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.

This paper is an attempt to address some of the theoretical issues relating to the study of Roman treasure hoards from Britain. Some years ago the main problems were succinctly and helpfully outlined by Reece, but the study of treasures has remained unfashionable amongst those who have been interested in theoretical approaches, and in recent years few scholars of Roman Britain have devoted much thought to their classification and interpretation. Although many of the points raised below may appear obvious, it is clear that this subject requires more intensive debate, and an attempt to set out some basic parameters is overdue.

Focusing on late Roman bracelets, and also including other relevant material culture types, this paper brings together an examination of spatial distribution, distribution by site-type, and selected specific burial contexts to investigate provincial Roman material of non-local origin. Using this methodology, it is suggested that migrant communities can be identified at Krefeld-Gellep in the Rhineland — thus demonstrating that this type of multi-layered approach can assist in unravelling the complexity of the surviving evidence. The study also shows that a bias towards military sites/large towns is a distribution pattern typical of material originating from a different area of the Roman Empire.

The Roman military presence at Dalswinton is reassessed using a range of remote sensing techniques (geophysical survey, LiDAR and aerial photography). At Bankfoot the absence of internal buildings suggests the postulated vexillation fortress was a more temporary structure; while numerous pits/ovens were identified across the interior of the large Stracathro-type camp. The primary fort at Bankhead was provided with in-turned entrances and two small annexes attached to the north-west and south-east quadrants of the fort. A third much larger annexe extended southwards down to the river. Only pits and furnaces were recorded within the annexes, two of which were expanded in Phase 2. Various buildings, including legionary and auxiliary barracks, were identified in the expanded fort of Phase 2, whose orientation remained unchanged. A mixed garrison of legionaries and auxiliary cavalry is indicated for both periods of occupation. Finally, the fort was deliberately demolished. The Roman attribution of the three nearby enclosures at Butterhole Brae can no longer be supported.

The remains of the Roman fort, known as Stutfall Castle, hang, in picturesque isolation, on a sloping hillside of Wealden clay, dominated to the north by the castle and church of Lympne which occupy the edge of the ragstone plateau above: to the south lies the vast expanse of Romney marsh. In its present position the fort straddles the 100 ft. contour but as we will see (p. 234 ff.) the clay slope has slumped to such an extent in the past, moving the fort with it, that its present elevation and immediate environment bear little resemblance to its original situation.

Excavations in 1972–75 on behalf of the Department of the Environment revealed an extensive Iron Age settlement and traces of widespread Roman agricultural and industrial activity at Wakerley, Northamptonshire (FIG. 2). The settlement was situated in Wakerley parish, immediately to the south of the road running between the villages of Wakerley and Harringworth and nine miles north-northeast of Corby (FIG. 3). It was sited on sloping ground, overlooking the valley of the River Welland, and some ½ mile from the river itself. From the site there are extensive views of the river valley to the north and west and of the hills and dales of Rutland that lie beyond. A deep natural gully occurs in the hillside, just to the west of the settlement and, as a result, the site is in an open position and fully exposed to the westerly winds. The settlement was located between the 250 and 300 ft. contours on a wide expanse of Lower Lincolnshire Limestone. Clays of the LowerEstuarine Series and outcrops of Northampton Sand and Ironstone occur on the lower slopes of the valley below the site and in the adjacent gully to the west. It is likely that a convenient supply of water would have been available in this gully in earlier periods, but this has been piped away in modern times.

In the course of a detailed geological examination of the natural stones which have been incorporated into the fabric, and particularly the external fabric, of ecclesiastical buildings in the area of the London Basin, the author has recorded the occurrence of Roman bricks and tiles. The geographical and historical distributions of a number of natural stones that occur within these fabrics have already been described by the author. The rocks of the London Basin are down-folded into a syncline, and the geographical limits of the area of the studies are approximately confined by the geological outcrop of the Upper Cretaceous, Chalk, as shown in FIG. I. These limits reflect a geological area in which natural building stones are not obviously available. None of the typical rocks of the region, customarily clays, sands, and gravels, are sufficiently consolidated, in normal circumstances, to be directly utilised for building purposes. The Romans and others, however, mastered the techniques necessary to convert clay into bricks and tiles, and this paper examines the current distribution, in re-use, of some of these Roman products in the churches of the region. Other re-used Roman materials were, of course, also utilised in church construction. Some of these, such as silcretes, calcareous concretions and travertine, have been reported elsewhere.

