ROMAN URBAN TOPOGRAPHY in Britain and the western Empire

designed to test the problem. At present all we can say is
that these enclosed oppida offer the best prospect of being
the earliest urban settlements in Britain.
A second category of settlements deserves attention: the
territorial oppida, essentially complex dyke systems defining
considerable areas of land. Camulodunum, Verulamium,
Selsey/Chichester, and the North Oxfordshire
Grim’s Ditch are the most notable examples. That several
of them contained areas of intensive occupation and were
subsequently chosen to become the sites of Roman towns
is well known. What is less clear is their exact nature in the
immediately pre-Roman period. Work at Camulodunum,
however, has suggested the existence of a number of
functionally different locations: a burial area, a manufacturing
region, a religious complex, and possibly a chieftain’s
residence. In other words, the territorial oppida
appear to be polyfocal settlements of some complexity. In
view of the extensive areas which the dykes enclose it may
be that they conform to the model of dispersed urbanism
outlined above. Once more, while it is a question worth
asking, only further excavation and fieldwork will allow
the problem to be pursued.
Concluding remarks
This review has necessarily been brief, since the subject is
vast and the data fragmentary, but several general points
emerge which deserve some stress.
First and foremost is the fact that the processes leading
to urbanization are long and complex. There is no one
course, and the rate of development is seldom consistent,
but at its simplest the process involves the coming
together at one location of a number of social, economic,
and administrative functions for the service of the inhabitants
of the hinterland. At some stage during this
progression the community passes from a pre-urban to an
urban state. In those cases in which we have to rely solely
on archaeological evidence it is very doubtful whether this
threshold will be recognizable with any degree of precision;
the intricacies of the problem and the inadequacy of
archaeological data combine to create obscurity. One
useful indicator, however, is the intensification of longdistance
exchange systems. The commercial relations of
Athens developed rapidly in the mid 9th century at about
the time of urban genesis and much the same process can
be recognized at Rome in the early 6th century when it is
generally accepted that the community took its first steps
toward urbanism.
If the intensification of long-distance trade at already
complex nucleated service centres can be regarded as an
indicator of incipient urbanization, the imposition of such
systems upon suitably advanced settlements could indeed
provide the stimulus for sudden urban growth. There are
sufficient data accumulating from barbarian Europe to
suggest that the proximity of the Roman consumer society
encouraged the rapid development of trade beyond the
frontiers, and this may well have been the catalyst needed
to transform many of the barbarian fringe economies into
urban systems.
The very complexity of the problem, and the variety of
its manifestations should provide a warning against
over-simplification. To judge the status of prehistoric
communities against a narrow definition of urbanism
5
Cunliffe: Aspects of urbanization in northern Europe
based on a generalized Roman model is, to say the least,
unwise. So too is the assumption that pre-Roman means
pre-urban. It is to provide a perspective against which
these generalizations, heard all too often, may be assessed
that these brief remarks have been offered.
References