RAC/TRAC Session 19: Reflections and recent research on the Romans in Sussex

Conference Sessions and Abstracts - Friday 12 April 2024

19. Looking back, looking forward: reflections and recent research on the Romans in Sussex

Louise Rayner – University College London; Archaeology South-East
Rob Symmons – Fishbourne Roman Palace; Sussex Past

In April 2024, the IoA Sussex Archaeological Field Unit (now known as Archaeology South-East) celebrates 50 years since its establishment in 1974. Of course, excavation and research into Roman Sussex goes much further back, but with the huge increase in rescue and then planning-led excavations over the last 50 years how has our understanding of Roman Sussex developed? Has knowledge advancement been consistent across the three main geological zones of Sussex: the Weald, the Downs and the Coastal Plain or is the evidence variable across these different locations? Sussex has Roman palaces, many known villa sites, road network and associated roadside settlements, temples, industrial sites and rural farmsteads – many key sites excavated decades ago. What have recent excavations added to this picture? Or is the most significant knowledge increase coming from older archives and re-examining their potential?

Other extensively studied regions are now considering whether ‘theoretical knowledge plateaus’ have been reached (Aldred et al 2023; Evans et al 2023). How far away or close to this ‘data mountain’ is Roman Sussex? What do we understand well and where are the gaps? How should this influence the focus of future research? This session will invite contributions from across the diverse community of archaeologists active in Sussex to reflect and review past and current research in the Roman archaeology of Sussex, in its widest sense and consider how best to approach understanding the Romans in Sussex over the next 50 years.

Session schedule 

Abstracts 

 Roman Archaeology in Sussex: the first 30 years of the Sussex Field Archaeology Unit
David Rudling – The Sussex School of Archaeology and History

Although the Roman period was not specifically chosen for one of the four main research projects of the Sussex Archaeological Field Unit (SAFU) in 1976, soon after the Unit’s establishment in 1974, during the next 30 years much Roman archaeology was undertaken, initially as state funded rescue archaeology (especially dealing with plough damaged sites) and subsequently as planning-led responses to development works (especially road and house building). In addition, some projects were chosen to cater for the undergraduate fieldwork training needs of the UCL Institute of Archaeology, of which SAFU was a part. All this survey and excavation work resulted in significant advances in knowledge regarding some previously investigated key sites (such as Bignor Villa, Chanctonbury Ring, and Lancing Temple) and the discovery and investigation of new sites elsewhere (examples being a tilery with ancillary structures at Hartfield, the first Sussex ‘roundhouse’ to villa developmental sequence at Beddingham, and the investigation of field systems at Beachy Head and at Brighton). This lecture will review some of the main Roman archaeology undertaken by SAFU during the period 1974 to 2005. It will highlight some of the major achievements of this fieldwork, but also identify various major gaps in our knowledge of Roman Sussex at the beginning of the new millennium. 

 Holding out for a Nero: redefining the Chichester / Rome Connection
Miles Russell – Bournemouth University

Recent archaeological fieldwork in West Sussex, combined with new survey of sculpture and a reanalysis of museum archive material, has not only shed new light on the nature of (and form taken by) early Roman settlement in central southern Britain, but has also helped better define the intimate relationship between the Julio Claudian first family of Rome and the British Iron Age ruling elite. It has long been recognised that first century Chichester (NOVIOMAGVS) originally possessed a large number of important inscriptions, but the immediate area has also produced sculptured images featuring both the princeps and other members of his immediate family. These, when combined with the muscular, imperial-inspired architecture of palatial buildings at Fishbourne, Pulborough, Southwick and Eastbourne, suggest that our current understanding of Roman activity in Sussex and eastern Hampshire is deficient, the area in fact being critical to the transmission of Romanitas and formal creation of the new province. The Sussex coastal plain was not some provincial backwater, Fishbourne palace acting as a “beacon of civilisation in a landscape otherwise devoid of Mediterranean culture”, but something altogether more significant. This slice of Britannia was, it seems, a favoured place for both old and new money as well as for those Britons who were simply holding out for a Nero.

 From Chichester to Hayling Island. Exploring a possible pilgrimage route westwards from the Roman town to the civitas boundary
Anthony King – University of Winchester

Although not in present-day Sussex, the temple site on Hayling Island has always had relevance to the Roman territorium of Chichester and its preceding Iron Age oppidum. This paper explores the nature of that relationship, with particular reference to a potential pilgrimage route from Chichester, via Funtington and Havant, to the temple site. The alignment of the Roman road west from Chichester to Havant will be discussed as part of the pilgrimage route, in view of the problem of Fishbourne Roman palace and its position in relation to the road. The new finds from Hayling Island since 2015 give a perspective on the temple as a focus for widely dispersed offerings and a possible seasonal mass presence around the shrine itself. The positioning of the temple on the island will also be explored, its link to Commius, and the evidence for Hayling being the western limit of the Iron Age territorial oppidum and also the civitas of the Regini/Regni. 

