990 it was known that the staple cereals being consumed in towns were spelt wheat and six-row hulled barley. These were the main cereals of Iron Age Britain and remained the most important cereal crops throughout the Roman period. As soon as towns were founded, an élite became established within them who desired luxury plant foods that were familiar in the Mediterranean world. These foods were mostly horticultural crops including fruit, flavourings and possibly vegetables. Initially all would have had to have been imported but many were subsequently cultivated locally. Many of those foods which could be grown in Britain were also adopted on rural settlements and some were consumed on low-status sites (Booth et al. 2007).

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Period 3 The transition of funding for rescue archaeology from English Heritage to the private sector from 1990 onwards was a gradual process. English Heritage funding continued for ongoing projects and those with pre-existing planning consent. The Ancient Monuments Laboratory of English Heritage continued its funding of environmental archaeology within universities for some years, although their work became more advisory. The Environmental Archaeology Unit in the Department of Biology at the University of York survived in a depleted state until 2003. However, no more fascicules on the archaeobotany of York were published and the output of the Unit increasingly became unpublished assessment reports. English Heritage possibly hoped that additional commercially-funded archaeobotanists would work alongside the English Heritagefunded archaeobotanists in universities and that the posts it supported would gradually be transferred to commercial funding. Thus standards would be maintained. Some commerciallyfunded archaeobotanists did initially work in the English Heritage-funded laboratories but as the competitive tendering aspect of commercial archaeology became stronger, it mostly became impossible to keep them employed on a research assistant scale with the overheads required by the universities. There are, however, still some university departments which undertake commercial work including environmental archaeology. The local authority curators have continued to require that at least some archaeobotanical work be undertaken when suitable deposits are present as a condition of planning consent. Some of the larger archaeological units met this by appointing their own environmental archaeologists, although not all could provide adequate facilities. Other archaeological contractors relied on self-employed archaeobotanists working from home, likewise often lacking adequate facilities. Over much of England the local authorities only required post-excavation archaeobotanical work to be taken to an assessment or evaluation stage. While flots of carbonised plant remains are compact and stable and so could be archived in museum stores along with the artefacts from an excavation, waterlogged samples are bulky and unstable so their potential would be lost if they were not fully analysed within a few years of excavation. Another problem inherent in developer-funded archaeology is that despite evaluations, the archaeobotanical potential of a site is not always apparent at the stage when projects are being costed. Analysis is particularly well funded on some sites because remains are sparse whereas funding is inadequate for other sites with very significant remains. There has not always been a strong research aim with developer-funded archaeobotanical analyses; for example, rather too much effort has been spent analysing waterlogged plant remains from poorly-dated riverside dumps in London. A review of archaeobotanical work in Roman Britain related to food plants showed that the number of samples analysed per excavation and the quality of data from investigations declined after 1990 (van der Veen et al. 2007). Progress has, however, been made in several areas over the last 24 years, although not all of it has been on developer-funded excavations. One new line of evidence, macroscopic plant remains preserved by calcium phosphate mineralisation, has risen to prominence. Such remains are particularly characteristic of latrines and were first considered in detail from medieval contexts (Green 1979). However, Willcox (1977) noted the occurrence of such material from Roman London and Murphy (1992) reported a mineralised fig and other seeds in a latrine pit at the barracks of the Claudian fortress at Culver Street, Colchester. Subsequently, mineralised remains were reported from several Roman towns including Leicester (Monckton 1996), where an early Roman pit contained seeds of pea, lentil, grape and fig, and a late Roman pit at 5 Billiter Street, London, which contained mineralised seeds such as fig, apple and cherry (Davis and Giorgi in McKenzie and Symonds 2004). A very rich deposit was found in a second-century cesspit at Castle Street, Leicester, with seeds of grape, fig, strawberry, a small variety of plum and opium poppy (Score et al. 2010). The excavators interpreted the shop as a ‘delicatessen’; if so, the proprietor seems to have been consuming some of the stock. Probably the most detailed survey of mineralised plant remains was undertaken for mid and late Roman latrines at Silchester, a research excavation (Robinson 2006; 2011). The only cereal remains preserved were those which had been consumed as intact grains or spikelets but legumes,

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particularly lentils, were well represented if difficult to identify. A wide range of seeds of fruit and flavourings was present. The late Roman latrine contained skin fragments of apple as well as apple seeds. Waterlogging of the lower part of a mid-Roman latrine, which contained mineralised remains above the level of waterlogging, showed a strong difference between what was preserved by the different means. The waterlogged seeds were mostly of blackberry whereas fig seeds were the most numerous fully-identified mineralised items. Interestingly the waterlogging also preserved pollen of Brassicaceae likely to have been from the consumption of Brassica florets (Dark 2011). There has been further progress on the use of food plants in ritual. There have been more waterlogged finds of stone pine in London including cones and branches, the latter suggesting it was grown locally (Goodburn 1999). An important discovery was made from mid to late Roman cremation burials at the Eastern Cemetery in London (Davis 2000). Handfuls of lentils and in one instance peas had been thrown onto the funeral pyres. Unsurprisingly, continuing excavation extended the range of rare exotic imports found in Roman towns. Black pepper, an import from across the Indian Ocean, was identified from Borough High Street, Southwark (van der Veen et al. 2008). Spectacular discoveries were made at 1 Poultry, London (Davis 2011). The Boudican destruction levels included a burnt shop which stocked imported pottery and spices. Carbonised Nigella sativa (black cumin) was added to the by now familiar range of flavourings such as dill, fennel, celery and coriander. Waterlogged remains of these species were also found in human faecal material in a drain along with stones of olive and almond. Bags of semi-cleaned grain of wheat and barley were charred in the burning. Carbonised seeds of lentil and, to a lesser extent, pea and Celtic/horse bean were found from throughout the phases of the site. Another exotic identified for the first time from Roman Britain was pomegranate. With the scale of excavation which has now taken place in Roman towns it has become possible to trace the spread of insect pests of stored grain (Smith and Kenward 2011), which showed them to be of usual occurrence, suggesting relatively large-scale grain storage in towns. Another exotic pest of food, the oriental cockroach, was identified from late Roman Lincoln (Kenward pers. comm.). Sufficient sites in Roman Britain had been subjected to archaeobotanical analysis by the mid2000s for a detailed review to be made of the new food plants from them (van der Veen et al. 2008). The results included about 170 records (sites x major phases present) for towns. The early, middle and late Roman periods were all represented. Records of food plants regarded as being imported (fig, mulberry, grape, pine nut, olive and lentil) were mostly concentrated in the major towns and, to a lesser extent, on military sites. However, they tended to decline in frequency from the early to late Roman periods. (Although no late Roman records are given for lentil, it was recorded from late Roman contexts at London and Silchester as quoted above.) There is, however, a problem of interpretation as to whether some of these foods were always imported. From personal experience, all but figs with robust seeds (the type represented archaeologically) and olives can readily be grown in Southern England, with mulberries being particularly productive. Fresh mulberries are probably the hardest to transport because they are fragile and do not keep after picking. However, it would have been possible to dry mulberry fruit in a Mediterranean climate. There is evidence that grape was grown in Roman Britain (Brown et al. 2001), but if the fruit were consumed dry it is likely it would indeed have been imported from Southern Europe. Lentil is not now grown commercially in Britain but there have been occasional examples of its cultivation (e.g. Young 1813). Results for the three most commonly found flavourings — coriander, celery seed and dill — were concentrated on major urban and military sites. However, all can be grown in Britain and are also present on rural sites at all status levels. Likewise cultivated apple/pear, cherry and plum/ damson, although frequently encountered in urban contexts, were widely grown and used in the countryside. Reliable evidence for vegetables is limited since many of those listed by van der Veen et al. (2008) have non-cultivated ancestors which would have readily grown as weeds on settlements. Leaf beet and cultivated Brassica (cabbage etc.), which have coastal ancestors, were mostly recorded from towns. The survey noted some very rare exotic imported foods which were only known in Britain from one or two records from Roman London and were rare throughout

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the North-West parts of the Empire: black pepper, peach, almond, pomegranate and black cumin. This was in contrast with the frequently imported exotics such as fig and even olive. The study by van der Veen et al. (2008) showed a strong contrast between major towns, with a greater range of new foods, and minor towns. It also showed a decline over time of those fruits which were not being grown in Britain in contrast with those which could be grown locally such as plum, whose consumption apparently increased. The pattern shown by food flavourings is less clear. Van der Veen et al. (2008) believe that the cultivation of fruit, vegetables and flavourings was facilitated by a stratified society and the demand for them was particularly from the towns. They see the rise then decline in consumption of some of the ‘new’ foods as reflecting the rise then fall of groups within Britain favouring Roman ways of eating. Given the details that were already known by 1990 about the food plants of Roman Britain, it is unsurprising that the scale of discoveries seen in the 15 years leading up to 1990 was not matched subsequently. However, important progress was made in relation to Roman towns. Firstly, legumes were shown to have had a much more important place in the urban diet than previously assumed. Secondly, the status of the various non-staple foods in towns is much better understood as a result of the survey of van der Veen et al. (2008). Emerging Themes of Research There are several lines of research which are providing new insights into the plant component of diet in Roman towns. There are only a few towns with pre-Roman origins but at Silchester waterlogged seeds of celery and a stone of olive have been found stratified in a secure pre-Roman context (Lodwick 2014). Imported ceramic tableware and wine amphorae were also found at late Iron Age Silchester. This implies that there was an élite in the oppidum of Silchester which enjoyed luxury imports or a group with a Romanised identity. Silchester has also provided evidence for a continuation of a ‘Roman’ diet, with spelt wheat and fig seeds present in the latest contexts in which plant remains were preserved, rather than crops such as bread-type wheat which are more characteristic of Saxon settlements (Robinson 2006). At the extramural settlement of Alchester, carbonised spelt wheat was found in quantity and conditions to suggest it was not residual above a context containing Saxon pottery (Booth et al. 2007, 317). Possibly, in the chaotic conditions of the early fifth century, some towns had militia capable of repelling marauding bands of former agricultural slaves and Saxon opportunists, thus enabling a continuation of a Roman way of life, which included eating spelt wheat and enjoying very occasional treats of imported figs and North African wine, until town life ceased to be economically viable. It has been noted that some foods would initially have been imported for consumption in the towns but would subsequently have been grown locally. For example, plum would initially have been as special as olive in early Roman towns but by the late Roman period was most likely to have been cultivated on a large scale in the countryside. It has proved possible to trace the spread of coriander at the town of Alchester (Booth et al. 2007). It was identified from the legionary fortress which dated to shortly after the Roman conquest and was found in the first-century town. By the end of the first century coriander was present in a roadside settlement outside the town and in the later Roman period it had become widespread on rural sites in the region. The first and possibly second records are likely to have been seeds imported from Southern Europe. The find from the roadside settlement perhaps represented local entrepreneurs growing the flavouring for more Romanised occupants of the town. Towns were probably supplied with horticultural produce grown in the surrounding countryside. One possible example of this was a rural settlement at Mount Farm, near the Oxfordshire town of Dorchester, where a large quantity of both carbonised and waterlogged seeds of celery was found (Robinson 1992). The evidence for the grain supply of towns is enigmatic. Hall and Kenward (1990) mentioned that Rougier Street had only the second rich carbonised grain deposit to be found in York and that little carbonised chaff had been found. If all the mid and late Roman charred flots from Insula IX of Silchester were combined, they would contain less grain and chaff than from a single rich sample from a rural settlement of the same date (Robinson 2012). The paucity of rich deposits of charred grain and chaff tends to be a feature of Roman towns. However,

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from personal experience, when there is waterlogged evidence there is often much evidence of cereal chaff, particularly glumes of spelt wheat in company with cereal bran. The archaeological evidence suggests that large-scale storage of grain occurred in towns. Spelt wheat, unlike bread wheat, is a hulled cereal in which the grains are tightly enclosed by the glumes as spikelets which hold one to three grains. The spikelets need parching and pounding to release the grain. The heating process often led to remains becoming charred either because they accidentally fell into the fire or because the waste was burnt. It is suggested that spelt grain was mostly brought to the towns for storage and use after it had been de-husked (removed from the spikelets). The few rich deposits of carbonised grain from towns would therefore represent grain in storage which had accidentally been burnt, whereas the charred remains on rural settlements usually represent burnt crop-processing waste. De-husked grain is more vulnerable to infestation by grain beetles than grain stored in spikelets, hence the preponderance of grain beetles in Roman towns. It is further suggested that the waterlogged cereal remains from towns represent products from the cleaning of de-husked grain including chaff and ‘tailcorn’ (smaller grains, separated along with weed seeds and some chaff from the ‘prime grain’) imported for use as animal fodder. This material does not enter the charred record because there is no need for it to come into contact with fire. Conclusions The past 24 years have been a time of broadening of the evidence for the plant component of diet in Romano-British towns. The survey of van der Veen et al. (2008) played an important part in the interpretation of food plants introduced by the Romans (or at least introduced shortly before the Roman conquest). However, standards have not risen and in some instances they have declined. The archaeobotany of 1 Poultry (London) was of exceptional importance and some significant results were presented (Davis 2011) but there were not the resources available to analyse the remains in the detail seen on the Anglo-Scandinavian site of Coppergate, York (Kenward and Hall 1995). At Coppergate a flexible approach to the scale of analysis meant that more contexts could be investigated without neglecting those samples worthy of full analysis. There was also the expertise available to investigate waterlogged vegetative remains. The current circumstances enshrined in NPPF that developers should fund archaeobotany from commercially-driven excavations in Roman towns is by no means entirely satisfactory. It would be more effective if the total funding raised from all excavations were concentrated on fewer sites with analyses undertaken in more detail by fully-trained specialists in environmental archaeology laboratories. However, such radical proposals, with the implication of an ‘archaeology tax’ on developers, are unlikely to be adopted. Local authority curators, supported by English Heritage, have an important role in maintaining standards by setting briefs, giving advice and approving work. They need to appreciate that only requiring work to be taken to assessment level does not leave the material available for later research unless samples are fully processed and, in the case of waterlogged material, the remains are stored under stable conditions (frozen or in alcohol). As with all aspects of developer-funded archaeology, effort ought to be made to ensure that results that are only presented in ‘grey’ literature (locally published reports that are not widely or formally distributed) are available to other archaeobotanists. English Heritage could make a valuable contribution by maintaining the Archaeobotany Computer Database (ABCD) (Tomlinson and Hall 1996). There is a need to maintain skills in all aspects of archaeobotany. While research and teaching on carbonised plant remains occurs at many English universities, the identification of mineralised and waterlogged macroscopic plant remains is probably only taught at one or two institutions. Fortunately, English Heritage retains a full range of archaeobotanical skills at Fort Cumberland and does provide training. Greater consideration ought to be given to other archaeobotanical evidence, for example phytoliths and pollen, as sources of information on urban diet and there is potential to link studies of botanical remains with stable isotope studies of human bones. Some of the recent archaeobotanical studies presented here show the value of research excavations as well as developer-funded work. Synthetic work is important in bringing together the results for

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many sites. Several recent lines of research have already been presented. Research on foodways has become rather fashionable in archaeology and doubtless such research will continue in relation to Roman towns. A new topic for consideration is the degree to which some exotic foods were associated with high-ranking individuals from elsewhere in the Empire rather than the Romano-British élite. This could probably explain some of the differences between London and other large towns.

Bibliography Booth, P., Dodd, A., Robinson, M. and Smith, A. 2007: The Thames Through Time, the Archaeology of the Gravel Terraces of the Upper and Middle Thames, the Early Historical Period: AD 1–1000, Oxford Archaeology Thames Valley Landscapes Monograph 27, Oxford Brown, A.G., Meadows, I., Turner, S.D. and Mattingly, D.J. 2001: ‘Roman vineyards in Britain: stratigraphic and palynological data from Wollaston in the Nene Valley, England’, Antiquity 75, 275–87 Dark, P. 2011: ‘The pollen and trichurid ova from Pit 5251’, in M. Fulford and A. Clarke, Silchester: City in Transition.The Mid-Roman Occupation of Insula IX c. AD 125–250/300. A Report on Excavations Undertaken since 1997, Britannia Monograph 25, London, 294–300 Davis, A. 2000: ‘The plant remains (with D. de Moulins)’, in H. Barber and D. Bowsher (eds), The Eastern Cemetery of Roman London: Excavations 1983–1990, MoLAS Monograph 4, London, 368–78 Davis, A. 2011: ‘The plant remains’, in J. Hill and P. Rowsome, Roman London and the Walbrook Stream Crossing: Excavations at 1 Poultry and Vicinity, MoLA Monograph 37, London, 559–63 Goodburn, D. 1999: ‘The evidence for the introduction of the Mediterranean “stone pine” to Roman England’, NewsWARP 25, 19–22 Green, F.J. 1979: ‘Phosphate mineralisation of seeds from archaeological sites’, Journal of Archaeological Science 6, 279–84 Grimes, W.F. 1968: The Excavation of Roman and Medieval London, London Hall, A.R. and Kenward, H.K. 1990: Environmental Evidence from the Colonia: General Accident and Rougier Street, Archaeology of York 14/6, York Hall, A.R., Kenward, H.K. and Williams, D. 1980: Environmental Evidence from Roman Deposits in Skeldergate, Archaeology of York 14/3, York Helbaek, H. 1952: ‘Early crops in Southern England’, Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 18, 194–23 Kenward, H.K. and Hall, A.R. 1995: Biological Evidence from 16–22 Coppergate, Archaeology of York 14/7, York Kenward, H.K., Hall, A.R. and Jones, A.K.G. 1986: Environmental Evidence from a Roman Well and Anglian Pits in the Legionary Fortress, Archaeology of York 14/5, York Kenward, H.K. and Williams, D. 1979: Biological Evidence from the Roman Warehouses in Coney Street, Archaeology of York 14/2, London Lodwick, L. 2014: ‘Condiments before Claudius: new plant foods at the late Iron Age Oppidum at Silchester, UK’, Vegetation History and Archaeobotany 23, 543–9 McKenzie, M. with Symonds, R.P. 2004: ‘Roman and later pits at 5 Billiter Street, City of London’, London Archaeologist 10(7), 289–99 Monckton, A. 1996: ‘Charred and mineralised plant macrofossils’, in L. Cooper, ‘A Roman cemetery in Newarke Street’, Transactions of the Leicestershire Archaeological and Historical Society 70, 74–8 Murphy, P. 1984a: ‘Carbonised fruits from Building 5’, in P. Crummy, Excavations at Lion Walk, Balkerne Lane and Middleborough, Colchester, Essex, Colchester Archaeological Report 3, Colchester, 40 Murphy, P. 1984b: ‘Environmental archaeology in East Anglia’, in H.C.M. Keeley (ed.), Environmental Archaeology: a Regional Review, Directorate of Ancient Monuments and Historic Buildings Occasional Paper 6, London, 13–41 Murphy, P.L. 1992: ‘Environmental studies: Culver Street’, in P. Crummy, Excavations at Culver Street, the Gilberd School, and other Sites in Colchester 1971–85, Colchester Archaeological Report 6, Colchester, 273– 87 Osborne, P.J. 1971: ‘An insect fauna from the Roman site at Alcester, Warwickshire’, Britannia 2, 156–65 Reid, C. 1899: The Origin of the British Flora, London Reid, C. 1901–9: ‘Notes on the plant remains of Roman Silchester’, in W.H. St John Hope (with or without G.E. Fox), ‘Excavations on the site of the Roman city at Silchester in 1900–8’, Archaeologia 57(2)–61(2) Robinson, M.A. 1992: ‘Environmental archaeology of the river gravels: past achievements and future directions’, in M. Fulford and E. Nichols (eds), Developing Landscapes of Lowland Britain. The Archaeology of the British Gravels: a Review, Society of Antiquaries Occasional Papers 14, London, 47–62

