The Archaeology of Britain: An introduction from ... - waughfamily.ca
The Archaeology of Britain: An introduction from ... - waughfamily.ca
The Archaeology of Britain: An introduction from ... - waughfamily.ca
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Roman <strong>Britain</strong>: civil and rural society<br />
• 169 •<br />
THE NORTH AND WEST<br />
Towns, villas, temples and<br />
archaeologi<strong>ca</strong>lly visible burials are<br />
features <strong>of</strong> the civil archaeology <strong>of</strong><br />
<strong>Britain</strong> largely confined to the south<br />
and east. <strong>The</strong>ir co-incidence in time<br />
and space strongly suggests that<br />
they are all inter-related aspects <strong>of</strong><br />
the initial adoption and adaptation<br />
<strong>of</strong> Roman culture and its<br />
subsequent development into the<br />
Late Roman period by the populace<br />
<strong>of</strong> these regions. North-west <strong>of</strong> the<br />
Humber-Exe line, however, these<br />
Romanized elements were few and<br />
far between. Some <strong>of</strong> the trading<br />
functions elsewhere performed by<br />
the towns may have occurred at vici,<br />
the civilian settlements attached to<br />
the garrison forts (Sommer 1984),<br />
though to judge by the paucity <strong>of</strong><br />
Roman material on native sites,<br />
exchange with the indigenous<br />
people was not one <strong>of</strong> the prime<br />
activities at the vici.<br />
Settlements<br />
In the north and west, the principal<br />
settlement pattern continued to be<br />
dispersed and the main settlement<br />
type the enclosed farmstead, as in<br />
prehistory. Aerial and other survey<br />
has revealed large numbers <strong>of</strong><br />
settlements <strong>of</strong> this type in northeastern<br />
and north-western England,<br />
the Lowlands <strong>of</strong> Scotland and in<br />
Wales and the south-west <strong>of</strong><br />
England (e.g. the Cornish ‘rounds’,<br />
with their courtyard houses).<br />
Figure 9.8 Line drawing <strong>of</strong> the mid-fourth-century probable Christian<br />
mosaic <strong>from</strong> the villa at Hinton St Mary, Dorset.<br />
Source: Tonybee, J., 1964. ‘A new mosaic pavement found in Dorset’, Journal <strong>of</strong><br />
Roman Studies 54<br />
A combination <strong>of</strong> aerial and ground survey in north-western England and south-western<br />
Scotland has shown very many <strong>of</strong> these sites to date to the Roman period, both to south and<br />
north <strong>of</strong> Hadrian’s Wall (cf. Higham and Jones 1985). Whether this represents a higher density <strong>of</strong><br />
settlement than in late prehistory and the early medieval centuries is more problematic, since in<br />
this area both these periods were aceramic and thus essentially undatable by field survey, so the<br />
apparent peak in the Roman period may be more a reflection <strong>of</strong> the availability <strong>of</strong> dating material<br />
than <strong>of</strong> actual population levels. Settlements still visible as upstanding monuments or on aerial<br />
photographs or which have been ex<strong>ca</strong>vated show that the number <strong>of</strong> structures at a site could