It is not widely appreciated that the Roman presence in North-West Europe radically transformed a number of basic technological processes, marking a fundamental break in native traditions at a mundane level which must have profoundly affected people's everyday experience. Archaeologically, amongst the more eye-catching innovations are the changes in the methods of skin processing and the manufacture of footwear. It is becoming increasingly evident that, prior to the Roman conquest, the native peoples of North-West Europe were unfamiliar with the techniques of vegetable tanning. Skins were treated with oils and fats or by methods such as smoking, and they continued to be processed in these ways in regions beyond the Roman frontiers. Since none of these curing methods results in permanent and water-resistant leather, artefacts made of animal skin will only survive under exceptional environmental conditions, such as extreme dryness (e.g. in Egypt), salinity (e.g. in the salt mines of Hallstatt), or in peat bogs, where a sort of secondary, natural tanning process has taken place. In contrast, true tanning using vegetable extracts gives a chemically stable product, resistant to bacterial decay, which survives well in damp, anaerobic conditions. The Classical world appears to have been conversant with vegetable tanning from about the fourth century B.C., but where this knowledge originated and how it spread is as yet unclear. As a direct result of this technological innovation, leather goods first become fully visible in the archaeological record of North-West Europe from the start of the Roman occupation. Shoemaking is equally affected by Roman practices, with the appearance of a variety of distinctive footwear styles which are technologically and stylistically unrelated to earlier, native types. The most obvious introductions are hobnailed shoes and sandals, but even the single-piece shoes (carbatinae) which are technologically similar to pre-Roman native footwear are totally different in concept (FIG. 1, No. 10).

This paper provides an interim report on sixteen complete barrack plans obtained in the last fifteen years in excavations at the British northern frontier forts of South Shields and Wallsend (complemented by a pair of barracks partially excavated at Vindolanda in 1980 which have already been published). Its purpose is to disseminate more generally the fact that this newly obtained information changes our understanding of several aspects of the construction, function, and historical evolution of auxiliary barracks. It also tells us something more than we knew before about changes in the army as the institution that used the barracks, and of the life of the military communities that inhabited them. In some cases the buildings described here have already been fully published, or publication is imminent; in others, interim plans have been made available in disparate publications but it is likely to be a number of years before complete detailed excavation reports are issued.

‘The principal periods in the history of the monument were firmly fixed and the complicated relationship between its component parts was securely defined’. With these words Sir Ian Richmond in 1950 reviewed more than a decade's work on Hadrian's Wall. Ten years before he had written: ‘As the great scheme proceeded, modifications were introduced, some structural, of interest only in defining the order of progress, others amounting to a thorough revision of the design. The most important of the latter was the construction of forts on the Wall itself. His analysis of ‘the fort - decision’ remains unchallenged, but in his 1950 paper Richmond reported on details of the structure of the Wall: in particular those observed during the consolidation of Turret 26b and the relationship between the Narrow and Broad Walls. In conclusion he wrote: ‘Plainly these are minor puzzles beyond immediate solution here, important for those who would follow centuriae at work, yet not obscuring a vision of the main intention’.

The Roman fort of Carlisle was first discovered by the late Dorothy Charlesworth in 1973 at Annetwell Street. Excavation by her and after 1980 by the Carlisle Archaeological Unit located the southern defences of the primary fort and identified a sequence of Roman forts extending from AD. 72/3 down to the fourth century. In 1981–2 excavation at Castle Street produced a sequence of timber phases closely matching the fort stratigraphy, with military association in the finds assemblages, but lying outside the fort defences. The early phases were arguably part of a defended annexe or within a military vicus, though proof was lacking.

Regional and temporal patterns in brooch use in Britannia are studied, confirming and challenging ‘received wisdoms’ about ‘regionality’. The complexity of the ‘Fibula Event Horizon’ is brought into sharp focus; a similarly complex and unexplained ‘Fibula Abandonment Horizon’ is also clearly demonstrated. Conclusions are insensitive to assumptions about use-life. Detailed analysis for the family of trumpet brooches casts light on hitherto unappreciated features of ‘regionality’. Comparison with continental data suggests the British temporal patterns may be reflecting a wider north-western province pattern. Under-studied aspects of bias in metal-detected finds and their implications for studies of this kind are noted. The Supplementary Material available online (http://journals.cambridge.org/bri) contains tabular information on the data used in the study and additional analyses that support some of the assertions made in the main text.

In the summer of a.d. 122, Hadrian (a.d. 117–38) visited Britain as part of his first major journey. It is broadly accepted that the construction of Hadrian's Wall was inaugurated on this occasion. Following recent advances in Upper Germany where the limes palisade is now known to have been under construction when Hadrian visited the province, this paper re-examines the various strands of evidence for the early chronology of the Wall. It is argued that work started well before a.d. 122 and that it was in fact the ‘fort decision’ which resulted from the imperial visit. The revised sequence offers a fresh perspective on several classic Wall problems and prepares the ground for a new understanding of unique features like the milecastles and Vallum.

The Romano-British settlement at Woodcock Hall, Saham Toney, Norfolk (FIG. I) has been known since the mid-19th century when a local landowner, Thomas Barton of Threxton, donated some artefacts to the Castle Museum in Norwich. The site lies mainly in the parish of Saham Toney, but remains have been found in the adjoining parishes of Threxton and Little Cressingham. The site has not been identified with any place mentioned in the British section of the Antonine Itinerary, but Camboritum, the most likely site, is now thought to refer either to Hockwold-cum-Wilton or to Lackford, although the suggested translation of the name: ‘the ford at the bend of the river’ would suit the Woodcock Hall site well. The site has never been professionally excavated, either wholly or in part.