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Robinson, M. 2006: ‘The macroscopic plant remains’, in M. Fulford, A. Clarke and H. Eckardt, Life and Labour in Late Roman Silchester: Excavation in Insula IX since 1997, Britannia Monograph 22, London, 206–18, 374–9 Robinson, M. 2011: ‘The macroscopic plant and invertebrate remains from mid-Roman Silchester’, in M. Fulford and A. Clarke, Silchester: City in Transition. The Mid-Roman Occupation of Insula IX c.A.D. 125–250/300. A Report on Excavations Undertaken since 1997, Britannia Monograph 25, London, 281–93, 485–96 Robinson, M. 2012: ‘The place of Silchester in archaeobotany’, in M. Fulford (ed.), Silchester and the Study of Romano-British Urbanism, Journal of Roman Archaeology Supplementary Series 90, Portsmouth RI, 213–26 Score, V., Browning, J., Johnson, E., Monckton, A. and Kipling, R. 2010: ‘A Roman “delicatessen” at Castle Street, Leicester’, Transactions of the Leicestershire Archaeological and Historical Society 84, 77–94 Smith, D. and Kenward, H. 2011: ‘Roman grain pests in Britain: implication for grain supply and agricultural production’, Britannia 42, 243–62 Straker, V. 1984: ‘First and second century carbonised cereal grain from Roman London’, in W. van Zeist and W.A. Casparie (eds), Plants and Ancient Man, Rotterdam, 323–9 Tomlinson, P. and Hall, A.R. 1996: ‘A review of the archaeobotanical evidence for food plants from the British Isles: an example of the use of the Archaeobotanical Computer Database (ABCD)’, Internet Archaeology 1 http://intarch.ac.uk/journal/issue1/tomlinson/toc.html van der Veen, M., Livarda, A. and Hill, A. 2007: ‘The archaeobotany of Roman Britain: current state and identification of research priorities’, Britannia 38, 181–210 van der Veen, M., Livarda, A. and Hill, A. 2008: ‘New food plants in Roman Britain — dispersal and social access’, Environmental Archaeology 13, 11–36 Wheeler, R.E.M. and Wheeler, T.V. 1936: Verulamium: a Belgic and two Roman Cities, Society of Antiquaries of London Research Report 11, Oxford Willcox, G.H. 1977: ‘Exotic plants from Roman waterlogged sites in London’, Journal of Archaeological Science 4, 269–82 Young, A. 1813: General View of the Agriculture of Oxfordshire, London

CHAPTER 10

Commercial Archaeology, Zooarchaeology and the Study of Romano-British Towns By Mark Maltby

INTRODUCTION This chapter will review the contribution that commercial zooarchaeology has made in advancing our knowledge of the exploitation of animals in Romano-British towns. It will highlight studies on sites excavated after 1990 but will also incorporate analyses that were carried out on assemblages from earlier excavations that were rescue- rather than research-orientated. It will first summarise the information available from the various towns involved and then discuss some of the major trends that have emerged from such studies. It will conclude with a critical evaluation of the impact of commercial zooarchaeology. THE PUBLISHED SOURCES BATH There have been several developer-funded excavations in and around the Roman town but many of these remain unpublished. The most substantial published animal bone assemblage from post-1990 sites comes from excavations at the New Royal Baths. The assemblage produced around 500 identified mammal and bird bones (Higbee 2007) and a few fish bones (Humphrey and Jones 2007). These supplement animal bone evidence obtained from previous excavations in the city (e.g. Grant 1979; Barber 1999a). BROUGH-ON-HUMBER Excavations by the York Archaeological Trust at the extramural Welton Road site in 1994 produced a faunal assemblage of around 400 identified mammal and bird bones from later Roman contexts (Hamshaw-Thomas and Jaques 2000). This is the only assemblage of any size from the Roman town. CANTERBURY The only substantial Roman assemblage has come from Canterbury Castle (King 1982). This produced over 3,000 identified mammal bones. Developer-funded excavations of sites such as Whitefriars and 18 High Street have also produced good faunal assemblages but these have yet to be published. CARLISLE As in many towns, the most substantial assemblages of animal bones from Carlisle have come from English Heritage-funded excavations dating back to the 1970s. Faunal reports on many

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of these have taken a long time to be published. Other analyses have never been published. Extensive excavation of the Lanes took place between 1978 and 1982. The South Lanes excavation report included a summary of the animal bone analysis (Stallibrass et al. 2000), which was supplemented a decade later by the digital publication of the more detailed reports originally written in the 1990s. Over 3,000 identified mammal (Stallibrass 2010) and nearly 100 bird bones were identified (Allison 2010). Sieved samples produced nearly 500 identified fish bones (Nicholson 2010). However, excavations of the North Lanes remain unpublished and faunal analyses from several other sites exist only as unpublished Ancient Monuments Laboratory (AML) reports. Developer-funded excavations at Rickergate in 1998–9 produced very few Roman bones (Bates 2011). In contrast, excavations associated with the Carlisle Millennium Project produced over 5,100 identified mammal bones from the Roman timber and stone forts along with small numbers of bird and fish bones (Evans et al. 2009; Ingrem 2009). CHESTER Several small assemblages from pre-1990 excavations of sites in the canabae have recently been published (Ward et al. 2012). Ironically, a report on a larger assemblage compiled by Judith Cartledge in 1991 remains unpublished. CHICHESTER The history of faunal studies in Roman Chichester follows a familiar pattern. A large assemblage was accumulated from the 1978–1982 excavations of the extramural Cattlemarket site. The site produced over 10,500 mammal bones including substantial numbers of associated bone groups (Levitan 1989). Nearly 200 bird bones were also identified but there is no report on fish bones. Assemblages of less than 1,000 identified fragments have since been examined from other extramural sites at Market Road (Hamilton-Dyer 2004) and Rowe’s Garage (Seager Smith et al. 2007). CIRENCESTER A substantial number of bones have been excavated from Cirencester, particularly from intramural sites. Over 800 bones from military levels and other early Roman deposits were identified by Thawley (1982a), who produced one of the earliest detailed studies of butchery practices. Thawley (1982b) also examined bones from cemetery sites that provided nearly 1,500 identified specimens. The Beeches excavations produced a total of 1,700 identified mammal bones from late Roman buildings (Levitan 1986; King 1986). Levitan also produced a detailed AML report on over 3,000 bones from other intramural excavations of the St Michael’s site. This report remains unpublished, although some information can be found in other publications (Maltby 1998; 2010a). The largest assemblage from Cirencester comes from the Chester Street excavations, which produced nearly 3,500 identified mammal bones dominated by cattle butchery waste (Maltby 1998). This report also includes some information from assessments of smaller assemblages from developer-funded sites at Querns Road and Sheep Street. Assessments of animal bones from sites excavated between 1998 and 2007 were incorporated in Holbrook (2008). These included samples from the Stepstairs Lane and Trinity Road sites, both of which produced over 700 identified mammal bones (Hambleton 2008a). COLCHESTER Luff’s monograph (1993) remains the largest detailed discussion of animal bones from the colonia. Over 35,000 mammal and nearly 4,000 bird bones from several intra- and extramural sites were identified. Locker (1992) identified over 350 fish bones from wet-sieved samples from the Culver Street site. Most recent investigations in Colchester have been watching-briefs or very limited excavations that have produced no significant assemblages. However, a major

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exception is the assemblage from the excavations at 23–29 Head Street. This is comprised of over 1,700 identified mammal bones and elements (Curl 2004) and around 200 identified fish bones from sieved samples (Locker 2004). The assemblage includes some material from early military and Boudican levels. DORCHESTER The largest assemblage from the Roman town came from the Greyhound Yard excavations in 1981–4 (Woodward et al. 1993). These excavations to the south of the forum produced nearly 18,500 identified mammal and over 2,500 bird bones (Maltby 1993). Over 500 fish bones were also obtained from hand-collection (Hamilton-Dyer 1993a). Excavations in the north-west of Roman Dorchester at Colliton Park in 1988 produced nearly 1,500 mammal bones, a small number of bird bones and nearly 800 fish bones from sieved samples (Hamilton-Dyer 1993b). Analysis of 1,400 mammal and bird bones plus fish bones from selected sieved samples from the Dorchester Hospital site in the south-west quarter has been published as internet reports (Grimm 2008; Hamilton-Dyer 2008). Faunal assemblages have also been examined from the urban cemetery at Poundbury (Farwell and Molleson 1993) and from sites in the close vicinity of the town, such as Alington Avenue (Maltby 2002) and the Dorchester By-Pass (Bullock and Allen 1997). However, other assemblages from sites within Dorchester have not been fully analysed (Maltby 2010a, 255). EXETER Animal bones from several excavations in the 1970s were analysed in detail (Maltby 1979a). Over 6,000 fragments of mammal and nearly 500 bird bones were identified and compared from four main sites (Goldsmith Street; Trichay Street; St Mary Major; Rack Street). However, only a few fish bones were recovered by hand. Subsequently, although a number of excavations in the 1980s and 1990s produced Roman material, these have not been fully analysed and published. The bones from the early legionary fortress are currently being studied (Maltby in prep.). Excavations at the Princesshay site in 2005–6 have produced an important multi-period assemblage which is also currently being analysed (Coles in prep.). GLOUCESTER Animal bones from sites near the West, East and North gates were examined by Maltby (1979b; 1983). Together, these produced over 2,000 mammal and around 100 bird bones. Levine (1986) reported upon an assemblage of over 1,000 butchered cattle upper limb bones deposited in pits near the East gate. Animal bones from the London Road cemetery site have been examined by Worley (2008). ILCHESTER The main published sources for animal bones from Roman Ilchester are from sites excavated in the 1970s and 1980s. The first report includes the analysis of over 1,900 identified mammal bones from selected features on one intra- and two extramural sites and over 200 bird bones from a slightly broader range of features from the same sites (Levitan 1982). Assemblages from the Almhouse Lane and Limington Road sites produced over 1,000 further identified specimens (Levitan 1994). The Great Yard excavations produced a further 500 mammal and bird bones from hand-excavation (Barber 1999b) and 100 identified fish bones from sieved samples (Locker 1999a). LEICESTER Leicester has provided a number of important assemblages from both pre- and post-1990 developer-funded excavations. These include the 1980 and 1991 excavations of the Causeway

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Lane site, from which over 7,200 mammal and over 450 bird bones were identified (Gidney 1999). Nearly 500 fish bones recovered by wet-sieving were also identified (Nicholson 1999). However, the report on the large assemblage from the 1988 Shires excavations, also examined by Gidney, remains unpublished. Some information from this and smaller assemblages from Leicester is summarised within Maltby (2010a, 260–300). Some information about more recently excavated assemblages has also been published (e.g. Baxter 2006; Score et al. 2010). LINCOLN Information from Lincoln relies principally on later Roman assemblages from the suburbs (Dobney et al. 1996). They provided detailed analyses of over 6,500 mammal and 200 bird bones. Over 300 fish bones plus large numbers from a fish sauce-processing deposit on the Waterfront site were also examined. Over 2,600 identified mammal and over 100 bird bones from excavations of the Roman defences in the lower city were analysed by Scott (1999). Analyses of bones from recent developer-funded excavations at the Bishop’s Palace site have yet to be published (Allen pers. comm.). LONDON AND SOUTHWARK As has been discussed elsewhere in this volume, London has had significantly more developerfunded excavations than any other Romano-British town. Space precludes consideration of all these sites but some of the most significant assemblages will be noted. Some early studies highlighted the large accumulations of cattle-processing waste, for example on the Walbrook site (Clutton-Brock and Armitage 1977). Assemblages from post-1990 excavations have been summarised in many of the Museum of London Archaeology (MoLA) monograph reports, although in many cases, full details are confined to unpublished archives. For example, excavations in Cannon Street produced over 650 identified mammal bones with unusually high percentages of pig but the published animal bone report is under two pages long (Pipe 2002). However, in some recent volumes, for example the one concerned with the 1 Poultry site, discussions of significant groups of animal bones have been successfully integrated within period narratives and full details for the bones can be found on CDs or via internet sources (Pipe 2011). This site produced over 4,000 identified animal bones, including substantial numbers from sieved samples. In addition, excavations south of the Thames in Southwark have also produced several large Roman assemblages. The first of these came from the 199 Borough High Street excavations, which produced nearly 3,000 identified mammal and over 100 bird bones (Locker 1988). Ainsley (2002) identified over 5,000 bones from sites excavated in advance of the Jubilee Line extensions (1991–8). Excavations from the high-status site at Winchester Palace produced an assemblage of over 900 mammal and fish bones (Reilly 2005). Selected assemblages totalling over 5,800 bones from sites excavated between 1973 and 1991 are discussed in Liddle et al. (2009). Further information about some of these bones is embedded within the site narrative. Excavations of cemeteries in Roman London have also produced faunal assemblages. The largest was obtained from the Eastern Cemetery (Reilly 2000). Animal bones have also been analysed from cemeteries in Southwark (Ridgeway et al. 2013). ST ALBANS The main source of animal bone evidence emanates from excavations of the high-status burial and temple ceremonial site at Folly Lane, which produced over 3,600 identified mammal and bird bones and over 100 fish bones (Locker 1999b). Bones from excavation of Insula XIII in the late 1980s have also been published (Turner 2006), providing a further 1,700 identified mammal and bird bones. WINCHESTER The main published report of Winchester animal bones incorporates analyses of bones from

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extramural sites subjected to rescue excavations in the 1970s and 1980s. These produced over 18,000 identified mammal and 500 bird bones, mainly from the Northern Suburb (Maltby 2010a). In addition to detailed discussion about these assemblages, the monograph compares evidence from rural sites in the town’s hinterland and provides a review of assemblages from other major Romano-British towns (Maltby 2010a, 255–304). However, only a small sample of fish bones was studied and the nature of the deposits limited detailed analysis of chronological trends. Published information about intramural assemblages is more limited. The Staple Gardens excavations produced over 1,400 mammal bones (Maltby 2010a, 262) but research excavations from intramural sites remain unpublished. However, developer-funded excavations of other intramural sites have produced an assemblage of over 1,700 identified mammal and bird bones (Strid 2011). Nearly 100 identified fish bones were also recovered by wet-sieving (Nicholson 2011). In addition, recent excavations of the Lankhills cemetery have produced animal bones from some graves (Strid and Worley 2010; Worley 2010). These supplement evidence from previous excavations of that cemetery (Brothwell 1979; Harcourt 1979). Animal bones have also been found in graves from other cemeteries in Winchester (e.g. Ottaway et al. 2012). YORK The assemblage from Tanner Row (O’Connor 1988) remains the only substantial bone assemblage studied from the legionary fortress and colonia. It included over 7,700 identified mammal and nearly 600 bird bones collected by hand. A further 260 bird and 700 fish bones were identified in sieved samples. There has since been limited publication of faunal assemblages. Excavations at York Minster produced an early post-Roman assemblage of around 1,000 mammal fragments from the abandoned basilica (Rackham 1995; Gerrard 2007). Assemblages from excavations of an extensive Roman cemetery to the south of the colonia have been made available digitally (Foster 2012; Foster and Jacques 2012). Together, they provide a sample of nearly 600 bones. Ottaway (2013) includes evidence from sites in York in the discussion of animal exploitation in Roman Yorkshire. THE EXPLOITATION OF DOMESTIC MAMMALS CATTLE King (1978) was the first to recognise the primacy of cattle bones in most Romano-British urban assemblages. Subsequent surveys have reached the same conclusions (e.g. King 1984; 1999; Grant 1989; 2004; Maltby 2010a). In 59 assemblages containing over 200 specimens from 15 towns, cattle contributed the largest number of identified specimens in 49 samples. They provided over 40 per cent of the specimens of cattle, sheep/goat and pig in 46 of the assemblages, and over 50 per cent in 30 of these. In 12 cases cattle provided over 70 per cent (Maltby 2010a, 264–5). Analyses of several large assemblages from post-1990 excavations have supported these observations. Cattle provided 71 per cent of the cattle, sheep/goat and pig specimens from Southwark sites (Liddle et al. 2009) and 77 per cent of these species in the 1 Poultry assemblage from London (Pipe 2011). The South Lanes, Carlisle, assemblage included 55 per cent cattle (Stallibrass 2010) and the material from the Carlisle forts excavated during the Millennium Project produced 75 per cent cattle (Evans et al. 2009). Cattle fragments also dominated smaller assemblages from extramural sites in Chichester (78 per cent at Rowe’s Garage; Seager Smith et al. 2007) and Cirencester (79 per cent at Trinity Road; Hambleton 2008a, 104). However, Romano-British urban assemblages display substantial amounts of variation in species percentages (Grant 2004; Maltby 2010a, 265). Examples from some London and Southwark sites are shown in Table 1. Percentages of cattle range between 32 and 93 per cent. Similar diversity has been encountered in some other towns (Maltby 2010a, 264–5). It has been commonly observed that cattle bones become relatively more common in later Romano-British assemblages, implying greater reliance on beef (e.g. King 1999). However, comparisons of urban

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assemblages show a more complex picture. Cattle only increased in later Roman deposits in 17 out of 28 sites from 13 towns surveyed by Maltby (2010a, 265–7). Diachronic variability can be inconsistent within towns. In Winchester, for example, cattle increased from 39 to 46 per cent in later Roman deposits from Staple Gardens (Maltby 2010a, 267) and from 35 to 49 per cent at Northgate House (Strid 2011), but decreased from 63 to 52 per cent in some assemblages from the Northern Suburb (Maltby 2010a, 267). At 1 Poultry, London, cattle were well represented in all periods, with relatively minor fluctuations in their percentages (Table 2). In contrast, in table 1. percentages of cattle, sheep/goat and pig from excavations in roman london and southwark % Cow

% S/G % Pig

NISP

%Pig/ S/G + Pig

Source

London Cannon Street

42

15

43

521

75

Pipe 2002

39 Newgate

54

31

15

157

33

Liddle 2006

Billingsgate

57

14

29

2224

67

Armitage 1980

Baltic House

61

11

19

340

73

Reilly 2002

Eastern Cemetery (D+F)

77

13

10

649

42

Reilly 2000

1 Poultry

77

10

13

2708

56

Pipe 2011

Walbrook

93

5

2

968

29

Clutton Brock and Armitage 1977

Amphitheatre

93

3

4

1102

67

Liddle 2008

Winchester Palace

32

15

53

498

78

Reilly 2005

199 Borough High Street

48

25

27

2970

52

Locker 1988

London Bridge

59

15

27

1076

65

Ainsley 2002

1973–91 sites

71

12

17

4894

57

Liddle et al. 2009

Borough High Street

83

6

11

3557

64

Ainsley 2002

Southwark

NISP = number of individual specimens from hand-collected samples

table 2. percentages of cattle, sheep/goat and pig from 1 poultry, london % Cow Period 2: a.d. 48–65 Period 3: a.d. 65–95 Period 4: a.d. 95–135 Period 5: a.d. 135–220 Period 6: a.d. 220–400 Period 7: late fourth century Data adapted from Pipe 2011