Excavations in Insulae II, III and XIII in the southern half of Verulamium demonstrated the absence of occupation prior to the late first century and the relatively late development of the street grid in this area. This forced a re-evaluation of the date of the 1955 ditch, suggesting it was not dug until the Flavian period. The excavations also demonstrated that Watling Street had never bisected Insula XIII on the south-eastern side of the Forum-Basilica, thus negating a major argument for the presence of a Claudian fort under the centre of the later town. A restricted excavation in the northern corner of Insula XIII revealed evidence for the location of the town’s baths, while excavation in Insula XIII revealed a long sequence of industrial and domestic occupation stretching from the late first to early fifth centuries. Evidence for continued occupation into the fifth century or beyond was recovered from Insula II, and to a lesser extent, in Insula XIII.

Bone pins are often regarded as undatable. Though several classifications of head-types have been produced, notably that from the Jewry Wall site at Leicester (Kenyon 1948: 264), no attempt has been made to relate any type to a particular date-range and to test such dating against comparable published material.

Littleborough lies on the west bank of the river Trent between Newark and Gainsborough, at the point where the Roman road from Lincoln to Doncaster crossed the river. Finds of Roman material from the site are recorded from the sixteenth century onwards and Roman tile occurs built into the small Norman church. Epigraphic and literary evidence combine to identify the site with Segelocvm, the place name apparently referring to a pool with rapid current in the river. The present paper brings together a considerable amount of new evidence from aerial photographs by J.K. St Joseph and D.N. Riley and the results of excavations by W.B. Clark in 1954–56 and by J.S. Wade in 1968–70. The combined data suggest a substantial defended settlement lying to the north of the present road from Sturton-le-Steeple to the river bank.

The rectangular earthwork on Tregear Farm, Nanstallon, just west of Bodmin has long been suspected to be of Roman origin. When the eastern rampart was levelled in the early nineteenth century and those on the other three sides were cut back and reduced to typical high Cornish hedge banks, coins of Vespasian and some first-century pottery were found, including pieces of a samian form 29 and a stamped mortarium. The finds were deposited in the Bodmin Museum, where they were seen by Haverfield when he was preparing his account of Romano-British Cornwall for the Victoria County History. He tentatively suggested that the earthwork was a fort, or possibly ‘a protection for immigrant traders’, shrewdly observing that its occupation was of brief duration. Hencken in 1932 referred to it only as ‘a little frontier settlement’ and the Ordnance Survey Roman Britain map of 1956 also marked it simply as a settlement site. The generally accepted opinion was that the Roman campaigns and military occupation did not extend beyond the Fosse Way or, at most, the river Exe.

The tradition of amphora manufacture within Egypt is a long one, covering the period from Pharaonic times through to the Arab period and even continuing into the modern era. Throughout this time clays from the Nile and Delta regions were especially exploited to produce amphorae. Thus many of these large transport vessels from different periods share the same distinctive drab chocolate-brown fabric (centring around Munsell 10YR 4/4), enlivened by occasional plates of golden mica, small pieces of white limestone, and frequent elongate voids which once held organic material burnt out during firing. Interestingly enough, these same clay sources are still in use today.

Professor Rivet once wrote ‘One curious feature of Romano-British studies must be noted. This is the tendency, perhaps due to the intractable nature of the evidence, to create myths.’ It is the purpose of this paper to examine the evidence for one of those myths. It is not intended to investigate its origin or development, instructive though that might be.

