SOLDIER, CIVILIAN AND MILITARY BRICK PRODUCTION

Summary.   Occasional claims have been made that some of the names on Roman military brick stamps could be those of civilian entrepreneurs tiling for the Roman army, most recently in the case of a stamp of Legio XX Valeria Victrix from Tarbock (Liverpool). This paper analyses these claims and investigates the evidence for interaction between the Roman army and civilians in brick production. The texts of the stamps and the archaeological context of the bricks and literary sources, which give information about the role of the army and civilian bodies in Roman provincial building, are taken into consideration.     

Building Anderita Late Roman Coastal Defences and the Construction of the Saxon Shore Fort at Pevensey

The construction of the Roman coastal installation at Pevensey (East Sussex) in the late third century represented a building project of considerable importance, size and complexity. A study of the surviving material has identified the lithologies employed in the fort's construction, the approximate quantities in which they were present and the likely areas from which they were quarried. Local sources were exploited wherever possible, although an insufficient supply of brick seems to have forced the builders to look further afield for a substitute material for use in the bonding courses. The location of the quarries suggests that the majority of raw materials were moved by boat, and that the transport fleet required was remarkably small. Estimates of the length of construction for the later series of Shore Forts range from less than three years to over four decades. The labour and transport requirements have been calculated for Pevensey, allowing a discussion of the feasibility of each of these proposed time scales. It is argued that all were achievable, although in the briefer scenarios the army would have been unable to provide sufficient manpower, necessitating a draft of civilian labourers.     

Mythmakers of Maiden Castle: Breaking the Siege Mentality of an Iron Age Hillfort

The idea that an invading Roman army brought about the end of hillforts in south‐west Britain, using artillery fire to demoralize and defeat their enemy, is one of the most powerful narratives in British archaeology, being a constant element in both academic literature and public discourse. At the heart of the debate is the evidence recovered by Mortimer Wheeler during fieldwork conducted at Maiden Castle, in Dorset, between 1936–37. Wheeler interpreted a series of burials found in the east gate of the hillfort as a ‘war cemetery’, residue of an ultimately futile defence of the site, in the face of Roman aggression, by the local Durotriges tribe. A recent survey of hillforts in Dorset has, however, cast significant doubt on Wheeler’s hypothesis, suggesting that not only is the widely accepted battle‐theory unsupported by the archaeological evidence, but also that the Durotriges themselves were unconnected to any fortification or defence of Maiden Castle. This paper explores the conclusions of that survey, examining how the dramatic story of a siege first took shape in the late 1930s and why it became so immediately popular with the public. The problems of linking material remains to postulated historical events are outlined and the beginnings of a new model for Late Iron Age settlement at Maiden Castle are presented for the first time.     

Fallow deer (Dama dama dama) management in Roman South-East Britain

This paper presents new carbon, nitrogen and sulphur isotope data for European fallow deer (Dama dama dama) in Roman Britain and discusses results in light of evidence from classical texts, landscape archaeology, zooarchaeology and the limited available samples of metric data. The new isotope data presented here are from Fishbourne Roman Palace (Sussex), two sites on the Isle of Thanet (Kent) and a further two sites in London. In spite of small sample sizes the data make an important contribution to the very limited corpus of scientific research on the species and provide new resolution to the nature of fallow deer movement and management in Roman Britain.     

Exponential Decline in the Dispersal of Stone Artefacts in Roman Britain: Further Expressions of Trade

Several industries that exploited stone are known to have sprung up in Iron Age–Roman and Roman Britain. They include the fashioning of rotary querns from the Upper Old Red Sandstone of the Forest of Dean and the Lower Cretaceous Hythe Beds (Lodsworth rock) of West Sussex, the production of whetstones from sandstones in the Weald Clay Formation of the north‐west Weald, and the manufacture of a wide range of products from the Upper Jurassic Purbeck Marble of south‐east Dorset. The dispersal of goods from these sources is found to exhibit a similar exponential decline with distance to that previously demonstrated for prehistoric stone artefacts and Romano‐British ceramics. Evidently, interactions at settlements led to the retention of a roughly constant proportion of the goods brought there.     

The Problems of Horace Ars Poetica 119–120

A famous passage in the 1st-century Greek merchant's handbook, Periplus Maris Erythraei, reports a Roman attack on the city of Eudaimôn Arabia – Aden in present-day Yemen. No such campaign is known from other sources, and the passage has been ascribed to a scribal error, to an otherwise unknown Roman campaign and to a mix-up with the well-known Arabian campaign of Aelius Gallus. The author argues that none of the above is correct, and that the report of the Periplus is in fact the result of a misinterpreted passage in Augustus’ political will – the Res Gestae.     

