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In the light of dating evidence recovered from new excavation in and around the original findspot, the context, date and provenance of the baluster column with an inscription in ogham, which was recovered in 1893 during the excavations of the Roman town at Silchester, Hampshire, are reconsidered.

VERSO UNA STORIA DELLA POMPEI PRE-ROMANA: SCAVI AL DI SOTTO DELLA CASA DI AMARANTO (I.9.11–12), 1995–8Scavi condotti al di sotto della casa di Amaranto (I.9.11–12) a Pompei hanno prodotto evidenze della più antica occupazione dell'area. Tali ritrovamenti sono discussi nel presente articolo. Con l'eccezione di alcune tracce di presenza preistorica, la sequenza va dal VI al I secolo a.C, quando la casa fu costruita. Un resoconto della sequenza stratigrafica è presentato insieme ad una descrizione dei vari reperti, in particolare la ceramica, i resti faunistici e quelli botanici. Il recupero di una parte della struttura del sesto secolo, che ha uno stesso orientamento rispetto a quello della casa del primo secolo, e del tracciato stradale ad esse associato, porta a considerazioni sullo sviluppo e la natura della città nel periodo arcaico. Viene qui suggerito che la topografia della parte orientale della città si sia originata già alla fine del sesto secolo. Altri aspetti dell'evidenza archeologica, quali la continuità dell'occupazione, le attività economiche, le attività rituali e cambiamenti nella densità dell'occupazione, vengono anche discussi.

Each year adds numerous new books, articles, and chapters to the archaeology and history of Roman Britain, the majority represented by the reporting of archaeological excavations and associated finds. Since the publication of Richmond's Roman Britain for the Pelican History of England by Penguin Books in 1955, the subject has changed almost beyond recognition and even since the first edition of Frere's landmark Britannia in 1967, some 40 years ago, there have been very substantial contributions to knowledge covering all fields of the subject. Aside from archaeological discoveries one should single out the various publications of the military documents from Vindolanda on the northern frontier, as, collectively, a most significant and fundamentally important addition to the written sources of Roman Britain. It has become a major challenge to keep up with the British literature, never mind the Continental context, where Romano-British studies so often falter, and where discoveries are also being made at a

The discovery by Mr David Walsh, a local metal detectorist, of what proved to be a Late Iron Age, decorated bronze mirror was reported to us on its discovery in the autumn of 1994 and led to a small excavation of the context and immediate environs of the find (Figs 1–2). It was made on the south-facing slope of a low hill, at about the 75 m contour, at SU 632 603 in LP 3516 which lies just within the parish of Bramley and at the southern extremities of a Roman settlement that developed around the junction of the Roman roads leading from Silchester to Winchester and Chichester. The findspot is thus some 2 km south-south-west of the walled area of the Roman town which overlies the heart of the Late Iron AgeoppidumofCalleva. The overall extent of the site as revealed by the distribution of artefacts in the ploughsoil has been plotted by Corney over an area in excess of 6 ha (1984, 283–5, figs 81–3). Although some Silchester Ware of latest Iron Age and earliest Roman date had been recovered from around the centre of the settlement, the bulk of the pottery suggested occupation lay principally between the late 1st/early 2nd century AD and the late 4th century AD.

Fourth-centurya.d.chalk tesserae from Roman Leicester (Ratae Corieltavorum) yield rich microfossil assemblages that identify a biostratigraphical age of Cretaceous Late Cenomanian to Early Turonian. The nearest chalk outcrops to Leicester lie in Hertfordshire, Lincolnshire, Yorkshire and north Norfolk, indicating that the material for the tesserae must have been sourced remotely and transported toRatae.Superimposing the Roman road network onto a map of the relevant Chalk Group distribution provides a guide to possible sources. A process of evaluation identifies Baldock in Hertfordshire and Bridlington in Yorkshire as the most likely sources for the Leicester tesserae.

New work at the late Roman fort at Pevensey has recovered oak foundation piles. The precision of a tree-ring date for them is occasion to look again at the pattern of coastal forts of which Pevensey is a part.