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

This paper studies rural populations in the Roman frontier province of Germania inferior, employing a perspective that allocates more space to the exploitative and repressive aspects of Roman rule. We draw attention to an alternative series of topics than the ones currently presented in rural archaeology. This includes attention to situations of crisis and instability, to fundamental reordering of rural populations, to issues of migration and to the interconnectivity of rural developments and imperial power structures. While these topics are usually considered as ‘historically given’, they are rarely the subject of serious archaeological research. This attempt at a more historicising approach does not mean a simple return to the traditional paradigm of historische Altertumskunde. Much better equipped than our predecessors of two or three generations ago, we archaeologists of the 21st century are able to engage in a critical and creative dialogue with historical sources and models.

In 367, the enemies of Roman Britain concerted their attacks in what our sole literary source, the contemporary historian Ammianus Marcellinus, calls a barbarica conspiratio. In the archaeology of Hadrian's Wall, this conventionally dates the end of Period III; Period IV begins with the subsequent restoration of the frontiers by Count Theodosius. Damage and reconstruction are archaeologically attested, but how far they were due to enemy action is open to question. This paper is limited to a reconsideration of the literary dating evidence.

The 79 rotary querns described here are part of the Silchester Collection housed in Reading Museum. These were retained during excavations at the Roman town carried out between 1890 and 1909 and published annually in Archaeologia by the Society of Antiquaries. Although eleven items are marked with what are thought to be the original markings of the excavators indicating the insula from which they came, most are unmarked. It is assumed that the unmarked querns in the store are from Silchester primarily because the Silchester Collection has always been stored separately from the rest of the archaeological collection in Reading Museum. Some of the querns from Silchester may be from the Joyce excavations in the town but material from other excavations, including those by Boon, Cotton, and Richmond, was boxed separately. The finds numbers used here are those allocated by the museum and where a finds number is referred to in the text, this should be prefixed with the museum code 1995.90. The 79 querns comprise 34 upper stones, 42 lower stones, and 3 unknowns.

The Roman period sees the introduction of many new plants and animals into Britain, with a profound impact on people's experience of their environment. Sweet chestnut is considered to be one such introduction, for which records of sweet chestnut wood and charcoal from archaeological excavations of Romano-British period contexts have been used as evidence. This paper reviews the records for sweet chestnut in Britain pre-a.d. 650, by critically evaluating original excavation reports and examining archived specimens. This review re-assesses the original identifications of sweet chestnut and/or their dating and concludes that most of the evidence that justified sweet chestnut's status as a Roman archaeophyte is untenable. The review emphasises the importance of securely identifying and directly dating plant material and of long-term curation by museums and archives. The Supplementary Material online (https://doi.org/10.1017/S0068113X19000011) contains details of all published records of finds of sweet chesnut.

Rivenhall lies 10 miles south-west of Colchester and a mile north of the main Roman road to London, in a sheltered valley adjacent to copious springs which feed a tributary stream of the river Blackwater (FIG. I). The subsoil geology is mainly boulder clay containing random gravel pockets; this is capped by brickearth in places. There are numerous prehistoric and Romano-British sites in the vicinity.

Historically dated pottery assemblages have been widely used in the establishment of ceramic chronologies, especially those currently used for samian ware.2 The methods employed in the construction of these chronologies have hitherto been comparatively unsophisticated and the results have rarely been subjected to critical scrutiny. Further, in most of the development and use of these chronologies it has been the presence of specific types (for instance stamps or decorated sherds) that has been considered significant rather than the overall composition of the assemblages. This is despite the fundamental assumption on which the chronologies are based, that assemblages deposited at or near the same time, within the same distribution network, will be similar in composition. This assumption has itself rarely been tested to establish the limits within which other factors determining pottery supply, use and deposition, may obscure these underlying chronological structures, and render them unreliable for the precise dating upon which Roman archaeologists rely.

The Roman town of Venta Icenorum lies adjacent to the church of Caistor St. Edmund some three miles south of Norwich, Norfolk, where the circuit of its defences still survives impressively though everything within them has been flattened by agriculture. The publication of a famous vertical air photograph (PL. I) taken by the R.A.F. in the dry summer of 1928 aroused great interest, and funds were collected for the excavation of the town. The direction was entrusted to Mr. (later Professor) Donald Atkinson. Work started in 1929 and continued every year with the exception of 1932 down to 1935. Publication, however, did not keep abreast with excavation. A fairly full account of the first season's work was indeed printed, and the pottery-kilns excavated in 1930 were fully published; finally a report appeared of the pottery and coins found in 1929–31. For the rest there are the brief annual reports in ‘Roman Britain in 1929–35’ (JRS xix–xxvi), and a short summary of results compiled by Professor C. F. C. Hawkes with Atkinson's collaborations and published in 1951.

During the course of discussions on the garrison of Inchtuthil with a pupil who is preparing the site for publication, it became clear that one of the site's most serious problems concerns the composition of the first cohort of the legion. The plan of the fortress shows the barracks of nine cohorts arranged with their centurion's quarters next to the via sagularis, each with six barracks per cohort. The position of the legion's first cohort, however, which is situated on the via principalis to the right of the principia, is occupied by a cohort of ‘double’ strength; the plan shows ten barrack-buildings (FIG. I), which are fronted by five courtyard houses such as would suit the five centurions of cohors i, and nearer the principia there is extra accommodation, apparently consisting of one and a half barrack blocks and a row of tabernae, which it is not the purpose of this paper to discuss. It is clear that, whatever function these barracks served, they differ from the main range of ten.