The Archaeology of Britain: An introduction from ... - waughfamily.ca

• 158 • Simon Esmonde Cleary
that again the relationship between
the incomers and the indigenous
population may not have been as
adversarial as literary convention likes
to portray. Even so, the study of the
beginning of the Roman period is
dominated by models of continuity,
and that of its end by models of
discontinuity.
FRAMEWORKS
Sub-divisions of the period
Though Roman Britain lasted for
only some 400 years, its study has
tended to fall into two parts: an earlier
period running from the Claudian
invasion of AD 43 down to the end
of the second century, and a later
comprising the third and fourth
centuries through to the
disappearance of Roman rule and
material culture in the first half of
the fifth century. Initially, this division
and the concentration on the earlier
period reflected a wider perspective
of the Early Roman Empire (the
Principate) as a period of military
expansion and cultural vigour, with
the later Empire as a period of
military decline and cultural
decadence. Nowadays, both the wider
perspective and the more particular
British expression of it are viewed
somewhat differently. The earlier
period sees the impact of Rome on
the native populations and systems
Figure 9.1 Map of Roman Britain showing distribution of long-term
military sites compared with civilian towns. Villas, temples and burials show through military conquest and
the same overall distribution as the towns.
cultural adaptation. The later period
Source: Jones and Mattingly 1990
traces the trajectory of Romano-
British culture under the influence of
internal factors and in response to wider changes in the Roman world during the period now
known as Late Antiquity (c.AD 300–700).
Geographical scope
Until recently, the archaeological study of the civil population of Roman Britain was largely
concerned with the area south and east of a line from the Humber to the Devon Exe (cf. Jones