73 72 81 80 70 77

% S/G 13 12 8 8 14 12

% Pig

NISP

14 16 11 11 16 10

292 374 1181 239 467 155

%Pig/ S/G + Pig 53 58 58 57 53 46

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table 3. percentages of cattle, sheep/goat and pig from 1973–91 sites, southwark % Cow % S/G % Pig Period 3: a.d. 50–70 Period 4: a.d. 70–100 Period 6: a.d. 120–160 Period 8: a.d. 200–270 Period 9: a.d. 270–350 Period 10: a.d. 350+

54 28 59 31 66 89

22 45 17 18 15 5

24 27 24 51 19 6

NISP 196 311 1286 281 303 2534

%Pig/ S/G + Pig 52 37 59 74 57 59

Data adapted from Liddle et al. 2009

assemblages from Southwark 1973–91 sites, cattle percentages varied between 28 and 89 per cent with no consistent chronological trend (Table 3). Liddle et al. (2009) point out that the highest percentages of cattle on the Southwark sites were associated with large dumps of bones from specialist processing. This is a phenomenon that has been noted in many towns. Examples from 39 sites are listed by Maltby (2010a, 286). Further examples have been recorded at several sites in Southwark (Liddle et al. 2009, 111, 247), at the 1 Poultry and Guildhall (Amphitheatre) sites in London (Pipe 2011, 320; Liddle 2008), Castle Street, Leicester (Score et al. 2010), Rowe’s Garage, Chichester (Seager Smith et al. 2007, 77), Insula XIII in St Albans (Turner 2006), and Trinity Road, Cirencester (Hambleton 2008a, 104). The correlation between high cattle percentages and specialist processing waste is linked to evidence that urban butchers carried out systematic, large-scale cattle carcase processing. There is remarkable consistency in the types of butchery marks and fragmentation patterns associated with carcase processing in the towns and on other military and civilian sites where these specialists operated. This involved the increased use of cleavers to speed up processing (Seetah 2006). Maltby (2007) described the main types of processing marks characteristic of specialist processing. These include scoop marks on the shafts of upper limb bones made with the tip of a cleaver during filleting; longitudinally-split upper limb bones; chopped femora heads; trimmed scapulae sometimes with perforations on the blade made during hanging; and mandibles with chops on the posterior/lateral border of the ramus. Maltby (2010a, 284) listed 36 sites from 15 Romano-British towns where one or more of these criteria had been reported. Much of this evidence was assembled from developer-funded or other rescue excavations. Further examples can now be added. A group of perforated and trimmed cattle scapulae were deposited in a cesspit at the Guildhall site in Leicester (Score et al. 2010, 85). The scapulae had been hung during processing and then had meat filleted from them. This evidence enhances previous insightful discussions of this process based on evidence from York and Lincoln (O’Connor 1988; Dobney et al. 1996). Hambleton (2008a) recorded the presence of longitudinally-split upper limb bones and specimens with filleting scoops in further samples from Cirencester. Similar marks were observed in the large dumps of cattle bones from 1 Poultry, London (Pipe 2011, 320). Strid (2011) also observed longitudinally-split, upper limb bones at Northgate House, Winchester. Large accumulations of such split bones have been found on several urban sites (and occasionally at other settlements), suggesting that these bones were sometimes processed in bulk for marrow and, in some cases, additionally for bone-working (Maltby 2010a, 285). The origin of these new practices probably lies with military butchers. Early examples were recorded in military levels at Cirencester (Thawley 1982a) and they have also been observed in deposits from the Exeter legionary fortress (Matlby in prep.). Later examples of perforated scapulae from military contexts have been recovered from Carlisle (Evans et al. 2009, 914). Cattle mortality profiles have been constructed in a large number of urban assemblages. Analyses of mandibular tooth ageing from 12 towns showed a focus towards the acquisition of adult, but not elderly, cattle (Maltby 2010a, 287–9). Following Grant’s (1982) methodology, usually over half of

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the cattle represented had mandibles wear stages (MWS) of between 36 and 45, with peaks often around 41–44. Similar peaks have now also been observed in assemblages from the Guildhall and 1 Poultry sites in London (Liddle 2008; Pipe 2011), Northgate House, Winchester (Strid 2011), and South Lanes, Carlisle (Stallibrass 2010). This indicates that most cattle were slaughtered between four and ten years old, with a peak perhaps between five and seven years (Jones and Sadler 2012). Therefore the provision of mature beef was prioritised, although many of the older animals may have produced calves, and provided milk and/or traction power prior to slaughter. Towns where cattle mandibles have been obtained from more than one site do show some variability. For example, the assemblage from Northgate House, Winchester, has higher percentages of mandibles of cattle killed in their second and third years (MWS 21–30 = 15%) than assemblages from the Northern Suburb (6%) (Strid 2011). Mandibles (and other bones) of young calves are poorly represented in most samples but provided between 6 and 12 per cent of the specimens from intramural sites in Caerwent, Dorchester and Silchester (Maltby 2010a, 288). This could imply that veal consumption (or at least the deposition of calf bones) was more prevalent in the central areas of these towns. In contrast, assemblages derived from large-scale processing are largely comprised of adults, providing further evidence that specialist butchers were very influential in the acquisition of cattle for slaughter in the towns. Metrical analyses of metacarpals from Romano-British towns have indicated that most are gracile specimens that probably belonged to cows rather than oxen or bulls. If that interpretation is correct, the majority of the adult cattle represented in urban assemblages are cows (Maltby 2010a, 288–9). Published examples supporting the bias towards smaller (female) specimens include Carlisle (Stallibrass 2010), Chichester (Levitan 1989), Cirencester (Maltby 1998), Colchester (Luff 1993), Dorchester (Maltby 1993), Exeter (Maltby 1979a), Leicester (Gidney 1999), Lincoln (Dobney et al. 1996), London (Liddle 2008), Winchester (Maltby 2010a), and York (O’Connor 1988). The dominance of cows in the large accumulations of butchery waste suggests that cattle of specific age and sex were targeted by urban butchers. Urban assemblages have produced substantial amounts of metrical data that have made significant contributions to surveys of changes and variations in cattle stature in Roman Britain. Albarella et al. (2008) have shown that some Romano-British cattle were substantially larger than their Iron Age counterparts. They have argued convincingly from evidence from SouthEast England, including Colchester, that new stock were introduced from the Continent during the Roman period. Maltby (2010a, 292–3) used evidence from towns to argue that there were regional variations in the average size of cattle in Roman Britain. Most sites that have produced evidence for larger cattle are located in the South-East and the Midlands. Assemblages from Wales and Western England, including Dorchester (Maltby 1993) and Exeter (Maltby 1979), show little improvement in cattle size during the Roman period. SHEEP AND GOATS Observations of morphometric variations, sometimes supported by metrical analysis, have demonstrated that the vast majority of sheep/goat bones found on Roman urban sites belonged to sheep. In 23 assemblages where this has been quantified, goats have never provided more than 10 per cent of the elements assigned specifically to sheep or goat. In 15 of these samples, this figure fell below 5 per cent (Maltby 2010a, 268). Recent studies have supported this observation. Only 6 per cent of the 158 diagnostic sheep and goat bones from Southwark were identified as goat (Liddle et al. 2009). In the hand-collected assemblage from 1 Poultry, London this figure rose to 8 per cent (Pipe 2011). In the sample of 201 bones from the South Lanes, Carlisle, only 1 per cent belonged to goat (Stallibrass 2010). The sheep’s dominance in many Iron Age assemblages has been well documented (Albarella 2007; Hambleton 2008b) and it is arguably the emergence of towns and the need to provision them with meat that was one of the major factors that ended this dominance with cattle becoming more important. Sheep/goat bones are generally less well represented in urban assemblages than on rural sites (King 1984; 1999). As discussed above, they are outnumbered by cattle in most

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assemblages quantified by NISP counts. There are some regional variations. Sheep/goat, for example, are well represented in all the assemblages examined from Dorchester, particularly in early Roman deposits (Maltby 1993; 2010a, 266; Grimm 2008). They also outnumbered cattle in all but the late Roman deposits at Canterbury Castle (King 1982). Counts based on minimum number estimates more often have sheep/goat as the most common species even where NISP counts heavily favour cattle, for example in the Winchester Suburbs (Maltby 2010a, 102). However, when carcase weights are taken into account, beef rather than lamb and mutton comfortably accounts for most of the meat that was consumed in towns. There is more variability in sheep/goat mortality data than encountered for cattle, which perhaps indicates that there was less control over their acquisition and marketing. In 19 samples from 14 towns (Maltby 2010a, 290), the percentage of mandibles from adults (third molar in wear) ranged between 18 and 75 per cent with a median value of 55 per cent. In a sample of 91 mandibles from Southwark sites, 36 per cent belonged to adults (Liddle et al. 2009), and 58 per cent of the mandibles from 1 Poultry, London were also from adults (Pipe 2011). Although relatively few mandibles were from elderly sheep, it does suggest that wool as well as meat production may have been an important consideration. On some sites the percentage of adult sheep increased in the later Roman period, indicating that wool production was becoming more important. However, more research is required to confirm this was a widespread trend. Sub-adult sheep with two molars in wear (mainly one and two years old) provided between 7 and 34 per cent (median 22 per cent) of the assemblages reviewed by Maltby (2010a, 289– 90). These represent animals culled when they were nearing their full size. Sites which have particularly high peaks of slaughter of sub-adult sheep include South Lanes, Carlisle (Stallibrass 2010, 153), Greyhound Yard, Dorchester (Maltby 1993), Causeway Lane, Leicester (Gidney 1999), East Gate, Gloucester (Maltby 1983), and several sites in Winchester (Maltby 2010a, 290; Strid 2011). Their presence in substantial numbers indicates that meat production for the urban market was a priority in sheep husbandry. Mandibles of immature sheep (only the first molar in wear), mainly representing animals killed between six and twelve months old, have been found in variable quantities. They provided no more than 6 per cent of the jaws in 10 of the 19 samples compared by Maltby (2010a, 290) but over 25 per cent in five other cases. Mandibles of neonatal or juvenile lambs under three months old formed less than 10 per cent of the total in ten of these samples but over 20 per cent in some others. High percentages of young lambs have also been encountered in Southwark (Liddle et al. 2009). Although, some variability may be due to differential preservation, high percentages of lambs have tended to be found on sites near the centres of towns. Examples include Canterbury Castle (King 1982), Colchester (Luff 1993), Silchester (Grant 2000), and Tanner Row, York (O’Connor 1988). Liddle et al. (2009) and Gidney (2000) are amongst those who have suggested that lamb may have been a luxury or expensive meat, which was consumed more frequently by those of high status and/or wealth. Butchery analyses on sheep/goat (and pig) bones have revealed less systematic processing than observed on cattle, although there are some common patterns, including the increased use of cleavers and heavy blades compared with Iron Age and some Roman rural assemblages (Maltby 2010a, 165–76). Waste associated with large-scale or repetitive processing by specialists has also been reported much less frequently, although there are some significant accumulations of mandibles in Southwark, for example (Liddle et al 2009). Although many sheep would have been processed by urban butchers, others may have been acquired by individual households and butchered within their properties. Much of the evidence regarding the stature of sheep in Roman Britain is derived from urban assemblages. Again, there is evidence for the introduction of new stock at the beginning of the period (Albarella et al. 2008). Hornless sheep became more common in the Roman period and have been identified in several early Romano-British urban assemblages including Staple Gardens, Winchester (Maltby 2010a). These may originally have been some of the new imported stock. Several authors have commented upon regional variations, noting that sheep in the SouthWest and West of Britain were generally slightly smaller than those in the Midlands and the South-East (e.g. Maltby 1981; 2010a, 294–5; O’Connor 1988, 97).

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PIG One of the main dietary changes during the Romano-British period was the increase in pork consumption by some members of the community. In most Iron Age assemblages pig bones are much less well represented than sheep/goat and cattle and sometimes even rank behind horse (Albarella 2007; Hambleton 2008b). They are generally better represented on French Iron Age sites and it was probably influence from the Continent that saw pigs become a more frequent dietary resource, as witnessed in some Late Iron Age assemblages in South-East England such as Braughing and Silchester (Ashdown and Evans 1981; Grant 2000). Pig bones are generally more common on Roman sites but their relative abundance has varied in different regions and on different types of settlement. King (1984; 1999) demonstrated that pigs tended to be found more commonly on large military sites and major towns. He argued that this reflected dietary preferences of the soldiers and urban inhabitants, many of whom may have been immigrants, as has been demonstrated by several subsequent isotopic studies of people buried in urban cemeteries (e.g. Evans et al. 2006; Chenery et al. 2010). In 59 urban assemblages surveyed by Maltby (2010a, 264–5), pigs provided between 0 and 53 per cent of the cattle, sheep/goat and pig elements, with a median value of 17 per cent. Removing the bias created by large accumulations of cattle butchery waste, pig provided between 11 and 83 per cent of the sheep/goat and pig elements, with a median of 40 per cent. Pig outnumbered sheep/goat in only 17 of the samples. Particularly high percentages of pigs were found on the high-status sites of Winchester Palace, Southwark and Baltic House, London (Table 1). However, pigs have higher than average percentages on most sites from London (Tables 1–3). They were also very well represented in most assemblages from Colchester (Luff 1993; Curl 2004). This pattern is not universal. In Leicester, for example, sheep/goat elements outnumbered pig on all six sites reviewed by Maltby (2010a, 264). In Winchester, pig elements have never contributed more than 38 per cent of the sheep/goat and pig assemblages from nine sites (Maltby 2010a, 265; Strid 2011). Pigs have tended to be better represented in intramural assemblages, particularly basilica sites, than in assemblages from the suburbs. Examples include Exeter and Caerwent (Maltby 1979a; 2010a, 264). They are sometimes better represented in later Roman deposits, although the Silchester Basilica site is a notable exception (Grant 2000). The increase in the abundance of pigs in towns, particularly in regions where they were poorly represented in the Iron Age, begs the question of where they were obtained. One possibility is that some pigs were raised in the towns themselves. This could explain the presence of significant numbers of neonatal mortalities on several urban sites (Maltby 2010a, 291). The discovery of pig slurry in Roman Leicester (Morris et al. 2011, 29) could also be evidence for urban pigkeeping. On the other hand, the deposition of large numbers of pig foot bones at Nazeingbury, Essex (Huggins 1978), probably represents waste from the preparation of pig carcasses, possibly by immersion in brine. The salted joints could have been sent to Colchester, London or St Albans. The increase in salt production in the Late Iron Age and particularly in the early Roman period in Essex, Kent and Dorset coincided with urban growth and greater demands for beef and pork. Much of the pork consumed in these towns could have been imported as smoked and/or salted products. Pig bones deposited in Dorchester and Winchester were more diverse in size than those from rural settlements in their hinterland such as Owslebury, which implies that towns were supplied from a variety of sources (Maltby 2010a, 202–3). In some urban samples, there is a bias towards male pigs, which could also indicate preferential selection of larger males (Grant 2004, 379). It is also plausible that some of the very young piglets found in some towns could have been suckling pigs, which may have been regarded as a luxury food. This would perhaps explain their greater frequency on sites near the centres of some towns (Maltby 2010a, 197). However, in most urban assemblages, juvenile pigs were outnumbered by those killed in their second and third years (e.g. Liddle et al. 2009, 247; Maltby 2010a, 291; Stallibrass 2010, 156). EQUIDS Nearly all bone reports from Romano-British towns have assumed that all the equid bones

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belonged to horse. This may well have been the case but there have been occasional identifications of mule, for example at Billingsgate Buildings, London (Armitage and Chapman 1979; Johnstone 2005). A humerus from 1 Poultry, London was small enough to have perhaps been from a donkey (Pipe 2011, 321). Horses are generally poorly represented on urban sites, particularly in intramural assemblages. Horse provided over 5 per cent of the total horse and cattle elements in only 16 of the 59 assemblages reviewed by Maltby (2010a, 269–70). Horse percentages were of course often depressed in assemblages dominated by large deposits of cattle butchery waste, but they were also poorly represented in samples where such butchery waste was not prevalent. Although horse bones quite frequently bear evidence of butchery, they were not a species that was routinely or intensively consumed for meat and they were therefore infrequently represented amongst food waste. Most horses lived to maturity and were exploited for riding and as pack animals. Horses are often better represented on suburban sites, often in areas which were used as cemeteries. Examples include Winchester (Maltby 2010a), the Eastern Cemetery and Baltic House sites in London (Reilly 2000; 2002), Folly Lane, St Albans (Locker 1999b), and Driffield Terrace, York (Foster 2012; Foster and Jacques 2012). Reasons why horse bones are found in greater numbers in these areas remain to be established. They rarely survive as articulated remains, suggesting that they were not formally buried. THE EXPLOITATION OF WILD MAMMALS Wild mammal bones form only very small proportions of most Romano-British urban assemblages. Red and roe deer each formed less than 1 per cent of the total of cattle, sheep/goat, pig and deer in 53 of the 59 sites surveyed by Maltby (2010a, 271). The highest percentages of both species were found at the high-status site of Winchester Palace, Southwark (Reilly 2005), and even there they each formed less than 4 per cent of the total. They were also both quite well represented on another high-status site at Baltic House, London (Reilly 2002). Several sites in Colchester (Luff 1993; Curl 2004) have also produced quite high percentages of deer bones, indicating that venison was consumed slightly more regularly in that colonia. Red deer provided 2.5 per cent of the total of cattle, sheep/goat, pig and red deer fragments from the military forts at Carlisle, but in this case 80 per cent of the fragments belonged to antler, presumably imported for working (Evans et al. 2009, 917). All of the additional samples considered in this chapter have produced less than 1 per cent red and roe deer. Fallow deer bones have been very rarely recorded on Romano-British settlements but their presence has now been confirmed on several high-status sites, most notably at Fishbourne Palace (Sykes 2010). A fallow deer bone has been identified from the 1 Poultry site in London (Pipe 2011, 362) but fallow deer was absent from virtually all the sites reviewed by Maltby (2010a). Hare bones have also only been found in very small numbers. Although this could be partly attributed to their small bones being overlooked during normal excavation, they have also been recovered only rarely in sieved samples (Maltby 2010a, 271). Again, the high-status site at Winchester Palace, Southwark (Reilly 2005) is the only urban site that has produced significant percentages of hare (6.6 per cent of total cattle, sheep/goat, pig and hare). Curl (2004) has suggested that the occasional occurrence of rabbit bones in sealed deposits, such as at 29–39 Head Street in Colchester, may not always be the result of modern intrusions and it is possible that rabbits, like fallow deer, might have been imported in small numbers into the province during the Roman period. Bones of other wild mammals have occasionally been recovered. Wild boar has been positively identified in Exeter (Maltby 1979a), Lincoln (Scott 1999) and York (O’Connor 1988). However, most authors have stated or assumed that most, if not all, of the suid bones were too small to be from wild boar. Bones of fox, badger and otter have also occasionally been found but there is no clear evidence that they were exploited for their meat or pelts. Bear bones have been recorded in Colchester (Luff 1993; Curl 2004) and London/Southwark. Bears could have been displayed or fought in amphitheatres. Unfortunately the humerus provisionally identified as a brown bear from the London Amphitheatre (Bateman 1997, 58) has since been mislaid (Bateman et al. 2008). A cetacean bone was found on the Winchester Palace site (Reilly 2005). The consumption

