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.

One of the major sources of evidence for the military history of the Roman Empire, particularly for those provinces for which the literary record is defective, is the shifting pattern of forts and fortresses, established and abandoned in response to changing military situations, to advance and retreat and to consolidation and the establishment of frontier control. In order to have any hope of understanding the role of individual forts or groups of sites it is necessary to know not only the detail of their internal layout but also the nature of the troops who occupied them. Several studies have been devoted to the problem of the elucidation of fort garrisons, notably those of Richmond in 1955, Breeze and Dobson in 1974 and, most recently, that of Hassall in 1983. However, these studies have all concentrated on sites of the Flavian period and later and have been concerned almost exclusively with the accommodation of auxiliaries, attempting to identify the forts occupied by the various types of unit which had emerged by that period, alae, quingenary and military, and cohorts, quingenary and milliary, peditate and equitate, each with its individual requirements in terms of numbers, size and arrangement of barracks, stables and stores.

It is generally assumed that the Brigantes under Queen Cartimandua had been formally recognised as Roman allies at some stage not long after the Roman invasion, though nowhere does Tacitus or any other ancient author make a direct statement to that effect. Cartimandua's reliance on Roman arms on more than one occasion, however, and her handing over of the fugitive Caratacus to the Roman authorities in A.D. 51 provide sufficiently strong hints that some such arrangement was in force. In modern parlance, she is characterised as a ‘client’ queen, although it is unlikely that this would have been the contemporary term applied. Precisely how long before A.D. 51 such a relationship had come into existence and whether with Cartimandua from the beginning is uncertain. She may have been placed on the throne after the Brigantian uprising of c. A.D. 48, although the scale of the problem, apparently dealt with quickly with only a few executions, seems more likely to reflect minor factional disagreement than a major revolt requiring a change of ruler.

The large tracts of estuarine alluvium which border the Severn Estuary (FIG. I) and inner Bristol Channel have never been the subject of systematic archaeological enquiry. Now largely reclaimed and known as levels, the greatest of these tracts are the Somerset Levels, on the English side, and the Wentlooge and Caldicot levels between Cardiff and R. Wye on the Welsh shore. Smaller areas of reclaimed wetland range upriver as far as Gloucester. The manner and extent to which these wetlands entered into the economy particularly in the Roman period has hitherto been assessed only in the form of speculations or inferences from circumstantial evidence, in contrast to the firmness of our understanding, based on buildings as well as artefacts, concerning military activities, settlement, and daily life on the surrounding slopes and hills beyond tidal influence.

In 1968 a fine and extensive group of Roman surgical and medical instruments (PL. XI) was purchased by the British Museum from a London antiquity dealer. With one or perhaps two exceptions (Nos. 39, 33 below) there is little doubt that they comprise a surgeon's instrumentarium which includes many normal types but also some very rare objects: the three catheters are the largest set of such instruments to be found; the speculum is only the third complete provenanced example of its type, while the bone chisels and sharp spoon have few known parallels; the double blunt hook is one of the finest examples of this rare class of object; the handled needles significantly increase the number of such specialist instruments; the small tanged cautery is one of the very few survivors of a type of instrument that was extremely common in Roman surgery: and the segmented form of one of the medicine boxes is as yet unparallelled.

The use of ornamental stonework in buildings was one of many important innovations introduced by the Romans into Britain. The demand for floor mosaics spread rapidly throughout the province and has been the subject of detailed study but other aspects of decorative stonework, including opus sectile paving and wall veneers, which were no less a sign of conspicuous wealth, have attracted little attention. This paper, therefore, attempts to trace the fashion for ornamental stones in interior and exterior design by examining the evidence from London. Despite the severe limitations of the archaeological evidence, shifts in taste and changes in the types of stone used can be discerned from the London material, which seem to reflect wider commercial activities within the Roman empire. When the material is compared with other parts of the province regional differences become apparent, emphasising the high status London enjoyed from the late first century A.D.

