| Abstract: | Summary. The development of the Romano-British villa at Marshfield is reinterpreted as several phases in the growth of a kin group, analogous to David Clarke's reinterpretation of the Glastonbury village. It begins with two native farmsteads separated by a wall but having in common a shrine. They are replaced by a bipartite house, the internal division between the households being above the demolished wall, but, symbolically, at an angle to it; a likely parallel for this exists in Picardy. The architectural relations of the rooms are used to interpret function. In a second phase alterations suggest the changing relations of the two households, with one becoming markedly superior to the other; the putative shrine, not discernible in the first Romanised phase, is located in the superior house. |