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of dolphin or porpoise would be a further indication of greater dietary diversity on this highstatus site. Bearskins could also have been imported. Developer-funded excavations have confirmed that black rat was introduced to Britain in the Roman period. They have been found in small numbers in several towns. Recent discoveries include specimens from Dorchester (Grimm 2008) and Winchester (Strid 2011). BIRDS AND FISH POULTRY Chickens (domestic fowl) appear to have been the only poultry species kept and exploited in substantial numbers in Roman Britain. They usually form more than half of the identified bird bones on urban sites (Maltby 2010a, 272–7). Although introduced to Britain in the Iron Age, they have been found infrequently on Iron Age sites, and mainly in Late Iron Age assemblages (Hambleton 2008b; Poole 2010). Sykes (2012) has argued that they may originally have been introduced for purposes other than food. They were eaten in the Roman period, as indicated by the presence of butchered bones, but their frequency is variable. Maltby (1997) demonstrated that chicken bones occurred more frequently on urban and military sites than on rural settlements, suggesting that this reflected variations in the dietary and cultural preferences of their inhabitants. Chickens provided between 0 and 69 per cent of the sheep/goat, pig and chicken bones in 48 urban and suburban assemblages (Maltby 2010a, 276), with a median of 7.5 per cent. These results excluded bones from sieved samples, in which percentages of chickens have tended to be higher. The highest percentage of chicken bones came from the London Mithraeum (Macready and Siddell 1998), probably reflecting ritual deposition of chickens. Additional to the sites listed in Maltby (2010a), chicken provided only 3 per cent of the sheep/goat, pig and chicken bones from South Lanes, Carlisle (Stallibrass 2010). In contrast, chickens provided 21 per cent of the sample from the Dorchester Hospital site — a significantly higher percentage than in the Greyhound Yard assemblage in the town (12 per cent). However, many of the chicken bones were associated with one early Roman building (Grimm 2008). Similar intra-site variations in chicken abundance have been observed in other towns. In several cases, chickens formed smaller proportions of suburban assemblages than more central sites (Maltby 2010a, 273). Medullary bone has been recorded in chicken bones on several Romano-British urban sites, indicating that hens that had been in lay were present (Maltby 2010a). Unhatched eggshells from Dorchester and London indicate that chicken eggs were eaten (Sidell 2008). There has been some debate about whether domesticated ducks and geese were kept in Roman Britain (Albarella 2005). Bones of grey lag/domestic goose and mallard/domestic duck occur regularly but usually in small numbers in Romano-British towns. Ducks tend to be slightly better represented than geese (Maltby 2010a, 273). The discovery of a hatched goose egg from Dorchester suggests that domestic geese were kept there (Sidell 2008). Bones of pigeon/doves form a very small percentage of bird bones in most urban assemblages. They have, however, been found in quite large numbers on sites in central Dorchester and Caerwent and it is possible that these assemblages could have included domestic birds (Maltby 2010a, 226). WILD BIRDS Reviews of avian species found in Roman Britain can be found in Parker (1988) and within Yalden and Albarella (2009). Species identified in urban assemblages have also been listed by Maltby (2010a, 278–9). These reviews include material obtained from developer-funded sites. Readers are referred to these works for more detailed discussions. Generally, evidence for wildfowling is sparse and none of the species provided more than occasional supplements to the diet. Several species of geese and duck have been identified, although identifications are handicapped by the close skeletal similarities of some species. Teal is the most common duck species but it has occurred in significant numbers only in the Basilica assemblage from Caerwent

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(Maltby 2010a, 273–4). Medium-sized ducks (e.g. wigeon/pochard) are quite prevalent in bird bone assemblages from Dorchester (Maltby 1993; Grimm 2008). Barnacle geese have been identified in at least four towns including Carlisle (Maltby 2010a, 278; Allison 2010). Swans have been recorded in very small numbers in at least six towns (Maltby 2010a, 274–5). Woodcock is the most frequently recorded wader species, occurring in 29 sites surveyed by Maltby (2010, 273–5) and forming on average about 2 per cent of the avian assemblages. They tend to be most abundant on basilica and other sites near town centres (e.g. Dorchester, Caerwent, Wroxeter and Exeter). Other waders found in several towns include crane, curlew and snipe (Curl 2004; Liddle et al. 2009; Maltby 2010a, 278; Pipe 2011). Black grouse has been identified in York and Carlisle (O’Connor 1988, 101; Allison 2010). Other gamebird species that have occurred in more than one town include golden and grey plover, lapwing, woodpigeon and partridge (Maltby 2010a, 279; Grimm 2008; Liddle et al. 2009). Finds of seabirds are extremely rare but cormorant has recently been identified in Winchester (Strid 2011). The discovery of species of the thrush family and smaller passerines is largely dependent upon whether sieving has been carried out. Birds of prey and several corvid species have also been found in most towns and will be discussed below. FISH Locker (2007) produced a comprehensive review of fish bones in Roman Britain and readers are referred to her work for a more detailed discussion. Maltby (2010a, 280–2) has also listed finds from most of the urban assemblages excavated prior to 2005. Recent publications of fish bones from wet-sieved assemblages from developer-funded sites have significantly enhanced the evidence from London and Southwark (e.g. Liddle 2006; Liddle et al. 2009; Pipe 2011), Carlisle (Nicholson 2010), Dorchester (Hamilton-Dyer 2008), and Winchester (Nicholson 2011). The general impression gained from these surveys is that fish consumption increased in Roman Britain, perhaps particularly in towns, from very low or non-existent levels on most Iron Age settlements in southern Britain (Dobney and Ervynck 2007). However, isotope analysis suggests that consumption of marine foods did not form a very significant portion of the diet of most townsfolk (Redfern et al. 2010). Locker (2007) demonstrated that there were regional variations in the types of fish consumed, based on the local availability. For example, sea bream and bass are quite common in assemblages from towns near the English Channel such as Dorchester (Hamilton-Dyer 1993a; 1993b), whereas cod and other gadids have been found more frequently in London and Southwark (Locker 2007; Liddle et al. 2009; Pipe 2011). Eel, herring and plaice/ flounder occur quite commonly in sieved assemblages from several towns. Cyprinids (carp family) have also been found in significant numbers in some assemblages, indicating that urban fish supplies were obtained from local rivers as well as estuaries and inshore waters. Evidence for the importation or production of allec and other fermented fish products has been found in London, York, Lincoln and Dorchester. These deposits consist of thousands of bones of small fish, including herrings, sprats and sandeels. Again, the exact composition of fish is likely to have been determined by what was locally available (Hamilton-Dyer 2008). NON-FOOD DEPOSITIONS OF ANIMALS ANIMALS IN CEMETERIES Developer-funded excavations have been carried out in cemetery areas of several towns (Pearce, this volume, Ch. 8). Most have produced examples of the deposition of animals in some human graves. The most substantial assemblage has been obtained from the Eastern Cemetery, London (Reilly 2000), but other examples have been found in recent excavations in Winchester (Strid and Worley 2010; Worley 2010), Gloucester (Worley 2008), York (Foster 2012; Foster and Jacques 2012), and Southwark (Ridgeway et al. 2013). Animal depositions vary but chickens, dogs and pigs are the most common depositions, representing gifts of food or companionship for the dead. A full survey of such depositions would be beneficial.

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ASSOCIATED BONE GROUPS (ABGs) There has been a lot of discussion about ABGs that have been discovered in large numbers in some Roman towns, particularly in pits and wells. There have been convincing arguments that many of them represent ritual depositions, particularly when multiple burials are found, sometimes associated with complete pottery vessels and other unusual finds (Fulford 2001; Woodward and Woodward 2004). However, there has been a tendency to oversimplify interpretations and not take into account variations in the nature of the ABGs (e.g. context; species; completeness; state of articulation; age; gnawing; weathering; butchery) and other bones found in the same features are sometimes overlooked in interpretations (Maltby 2010b; Morris 2010; 2011). Not all depositions are the same and other interpretations of ABGs cannot be ruled out in some cases (e.g. natural mortalities; population control; butchery waste; skinning waste; pitfall victims). Interpretations need careful consideration of all the available evidence. A good example of this thorough approach is provided by Serjeantson and Morris’ (2011) review of the evidence for the deposition of ravens and small corvids in Iron Age and Roman settlements including towns. After careful consideration of all the variables listed above and incorporating some documentary and iconographic evidence for the symbolic significance of these birds, they concluded that many of the depositions were indeed ritual in nature. In some cases, butchery, cooking and ritual deposition are not mutually exclusive. Several ABGs of sheep found in suburban buildings or boundary deposits in Winchester have evidence of dismemberment, cooking and filleting before their remains were gathered together and buried as foundation deposits (Maltby 2012). Irrespective of the interpretations, developer-funded excavations have contributed substantially to the ABG data now available. Dogs are often found as ABGs and the presence of large numbers of puppies in some towns, for example Dorchester (Maltby 1993), indicates that large numbers of dogs were bred and kept in towns. Their presence is also testified by the large number of gnawed bones in most assemblages. ABGs have also supplied much of the evidence that has shown the great variability in the stature of dogs in the Roman period. Specialist breeding was clearly taking place and new types of miniature dogs, for example, have been found in many Roman towns (Harcourt 1974; Maltby 1993; 2010a, 297; Clark 1995; Baxter 2006). THE CONTRIBUTION OF COMMERCIAL ZOOARCHAEOLOGY IN TOWNS There is no doubt that rescue and developer-funded archaeology has contributed significantly to enhancing our understanding of how animals were exploited in and around Romano-British towns. Through these excavations and faunal analyses, we have obtained a much broader and deeper understanding of the diet and provisioning of meat and other animal products in these towns. We have recognised regional, chronological, inter-settlement and intra-settlement variations in faunal assemblages, although there is substantial scope for further investigation and interpretation of such variations. We have also begun to form a better understanding of animals’ roles in belief systems and worldviews. Gradually, too, the potential of zooarchaeology in contributing to addressing more general questions about the nature and organisation of Roman towns has been recognised. In addition, the development of new scientific techniques such as isotope and genetic analyses are beginning to be incorporated successfully with traditional zooarchaeological analyses, although, to date, relatively few of these studies have focused specifically on animals in Romano-British towns. However, these achievements have been gained painfully slowly. There are often severe time lags between analysis of assemblages and their publication. Worse, some of these analyses have never been fully published. Even worse still, in some cases there has been insufficient funding for full analyses of important animal bone assemblages. The development of digital technology is gradually enabling easier access to some unpublished detailed reports and data. However, there is a huge amount of information residing in grey literature or museum archives that has great potential to contribute further to our understanding of humans and animals in Romano-British towns. A review of the available resource is urgently required.

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Maltby, M. 1998: ‘Animal bones from Romano-British deposits in Cirencester’, in N. Holbrook (ed.), Cirencester: The Roman Town Defences, Public Buildings and Shops, Cirencester Excavations 5, Cirencester, 352–70 Maltby, M. 2002: ‘The animal bones’, in S. Davies, P. Bellamy, M. Heaton and P. Woodward, Excavations at Alington Avenue, Fordington, Dorchester, Dorset, 1984–87, Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society Monograph 15, Dorchester, 53–5, 111–16, 168–70, 182–3 Maltby, M. 2007: ‘Chop and change: specialist cattle carcass processing in Roman Britain’, in B. Croxford, N. Ray, R. Roth and N. White (eds), TRAC 2006: Proceedings of the 16th Annual Theoretical Roman Archaeology Conference, Cambridge 2006, Oxford, 59–76 Maltby, M. 2010a: Feeding a Roman Town: Environmental Evidence from Excavations inWinchester, 1972–1985, Winchester Maltby, M. 2010b: ‘Zooarchaeology and the interpretation of depositions in shafts’, in Morris and Maltby 2010, 24–32 Maltby, M. 2012: ‘Sheep foundation burials in Roman Winchester’, in A. Pluskowski (ed.), The Ritual Killing and Burial of Animals: European Perspectives, Oxford, 152–63 McWhirr, A. 1986: Houses in Roman Cirencester, Cirencester Excavations 3, Cirencester Morris, J. 2010: ‘Associated bone groups: beyond the Iron Age’, in Morris and Maltby 2010, 12–23 Morris, J. 2011: Investigating Animal Burials: Ritual, Mundane and Beyond, BAR British Series 535, Oxford Morris, J. and Maltby, M. (eds) 2010: Integrating Social and Environmental Archaeologies: Reconsidering Deposition, BAR International Series 2077, Oxford Morris, M., Buckley, R. and Codd, M. 2011: Visions of Ancient Leicester. Reconstructing Life in the Roman and Medieval Town from the Archaeology of the Highcross Leicester Excavations, Leicester Nicholson, R. 1999: ‘Fish remains’, in Connor and Buckley 1999, 333–7 Nicholson, R. 2010: ‘The fish bones’, in Zant 2010, 163–4 Nicholson, R. 2011: ‘Fish remains’, in Ford and Teague 2011, 358–61 O’Connor, T. 1988: Bones from the General Accident Site, Tanner Row, The Archaeology of York, Vol. 15, Fasc. 2, York O’Connor, T. and Sykes, N. (eds) 2010: Extinctions and Invasions: A Social History of British Fauna, Oxford Ottaway, P. 2013: Roman Yorkshire: People, Culture and Landscape, Pickering Ottaway, P., Qualmann, K., Rees, H. and Scobie, G. 2012: The Roman Cemeteries and Suburbs of Winchester: Excavations 1971–1986, Winchester Parker, A. 1988: ‘The birds of Roman Britain’, Oxford Journal of Archaeology 7, 197–226 Pipe, A. 2002: ‘The animal bones’, in N. Elsden, Excavations at 25 Cannon Street, City of London, MoLAS Monograph 5, London, 64–5 Pipe, A. 2011: (various sections) in J. Hill and P. Rowsome, Roman London and the Walbrook Stream Crossing: Excavations at 1 Poultry and Vicinity, City of London, MoLAS Monograph 37, London, 290, 304–5, 319– 21, 362, 385–6, 411–12, 538–9, plus CD Poole, K. 2010: ‘Bird introductions’, in O’Connor and Sykes 2010, 156–65 Rackham, J. 1995: ‘Animal bones from post-Roman contexts’, in D. Phillips and B. Heywood, Excavations at York Minister Volume I: From Roman Fortress to Norman Cathedral, London, 533–58 Redfern, R., Hamlin, C. and Athfield, N. 2010: ‘Temporal changes in diet: a stable isotope analysis of late Iron Age and Roman Dorset, Britain’, Journal of Archaeological Science 37, 1149–60 Reilly, K. 2000: ‘The animal bone’, in B. Barber and D. Bowsher, The Eastern Cemetery of Roman London: Excavations 1983–1990, MoLAS Monograph 4, London, 366–8 Reilly, K. 2002: ‘The animal bone’, in E. Howe, Roman Defences and Medieval Industry: Excavations at Baltic House, City of London, MoLAS Monograph 7, London, 94–104 Reilly, K. 2005: ‘Animal bones’, in B.Yule, A Prestigious Roman Building Complex on the SouthwarkWaterfront: Excavations at Winchester Palace, London, 1983–90, MoLAS Monograph 23, London, 158–66 Ridgeway, V., Leary, K. and Sudds, B. 2013: Roman Burials in Southwark: Excavations at 52–56 Lant Street and 56 Southwark Bridge Road, London SE1, Pre-Construct Archaeology Monograph 17, London Score, V., Browning, J., Johnson, E., Monckton, A. and Kipling, R. 2010: ‘A Roman “delicatessen” at Castle Street, Leicester’, Transactions of the Leicestershire Archaeological and Historical Society 84, 77–94 Scott, S. 1999: ‘Animal bones’, in C. Colyer, B. Gilmour and M. Jones, The Defences of the Lower City: Excavations at The Park andWest Parade 1970–2, The Archaeology of Lincoln Volume 7-2, Lincoln, 169–78 Seager Smith, R., Cooke, N., Gale, R., Knight, S., McKinley, J. and Stevens, C. 2007: ‘Archaeological investigations on the site of the former Rowe’s Garage, Chichester, West Sussex’, Sussex Archaeological Collections 145, 67–80 Seetah, K. 2006: ‘Multidisciplinary approach to Romano-British cattle butchery’, in M. Maltby (ed.), Integrating Zooarchaeology, Oxford, 109–16

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Serjeantson, D. and Morris, J. 2011: ‘Ravens and crows in Iron Age and Roman Britain’, Oxford Journal of Archaeology 30 (1), 85–107 Siddell, J. 2008: ‘Eggshell’, in Trevarthen 2008 http://www.wessexarch.co.uk/files/projects/dorchester_ county_hospital/04_Eggshell.pdf Stallibrass, S. 2010: ‘The animal bones’, in Zant 2010, 143–60 Stallibrass, S., Allison, E., Nicholson, R. and Harding, C. 2000: ‘The animal, bird, fish and human bones’, in M. McCarthy, Roman and Medieval Carlisle: the Southern Lanes, Carlisle, 85–91 Strid, L. 2011: ‘Mammal and bird bones’, in Ford and Teague 2011, 339–58 Strid, L. and Worley, F. 2010: ‘Unburnt animal bones’, in Booth et al. 2010, 429–32 Sykes, N. 2010: ‘European fallow deer’, in O’Connor and Sykes 2010, 51–8 Sykes, N. 2012: ‘A social perspective on the introduction of exotic animals: the case of the chicken’, World Archaeology 44, 158–69 Thawley, C.R. 1982a: ‘The animal bones’, in J. Wacher and A. McWhirr, Early Roman Occupation at Cirencester, Cirencester Excavations 1, Cirencester, 211–27 Thawley, C.R. 1982b: ‘The animal bones’, in A. McWhirr, L. Viner and C. Wells, Romano-British Cemeteries at Cirencester, Cirencester Excavations 2, Cirencester, microfiche 2/5 E13 Trevarthen, M. 2008: Suburban Life in Roman Durnovaria: Excavations in the Former County Hospital Site, Dorchester, 2000–2001, Salisbury Turner, L. 2006: ‘The animal bone’, in R. Niblett, W. Manning and C. Saunders, ‘Verulamium: excavations within the Roman town 1986–88’, Britannia 37, 180–4 Ward, S., Mason, D., McPeake, J., Rutland, S. and Strickland, T. 2012: Excavations at Chester: the Western and Southern Roman Extramural Settlements: a Roman Community on the Edge of the World: Excavations 1964– 1989 and other Investigations, Chester Archaeological Excavation and Survey Report 15/ BAR British Series 553, Oxford Wilson, B., Grigson, C. and Payne, S. (eds) 1982: Ageing and Sexing Animal Bones from Archaeological Sites, BAR British Series 109, Oxford Woodward, P. and Woodward, A. 2004: ‘Dedicating the town: urban foundation deposits in Roman Britain’, World Archaeology 36, 68–86 Woodward, P., Davies, S. and Graham, A. 1993: Excavations at the Old Methodist Chapel and GreyhoundYard, Dorchester, 1981–4, Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society Monograph 12, Dorchester Worley, F. 2008: ‘The animal bones’, in A. Simmonds, N. Márquez-Grant and L. Loe, Life and Death in a Roman City: Excavation of a Roman Cemetery with a Mass Grave at 120–122 London Road, Gloucester, Oxford Archaeology Monograph 6, Oxford, 119–22 Worley, F. 2010: ‘Burnt animal bone’, in Booth et al. 2010, 432–7 Yalden, D. and Albarella, U. 2009: The History of British Birds, Oxford Zant, J. 2010: The Southern Lanes, Carlisle: Publication of Unpublished Fascicules: Fascicule 1, English Heritage/ Oxford Archaeology http://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archives/view/southlanes_eh_2010/