Notice of New Publications

The Roman earthworks at Burnswark, Dumfries and Galloway, have long been the subject of different interpretations. Were the Roman camps on either side of the hill-fort erected as part of a siege or as a training ground for the Roman army? This paper reviews the evidence, quoting extensively from the excavation reports and surveys of the site in the hope that one interpretation might predominate.     

CROSS‐CHANNEL CONNECTIVITY: WEALDEN WHETSTONE IMPORTS FROM ROMAN BRITAIN TO THE CONTINENT

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate cross‐Channel exchange of calcareous sandstone‐type whetstones derived from the Weald (Sussex, UK) in the Roman period. The presence of this particular type of whetstone at several Roman sites on the Continent – more specifically, in Belgium, France and the Netherlands – is reported for the first time. The morphology, geological provenance, petrographic characteristics and distribution patterns are discussed, based on a comparative analysis with archaeological and geological reference material. The geological analysis identifies a common geological source for the Continental finds: the very fine‐grained, thin‐bedded, flagstone‐like calcareous sandstone beds of the Lower Cretaceous Wealden Clay Formation. These sandstones were, most probably, extracted in the north‐western part of the Weald area. The distribution pattern of the archaeological material implies the importance of personal mobility, with potential military affinities.     

The development of animal husbandry from the Late Iron Age to the end of the Roman period: a case study from South-East Britain

In this paper zooarchaeological evidence from Iron Age and Roman sites in South-East Britain is presented and the results are applied to the continuing debate over culture contact and change following the Roman invasion. Evidence from Heybridge in Essex indicates that there were two stages of livestock development. These may reflect the import of new breeding stock into Britain. Differences between the rate of livestock development at this rural site and the nearby urban centre of Colchester indicate differing mechanisms of animal supply between the two sites. The appearance of very large cattle in Late Roman contexts at Boreham in Essex suggests that improvement of animals continued throughout the Roman occupation and was not merely an initial response to new economic and administrative demands. The biometrical evidence from these three sites is compared with evidence from elsewhere in Europe and the development of livestock during the Roman Period is shown to be complex and varied. The impetus and ideology behind the changes in animal husbandry following the Roman invasion in Britain are explored.     

Two Roman Britains

Those who study the military remains of Roman Britain tend to interpret them on the basis of their perception of the power of the Roman army. These different perspectives colour all interpretations of the evidence. The implications of this polarized narrative on Roman Britain are explored, focusing on the interpretation of the northern frontiers and the military organization of the province. Consideration is also given to the language we use to describe specific types of archaeological remains. This paper was given as the Presidential Address to the Royal Archaeological Institute on 11 May 2011. The style of the lecture has largely been retained, though with the addition of references.     

行省中的罗马军队:以罗马不列颠为中心

进入帝国时期以后,罗马的扩张活动基本上偃旗息鼓。相应地,元首制时期的罗马军队经历了两个重要变化。一是兵源募选日益本土化,这使军团和辅助军之间的区别日渐淡化。二是行省驻军日益定居化,这使军队作为自成一体的社会具有隔离于非军事区的趋势。由于这两个变化,军队在和平时期的非军事功能日益突出。对不列颠罗马驻军的考察表明,军队对行省的影响主要体现在：军队对城市化进程起重要的推动作用;向军队供应粮食带动了不列颠南方地区的农业发展;军队是普及罗马公民权的重要渠道。关注这些非军事功能有助于更充分地理解作为罗马帝国主义工具的军队。     

‘Ambushed by Victory’: British,French and American Military Plans to Defeat Germany in 1919

The United States, Britain, and France’s discussions on how to achieve victory over the enemy reveal how widespread was the notion that the war would have to be carried into 1919 in order to ensure a military victory over the German army. With the British, political pressure to maintain a sizable army combined with the over-estimation of the abilities of the enemy meant that many considered victory only possible in 1919. The Americans were determined to expand their army substantially to play a leading role in the 1919 campaign; however, they had to negotiate what constituted a realistic contribution. Behind these deliberations stood the French who were promoting the idea of a decisive 1919 campaign and pressuring their co-belligerents to make the greatest possible commitment to ensure a victorious outcome.     

Cosmopolitan Catterick? Isotopic evidence for population mobility on Rome’s Northern frontier

In order to investigate how the population diversity at major Romano-British urban centres compared to small towns and military outposts, we conducted multi-isotope (carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and strontium) analyses of bones (42 individuals) and teeth (26 individuals) of human skeletons from Cataractonium/Roman Catterick in North Yorkshire (U.K.). The results suggest a markedly less diverse population at Catterick than at the larger towns. Significant differences are observed between burials from the town and fort area and the suburb of Bainesse to the south, and it is suggested that these reflect a shift to more localised recruitment for the Roman army in the Late Roman period. Isotope data for the ‘Bainesse Eunuch’, an unusual 4th century burial that has been interpreted as the remains of a ‘transvestite’ priest of Cybele, are not ultimately conclusive but consistent with origins in Southern Britain or areas with a similar climate abroad.     

