Marcham/Frilford is a large religious site with a temple, an amphitheatre and a central shrine feature. Adjacent to the shrine is a large fourth-century structure containing a significant deposit of coins, hobnails and bones. The absence of diffusion of the tiles from the temple roof to the wider site suggests that it continued to function as a religious complex throughout the Roman period; therefore the large structure is unlikely to have been a building which would have blighted the shrine but was more probably an altar platform where rituals were performed in conjunction with it.

Craft debris and finished artefacts in Reading Museum's Silchester Collection are used alongside current understanding of Romano-British urban intensive carcass processing and object assemblages to re-assess the evidence for bone- and antler-working in the town over that period.

The structural relationships of the forts, Wall curtain and Vallum are reviewed and a revised sequence of construction for Hadrian's Wall is proposed. The original plan (Stage 1) incorporated much of the earlier Trajanic frontier (the Stanegate) and probably included the Devil's Causeway which ran north-eastwards from Corbridge. Forts were then added to the line of the Wall as a result of three modifications of the plan (Stages 2–4), continuing until late in Hadrian's reign. The Vallum was added in Stage 3. Hadrian probably conceived the original plan for the Wall, but the modifications that followed seem to have been consequences of shifting focuses of loyalty, resistance and outright warfare, beyond and behind the frontier.

In 2015, an unusual burial was uncovered during construction works at Great Casterton, Rutland. A male adult human skeleton, secured at the ankles with a pair of iron fetters and a padlock, was buried in a probable ditch. Iron hobnails were present around the feet of the individual. A radiocarbon date (AMS) from the burial produced a date of a.d. 226–427 with 95.4 per cent probability. This example appears to be the first definitive archaeologically excavated instance of an individual buried in this manner in Roman Britain. The character of the burial may imply that this was a slave, although other possibilities are also considered, as are the wider social and symbolic implications of the inclusion of shackles in a burial.

This paper is a detailed study of the language of the writing-tablets from Vindolanda reported on by Bowman et al. in this volume.

The village of Piercebridge in County Durham lies on the northern bank of the River Tees and on the route of the Roman Dere Street (FIGS 1 and 2). The village lies at c. 59 m aOD, sited on the river gravels of the Tees as it cuts through the surrounding Boulder clay. A Roman fort at Piercebridge has been known since at least Gibson's second edition of Camden's Britannia in 1722 and Roman Piercebridge is perhaps best known for the series of small excavations undertaken on that fort between 1934 and 1964. On this basis the fort could be identified as being essentially of later Roman date. Inhumation burials certainly or probably of Roman date have been recorded on a number of occasions.

The Cawthorn encampments in North Yorkshire (FIG. I) have found wide publication as ‘practice forts’ with attendant construction camps following their investigation by the late Sir Ian Richmond in the 1920s. The fundamental reason for his interpretation of Cawthorn as the site of military manoeuvres rather than as a normal fort site was its alleged unsuitability for permanent occupation coupled with apparently unfinished defences. However, it has recently been postulated that Camp D, the most regularly laid-out of the four, represents an auxiliary fort. This suggestion does not contravene the evidence; indeed, Camps A and B (the secondary enlargement of A) need no more be connected with manoeuvres than Camp D. One of the major objections to their being regular forts is based upon the presence of ballistaria. Richmond used these as proof that legionaries rather than auxiliaries were involved at Cawthorn; certainly, it seems that the auxilia were not equipped with artillery in the first and second centuries a.d., SO that artillery-platforms at this date should indicate the presence of legionaries. The conclusion that the encampments are not regular forts but practice-works is reinforced by the fact that none of the ballistaria is situated at a strongly defensive position. Thus, the application of Richmond's hypothesis to Camps A and B appears to be sound. Nevertheless, it represents the only evidence that the Romans ever built forts specifically for practice. Although practice camps are abundant both in the archaeological record and in the literary sources, nowhere are practice forts attested.

Recent excavation and coring of the collapsed east wall of the Saxon Shore fort of Richborough has revealed the manner in which the wall collapsed. This led to a re-evaluation of the original siting of the wall, which must have lain to the west of where it is usually depicted. Reassessment of previous excavations, including the examination of original records from the J.P. Bushe-Fox excavations of the 1920s and 1930s leads to the conclusion that the so-called ‘unfinished’ or ‘abandoned’ east wall foundation was in fact the base of the built east wall, from which the collapse derives. A revised fort plan based upon this conclusion is suggested. Supplementary material is available online (https://doi.org/10.1017/S0068113X20000379), and includes additional backing tables and illustrations referenced in the text.

During July and August 1990 several finds of Roman metalwork and other material were reported to the Milton Keynes Archaeology Unit by metal-detector-users searching on the line of the Fenny Stratford bypass, which was at that time being constructed to the south of Milton Keynes, close to the boundary of the scheduled area covering the site of the small Roman town of Magiovinium. Of particular note among these discoveries was the finding of three coarse-ware vessels containing quantities of copper-alloy coin blanks and pellets, and a pair of possible iron coin dies (PL. IA), reported to the Unit by the finder. After preliminary recording and some statistical analysis by Bob Zeepvat, samples of the coin blanks and pellets were chemically analysed by Matthew Ponting at the Institute of Archaeology, London, while conservation and cleaning of the dies, followed by chemical and physical tests, were undertaken by the Conservation and Scientific Research departments at the British Museum. This work was carried out by Janet Lang and Mike Cowell. The pottery was examined and reported on by Pauline Marney. The hoard remains the property of the landowners, Buckinghamshire County Council, and the initial stages of the watching-brief at Galley Lane were carried out by the Milton Keynes Unit on behalf of the Buckinghamshire County Museum.