CHAPTER 11

Retrospect and prospect: advancement of knowledge, methodologies and publication By Michael Fulford

Introduction There are three major themes which need to be addressed in these conclusions. The first relates to the advancement of knowledge and understanding of the towns themselves, the second to the methodologies employed in excavation, including the associated recovery of material culture and biological data. In post-excavation the third theme considers more generally the theme of publication — or the lack of it — and the methods of dissemination. It is clear from all the contributions that there have been very significant advances in our knowledge and understanding of the larger Roman cities and towns of Roman Britain since 1990. Prior to that year the thrust of archaeological investigations had been to establish, first, the plans of towns and their constituent buildings and, second, their chronologies. The wave of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century investigations on the greenfield towns of Silchester, Caerwent and, latterly, Wroxeter, where research was curtailed by the outbreak of WWI, gave us, as was thought at the time, two complete or near-complete town plans and a range of urban building types from the forum basilica to mansiones, bath-houses, temples, town-houses and the more humble tabernae. Chronologies, particularly of the development of town defences, began to emerge in the 1930s, perhaps most famously at Verulamium where, through moderately extensive excavations, the Wheelers defined their ‘Belgic and two Roman cities’ (1936). All the research pre-WWII helped to inform the interpretation of the fragmentary remains discovered through rescue excavations associated with post-War developments in England’s historic cities. New overarching interpretive frameworks were developed in the 1960s and 1970s. Graham Webster (1966) argued that the Roman army played a major role in the development of the towns of the provinces, while John Wacher (1975) gathered together all the evidence to have emerged from the major towns, setting it out in a structure of Rome-led developments. The latter included the clear de novo Roman foundations of London and the coloniae of Colchester, Gloucester, Lincoln and, eventually, York. The remaining towns, the civitas capitals, responsible for the administration of justice and taxation in their respective cantons, were set up, Wacher argued, in a series of planned initiatives, led by the provincial governors (cf. Tacitus, Agricola 21), which followed in the wake of the advancing Roman army and the territorial expansion of the province. This began with Claudio-Neronian initiatives in the South-East and was then followed by Flavian and Hadrianic foundations. This Rome-centric model was challenged by Martin Millett who offered an alternative model where native political systems and centralisation represented by the emergence of oppida in the late pre-Roman Iron Age played a significant role in the development of the civitates (1990, 65–103). In parallel with new thinking about the genesis of the towns of Roman Britain, new techniques and approaches, such as open-area excavation in preference to the Wheeler grid system, singlecontext recording and environmental archaeology, were being applied more systematically in state-sponsored rescue excavations in historic towns with Roman forbears in the 1970s and

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1980s. The systematic recovery of charred plant remains through flotation and of faunal remains, principally through collection by hand, became standard practice in urban archaeology. Overall, there was much better stratigraphic control of the recovery of finds assemblages of all kinds. Unfortunately, improved techniques of excavation, recording and finds recovery produced excavation archives which outstripped the resources available to publish the results. While there have been publications of major importance of rescue excavations undertaken between the 1960s and the 1980s, there remain unpublished investigations of potential great significance from those decades from almost all of the major towns of Roman Britain. However, while the main focus of pre-1990 urban development had been on historic town centres with the consequent concentration of Roman urban archaeology on the intramural occupation, it is clear that since 1990 the emphasis of urban development has been in the suburbs of the historic towns with Roman predecessors. Only London has seen extensive and extraordinarily productive excavation within the Roman walled area as well as in its suburb, south of the river in Southwark. We can summarise the significant outcomes of commercial archaeology in Roman towns since 1990 under four headings: origins, intramural, extramural/ suburban and characterising urban life. Roman Towns since 1990: principal results 1 ORIGINS The 25 years of commercial archaeology since 1990 have seen major contributions to knowledge in respect to both the late pre-Roman Iron Age and the Roman origins of several towns. From the indigenous, late Iron Age perspective we have valuable contributions towards understanding three south-eastern oppida (Fulford, above, Ch. 5). The continuity of landscape organisation into the Roman period is evidenced in the immediate hinterland of the legionary fortress, subsequently colonia of Camulodunum, which itself was located within the territory of the late Iron Age oppidum, with a corresponding absence of evidence for the development of a planned, Roman organisation of the territorium of the colonia. From Fishbourne, to the west of Chichester and located inside the rectilinear arrangement of earthworks known as the Chichester Entrenchments, which are centred on Fishbourne itself, we have the first evidence of stratified, pre-conquest occupation, dating from c. a.d. 25 and associated with a linear ditch running parallel to the earthworks to the north. Distinctive features of the assemblage include a high proportion of imported pottery of North Gaulish and Mediterranean origin and a faunal assemblage with a high percentage of pig. Despite the apparent absence so far of other structural features of definite pre-conquest date, when taken in conjunction with the quantities of residual, pre-conquest, imported pottery from the adjacent site of the Flavian palace and from further east, to the east and south-east of the Roman Chichester itself, the cumulative picture points to a major focus of late pre-Roman Iron Age occupation within the enclosing earthwork system west of the river Lavant. The difficulties of identifying and characterising the occupation of the late Iron Age (pre-conquest) oppidum can be paralleled at Camulodunum where the density of Claudio-Neronian activity at the Sheepen sites excavated by Hawkes and Hull (1947), Niblett (1985) and, since 1990, at the Colchester Institute obscures the earlier occupation represented by abundant, but residual pre-conquest, imported pottery. The residuality of pre-conquest material in post-conquest contexts is also an issue at Calleva where continuing excavations are gradually teasing out the relatively fragile evidence of pre-conquest occupation and distinguishing it from the Claudio-Neronian (Booth 2013, 337–8, fig. 17). Given the commonality of residual pre-conquest imports at these sites, it can only be a matter of time before the associated pre-conquest structural and other occupational evidence emerges at Fishbourne and Chichester. Finally, turning to the funerary evidence, the two high-status burial sites at Folly Lane, St Albans (Verulamium) and Stanway, near Colchester, both dating to around the mid-first century a.d., give powerful, but contrasting insights into 1

The reader is referred back to the individual chapters for the relevant bibliographies

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the respective local élites, which, however, also share a common funerary tradition with their counterparts in northern Gaul. From the Roman perspective there have been major gains in knowledge concerning the origins of Exeter and London in the south and of Carlisle in the north. Excavations of four sites, two at a little distance from Exeter at Topsham, 6.5 km downstream, and at nearby St Loye’s College, and at two sites adjacent to the pre-Flavian legionary fortress, at Princesshay and Mount Dinham, are all contributing valuable new and, certainly for Britain, collectively, unparalleled information on the context of the fortress and its associated supply systems (Holbrook, above, pp. 96–100). Unfortunately none of these sites has so far been published. In the case of London, while there is little disagreement that the town was a Roman foundation, now with a dendrochronological date of a.d. 47/8 for the construction of the main road leading west out of the town, the debate about the extent of military involvement in its development still continues (Perring 2011; Wallace 2013). On the basis of further evidence for a double-ditched enclosure east of Walbrook, Perring (Ch. 3) continues to make the case for the existence of a Claudian fort, which shaped the development of London east of the Walbrook. Other important discoveries of the pre-Boudican period include the evidence for high-status buildings on both banks of the river, around Plantation Place on the north bank, and at Winchester Palace on the south. While, on the one hand, establishing the presence (or absence) of a Claudian fort is important for our understanding of the military tactics of the conquest period, on the other, it is a distraction. For it is clear that what drove the development of London from the late 40s was its role as a centre for the supply of the advancing Roman army. While the majority of inhabitants fulfilling this role might have been civilians, negotiatores, etc., their reason for being there was dictated by imperial policy towards advancing the conquest of Britain, executed in the first instance as far as the development of London was concerned by the governor, Ostorius Scapula. The distinctive pre-Flavian, Roman pottery assemblage of amphoras, samian, mortaria, flagons, etc. that is characteristic of London is also characteristic of pre-Flavian fort and fortress sites such as Colchester, Kingsholm, Usk and Exeter, but very different from contemporary assemblages from Silchester, the nearest town to London to the west (cf. Pitts 2014). Excavations since 1990 in Carlisle have provided much new information on the development of the first Roman fort in timber from a.d. 72/3 and its successor from c. a.d. 105 (Bidwell, above, p. 129). Waterlogged levels have provided a rich array of organic finds, including ink writing-tablets, which provide an invaluable comparator to the Vindolanda material, while dendrochronology of the timber has provided a series of closely defined dates which have provided the basis for the chronology of the early forts and a link to the record of the written sources, for example, the association of the initial construction of the fort with the governorship of Petillius Cerialis. The construction of a stone-built military base followed in the third century. This probably also served as the civitas capital of the Carvetii from about this time and the pattern of fourth-century coin loss in the vicinity of the headquarters building suggests market activity within the fort (Bidwell, above, p. 129). INTRAMURAL With the exception of London, the scale of historic town centre/intramural excavations affecting the Roman period has been on a considerably lesser scale since 1990 than in the previous three decades. For the most part, investigations have revealed aspects of the development of domestic buildings, although in Leicester valuable insight has also been shed on the plan and architecture of the macellum, where the remains indicate a building at least 16 m in height with its aisles divided from the nave by arcuate rather than trabeated colonnades (Bidwell, above, p. 125). With regard to town planning, Holbrook (above, pp. 101–2) draws attention to buildings not aligned on the projected street grid in Dorchester, Dorset, making a comparison with the situation at Wroxeter. Similar irregularities (to us) in orientation and alignments can also be seen in the north-west quarter of the town, raising the possibility that Dorchester lacked a regular street grid (Durham and Fulford 2014, 368). As far as the domestic context is concerned and again with notable exceptions, such as in

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Dorchester (County Hospital), Leicester (Vine Street) and Winchester (The Brooks), the recovery of fragmented plans of structures has tended to be the norm. This is partly a product of post-Roman truncations of the Roman stratigraphy and partly a result of mitigation strategies designed to minimise the impact of development on the historic environment. While all of the above sites await publication in full, priority has been given to the epigraphy which has given us extremely valuable insight into urban society, reminding us of how transformative written sources can be in this context. This is particularly the case with Leicester (Bidwell, above, p. 128) where a lead curse tablet from the Vine Street site lists sixteen men and three women from a paedagogium interpreted by Tomlin as a ‘slave quarters’. Allowing for the man making the curse, this implies a group of about twenty individuals, giving us the first insight into the size of an urban household in Roman Britain. A second curse tablet from the site makes reference to a septizonium, the first example of this type of shrine recorded from Roman Britain. The same site also produced two lead sealings, respectively of the Twentieth and Sixth legions, which, along with another sealing of the latter legion found in 2005, brings the total of military sealings from Leicester to eight. As Bidwell points out (above, p. 128), Leicester is exceptional with regard to this type of find which, collectively, probably indicates a strong connection with military supply to the North in the late second and early third century. It is, however, discoveries from London which dominate the growth of our knowledge of the development and evolving character of urban life in Roman Britain in the period since 1990 (Perring, Ch. 3). However, the more that is learned about London, the more different it appears to be from the other towns of Roman Britain. Indeed, its record of rapid expansion in its first hundred years of development on its own sets it apart from other towns. In so far as what became by the early third century the intramural area on the north bank of the Thames, excavations since 1990 have shed important new light on all periods of the town, a community arguably promoted to city status as a colonia by Hadrian. Perring makes the case that for London it is possible to construct a chronology using traditional sources, such as the Boudican and Hadrianic fire horizons, but also, and notably, dendrochronology, that is sufficiently refined for distinct phases of development to be associated with particular governorships and emperors. Although selection is always invidious, and building on the discoveries relating to origins (above, pp. 21– 3), prominent results of work since 1990 and of interest both to London and the wider province (and beyond) include evidence for the town’s recovery post-Boudica, with the construction of a fort (Plantation Place) and of quays by a.d. 63 at Regis House (where a cache of Vespasianic lead pigs confirms London as a port for their export in the later first century). Wider military involvement in the reconstruction work or in the provision of timber is evidenced by the find of wood stamped by the Augustan unit of Thracians. A strong case can also be made for the association of the Gresham Street wells and water-lifting devices, the earliest of which can be dated to a.d. 63, with the construction of the Cheapside bath-house. The discovery of the wells and water-lifting machines also has resonance far beyond London itself since it offers another means of supplying water in considerable volume, sufficient to supply a large population or operate a bathhouse, other than through the construction of an aqueduct tapping sources of water remote from the town. As for the characterisation of urban life in London, the excavation of streetside buildings and their environs on the west bank of the Walbrook at, and in the vicinity of, 1 Poultry, associated with remarkably well preserved material and biological culture, offers exceptional insight. The early to mid-second-century discoveries from the Walbrook Valley also have important resonance beyond London itself. These include evidence for large-scale glassmaking and the production of Verulamium-region type pottery, virtually indistinguishable from the previously known production concentrated at Brockley Hill. The Walbrook is also well known as a source of human skulls whose discoveries over the years have invited a variety of different explanations for their origins. While some may have been washed out of inhumation cemeteries to the north of the town, it is clear that the majority were deliberately deposited over a period between the mid-first and the mid-second century a.d. Recent analysis of a large sample has shown that a significant proportion belonged to young adult males, with evidence of a range of injuries ante mortem, including decapitation, and inviting the interpretation that they were the victims of military justice. This invites comparison with the late second- to early fourth-century burials of

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over 80 males in York (Driffield Terrace), most of whom had been executed (Ottaway, above, p. 52). The waterlogged environment of the Walbrook Valley continues to produce well-preserved organic finds of exceptional importance as the very recent (2013) excavations in advance of the Bloomberg development have shown. In addition to the earlier, 1 Poultry find of a secondcentury writing-tablet recording the purchase of a Gallic slave girl, Fortunata, by a slave of a slave belonging to the imperial household, very recent finds from Bloomberg include significant numbers of legible writing-tablets which promise to provide further valuable insights into the social and legal life of the city. The potential for further discoveries of written texts adds very considerable value to the as yet undisturbed archaeological deposits of the Walbrook Valley. These are, potentially, a unique source of information on the wider province of Britannia as well as London itself. Late Roman discoveries since 1990 from intramural London of wider significance include a third-century monumental building and late fourth-century structures such as the basilica, possibly Christian, from Colchester House and the massive tower from Plantation Place in the south-east quarter of the city. Remarkable in their own right, these buildings also attest to major building activity not evident elsewhere in towns in Britain other than in London in the later Roman period. Also very rarely documented elsewhere in urban Roman Britain, late Roman intramural burial is evidenced by a small cemetery on the site of the amphitheatre and a single burial close to the Walbrook crossing (Perring, above, pp. 37–8). Although much of thirdand fourth-century Roman London has been truncated by subsequent medieval and modern developments, the last 25 years have seen several discoveries of domestic and other buildings of third- to fourth-century date, which have led Perring to moderate his earlier views that London experienced major decline and population loss after the Antonine period, perhaps as a result of the transmission of plague to Britain (above, pp. 32–3). EXTRAMURAL/SUBURBAN The built environment: London As commented on above, it is clear from the regional surveys that there has been a significant shift in development towards the suburbs of historic towns with Roman predecessors with consequential rapid expansion in our knowledge of Roman suburbs and their cemeteries. Before considering the contribution that cemetery excavations have made, it is important to assess significant additions since 1990 to our knowledge of the physical fabric of the suburbs. Pride of place surely goes to the discovery of the circus at Colchester, constructed in the early second century and the only one of its kind so far known from Britain (Fulford, above pp. 74–5). Its discovery reminds us of the potential for finding other major extramural structures such as amphitheatres, up to now only attested at a small number of towns in Roman Britain. Evidence for suburban temple building is prominent in Southwark, where the recent discovery of a temple and bath-house close to the approach road to the bridge across the Thames adds to the discoveries of two Romano-Celtic temples in Tabard Square, dated c. a.d. 160–80 and associated with a dedication to Mars Camulus (Perring, above pp. 30, 33). At Verulamium (Folly Lane) there is further evidence of suburban temple building of Romano-Celtic type, built between the late first and mid-second century a.d. (Fulford, above pp. 63, 75). Together with what is already known of suburban temple-building at Colchester, the three cities of Colchester, London and Verulamium distinguish themselves from other towns and cities of Roman Britain in the incidence of suburban temple-building of Romano-Celtic type. Further distinguishing aspects of these three cities are discussed further below. Excluding the Southwark temples mentioned above, further very significant additions to our knowledge of suburban life and architecture have accrued from London. As with the intramural area north of the river, there have been an exceptional number of interventions since 1990, particularly south of the river in Southwark, where much important information has emerged since Cowan et al.’s synthesis of work undertaken there between 1973 and 1991 (2009). There

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have also been significant discoveries in the eastern and western suburbs north of the river. Although most of the work at the Southwark Winchester Palace site was completed in the field before 1990, an outstanding sequence of high-status ‘palatial’ building, suggested to be the residence of the governor, beginning in the pre-Boudican period, and followed by Neronian restoration with yet further development in the early second century, has been revealed. Close by there is evidence of further, substantial building in masonry, perhaps the mansio, constructed from a.d. 74. While these buildings, like the temples described above, command attention, we should also include the very important sequence of tabernae and other street-fronting buildings along the approach road to the bridge. They shed important light on the occupational character of individual buildings as well as, by implication, on the economic vitality of the suburb from the earliest period, including the first evidence for Boudican destruction south of the Thames. The dedication of one of the Tabard Square temples to Mars Camulus is also one of the most important inscriptions to have been recovered from Roman Britain since 1990 (Grew 2008). It was set up by a Gaul from the region of Beauvais, northern France, who is described as moritix, an official involved presumably with cross-Channel trade. In the late third and early fourth century the treatment of major buildings such as the demolition of the possible mansio and the baths associated with the ‘palatial’ building at Winchester Palace can be paralleled by developments north of the river and elsewhere in Britain. The encroachment by burials on areas of Southwark which had previously been inhabited is another notable development of the late Roman period, again, paralleled by similar behaviour north of the river (Perring, above, p. 37). For the third and fourth/fifth centuries it is the discoveries east and west of London north of the river which also command attention in a provincial or diocesan context. Excavations at Shadwell, 1 km to the east of the walled city, have shed further light on the remarkable élite thirdcentury complex of a bath-house associated with a tower-like structure. For whom it was built and the purpose it served remain unclear. The discovery of a high-status inhumation of early fifth-century date at St Martin-in-the-Fields to the west of the walled city provides an important insight into élite residence in the immediate rural hinterland, but beyond the zones devoted to cemeteries in the late Roman period (Perring, above, p. 38). Urban cemeteries Since 1990 there has been a combination of new excavation and synthetic study with the application of new techniques, notably isotope analysis (Pearce, above, Ch. 8). Several Roman towns have seen extensive excavation of their later Roman cemeteries, notably Colchester, Gloucester, Winchester and York, with over 4,000 burials excavated and with evidence of distinct burial groups, not previously seen in Roman Britain. These include the decapitated burials from York (Driffield Terrace) (which recall the skulls from London) and the Gloucester mass burial, perhaps resulting from the plague. Against the background of all the new discoveries in so many towns, Lankhills, Winchester with its component of fourth-century burials distinctively furnished with brooches and belt sets remains unique among a growing number of urban cemeteries in Britain. Much, too, has been learned since 1990 through careful excavation which takes account of the burial context and not just the burial itself, revealing the rituals and processes of burial associated with cremations in particular, but also inhumations, with a rich variety of practices revealed as, for example, at Colchester (Pearce, above, p. 146). That this evidence can survive makes it all the more important that machine-stripping does not destroy valuable contextual evidence. While synthetic studies of skeletal populations, drawing on both pre- and post-1990 data, have multiplied since 1990, this has been hindered by the lack of digital publication (above p. 140). However, much important work has been done to shed light on urban populations and their lifestyles (further, below). CHARACTERISING URBAN LIFE Looking beyond the increase in knowledge relating predominantly to the buildings of individual cities and towns and their structural development over time, there have been major advances in