During the winter of 1981/2 Giles Swift of the Wealden Iron Research Group discovered in a ploughed field on Great Cansiron Farm, Hartfield, East Sussex (TQ 45603835) an area of burnt clay and Roman tile, together with a few pieces of Roman pottery. The site, which lies close to a small stream, is located between an extensive Roman iron-working site to the south-west and possible large Roman iron-ore quarries to the north-east (FIG. 1). In advance of further plough damage, during the summer of 1982 the Field Archaeology Unit (Institute of Archaeology) undertook a trial excavation and survey in order to attempt to interpret and date the site more precisely. This work was funded by the Department of the Environment and East Sussex County Council. The 1982 investigations revealed a well-preserved Roman tile kiln and a rectangular floor of tile and burnt clay. Unfortunately extremely inclement weather during the second half of the excavation meant that it was impossible, given the time and resources available, to finish excavating either of these discoveries. The farmer, Mr Udell, kindly agreed to leave and plough around the excavation area and a second season of excavations was undertaken in 1983 thanks to the financial backing of East Sussex County Council and Keymer Handmade Clay Tiles of Burgess Hill, Sussex. In between the two excavations, staff of the Ancient Monuments Laboratory carried out a geophysical survey of the area to the west of the tile kiln.

This article seeks to show that a workshop producing gold jewellery was active in Britain in the second century A.D‥ It is felt that demonstrating the likely existence of such a workshop may be of value to students of the period when they consider the likely places of manufacture of other non-utilitarian articles in use in Roman Britain. There is often a tendency to assume that such goods were imported from elsewhere in the Empire without considering the evidence either for or against this. Here, evidence that luxurious gold jewellery was being manufactured in Britain will be presented, and it must lead us to consider to what extent other luxury goods were being manufactured by local craftsmen. The evidence for this workshop is provided by a small group of personal ornaments which share uncommon and idiosyncratic details of workmanship and which are often of unusual forms. It should not be forgotten, however, that there is more tangible evidence for gold-working in Britain during the Roman period in the form of crucibles with traces of gold from, for example, London at the end of the first century, Verulamium in the middle of the second, Chester in the fourth and Cirencester at an unspecified date within the Roman period.

This paper is intended as an attempt to assess the importance of the importation of overseas foodstuffs and other organic commodities to Canterbury during the late Iron Age and Roman periods through the evidence of amphorae. The material has been collected during the programme of excavations conducted by the Canterbury Archaeological Trust at the following sites around the town (FIG. I); Rosemary Lane Car Park (The Castle Vol. i of the Archaeology of Canterbury series); 77–9 Castle Street, 3 Beer Cart Lane, 69a Stour Street (CBR I–IV in Vol. 6 forthcoming); 16 Watling Street and Marlowe Car Park sites (MI–IV in Vol. 5 forthcoming); St. Gabriel's Chapel and Linacre Gardens in the Cathedral Precincts (Vol. 4 forthcoming); the Mint Yard and ‘Aula Nova’ (Norman Staircase) also in the Precincts (Vol. 3 forthcoming); St. Radigund's Street (Church Lane, Vol. 2). Although excavations are still in progress it was felt wise to attempt an analysis of all the material recovered only up to the excavation of the Marlowe IV site in 1980, the 234 kg of amphorae sherds unearthed up to that date being regarded as a sufficiently large sample to be statistically reliable, in general terms, towards reconstructing the pattern of amphora importation into the town. Further excavations might yield further types and help to refine the quantified figures, although they should be of little overall consequence.

The summit of Lamyatt Beacon was totally excavated. The earliest structure was a Romano-Celtic temple, built in the late third century, in use into the early fifth century, and of square plan with two annexes on the east side. To the south was a sunken-room. Finds from related features and from looting of the site included many votive objects. Probably of later date than the temple were a small building to the north and a cemetery of at least sixteen burials, aligned east-west with heads to the west.