 Pottery and its role in our understanding of Roman Sussex 
Anna Doherty – Archaeology South-East; University College London

Currently, there are limitations to our understanding of Roman ceramics in Sussex. We lack fine grained understanding of ceramic phasing and patterns of supply for Roman Chichester, for example. Major pottery industries are poorly understood with relatively few known kiln sites and even fewer that are comprehensively published. We do not yet have a regional type-series to ensure that different specialists working on pottery from the region produce datasets that can be collated and compared. This paper aims to address why this matters for our wider understanding of the Roman period in Sussex, highlights some areas where knowledge has improved and discusses what we can do to further integrate pottery into regional research.

 Looking back at 50 years of charred plant remains analysis: insights and reflections on roman agriculture and food in Sussex
Elsa Neveu – Archaeology South-East; University College London
Lucy Allott – Archaeology South-East; University College London
Angela Vitolo – Archaeology South-East; University College London

In the last 50 years, Archaeology South-East (ASE) participated in rescue and planning-led excavations that contributed to document and understand Roman Sussex including the development of charred plant remains analysis in this region. The influence of Romans had major impacts on society, technology, economy and the environments. This project aims to create a database of Roman sites in Sussex from which charred plant remains were analysed for final reports or publications by ASE. For each site; excavation and publication date, site type (villas, farms, towns, religious or military settlements), number of samples, their volume, feature type, number of crop taxa and quantity of remains will be recorded. This paper will review the dataset to establish what type of sites are documented and consider evidence for regional features such as the association between crop choice and geological zone (the Weald, South Downs and Coastal Plain), access to spices and exotic species in urban and rural sites and how these trends articulate with dynamics evidenced in the rest of Britain and described in existing reviews of Roman Archaeobotany. We will highlight gaps in our knowledge of the area and research questions for future projects and publications. 

 Impacts of the Roman invasion of Britain on the landscape around Fishbourne Roman Palace 
Joseph Shakespeare – University of Portsmouth    Mark Hardiman – University of Portsmouth
Rob Scaife – University of Southampton        Rob Symmons – Sussex Past
Adele Julier – University of Portsmouth

Fishbourne Roman Palace is an important archaeological site as it was one of the earliest sites of Roman influence in the British Isles. Pollen work was conducted during initial archaeological excavations, but preservation was poor and few taxa were recovered. In this study we present a sediment core of 193 cm which covers the period of Roman occupation of Fishbourne, with a basal date of approximately 209 BCE. The core was taken from salt marsh sediments 1 km south of Fishbourne Roman Palace, on the western bank of the Fishbourne Channel. The sediments were composed mainly of fine silts and clays containing some macro plant remains and yielded well preserved pollen. From 2 CE to 400 CE potentially Roman introduced taxa such as Picea and Abies are observed along with high levels of Brassicaceae pollen potentially originating from the palace garden. Post- 400 CE an increase in arboreal taxa is observed from the wider landscape, potentially indicating land abandonment, which is consistent with other records from the local area during this time period. This allows for a greater insight into long-term Roman-induced landscape change by military, industry and domestic influences.

 What’s left to learn about Roman iron in Sussex?
Mike Charlton – University College London; Archaeology South East
Ethan Greenwood        
Rob Symmons – Sussex Past

The Weald in Sussex is the best researched and documented Roman ironmaking landscape in Britain.  This is in large part due to the extraordinary work of Henry Cleere who defined not only the aims of Wealden iron research, but also outlined the first models of iron production and distribution in Roman Britain.   This has sometimes been taken as the final word and other times sparked debate—the role of the Classis Britannica in the organisation of production in the Western Weald being a prime example of the latter.  Cleere’s own writings indicate that his iron circulation models were not complete and called for evaluation through iron provenance analysis. The dominant approach to iron provenance is via the chemical analysis of slag inclusions using a combination of x-ray microanalysis (SEM-EDS) and Laser Ablation Inductively Coupled Mass Spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) to generate complete elemental characterisations.  We present the first application of this method in Britain to a small sample of Roman nails collected from Fishbourne Roman Palace and offer an estimate of their provenance.  Results demonstrate that investigations of Roman ironmaking in Sussex have a long way to go before reaching a ‘knowledge plateau’ and call for new directions of coordinated research.

 Data, knowledge, gaps and what the future might bring? Understanding Roman Sussex through 20 years of development-led archaeology 2005-2025
Andrew Margetts – University College London; Archaeology South East
Hayley Nicholls – University College London; Archaeology South East
Giles Dawkes – University College London; Archaeology South East
Tom Munnery – University College London; Archaeology South East
Louise Rayner – University College London; Archaeology South East

Archaeology South-East (UCL Institute of Archaeology) has undertaken hundreds of development-led projects across the counties of Sussex, carrying out fieldwork where planning conditions require archaeological work to be undertaken. But over the last 20 years what have these contributed to our understanding of Roman Sussex, where are the gaps and to what extent will future projects be able to address these?  Most of the excavations undertaken have uncovered evidence relating to early Roman rural settlement, many with Iron Age origins so this paper will explore what Sussex was like for rural populations at the time of the Roman conquest and the impact this had on the countryside. From Pocock’s Field, Eastbourne, across the central Weald at Broadbridge Heath and all along the Coastal plain to Chichester, large-scale excavations have provided new evidence for Roman settlement, burial, agriculture and land management. This paper will provide an overview of the work of the last 20 years across the landscape zones of the region, explore the evidence from key sites, identify gaps and consider what our future projects may or may not do to help address these.

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