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our general characterisation of urban life in Roman Britain since 1990. With the reservations expressed above by Maltby and Robinson (above, Chs 9 and 10), we should note the excellent quality of information derived from the study of the material and biological finds pertaining to the characterisation of urban life. The Winchester Northgate House and Discovery Centre excavation is a good example where a very fragmented sequence and distribution of structures and their development over time have been richly augmented through a study of the finds, such that the latter have become the significant contribution of the project (Ford and Teague 2011). Whereas the study of the material finds, including their systematic quantification, can identify activities such as spinning, weaving, leather-working, wood-working, etc., it is often only through the analysis of bulk finds such as the faunal remains that antler and bone-working can be identified. The characterisation and quantification of iron-working slags, including microscopic residues indicative of smithing identified from the residues of wet-sieving, also make a vital contribution to understanding the varying location and intensity of this potentially important urban industry over time and form the basis for comparison between different towns. In addition, the analysis of the macroscopic plant remains in this Winchester report can inform us of animal fodder and grain storage, another important element in the characterisation of urban life. Indeed the agricultural facet of urban life suggested by the presence of animal fodder is further borne out at other towns, as at Leicester, for example, where pig slurry from an early Roman context has been identified at the Vine Street site alongside small fields or stock pens (Bidwell, p. 127). With better recovery of smaller mammal bones through wet-sieving the incidence of finds of neonate cattle, sheep and pig adds further evidence for the role of stock-keeping in and around Roman towns (cf. Ingrem 2006, 179–80; 2011, 262–4; Maltby 2010, 287–91). As demonstrated at Vine Street, Leicester and recently at Silchester Insula IX, micromorphology and the analysis of insect remains and mineralised coprolites have a valuable role to play in demonstrating the presence of domestic animals within the town (Banerjea 2011; Robinson 2006; 2011). Archaeobotanical and entomological research are also complementing zooarchaeological approaches with the insights they are providing into the extent of crop-processing (limited) and grain storage (widespread) within towns as well as urban environments including horticulture (Robinson, above, pp. 171–2; Smith and Kenward 2011). Robinson (Ch. 9) emphasises the complementary contributions that the different categories of botanical data can make, including the importance of mineralised and waterlogged assemblages in comparison with charred plant remains. He also points out that in particular urban contexts pollen analysis can shed light on the consumption of plant foods, e.g. brassicas, rarely otherwise preserved. Mineralised assemblages, generally from latrine pits, are particularly informative of the food consumed by the inhabitants and the survey by van der Veen et al. (2008) has clearly shown a close relationship between the consumption of imported food types and the larger urban communities. Robinson also points to the potential of well-dated botanical assemblages for understanding the adoption and diffusion of species, such as coriander and dill, and fruits such as the cultivated apple, plum and mulberry, initially imported into Britain but capable of being cultivated in the province. New research on the stable isotopes of carbon and nitrogen preserved in human remains is also shedding important light on diet, for example, a significant shift towards a greater intake of seafood in the Roman period compared with the Iron Age (Pearce, above p. 156) Zooarchaeological research (Maltby 2010; above, pp. 179–84) is also giving insights more generally into the meat supply to towns and the variable proportions of cattle, sheep and pig, with mortality profiles, particularly of cattle, showing selectivity in the age at death which privileges adult (but not elderly) beasts, predominantly cows. Valuable insights are being derived from study of butchery and of fragmentation more generally. Use of cleavers is particularly associated with cattle and suggests specialist butchery of these animals, while the distinctively urban pattern of fragmentation and subsequent treatment of long bones points to the systematic and widespread extraction of marrow and the processing of the bone to extract fats and make glue. The perforation of scapulae to hang the meat for filleting or smoking is also another largely urban characteristic. Dumps of bone with a very high proportion of cattle add further support to their specialist treatment in the urban context. The combination of observations relating to

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the particular treatment of cattle raises questions as to the manner of their supply to towns and whether they were supplied as a tax in kind. The analysis of the human remains from the extramural and suburban cemeteries is also beginning to shed powerful new light on urban communities, though we lack the equivalent study of rural populations to enable a comparative approach between town and country (Pearce, above, p. 157). We have learned that, though male stature was greater than in the Iron Age, there are frequent incidences of indicators of poor health among late Roman populations, for example in Gloucester and London. In Dorchester, Dorset, fewer individuals reached late adulthood in the Roman period and, for the non-adults, there are very high frequencies of indicators of poor health and trauma. At the same time the analysis of stable isotopes, oxygen and strontium, is providing valuable new insights into urban mobility in Britain in the later Roman period. From research carried out on samples from some of the larger towns, it appears that c. 40–60 per cent of those sampled had spent their earlier years in other regions of Britain or outside the province. Given that there is no evidence for expansion of the urban area after defences began to be put in place from the end of the second century onwards, this research indicates that urban populations were not capable of renewing themselves without inward migration. As York was a legionary fortress, other explanations may account for the particularly high proportion of long-distance migrants which has been noted from the Driffield Terrace burials. With particular relevance to Lankhills, Winchester, this research methodology of isotopic analysis has also undermined associations which have been detected between particular burial rites and geographical origins (Pearce, above p. 151). Isotopic research has also shed light on breast-feeding and weaning practice in Roman Britain and a large study of infants from London shows that practice was distinctly RomanoBritish in character (Powell et al. 2014). The analysis of the material culture from urban excavations — where it is published — also contributes to the theme of characterisation but there are still insufficient reports since 1990 with quantified data to pursue questions of variability in consumption either within individual towns or between them. There are notable exceptions, such as the publication of the evidence for pottery and glass production in London, which has already been commented on above. However, the general lacunae in publication relate both to assemblages of registered finds of metalwork, bone, stone, glass, etc., and to the pottery which consistently dominates the record of material culture finds from every intramural excavation. In the case of the former, there is increasing adoption of Nina Crummy’s (1983) methodology of classification of registered finds, which consistently shows urban assemblages with finds relating to dress, personal ornament and grooming in the majority. Crummy’s approach also provides the basis for comparative studies. These inevitably draw on the finds from pre-1990 excavations and post-1990 research excavations, as, for example, Silchester (N. Crummy 2006; 2011; 2012). With its huge archive of finds, centrally stored in the LAARC, London has seen considerable research on intra- and extramural distributions of different types of artefact to assess variability in their consumption spatially and over time. Such research, which also draws on pre- and post-1990 finds, includes, for example, brooches (Plouviez 2008), intaglios (Henig 2008), metal figurines (Durham 2012), Pompeian Red Ware (Podavitte 2014), samian inkwells (Monteil 2008), toilet instruments (Crummy with Pohl 2008), and late Roman coins and pottery (Gerrard 2011), the latter addressing questions about the occupation and eventual decline of the city in the later fourth and fifth century. Other research has addressed questions of variability between towns and between town and country. Eckardt’s study of lighting equipment (2002) and Durham’s of metal figurines (2012) show the exceptional nature in terms of both the quantity and variety of the respective London assemblages in the context of Roman Britain as a whole. In these two studies, and for similar reasons, Colchester also stands out as second to London in the distinctiveness of its assemblages of these categories of artefact. Pitts’ analysis (2014) of firstcentury Roman pottery and brooch assemblages from South-East Britain also highlights the distinctiveness of the profiles of consumption in London, Colchester and Verulamium and how different these are from those settlements, such as Chichester and Silchester, which show a more linear development from pre-conquest patterns of consumption.

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Other than building materials, pottery makes up the largest single category of material culture from urban sites, but publications of quantified assemblages from excavations undertaken since 1990, where there has been sufficient consistency in the methodologies applied to the pottery to support comparative research, are still few in number. Even in London, where there has been the greatest number of publications of work undertaken since 1990, the level at which comparisons of quantified assemblages can be made between sites and between the work of different organisations is at the common denominator where only the wares (i.e. groups of fabrics, e.g. amphorae, imported fine wares, oxidised wares, etc.) are quantified and tabulated (as in Hill and Rowsome 2011). In his study of the end of Roman London, Gerrard (2011) only noted where the latest pottery fabrics were present. Consistency in reporting standards, adopting a national approach as advocated for pottery fabrics by Tomber and Dore (1998), is still urgently needed. Perring and Pitts set out the problems that they encountered in attempting a regional synthesis for part of South-East England, but including Colchester and London (2013, 13–22, 93–135). Where individual pottery wares are concerned, the most significant advances which bear on the major towns relate to the study of samian. Willis has undertaken major, province-wide studies of the samian from British sites, with a particular focus on the interpretation of the differential representation of fabrics, forms and decorated vessels across different categories of settlement including the major towns (Willis 1998; 2005; 2011). In parallel the publication of the Gallo-Roman samian potters’ stamps, Names on Terra Sigillata, from across the Roman Empire (Hartley and Dickinson 2008–12) has also facilitated new and far-reaching interpretative studies, including of its representation in the larger towns of Roman Britain (e.g. Mees 2011; Dannell and Mees 2013). In this context London appears pre-dominant in Britain as a point of deposition (cf. Fulford 2013, 4–5; Dannell and Mees 2013, 183). Other studies have addressed the question of the relationship between town and country and the extent to which towns acted as markets. A major analysis of material culture assemblages from a range of rural and urban sites in the hinterland of London and Colchester once again highlights the degree of difference between these two urban communities and the settlements of their hinterland and questions whether they had a significant market function in the early Roman period (Perring and Pitts 2013). While this question had previously been raised in relation to Wroxeter and its relations with its rural hinterland (Gaffney et al. 2007), analysis by Timby (2012) of pottery assemblages published from mostly post-1990 rural investigations in the hinterland of Silchester came to a similar conclusion that this major town did not play a significant role as a regional market centre, particularly in the early Roman period. To conclude, in compensation for the general lack of publication of individual urban sites since 1990, finds research has taken a more synthetic approach, often on a province-wide basis and drawing on both pre- and post-1990 material, the latter often in advance of site publication, to identify patterns of urban consumption very distinct from those of the countryside, with London benefiting most from detailed intramural analyses. Structured deposition Since 1990 more attention has been given to the composition of assemblages of finds, both material and biological, particularly from pits, wells and ditches, but also from the foundations of buildings. While researchers warn of the difficulties of distinguishing between the deposition of rubbish qua rubbish and materials which appear to have been deliberately placed as some kind of votive deposit (Maltby 2010, 297–304, and above, pp. 79, 188; Eckardt 2006), there is a growing record of the incidence of these, now often described generically as ‘structured deposits’. Such deposits have a very variable character, often taking the form of the burial of articulated animal remains, either as complete or partial skeletons, on their own or in combination with whole pots, often pierced in the belly or, in the case of flagons, with the necks deliberately removed. Before it was appreciated how widespread these practices were, both in urban and rural contexts (cf. Fulford 2001), there was possible over-interpretation of their significance. For example, at Greyhound Yard, Dorchester (intramural), such deposits have been related to the foundation of

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the town, while at Verulamium they have been considered to be part of ritual associated with a suburban temple, and at Swan Street, Southwark (suburb), they have been regarded as votives relating to the crossing of the Thames and contributing to a wider canvas of ritual and ceremony in London (Fulford, above, p. 75; Holbrook, above, p. 101; Perring, above, p. 26). By contrast, similar deposits in suburban Winchester (Fulford, above, p. 79) have not been imbued with any particular significance. In conclusion, possible interpretations of individual ‘structured deposits’ need to be considered in the light of similar and widespread depositional behaviour across the province. METHODOLOGIES IN THE FIELD While the deployment of sampling strategies for the recovery of macrobotanical and microfaunal remains has become well established, even before PPG 16, though, as van der Veen et al. have argued (2007, 193–202), with a decline in quality of practice, other methodologies of potential value for reconstructing urban environments have been applied more sparingly. We have become familiar with the application of micromorphology to the study of late and postRoman dark earths, but opportunities to use this technique, potentially in combination with geochemical analysis of the soils, to understand other deposits have not been realised as fully as they might have been. Thus there is the possibility of analysing building interiors as well as external surfaces where suitable deposits survive to help identify use of space. At Silchester, in a research context, a combination of micromorphological and geochemical analyses has been applied to a variety of deposits, including hearths and hearth surrounds, shedding valuable light on the differential use of internal space. Thus, on the one hand, a building has been identified which was used for the stabling of herbivores, on the other, concentrations of metal residues have indicated the presence of non-ferrous metalworking at different periods, including its association with particular hearths. These approaches have been particularly helpful in the context of the interpretation of the use of timber buildings with clay and earthen floors (Banerjea 2011; Cook 2011; Cook et al. 2005; 2010). Although the identification of the presence of pig slurry has been noted in the forthcoming publication of the Vine Street, Leicester, excavation (Bidwell, above p. 127), the potential of a more widespread application of the technique in combination with geochemical analysis, particularly in the early Roman period when earthen-floored, timber building predominates, has yet to be realised. Lack of facilities for either short- or long-term storage has led to differential treatment of finds from urban excavations. Even if the residues are retained for sorting in post-excavation, the flotation and wet-sieving of soil samples routinely takes place on site as the excavation proceeds and few soil samples are curated beyond the excavation itself. Urban excavations also frequently produce large assemblages of ceramic and stone building materials for which there is no prospect of either short-term storage with the organisation undertaking the fieldwork or longer-term curation in museums. Although disposal on site following a selection of individual specimens exhibiting evidence of working or deemed to be of intrinsic interest, but without systematic study of the entire excavated or stratified assemblage, remains common practice, there is much information to be gained from systematic on-site recording with a quantitative approach prior to disposal and retention of selected specimens. Ian Betts’ research on ceramic building materials from London has shed important new light on the development of the industry and the provenance of materials (e.g. Betts 1995; Betts and Foot 1994), while Peter Warry, in research undertaken at Silchester, where building materials have been disposed of after on-site recording, has demonstrated how much valuable information can be gained both on the character of the tile industry supplying the town, but also on the roofing structures of individual buildings (2011; 2012). At the same time and drawing on his geological expertise Kevin Hayward has been available to identify, quantify and sub-sample unworked stone for further research before on-site disposal and to incorporate the field data into subsequent publication (2007; 2011).

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IN POST-EXCAVATION Whereas prior to 1990 there had been a tendency towards developing thematic publication programmes of urban archaeology, particularly in London and York, and exemplified here by the recent publications of Winchester’s archaeology by Winchester Museums (above, p. 77), the nature of commercial archaeology has seen a welcome return to the publication of both structures and their associated assemblages of material culture and biological remains from individual excavations. The treatment of the finds does, however, vary between different projects. For example, as noted above, the systematic sampling for botanical and faunal remains has become commonplace in field archaeology, the sorting of residues from wet-sieving for other microscopic remains, such as of iron-working, is not routinely embedded in practice. In the case of Causeway Lane, Leicester, the focus of the sampling of the 1980 and 1991 excavations was clearly on the environmental evidence (Connor and Buckley 1999), whereas the reporting of the more recent (2002–7) Winchester Northgate and Discovery Centre excavations clearly demonstrates that wet-sieved residues were checked for magnetics, producing hammerscale and other microscopic residues typical of iron-smithing (Ford and Teague 2011). On the other hand, it is not clear from the Head Street, Colchester excavation of 2000 (Brooks 2004), whether the lack of iron-smithing residues is because they were absent from the residues of flotation and wet-sieving or whether the latter had not in fact been checked for magnetics (Fulford, above p. 68). No significance can be attached to the potential presence or absence of particular activities, such as iron-smithing, in urban contexts, unless there is a clear statement on the application of techniques (or not) to recover the appropriate evidence. Extracting maximum value from urban deposits led in the 1970s and 1980s to the development of high levels of expertise in certain areas, notably in the study of botanical, entomological and faunal remains, but also, through the petrological work of Peacock and Williams at Southampton University, the characterisation of pottery fabrics and the provenancing of stone artefacts and building materials (Peacock 1998). High quality research has continued in some, but not all areas since 1990 and there are clear issues regarding the availability of appropriate expertise in several research areas, such as micromorphology, as we have noted above. Allen (2013, 191– 2) regrets the lack of a critical scientific approach to the study of stone with an over-reliance on hand-lens inspection and the same also applies to the study of the macroscopic evidence for iron-working, where it has become customary to associate ‘furnace bottoms’ or ‘hearth bottoms’ with iron-forging rather than iron-smelting. However, analysis of such evidence from Silchester by chemical and microscopic analysis has demonstrated that such ‘furnace bottoms’ derived from iron-smelting and not smithing and that the tradition of using either simple bowl furnaces or a shaft furnace with a depressed, slag-trapping floor could be traced throughout the life of the town from the late Iron Age to the late or sub-Roman period (Allen 2012). As he observed in his conclusion, reporting of the slags, characterised by inspection in the hand, from other Roman towns would suggest that iron-smelting was much more widespread than has previously been thought (ibid., 101). Even if the evidence does not suggest a high volume of smelting, in comparison with, for example, producers in the major rural centres of ironmaking, determining the extent of its presence and absence in urban contexts is clearly vital in the overall characterisation of metalworking in the towns of Roman Britain. The fact that iron-smelting was taking place at all in towns also says a great deal about the nature of the supply of billet iron to the towns. We have seen in the case of Lankhills, Winchester (Pearce, above, p. 156) that the relatively costly analysis of stable isotopes has become part of the suite of post-excavation methodologies applied to human remains in the publication of a major late Roman cemetery, but such approaches have yet to be applied as part of the publication process of individual settlement sites in respect of faunal remains. While it may be argued that stable isotope analysis is more appropriately applied in the context of regional or national research strategies, and should not be the concern of individual projects, there are serious emerging issues relating to the long-term preservation of ‘bulk finds’, such as human and animal remains, which need to be taken into consideration. The provenancing of the meat supply of a Roman town, perhaps especially of