The spread of Roman material culture in Britain in the decades before and after the Claudian invasion has long been an important field for scholars of Roman Britain. Two traditional concerns have been the supply of the Roman army and the distribution of Roman items to civilian and native populations during this transitional and formative period. These areas have often been studied independently of each other. The examination of the supply and spread of material culture is valuable in its own right, but can contribute to our understanding of broader developments such as the impact on indigenous populations of Roman culture, the nature of the Roman economy, military organization, and Romanization. It is the intention of the current paper to outline and consider the incidence of one class of Roman artefact in a region of Britain and to demonstrate how the comparative study of such material may assist our understanding of social and economic developments in the first century A.D. The artefact type is pottery and the area of study is the eastern side of England from Leicester to Co. Durham. The perspective is chronological and comparative and it draws principally upon quantitative data.

AN important though infrequently discussed aspect of Britain's legionary fortresses is the existence, on the analogy of the arrangements made in other provinces, around each of them of a large tract of land which came under the direct control of the resident legion. As a citizen body headed by a deputy or legatus of the emperor a legion could ‘possess’ a territory on behalf of the Roman People and, for administrative and legal purposes, be regarded as a locally sovereign respublica in just the same way as a chartered town or a formally constituted native civitas, as is evidenced by instances where the boundaries of civil territoria run with those of army lands, implying equivalent status. Although lands were also allotted to auxiliary units, overall control of such areas is likely to have rested with the legate of the closest legion, a situation which not only stemmed from the fact that the auxilia were both in theory and in reality auxiliaries to the legions but which also reflected their origin in a period when the legions could be contrasted as wholly citizen bodies with the overwhelmingly peregrine auxilia.

Except for the interest aroused by their cemeteries, the extramural territories of the Roman cities of Britain have never aroused sufficient interest for them to have been subjected to systematic exploration. Nevertheless, as a sensitive barometer to chart their changing fortunes, the margins of a city have considerable potential, as Esmonde Cleary's review of the evidence from the cities and towns of Roman Britain amply demonstrated. Much of what we know derives from the results of adventitious rescue excavation carried out in the context of inter- and post-War city and town development, but comparatively little has emerged from greenfield sites like Calleva which have very largely escaped modern interference. Since the final season of the Society of Antiquaries’ excavation of Silchester in 1909 when attention focused on the ditches surrounding the town wall, only limited investigations have been made of the extramural territory of Calleva. Both Cotton and Boon excavated parts of the Outer Earthwork on the western side, but the evaluation of the defensive sequence was their principal objective, rather than an understanding of the extramural terrritory per se. That has had to wait for the systematic study of the aerial photography and material collected by field-walking which has given us a first glimpse of the organization and use of the extramural territory, and which has now been complemented by the publication of all the aerial photography from Silchester. The two types of survey have shown that the main axis of extramural activity is east-west along the roads leading to London and Cirencester/Bath. However, there is almost no aerial photography to illuminate our understanding of the north-south routes to Dorchester-on-Thames and Chichester/Winchester, although surface collection has revealed spreads of material extending over three hundred metres south of the South Gate through to trie fourth century.6 To the north, however, extensive semi-permanent pasture has hindered non-intrusive investigation and only the evidence of major structures such as the road to Dorchester, and elements of lanes and streets, have been evident from the aerial photography.

Woodchester, a small village near Stroud in Gloucestershire, is famous for the Orpheus mosaic which underlies its former church-yard. This mosaic is the largest in Britain and appropriately enough is known as the great pavement. It is however only occasionally uncovered, and, indeed, has been seen on only three occasions since the war, in 1951, 1963 and 1973. In 1973 it was comprehensively studied by Dr David Smith, it was drawn by Mr David Neal, and a full photographic record was made by the Royal Commission on Historic Monuments (PL. XIV). In that year it was visited by over 140,000 people during the seven weeks it was open, and plans were mooted, and indeed still are being mooted, to place it on permanent exhibition. So far these have been thwarted by a lack of money and by the fact that the former churchyard has only recently gone out of use.

One of the difficulties facing the archaeologist when trying to use the evidence of ancient writers is to know when that writer (historian or otherwise) is relating fact, and when he is merely involved with ‘topoi’–the stock literary descriptions or situations inseparable from history as rhetoric. This note is concerned with two ‘topoi’ in the Agricola.