INDUCTIVELY COUPLED PLASMA ATOMIC EMISSION SPECTROSCOPY ANALYSES OF ROMAN MILITARY COPPER-ALLOY ARTEFACTS FROM THE EXCAVATIONS AT MASADA,ISRAEL*

A selection of Roman military fittings and associated copper-alloy artefacts was analysed by inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectroscopy. The method used was a variant on those previously published and gives very good precision and accuracy. The Roman metalwork analysed conforms extremely well to similar artefacts analysed from, contemporaneous European sites and suggests, despite the strongly ‘local’ nature of the Judaean legions, a considerable uniformity of alloying practice within the Roman army during the first century AD.     

The re-identification of great bustard (Otis tarda) from Fishbourne Roman Palace,Chichester, West Sussex,as common crane (Grus grus)

Abstract

This paper details the results of recent reanalysis of the animal remains from the 1960s excavations at Fishbourne Roman Palace, West Sussex. It argues that specimens originally identified as belonging to the great bustard are, in fact, misidentified remains of common crane. This discovery has important connotations. First, these findings need to be reported so that the avian archaeological record can be updated to avoid future syntheses of Romano-British faunal remains incorrectly including great bustard. Secondly, interpretations of the zooarchaeological remains at Fishbourne Palace will alter, due to the differing ecological histories of bustards and cranes.     

Reply to comments on relative chronology

The court sites in south‐west Norway are a key material for discussing aspects of Roman period archaeology. So far, the Stand der Forschung is not satisfactory, mainly because the excavations that took place in the middle of the 20th century have not so far led to more systematic and synthesising studies being undertaken. It is argued in the article that the court sites can be considered indicative of central settlements in the Roman period, and that the sites were multifunctional. They probably served as gathering places for social activities like games, things and ritual, as production sites, and maybe as temporary accommodation for chieftains' retinues playing a role in intra‐Norwegian or perhaps Scandinavian military confrontations. The latter aspect is considered in some detail in the article, and it is suggested that the court site organisation is indicative of a Roman period (petty) south‐west Norwegian kingdom, and that the bog offering in Illerup place A might have originated from a south‐west Norwegian army defeated by ‘Danish’ forces. On an international level the court sites are an unparalleled type of archaeological monument reflecting social and functional aspects of general interest for European archaeology.     

渡江战役中的无为县船工动员研究

船工是渡江作战的基础,船工动员是战役准备的中心环节。隶属于中路集团军第3野战军第9兵团的第27军,在无为县境内开展船工动员工作。动员工作并非一帆风顺,不是单一的"政策—效果"模式所能涵盖。前期的船工动员,因工作方针的失误,一度陷入困境。此后重新调整动员策略,对船工进行物质抚恤的同时,还广泛采取了诉苦运动、形势教育、"拉感情"、立功运动等多种形式的动员路径,从生活保障到精神激励,多管齐下,调动了船工的革命热情,保证了渡江作战的顺利开展。     

Military Identities in Late Roman Britain

Changes in the material culture of the late Roman army in Britain mean that it is often difficult to identify archaeologically. Some of these changes have in the past been taken as symptoms of decline, without attempt at further explanation. This paper aims to explore these changes and their deeper significance, within a theoretical framework which stresses the importance of the use of material culture in the expression of identities. Building from a detailed case study of fourth century occupation at Caerleon, it will be suggested that categorising material as ‘civilian’ or ‘military’ obscures complex patterns of both uniformity and variation between different kinds of site. These have implications not only for our understanding of the army in fourth and fifth century Britain, but also for society in general at this time, as it is within this wider context that the army should be seen.     

“骊”二题

内容提要:近年,国内许多报刊报道,西汉时一支被称为“第一军团”的罗马军团落脚于中国永昌的“骊”,率领“第一军团”来到中国的是克拉苏的长子普布利乌斯。本文就“第一军团”和“克拉苏长子”两个问题展开论述,提出了自己的观点。关键词:骊第一军团克拉苏长子中图法...     

ECONOMIC ‘LONG WAVES’IN the ROMAN PERIOD? A RECONNAISSANCE of the ROMANO-BRITISH CERAMIC EVIDENCE

Summary: This paper explores some problems of Romano British ceramic chronology and puts forward the suggestion that pottery production in Roman Britain rose and fell in a series of cyclical phases. the pattern matches that of Samian production and also the increases and decreases in the speed (velocity) with which silver coinage circulated in the 1st to early 3rd centuries AD and after. It is suggested that these data can be used to trace the progress of a multisecular cycle the effects of which may also be detectable across the Roman world-economy as a whole. the archaeological and historical implications of this pattern - which may be perceived in the Iron Age and the Post Roman periods, are discussed and a possible explanation is advanced for it. Some quantification methods which would help support or refute the hypothesis are considered and a way of reconciling pottery and context dates is presented.