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cattle, whose butchery and disposal of remains differs from that of other animals, is, as we have seen (Maltby, above, p. 188), a major research question. If faunal collections are in danger of not being permanently archived, then there is a pressing case for research, such as stable isotope analysis, to be undertaken prior to disposal. Selection of key deposits for long-term curation for research purposes would be much more preferable. National and international research, such as the current AHRC-funded project on the chicken (www.chickenco-op.net), will be seriously undermined if well-excavated faunal assemblages are not guaranteed the long-term preservation which will enable further research beyond what is currently regarded as routine in the level of reporting for publication. CHRONOLOGY Establishing urban chronologies continues to rely heavily on the evidence of coins and certain types of artefact with relatively closely dated typologies, such as samian and brooches. Through the groundwork of the research undertaken in regional centres and funded and overseen by the Ancient Monuments Laboratory in the 1970s and 1980s, dendrochronology has also become an established dating technique which has had major impact on our knowledge and understanding of the development of towns where waterlogged deposits are frequently encountered, such as Carlisle and London (cf. Tyers 2008). Other scientific approaches such as archaeomagnetic and radiocarbon dating have also been applied to a limited extent and with variable success. Yet, particularly in the case of radiocarbon dating there remains a great potential for a much more routine deployment in urban archaeology. Traditional reliance on dating dependent on material culture tends to fail us over questions of beginnings and endings or continuity (or not) from the late Iron Age into Roman and Roman into the early medieval period and it is in these contexts that radiocarbon dating has the potential to be the most useful. We have seen (above, p. 73) that a more strategic application of C14 dating might have shed more light on the Iron Age to Roman and Roman to medieval transitions at Winchester. Although we have become accustomed to micromorphological analyses of late and post-Roman dark earths, the selection of suitable material for radiocarbon dating from these deposits is the exception where it should, wherever possible, be the rule. Equally, in the case of urban cemeteries and human remains without evidence of independent dating, which is generally the case with late Roman inhumation burial, serious consideration should be given to more generous programmes of radiocarbon dating. It is only through the accumulation of numerous dates from individual towns and the application to them of Bayesian statistics that we will be able to understand better these periods of transition or abandonment. VISUALISATION Whereas illustrations to visualise buildings and urban environments tended to be confined to popular accounts of Roman Britain, including guidebooks to individual monuments, before the 1990s, with a gradual increase in the use of colour from the 1980s onwards, there was a tradition of publishing architectural reconstruction drawings of individual buildings, such as Janet Frere’s work on the buildings of Verulamium (Frere 1972; 1983) and David Neal’s reconstructions of the Gorhambury buildings on the outskirts of Verulamium (Neal et al. 1990). Justification of such reconstructions is generally lacking and the input of professional architects, such as Sheila Gibson on the temple of Sulis Minerva in Bath (in Cunliffe and Davenport 1985) and Nigel Sunter on reconstructions of the amphitheatre and forum basilica at Silchester (1989; 2000), has been invaluable. Since the late 1990s, however, it has become common practice to include at least one illustration in colour to help visualise a particular building, urban neighbourhood, or a particular event such as a burial, in almost every archaeological monograph. The introduction of PPS 5 in 2010, followed by the National Planning Policy Framework in 2012, has provided further stimulus to the presentation of visual interpretations of the results of archaeological excavations for a wider, general interest audience, as well as the specialist and academic readership. There is little doubt as to the difficulty of making these representations, given that so much of our urban

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past has been reduced to foundations, robber trenches, rubbish pits, etc., with so much of the infrastructure and character of buildings to be inferred from the size and depth of foundations and associated building materials, with occasional reference to surviving standing remains in Britain and other Western provinces. However, at the same time, since 1990 there has been little justification of the basis for particular representations of buildings and the associated urban environment and a more critical and reflective approach needs to be encouraged (cf. Mathews 2011; Morris et al. 2011). A dialogue between architect, environmental scientist and excavator can often be very helpful, if not fundamental, in the development of interpretations of individual structures and their urban environments. PUBLICATION It is evident from comments from all the contributors to this volume that publication, or the lack of it, has remained a serious problem for Roman urban archaeology since 1990. Some towns, where major work has taken place, such as Exeter, have seen no publication of that work since the 1980s. Taking a selective approach in this survey, authors have tried to identify outstanding reports of what they regard as important sites for the potential contribution they have to make to the knowledge and understanding of particular towns and which, on the face of it, deserve publication. These are formidable and challenging lists, which are by no means exhaustive. Nor do they diminish in any way the need to bring to publication major urban sites from rescue excavations conducted before 1990, and particularly numerous from the 1960s onwards. Nonpublication stems from a variety of reasons, such as lack of resourcing, poor estimation of post-excavation requirements, poor management of available resources and lack of continuity from the fieldwork stage of staff with personal knowledge of, and commitment to the project in question. The complexity of bringing urban excavations to publication is evidenced by the time it takes to complete the task and, as we have seen in this survey, it is very rare for a substantial excavation to be published within a period of five years following on completion of the fieldwork. The majority of investigations undertaken since 1990 have been published between five and ten years following the fieldwork. If an investigation has not been published within about ten years of its execution in the field, it follows that it is unlikely that publication will ever follow. Thus the chances of work undertaken between 1990 and the early 2000s, and not yet published, of ever being published are slight and receding without further resources being found for them. In a rapidly developing digital age it is remarkable that there is virtually no digital publication, a lacuna which is much regretted by Pearce in his survey of urban burial and is holding back research (above, Ch. 8). He asserts that, without digital publication of the skeletal data from urban cemeteries, it is extremely difficult to develop synthetic approaches. With the notable exception of the on-line publication of reports relevant to the theme of this volume as pdfs by the Colchester Archaeological Trust, traditional publication in book or journal article form remains the norm, sometimes supplemented by publication of specialist archives as pdfs through the Archaeology Data Service (ADS) at the University of York. A model for the digital publication of an urban excavation in Britain, which links the analysis of the site and its finds with the primary archive of context records, single context plans and finds records, is available and could be developed further (Clarke et al. 2007). However, it relies on the embedding of a digital approach from the very start of the fieldwork itself (cf. Fulford et al. 2010). With increasing confidence in digital methodologies, this offers the most promising way forward for the publication of urban archaeology and the provision of the digital resource to facilitate the kind of comparative research that Pearce demands. There are serious obstacles in the way of taking digital publication forward. The fragmentary approach inherent in commercial archaeology since 1990 has led to a variety of organisations undertaking work in the same town with different recording systems and different approaches to post-excavation methodologies. Curators do not insist on the application of digital methodologies, which could lead to a consistency of approach towards all the investigations in the towns for whose HER they are responsible. Ideally, and to facilitate comparative research, there should be a consistency of approach towards all investigations in all our towns. At the same time individual

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commercial organisations have developed their own digital strategies with little commonality between them, but two organisations whose work has historically been concentrated in the eponymous cities, Canterbury and York, share the same system, the Integrated Archaeological Database (IADB), developed by Rains at the York Archaeological Trust, which also supports the Silchester Town Life Project. Curators need urgently to agree on systems which satisfy their requirements and then require compliance from contractors. Millions of pounds have been expended on archaeological interventions for which, in the current environment, there is little or no likelihood of them ever being published. Such reporting of work undertaken since 1990 that has been published is of variable quality and the lack of digital publication makes it much harder to investigate underpinning data and undertake comparative research. The longer the delay between the investigation in the field and its publication, the less likely that it will ever appear, without the deployment of further resources and such resources have yet to be identified in each and every case. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that inadequate resourcing, perhaps combined with other factors such as weak enforcement by the city archaeologist, a lack of expertise in the units and imperfect project management, is the fundamental explanation for the poor rate and variable quality of publication. This review has highlighted a number of areas where improvements can be made, all of which require additional resource both in the fieldwork stage and in post-excavation and publication. If there are already inherent problems in the resourcing of the execution and publication of urban excavations, this contribution, in seeking to raise standards further, can only exacerbate the matter in the sense that yet further investment of resources is required. Yet techniques and ideas continually develop and this can be seen in comparing projects published in the 1990s with those of the 2000s. It is therefore incumbent on us to endeavour to apply the best approaches available at the time of implementation of a project, rather than work to a quality benchmark of, for the sake of argument, 1990, 2000, 2010 or 2015. Although part of the answer may lie with a greater selectivity of sites in which to make the greatest investment of resources, making use of the ever-improving quality of remote-sensing techniques such as ground-penetrating radar in deeply-stratified urban contexts, this will not address the challenge of the particular, selected site which is seen to merit very expensive investigation, post-excavation research and publication with costs beyond what might be deemed to be reasonable by the developer. Can a point be defined where part of the cost of a development-led project might reasonably be seen to be in the wider public good and a legitimate call on scarce public resources in order to achieve the best results (as was the case with the English Heritage contribution to scientific dating associated with the Winchester Northgate House project)? In fact, if more of the unpublished work from the towns is to be brought to publication, it will require expenditure of public resources, whether through English Heritage (Historic England), the Research Councils, particularly AHRC, or the HLF. There is also an opportunity for greater collaboration and partnership with Universities following the model set by the Collaborative Doctoral Awards scheme (CDA) established by AHRC which has seen important contributions, especially, in this context, in relation to the study of Roman material culture. With Universities required to demonstrate the impact of their research through the Research Excellence Framework (REF), there is an opportunity to deepen partnerships through collaborations at all levels from doctoral, through post-doctoral to established academic positions. The Oxford Archaeology publications of recent work in Winchester (The Late Roman Cemetery at Lankhills,Winchester (Booth et al. 2010) and Winchester – City in the Making (Ford and Teague 2011)) demonstrate that high standards can be achieved, but, presumably, with a corresponding investment of resources. Interestingly, in both cases the developer was a public authority, Hampshire County Council. While we do not know the particularities which lay behind these success stories, they do suggest that the development of guidance, drawing on good exemplars and on best practice across all the specialisms embraced by urban archaeology, would be helpful to curators and practitioners to raise standards of archaeological fieldwork and publication across Britain’s historic cities and towns. While there have undoubtedly been very substantial gains in our knowledge of the major towns of Roman Britain since 1990, much remains to be done. In the first place the grey literature from

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these towns should be reviewed to establish what should be published, and in what form, and what needs to be done (and at what cost) to those reports to make this happen. Priority should be given to those sites where further research and publication will make a clear and substantive difference to knowledge. Second, a thorough review needs to be made of the condition of the archive and its potential contribution to knowledge of those excavations for which no grey literature report exists and an assessment made of what would be required to bring examples of this category of site to publication. Such a project would embrace both pre- and post-1990 investigations and establish clear priorities for further work. Third, an assessment needs to be made of the smaller towns, not considered here or in the current English Heritage and Leverhulme-funded project on the Rural Settlement of Roman England. This should begin with a review of the published information to parallel this investigation of the larger towns, followed by an assessment of the grey literature and a review of the potential of other unpublished sites in this category. The three recommendations outlined above concern the past, but we also need to look to the future. The development of guidance of good practice in the field and in post-excavation needs urgently to be established in parallel with the development of partnerships which will broaden the resource base and underpin the quest for excellence in urban archaeology. To conclude, there have been outstanding advances in our knowledge of the major Roman towns since 1990, but there remain issues around the quality of work at both the stages of excavation and post-excavation. Non-publication, already a major problem before 1990, remains pervasive and persistent. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I am grateful to Neil Holbrook for his thoughtful comments on this paper.

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index Agricola, 30 ala Augusta Vocontiorum, 128 Alcester, Warks., 168 Alchester, Oxon., 75, 171 Aldborough, N Yorks., 1, 2, 4, 117, 140 Allectus, 35, 36 amphitheatres Caerleon, 2 Chester, 14, 119 Leicester, 118 Lincoln, 118 London, 26, 29, 30, 31, 34, 37, 185, 198 Ancient Monuments Laboratory, 169, 176 aqueducts, 72, 120, 125, 132, 197 Archaeobotany Computer Database, 172 Archaeological Investigations Project (AIP), 3, 4, 5, 16, 139 Archaeological Priority Areas, 14 Archaeology Data Service see University of York archives, 9, 10, 14, 17, 55–6, 188, 203, 208 Areas of Archaeological Importance (AAIs), 14–15 army units, 44, 47, 128, 197 Article 4 Directions, 14 Associated Bone Groups (ABGs), 188 Atkin, Malcolm, 95–6 Avenches, Switzerland, 129 Baebius Crescens, 52 Bagendon, Glos., 92, 93 barracks, 48, 49 barrows, 141, 148 basilica Lincoln, 125 London, 28, 36, 37, 198 York, 47 bastions, 35, 36 Batavian revolt, 98 Bath, Somerset environmental analyses, 107, 175 interventions, 4 structures, 92, 94–5, 100, 103, 104–5, 107, 110 baths Bath, 100, 110 Canterbury, 83 Carlisle, 124 Chester, 8, 119, 125, 129 Exeter, 2

Leicester, 118, 127 London, 9, 28, 30, 32, 35, 197, 198, 199 York, 47 beads glass, 25, 53 jet, 53 Beauvais, France, 199 belt sets, 150, 153, 199 Betts, Ian, 203 Bidwell, Paul, 5, 68, 95, 99, 197 article by, 117–37 biomolecular analysis, 139, 146, 152, 157 bird bones, 186–7 Blick, Nathan, 5 bone-working, 69, 75, 78, 127, 128, 181 Boudican revolt, 26, 27, 61, 68, 98 bowl, mosaic glass, 138 bracelet, 53 Brancaster, Norfolk, 128 Braughing, Herts., 184 breast-feeding, 201 Britannia fieldwork reports, 4, 20, 60, 139, 140 Britannia Inferior, 44 bronze objects, 53 brooches, 68, 147, 150, 151, 153, 199, 201, 205 Brough-on-Humber, E Yorks. environmental analyses, 175 interventions, 4, 140 structures, 117, 118, 121, 122, 123 Brough-on-Noe, Derbys., 128 Brough-under-Stainmore, Cumbria, 128 Bryant, Stewart, and Thomas, Roger M., article by, 7–19 buildings masonry Bath, 103, 110 Cirencester, 104, 111 Colchester, 73–4, 85 Dorchester, 101, 102, 109, 197 Exeter, 102–3, 109 Gloucester, 104 Leicester, 126–8, 130, 133, 107 Lincoln, 119, 125, 134 London, 24, 25, 28, 32, 33, 34, 35, 198–9 Winchester, 69–72, 197 York, 47, 48, 50, 51 timber Bath, 94, 103, 110 Canterbury, 83

Chichester, 69, 84 Colchester, 73, 85 Dorchester, 101, 102, 103 Exeter, 96, 110 Gloucester, 104 Leicester, 123, 125, 126, 133 Lincoln, 134 London, 23, 30, 32 Silchester, 203 Winchester, 69, 72 York, 47, 48, 51 buildings listings, 14 burial characteristics children, 138, 150, 151 crouched, 146, 150 grave orientation, 143 health, 152, 155–6 infants, 154, 201 pits, 143, 145, 149, 150, 154, 199 prone, 148 stature, 152 women, 150 busta, 141, 146, 147, 151 butchery, 176, 181, 200 Buxton, Kath, 5 Caerleon, Newport, 2, 138 Caerwent, Monmouth, 2, 105, 182, 184, 186, 187, 194 Caesaromagus see Chelmsford Caistor-by-Norwich, Norfolk, 1, 2, 4, 117, 140 Caius Albucius, 25 Camulodunum see Colchester Canterbury, Kent environmental analyses, 175, 183 interventions, 4, 67, 139, 140 planning, 8, 14 structures, 59, 60, 68–9, 75–7, 83–4, 143, 148, 149, 158, 159 Caracalla, 44 Carausius, 36 Carlisle, Cumbria environmental analyses, 175–6, 182, 183, 186, 187 interventions, 4, 140 structures, 119, 121, 122–5, 129–130, 196 Carmarthen, Carm., 2, 105 cathedral, 37 cemeteries, 201, 205, 206 Bath, 104–5 Brough-on-Humber, 123 Caerleon, 2 Canterbury, 76–7, 83, 84, 143, 158, 159

INDEX cemeteries (cont.) Carlisle, 122–3, 143, 158 Chester, 123 Chichester, 66 Cirencester, 104, 143, 144, 151, 158, 159 Colchester, 73, 74, 85, 141, 142, 143, 148, 155, 158, 159, 199 Dorchester, 104, 109, 155, 159 Exeter, 105, 159 Gloucester, 96, 104, 105, 111, 143, 145, 155, 158, 187, 199 Ilchester, 104 Leicester, 122, 133, 143, 155, 158, 160 Lincoln, 121, 123, 160 London, 25, 28, 32, 37, 38, 155, 158–60, 170, 178, 187, 198 St Albans, 143, 155, 159 Stanway, 60–1 Winchester, 17, 77–9, 80, 84, 143, 155, 159, 160, 187, 199, 201 York, 44, 48, 52–53, 140, 155, 159, 179, 187, 197–8, 199 see also cremations; inhumations cenotaphs, 146 ceramic object, 138 Champagne, France, 80 Chelmsford, Essex, 1, 59 Chester, Cheshire environmental analyses, 176 interventions, 4, 5 planning, 12, 13, 14, 130–1 structures, 117, 118, 119, 123, 125, 128, 129, 138 Chester Archaeological Plan, 130–1 Chichester,W Sussex environmental analyses, 176, 181, 182 interventions, 4, 140 structures, 59, 60, 64, 66, 67, 69, 77 Chichester Entrenchments, 64, 66, 195 Christianity, 37, 38, 54, 145, 150, 157, 198 circus, 12, 16, 73, 74–5, 81, 82, 143, 148, 198 Cirencester, Glos. environmental analyses, 176, 181, 182 interventions, 4, 5, 140 planning, 12, 17, 91 structures, 92, 93, 95, 100, 103, 104, 106, 107, 138 Classicianus, 25 Claudius, 23 Clodius Albinus, 33 coffins lead, 105 stone, 53, 148 wood, 133, 147 cohors I Aquitanorum, 128 coins, 143, 205 Bath, 92, 110 Canterbury, 84 Carlisle, 129, 196 Dorchester, 103 Exeter, 99 Gloucester, 95, 150

Leicester, 117, 128 London, 39, 201 Colchester, Essex character, 68, 195, 198, 201 environmental analyses, 168, 169, 176, 182, 183, 184, 185 interventions, 4, 5, 12, 139, 140 structures, 60–2, 66, 67, 73–5, 80, 81, 82, 85, 138 see also Sheepen; Stanway Colchester Archaeological Trust, 60, 68, 73, 206 Collaborative Doctoral Awards, 207 colonnades, 125, 196 Conservation Areas, 14 Conservation Policies for York: Archaeology, 45 Constantine, 44 Constantius I, 44 consumption, 21, 23, 25, 39, 68, 171, 184, 187, 201, 202 Context One Archaeological Services, 103 Cooper, Nick, 126 copper-alloy working, 128 Corbridge, Northumb., 1, 117, 129 corn-driers, 104, 118, 134 cornelian object, 54 Cotswold Archaeology, 5, 17 craft working, 181 Chichester, 69 Leicester, 127, 128 London, 28, 31, 197, 201 St Albans, 75 Winchester, 72, 78, 200 cremations, 146, 147 Canterbury, 121 Carlisle, 123, 132 Chichester, 66, 77, 121 Cirencester, 111, 143, 144, 147 Colchester, 60–1, 73, 74, 85, 121, 141, 142, 147, 199 Exeter, 99 Gloucester, 96, 111, 145, 147, 150 Leicester, 121 Lincoln, 120, 125 London, 28, 147 Winchester, 77, 78 York, 48, 52, 121 Cromack, Tim, 5 crop-processing, 172, 200 Crummy, Nina, 201 ‘dark earth’, 203, 205 Bath, 103 Cirencester, 103 London, 32 Winchester, 72, 73, 80 York, 54 Darvill, Timothy, 5 dating, scientific archaeomagnetic, 103, 107, 205 dendrochronology, 20, 38, 92, 129, 196, 197, 205 radiocarbon, 49, 53, 72–3, 81–2, 92–3, 103, 121, 143, 205 decapitation, 148 London, 31–2, 38, 197, 199 York, 52, 199

