RAC/TRAC Session 7: Roman Britain
Details of the RAC/TRAC Conference session 'Britannia et Germania: a comparative and collaborative approach.'
Conference Sessions and Abstracts - Friday 12 April 2024
7. Roman Britain
Peter Guest – Vianova Archaeology & Heritage Services
Since its inception, the Roman Archaeology Conference has included an open session dedicated to the archaeology of Roman Britain. RAC2024 is no exception, but this time the session will focus on the contribution of commercial and independent organisations to the study of Roman Britain.
Speakers will be invited to present the results of archaeological projects, including excavations, initiated or led by commercial contractors, independent archaeological organisations, and local societies or communities (including multi-partner collaborative projects). Presentations can be on any project, large or small, but proposals will be encouraged to explore how their results have contributed, or could contribute, to the study of Roman Britain, including RAC2024’s main research themes such as new scientific applications in Roman archaeology, decentering and decolonizing Roman archaeology, globalization and materiality, and archaeological ethics.
Session schedule
Abstracts
Re-investigating Richborough: correcting the narrative
Philip Smither – Portable Antiquities Scheme, West Berkshire Museum
Richborough, a Roman site on the east coast of Kent, has been studied academically since the 16th century. In the 1920s and 30s, excavations took place under the auspices of the Society of Antiquaries and the directorship of J.P. Bushe-Fox. For almost 100 years the Richborough archive has been left understudied and the tome that is Richborough V has been the sole source on which to base the conclusions of subsequent studies. This paper re-examines these conclusions focusing on Richborough from AD 43 to the mid-second century. In this time Richborough changed from an invasion harbour to a bustling port town, but not in the way described in the literature, and places Richborough in its wider archaeological and historical context. This re-examination has been achieved by using up to date analytical and digital techniques, including mapping the site in GIS, to modernise the site archive. This study also highlights why it is important we revisit and digitise antiquarian archives before they become further removed in time from their context. The digitisation of the archive makes it more accessible for future study which has not been possible until now.
Trouble up north: reassessing the evidence from Ambleside Fort
John Reid – Trimontium Trust
Manuel Fernández-Götz – The University of Edinburgh
This paper presents the results of ongoing research at Ambleside Roman Fort (Lake District, NW England). Throughout the years, a number of lead sling bullets have been found around the fort, showing a distribution pattern that seems to suggest a conflict scenario rather than storage or accidental loss. In addition, the discovery of a tombstone inscription in the 1960s, naming two soldiers killed by the enemy within the fort, records an attack on the fort by an outside force. Since 2021 we have been carrying out a systematic programme of conflict archaeology research at Ambleside, including a reassessment of previous evidence, isotope analysis of existing sling bullets, and targeted fieldwork including surveys and excavations. This work has been carried out thanks to the help of numerous volunteers from the Trimontium Trust, as well as the support of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society. Our results have substantially increased the number of confirmed and possible sling bullets, significantly strengthening the hypothesis of at least one external attack on the fort, with the garrison defending itself by shooting from the ramparts. The results are exceptional since they represent one of the very few archaeologically documented cases of an attack on a Roman fort identified throughout the Empire.
Two richly furnished early 2nd-century cremation burials from Carlisle and their continental parallels
Matthew S. Hobson – Wardell Armstrong
Excavations in 2015 on Botchergate in Carlisle revealed part of a Roman cremation cemetery containing two exceptionally richly furnished burials. There are no parallels in the north of Britain for the suites of ceramic accessory vessels contained in the burials, and nothing particularly similar has been excavated in the funerary record of the south-east either. The closest parallels in fact are known from the region of the France/Belgium border in the territories of the Nervii, Atrebates, Morini and Menapii. Large excavations of cemeteries, such as at Bavay and Blicquy, demonstrate the emergence of a distinctive burial tradition in this region in the late 1st c. AD, becoming more widespread during the 2nd century. Suites of miniature vessels interred with the cremated remains mimicked the form of bronze vessels of the period. The locally made miniature vessels in the Carlisle burials reproduce similar forms and in a similar fabric. This area of the Nord and Pas de Calais departments in France and adjacent areas in Belgium (Hainaut and western Flanders) was a major source of auxiliary recruits. Many Nervian cohorts, for example, appear to have come to Britain as early as the AD 70s, and this would explain the observed phenomenon.
Challenging the ‘received wisdom’ at Caistor Roman Town
Natasha Harlow – Caistor Roman Project
The civitas capital of Venta Icenorum at Caistor St Edmund near Norwich was long thought to be a military emplacement, imposed upon the rebellious Iceni in the aftermath of the Boudican uprising of 61 CE. Excavations in the 1930s reinforced this narrative, with interpretations which attempted to fit the archaeology into the ‘received wisdom’ of Tacitus and Cassius Dio’s accounts. Since 2009, the Caistor Roman Project has reassessed the origins and development of the town and its hinterland, with an ongoing programme of excavation, survey and archive work. Caistor Roman Project is a community-led charitable organisation which currently has over one hundred members and a dedicated team of active trustees and volunteers who perform everything from fundraising to finds processing. In this paper, recent discoveries by Caistor Roman Project at the extra-mural temple complex and in the ‘industrial suburb’ to the east of the walled town will be presented. New evidence for an early focus of activity in these areas has upturned previous theories about the civitas capital’s origins. This hints at a very different sequence of events which diverges from the Classical literature and its battles between colonised and coloniser in which Rome was inevitably victorious and the Britons inevitably subjugated and assimilated.
