AN EXAMPLE OF THE PROCESS OF ACCULTURATION IN THE EARLY ROMAN FRONTIER

Summary. This paper looks at how the process of acculturation can be detected in the archaeological record. It considers the specific case of acculturation in the Upper Rhine during the early Roman period and attempts to demonstrate how archaeological material can be used to evaluate social changes. Various aspects of the pottery assemblage, which relate to different aspects of pottery production and use, are considered such as production technology, style, and form. Many of the changes result from cultural changes which occurred as a result of interaction between the Roman and local peoples. Other works concerning acculturation are reviewed to determine what types of factors are involved in the process. These factors are considered, in relation to the Upper Rhine, in a discussion of the changes in the pottery and how they relate to social changes. Various explanatory models are proposed.     

The cult of images in light of pictorial graffiti at Doué‐la‐Fontaine

In the late 1960s the archeologist Michel de Boüard excavated a motte at Doué‐la‐Fontaine, near Saumur. Buried within the earthen mound was a stone edifice that, between the mid‐tenth and early eleventh centuries, had been transformed from a single‐storey aristocratic residence to a multi‐storey tower better suited to new military needs. De Boüard there discovered pictorial graffiti, incised in rough plaster across a wall in the blinded ground storey; among them were several unusually elaborate compositions. Building on his perspicacious analysis of the physical evidence, I situate the graffiti, dating from c.1000, in the wider matrix of contemporary visual and religious culture. The material enriches our understanding of a major historical phenomenon for which the millennial era is a watershed, namely the emergence and proliferation of cult images.