213 defences Carlisle, 123, 124 Leicester, 123, 125, 132 Lincoln, 125 London, 29, 33–4, 35, 36, 37 demography, 138, 139 databases, 140, 142 see also population Department of the Environment, 8, 167, 168 DNA see genetic analysis Dorchester, Dorset environmental analyses, 177, 182, 183, 184, 186, 187, 188 interventions, 4, 140 structures, 90, 91, 92, 93–4, 100, 101–2, 103, 104, 106, 107 Dorchester, Oxon., 171 Dux Britanniarum, 44 English Heritage, 1, 3, 167, 168, 169, 172, 175, 207, 208 epigraphy, 128, 133, 197 epitaphs, 150–1 Esmonde Cleary, Simon, 118 excavation techniques, 194–5 executions, 52, 138, 148, 197 Exeter, Devon environmental analyses, 177, 181, 182, 184, 185, 187 interventions, 4, 5, 140 military buildings, 96–100, 109, 110, 129 structures, 25, 90, 91, 92–3, 102–3, 105, 106, 107, 196 Extensive Urban Surveys, 10, 17 faunal remains, 64, 68, 69, 78–80, 146–7, 175–88, 195, 200, 204 feasting, 143, 146, 147 fifth-century evidence, 53, 75, 103, 107, 171, 199, 201 figurines ceramic, 138, 151 metal, 201 fish bones, 187 Fishbourne, W Sussex, 64–6, 185, 195 fodder, 72, 172, 200 Folly Lane, Herts., 61–3, 75, 76, 80, 84, 143, 147, 178, 185, 195 food meat, 80, 179–87, 200, 204 plants, 167–73 foodways, 173 fora Cirencester, 100, 112 Lincoln, 125, 134 London, 16, 24, 25, 27, 28, 29, 30, 34, 35 fortresses Alchester, 171 Caerleon, 129 Chester, 117, 118, 119, 128–9 Colchester, 68, 80, 85 Exeter, 96, 97, 98, 100, 109, 110, 129 Gloucester, 96 Kingsholm, 95–6 York, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48–9, 100

214 forts Bath, 94–5 Carlisle, 124, 129, 132, 196 Cirencester, 100 Leicester, 128 Lincoln, 128 London, 21–3, 26–7, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 197 Newcastle, 129 Tiverton, 96 Topsham, 96, 196 Fortunata, 198 Frere, Janet, 205 Froste, Peter, 81 Fulford, Michael, articles by, 59–89, 194–211 Galens, 33 genetic analysis, 157, 188 geochemical analysis, 105, 203 Geographical Information Systems (GIS), 10, 17 geophysical survey, 2, 12 Gibson, Sheila, 205 glass objects, 25, 53, 138, 147, 150, 151, 152 glass-working London, 28, 31, 197, 201 Winchester, 78 Gloucester, Glos. environmental analyses, 177, 183 interventions, 4, 139, 140 structures, 90, 92, 93, 94, 95–6, 104, 105, 106, 107, 138 see also Kingsholm gold objects, 54 gold-working, 28 Gräberstrassen, 143 grain beetles see insect infestation grain, storage, 170, 172, 200 granaries, 47, 128, 168 grave goods, 146, 147, 150 Cirencester, 138, 151 Colchester, 61, 80, 138, 143, 150 London, 138 St Albans, 80, 143 Winchester, 77 grave markers, 148, 150 grey literature, 3, 4, 5, 16, 55, 107, 172, 188, 207–8 Gridley, Mark, 82 Grimes, W.F., 8 gypsum, 148 Hadrian, 30, 129 hairpins, 147 Haltern, Germany, 99 Hampshire County Council, 207 Hayward, Kevin, 203 hearths, 69, 72, 104, 107, 118, 119, 125, 132, 203, 204 Henig, Martin, 95 Hereford, Herefs., 14 Heritage Lottery Fund, 207 Historic Environment Records (HERs), 3, 10, 11, 15, 55, 130, 139, 206 hoards, 99, 103, 110, 129 hobnails, 147 Holbrook, Neil, 129, 196

THE TOWNS OF ROMAN BRITAIN articles by, 1–6, 90–116 Hunerberg, Germany, 100 Hurst, Henry, 93, 104 hypocausts, 168, 83, 102–3, 127 identity, 108, 128, 150, 151 Ilchester, Somerset, 1, 4, 90, 92, 104, 110, 177 illustrations, archaeological, 205 Imperium Galliarum, 35 Inchtuthil, Scotland, 100 industry, 102, 119, 204 Carlisle, 123, 130 Chester, 132 Chichester, 69 London, 24–6, 28, 30, 31, 33, 36,197, 201 Winchester, 72, 78, 80, 200 York, 52 inhumations, 147–9 Bath, 107, 110 Canterbury, 76, 83, 84 Cirencester, 104, 111, 143, 144, 151 Colchester, 60, 73, 74, 81, 85, 141, 146, 148 Dorchester, 109 Gloucester, 104, 105, 106, 107, 111, 145, 146, 150, 152, 199 Ilchester, 110 Leicester, 122, 148 Lincoln, 119, 120, 121 London, 32, 36, 38, 145, 146, 148, 199 Winchester, 77, 78, 79 York, 48, 52, 53, 56 see also burial characteristics inkwells, 25, 61, 201 insect infestation, 168, 170, 172, 200 intaglios, 54, 201 Integrated Archaeological Database, 207 Iron Age background, 59, 60–6, 92, 143, 184, 186, 187, 194, 195 Carlisle, 124 Dorchester, 101 Exeter, 92, 93 Gloucester, 93 Leicester, 117–18, 133 Silchester, 171 Southwark, 21 York, 48 iron-working, 72, 75, 118, 134, 200, 204 Irvine, James, 92 isotope analysis, 153, 156, 157, 184, 187, 188, 200, 201, 204, 205 Bath, 107 Dorchester, 107 Gloucester, 105, 107 Winchester, 77, 151 York, 53 ivory objects, 147 jet objects, 53, 54, 138, 150 kilns pottery Bath, 103 Canterbury, 75 Carlisle, 124, 132

Lincoln, 119, 134 London, 24, 25, 31, 33 York, 51 tile Bath, 110 Kingsholm, Glos., 93, 94, 95, 96, 111 lamps, 150 Lankhills, Hants. cemetery, 17, 77–9, 150, 151, 153, 155, 179, 199, 201 publication, 80, 82, 140, 204 latrines, 169, 200 lead objects coffin linings, 105, 148, 197 curse tablets, 128, 133, 197 ingots, 28 sealings, 128, 133, 197 lead-working, 119, 121, 123, 130, 132 leather objects, 92, 129 leather-working, 78, 200 Leicester, Leics. environmental analyses, 169, 177–8, 181, 182, 183, 184, 200, 203 interventions, 4, 5, 139, 140 origins, 117–18 structures, 118, 121–2, 123, 125–8, 130, 133–4, 150, 196, 197 Legions Third, 128 Sixth, 128, 197 Ninth, 44, 47 Twentieth, 128, 197 lighting equipment, 201 Lincoln, Lincs. environmental analyses, 170, 178, 181, 182, 185, 187 interventions, 4, 12, 130, 140 structures, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 123, 125–6, 128, 134–5 Lincoln Archaeological Research Assessment, 130, 201 London, Greater London amphitheatre, 26, 29, 30, 31, 34, 37, 185, 198 basilica, 28, 36, 37, 198 baths, 9, 28, 30, 32, 35, 197, 198, 199 bridge, 23, 30, 199 cemeteries, 25, 28, 32, 37, 38, 155, 158–60, 170, 178, 187, 198 Christianisation, 37–8, 198 chronology, 21–38, 196 cremations, 28, 147 defences, 29, 33–4, 35, 36, 37 environmental analyses, 32, 167, 169, 178, 180–1, 182, 183, 185, 186, 187 forts, 21–3, 26–7, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 197 forum, 16, 24, 25, 27, 28, 29, 30, 34, 35 industry, 24–6, 28, 30, 31, 33, 36, 197, 201 interventions, 4, 5, 139, 140

INDEX London, Greater London (cont.) macellum, 30 palaces, 27, 29, 30, 34, 38 planning issues, 8, 12, 13, 16 pottery, 25, 31, 33, 35, 37, 38, 196, 197, 201, 202 publication, 204 town buildings, 23, 24, 25, 28, 30, 32, 33, 34, 35, 198–9 urban character, 20–1, 148, 197, 198, 201 waterfront, 23, 27–8, 29, 30, 31, 33, 34, 35, 36 see also Southwark London Archaeological Archive Resource Centre (LAARC), 20, 39 Longthorpe, Cambs., 23, 96

nymphaeum, 34, 35, 68, 128

macella Chester, 129 Leicester, 125, 133, 196 London, 30 Maiden Castle, Dorset, 92 Maltby, Mark, 80, 107 article by, 175–93 malting, 72 mansiones Carlisle, 124 Chester, 119 Southwark, 27, 28, 29, 31, 34, 35, 199 markets, 129, 196, 202 Marktbreit, Germany, 99 marrow extraction, 69, 78, 181, 200 Mars Camulus, 33, 198, 199 mausolea, 53, 110, 111, 134, 149 Cirencester, 143, 144 Colchester, 142 London, 148, 149 McIntyre, Lauren, 53 metalworking, 28, 69, 72, 78, 80 methodologies, 194, 203–6 Millett, Martin, 21, 22, 92, 194 mills, 31, 32 mineralised plant remains, 169, 200 Montgomery, Janet, 53 moritix, 199 mosaics Cirencester, 8 Dorchester, 101 Lincoln, 134 Winchester, 72 York, 50 Museum of London Archaeology, 178

paedogogium, 128, 197 palaces, 25, 27, 29, 30, 34, 35, 38 Pearce, John, 104 article by, 138–66 Perring, Dominic, 197, 198 article by, 20–41 Petillius Cerialis, 28, 44, 196 petrology, 204 Pitts, Lynn, 5 Pitts, Martin, 68 plague, 33, 105, 138, 154, 198, 199 Planning Policy Guidance Note 16 (PPG 16) application, 39, 45, 60, 105, 108, 117, 138, 156, 167, 203 history and scope, 1, 7, 9–14, 15, 16, 17, 129 Planning Policy Statement 5 (PPS 5), 1, 7, 9, 13, 14, 15, 167, 205 Planning Practice Guidance, 10 plant remains, 68, 69, 77, 84, 167–73, 195, 200 ‘plaster burials’, 148 Plautius, 23 Poitiers, France, 38 population health, 152, 155–6, 201 mobility, 156, 201 mortality rates, 152 numbers, 25, 32 stature, 201 structure, 153–4 Postumus, 35 potters’ stamps, 202 pottery, 202, 204 Bath, 92, 95, 103 Brough-on-Humber, 132 Canterbury, 75 Carlisle, 132 Chester, 118 Chichester, 64, 66 Cirencester, 103, 147 Colchester, 61, 62, 68, 195, 196 Dorchester, 101 Exeter, 92–3, 98–9, 196 Fishbourne, 195 Gloucester, 95 Leicester, 118, 125 Lincoln, 119, 134 London, 25, 31, 33, 35, 37, 38, 196, 197, 201, 202

nails, 133, 147 National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), 1, 7, 9–10, 13–14, 15, 16, 17, 167, 172, 205 Nazeingbury, Essex, 184 Neal, David, 205 Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Tyne 1, 129 Nijmegen, Germany, 98, 100 Northern Archaeological Associates, 50 Notitia Dignitatum, 44 noxii, 148

‘object biographies’, 151 On Site Archaeology (OSA), 50 oppida, 59, 80, 194, 195 Chichester, 64, 66 Colchester, 64, 73, 80 Silchester, 171 Oppidum Batavorum, Nijmegen, 98, 100 osteology, 139, 146 age data, 150 gender data, 150, 155 Ostorius Scapula, 23, 196 Ottaway, Patrick, article by, 44–58 Owslebury, Hants., 184 Oxford Archaeology, 17, 81, 82, 107, 150

215 St Albans, 75 Stanway, 61, 62 Silchester, 202 Winchester, 66, 68, 72, 77 York, 48, 51, 54 see also samian Pre-Construct Archaeology, 64 Preservation of archaeological remains in situ (PARIS), 12, 13, 103, 105 Priscus, 129 Ptolemy, 21 publication categories cemeteries 140, 156, 157 excavations, 39, 55, 59, 66, 77, 80, 107, 131 faunal remains, 188 finds, 201, 202 issues, 8, 16–17, 194, 195, 197, 199, 204, 206–8 see also grey literature pyre debris, 141, 142, 146, 147, 170 quarries, 69, 76, 77, 83, 84, 118, 119, 126, 132, 146 quays, 27, 28, 33, 35, 197 radar, ground penetrating, 207 regalia, 143 RESCUE, 8 Research Excellence Framework, 207 rings, 54 ritual, 108, 138, 139, 140, 146–51, 157, 170, 188, 199 Chichester, 69 Colchester, 61, 143 Dorchester, 101 Folly Lane, 61–3, 143 London, 26, 31–2, 33, 35, 37, 38, 186 roads see streets Robinson, Mark, article by, 167–74 Rose Theatre, Southwark, 9 roundhouses, 25, 48, 60, 66, 92, 93, 96, 97, 121 Rural Settlement of Roman England, 208 Russell, Bronwen, 5 Sabinianus, 128 St Albans, Herts. character, 195, 198, 201 environmental analyses, 167, 178, 181, 185 interventions, 4, 140 structures, 61–3, 75, 80, 84, 146, 147, 194, 202 Urban Archaeological Database, 10, 11, 12 see also Folly Lane samian, 68, 95, 101, 147, 196, 201, 202, 205 scheduling, 7, 8, 9, 12, 13, 14 sculpture, 138, 148, 149, 204 Septimius Severus, 44 septizonium, 128, 197 Servandus, 128 shale object, 53

216 Sheepen, Essex, 60, 61, 68, 85 shrines Colchester, 74 Dorchester, 101 Leicester, 128, 197 London, 29, 30, 31, 34 St Albans, 143 Silchester, Hants. cemeteries, 140, 143 character, 194, 201, 202 environmental analyses, 167, 168, 169–70, 171, 182, 183, 184 research methods, 106, 203 Silchester Town Life Project, 207 Silvanus, 30 Skinner, Rob, 5 slaves, 128 Sloane, Barney, 5 smelting, 200, 204 smithing, 103, 128, 200, 204 soil micromorphology, 82, 103, 105, 127, 200, 203, 204, 205 South Shields, Tyne, 128 Southwark, Greater London cemeteries, 37, 143, 145, 146, 147, 160 environmental analyses, 178, 180, 181, 182, 183, 184, 187 interventions, 5 mansio, 27, 28, 29, 31, 34, 35, 199 origins, 21 palaces, 25, 27, 29, 30, 34, 35 structures, 25, 30, 33, 198, 199, 203 waterfront, 32, 35 species occurrence, 179–85, 195, 200 speculatores, 32 spurs, 150, 153 Stanway, Essex, 60, 61–3, 80, 81, 82, 85, 195 Stanwix, Cumbria, 129 stone object, 138, 148, 149, 204 streets Canterbury, 76 Carlisle, 129 Chichester, 69, 84 Colchester, 73 Dorchester, 101, 103, 109, 196 Exeter, 97, 103, 109 Leicester, 118, 125, 126, 127, 133 Lincoln, 134 London, 21, 22, 23, 25, 26, 28, 29, 30, 37 Southwark, 199 Winchester, 60, 69, 72 York, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 54 structured deposits, 79, 146, 148, 202–3 suburbs, 59, 73, 80, 106, 118, 119, 121 Bath, 103, 105, 110 Canterbury, 75–7

THE TOWNS OF ROMAN BRITAIN Chichester, 77 Cirencester, 104 Colchester, 73–5 Exeter, 96 Gloucester, 95, 104 Ilchester, 110 Leicester, 121, 122, 123, 128 Lincoln, 119, 134 London, 25, 26, 29, 30, 32, 33, 35, 38, 39, 198–9 St Albans, 75, 76 Winchester, 77–80 York, 44, 48, 56 Sunter, Nigel, 205 supply, 168, 171, 196, 197, 200, 201, 204–5 Exeter, 96, 97, 99, 100, 107 Leicester, 128 London, 26, 35 Sussex Archaeological Society, 64 tabernae, 28, 194, 199 Tacitus, 21, 194 temples, 149 Bath, 100, 103 Colchester, 74, 85 London, 8, 26, 29, 30, 31, 33, 34, 35, 198 St Albans, 11, 63, 75, 76, 84, 202 textiles, 147 Thomas, Roger M., see Bryant, Stewart Tiberinius Celerianus, 33 tiles, 203 Canterbury, 75, 83 Exeter, 99, 109 London, 24–5 Timby, Jane, 68, 202 Todd, Malcolm, 100 Togidubnus, 95 tombs, 74, 85, 120, 138, 143, 149 tombstones, 25, 32, 52, 96 towers, 35, 36, 37, 49, 69, 83, 133, 149, 198, 199 town origins, 21, 117–18, 194, 195 see also Iron Age background town walls, 33–4, 35, 36, 37 Tynehead, Scotland, 121 unguent bottles, 147, 150 University of Reading, 5, 107 University of York Archaeology Data Service, 16, 140, 206 Environmental Archaeology Unit, 168, 169 Urban Archaeological Assessment (UAA), 3, 10, 12 Urban Archaeological Database (UAD), 10, 12, 15, 17, 105, 130 Urban Archaeological Strategy (UAS), 10

urban character, 199–203 Verulamium see St Albans Vespasian, 28 villas, 7, 33, 97, 104, 110, 120, 121, 135, 154 Vindonissa, Switzerland, 129 violent deaths, 154 votive deposits, 202–3 Wacher, John, 5–6, 100, 123, 194 Waldgirmes, Germany, 23, 98 wall-plaster, 72 Warry, Peter, 203 waterfronts Lincoln, 125–6 London, 23, 27–8, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36 Southwark, 32, 35 waterlogged samples, 169, 170, 171, 172, 196, 198, 200 Water Newton, Cambs., 1, 138 water supplies Bath, 103 Carlisle, 125 Leicester, 125 Lincoln, 120, 125 London, 24, 28, 32, 35, 197 Winchester, 72 weaning, 201 weaponry, 143 weaving, 78 weaving tablets, 72 Webster, Graham, 194 wells, 28, 32, 69, 75, 78, 84, 85, 168, 188, 197 Wessex Archaeology, 73, 77, 101 Wild, John Peter, 5 wild mammal bones, 185–6 Winchester, Hants. environmental analyses, 178–9, 180, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 186, 187, 188 interventions, 4, 140 publication, 12, 204, 207 structures, 66, 67–8, 69–73, 77–8, 80, 81, 82, 84, 200 see also Lankhills Winchester City Museum Service, 68 writing-tablets, 32, 92, 129, 196, 198 Wroxeter, Shrops., 4, 102, 117, 140, 187, 194, 196, 202 York, York environmental analyses, 168, 171, 179, 181, 182, 183, 185, 187 interventions, 4, 5, 139, 140 publication, 204 structures, 44–58, 197 York Archaeological Trust (YAT), 45, 175, 207