Urbanism in Roman Wales: a new look at Roman Carmarthen
Siân Thomas – Archaeology Wales Ltd
Moridunum, which lies under modern Carmarthen, is one of only two Roman towns known in Wales, the other being Caerwent. Excavations undertaken by Archaeology Wales in 2018 afforded a rare opportunity to excavate within the Roman town and add to our knowledge of Roman urbanism in Wales. The results of the excavations combined with previous evidence have shown that it is likely that the origins of Moridunum lie in the Trajanic period, earlier than previously thought. The town then developed organically, with little evidence of a planned settlement until the middle of the 2nd century. Occupation across the site continued into the 4th century, with the remains of a number of buildings and street surfaces being recorded. Although located close to the western edge of the Empire, the evidence suggests Moridunum was little different to other Romano-British towns. Products from across the Empire were bought and sold, new styles of dress were adopted along with new ways of eating. As part of this new food products were introduced, including beet and fennel, a first for Roman Wales. This paper will explore the results of the excavation and put them into their wider context.
The Roman villa at Llanwern: new perspectives on the Gwent Levels
Andrew Pearson – Cotswold Archaeology
The Gwent Levels, an extensive reclaimed intertidal landscape alongside the River Severn in South Wales, have long been recognized as having an association with the Roman occupation of the region. A significant number of modest settlements have been discovered here which leave no doubt about the fact of Roman settlement, and exploitation, of the Gwent Levels. There is also a longstanding theory that they were a creation of the Second Legion and formed part of an imperial territorium. The recent identification of a Roman site at Llanwern, situated just on the dryland margin, is a significant new discovery. Its high status marks it out as distinct from the utilitarian settlements on the adjacent levels, while the finds assemblage includes certain items which point to a military connection. Furthermore, the original stone building with mosaic floors and decorated plaster walls, interpreted as a villa, existed alongside (or was perhaps replaced by) an apsidal building that could have been a shrine or temple. The modern excavation of a villa in South-East Wales is rare, investigations of other high-status Roman complexes in the region having been classic examples of late 19th and early 20th-century archaeology. The site opens up an opportunity for contextualising within a regional framework – revisiting, for example, the evidence from other known and proposed ‘villa’ sites in the Caerleon-Caerwent hinterland, for perceptions of settlement distribution, character and density, soldier/civilian interactions, and for our understanding of how the Gwent Levels were administered and managed.
Dolaucothi – applications of digital technology to investigate ancient technology
Edward Taylor – The National Trust
The goldmining landscape at Dolaucothi is of international significance and is designated as a Scheduled Ancient Monument. Interlinked pits, spoil heaps, trenches, channels, leats, adits, mine entrances, shafts, galleries, tracks, tramways, cover approximately one square kilometre. Thought to have been mined during the Roman occupation of Wales (contemporary references can be found in Tacitus: Agricola, XII :”Britain produces gold …” and Ptolemy: Geography, XI 2,13 : LUENTINUM) recent research suggests that the site could be pre Roman in origin. Unique in Britain the complexity and density of the archaeology indicates a potential for enhancing our understanding of prehistoric and Roman industrial technology employed at Dolaucothi and elsewhere in Europe such as at Tresminas, Portugal and Las Meduals, Spain. Application of remote sensing and digital technologies (laser scanning) have unlocked new information about the extent and relationships of the underground and above ground mine workings, this paper presents the results of that recent survey and discusses opportunities to enhance our understanding of Roman mining technology through the application of digital technology.
The Teynham Triton: the sculpture and excavations of a mausoleum and cemetery
Richard Helm – Canterbury Archaeological Trust
Richard Hobbs – British Museum
Robert Masefield – RPS Consulting
In August 2023, archaeologists from the Canterbury Archaeological Trust excavated a remarkable statue of the demi-god Triton in a clay lined water tank at Teynham, Kent, just beside Watling Street, in advance of a new housing development. This paper will discuss the significance of the statue, which likely dates to the 1st to 2nd century AD, for our understanding of provincial art and the importance of marine imagery to the culture and society of early Roman Britain. It will also look at the site in its wider context; the sculpture was found in a water tank with evidence that it was placed there in a ritualised manner. The tank was located outside of a walled and ditched enclosure, inside of which was found a square structure believed to be a mausoleum. The latter structure appears to have been demolished in the early fourth century, the period during which it is thought that the statue was deposited. Several Roman and probably later burials were found within and immediately adjacent to these enclosures, some of which contained grave goods. The paper will reflect on the possible links between the mausoleum and other Roman remains nearby, including that of a Roman villa located at Bax Hill Farm, and the wider context of funerary architecture in Roman Britain and beyond.