Silchester is the site of a major late Iron Age and Roman town (Calleva Atrebatum), situated in northern Hampshire (England (UK)) and occupied between the late first century BC and the fifth or sixth century AD. Extensive evidence of the nature of the buildings and the plan of the town was obtained from excavations undertaken between 1890 and 1909. The purpose of this study was to use soil geochemical analyses to reinforce the archaeological evidence particularly with reference to potential metal working at the site. Soil analysis has been used previously to distinguish different functions or land use activity over a site and to aid identification and interpretation of settlement features (Entwistle et al., 2000). Samples were taken from two areas of the excavation on a 1-metre grid. Firstly from an area of some 500 square metres from contexts of late first/early second century AD date throughout the entirety of a large 'town house' (House 1) from which there was prima facie evidence of metalworking.

Eight lecture summaries:The discovery of a Norse horizontal mill at Orphir, OrkneyBritain and the Mediterranean in Late AntiquityScottish prehistoric 'jet' jewellery: some new workMedieval embroiderersField survey and excavation at Dunbeath, CaithnessThe post-medieval burial vault 1450-1715Post-glacial hunter/gatherers in Europe and their adaptation to changeBrochs: domestic architecture and changing social configurations in prehistoric and Early Historic Scotland

Following earthwork, geophysical andfield-walking survey, a limited evaluation was carried out by excavation of the enclosure and Anglo-Saxon barrow on Lowbury Hill, Oxon. in 1992. Evidence for prehistoric activity on the hilltop is provided by a few sherds of beaker/collared urn, and a more substantial quantity of late bronze age/early iron age pottery. The combination of the new field evidence and a reappraisal of the excavation and finds made by D. A. Atkinson in 1913–14 affirms the sacred character of the Romano-British enclosure and the probability that it was the site of a Romano-Celtic temple from the second century A.D. Despite the limited findings of the early work, re-excavation showed the extensive survival of archaeological deposits, particularly negative features cut into the chalk. A radiocarbon date for the robbing of the temenos wall between the late sixth and mid seventh century and finds of Pagan Saxon pottery provide an opportunity for a reassessment of the seventh-century ‘warrior’ bur...

As the first state to control all the lands bordering the Mediterranean, Rome had the possibility of exploiting their subsistence surpluses to serve its political ambitions. The relative cheapness of sea transport allowed that surplus to be collected and redistributed with equal ease to and from any point around the Mediterranean. Although the city of Rome itself was the most important consumer of this resource, it is argued that Roman expansion into temperate Europe depended as much on the supply of strategic commodities as it did on cash. Flows of goods northwards can be identified in the archaeological record and their importance can be gauged by the way in which pre‐existing and long‐standing trade routes were over‐ridden by them. Use of such subsistence resources on the frontier overcame the problems of gathering food in a land‐locked environment and of regional shortages, allowed the army to concentrate on military affairs and released it from the necessity of over‐exploiting frontier lands.

This chapter highlights the need from the perspective of the consuming community for an integrated approach to the comparative analysis of quantified material culture and environmental assemblages and change over time. At the same time, given the plentiful evidence for long-distance trade in the Roman world, it is important to begin to understand what this represented to different consuming communities in terms of expectations and values. What are ‘normal’ distributions in a marine or terrestrial environment, or in different social contexts? Long-distance traded goods are common on early Roman military sites on the frontiers, but rare on native sites, though in real terms it would have cost the same to reach both communities. Were these goods luxury in the native context, but everyday in the military? What would the military have considered as exotic?

This article describes work undertaken by the VERA project to investigate how archaeologists work with information technology (IT) on excavation sites. We used a diary study to research the usual patterns of behaviour of archaeologists digging the Silchester Roman town site during the summer of 2007. Although recording had previously been undertaken using pen and paper, during the 2007 season a part of the dig was dedicated to trials of IT and archaeologists used digital pens and paper and Nokia N800 handheld PDAs to record their work. The goal of the trial was to see whether it was possible to record data from the dig whilst still on site, rather than waiting until after the excavation to enter it into the Integrated Archaeological Database (IADB) and to determine whether the archaeologists found the new technology helpful. The digital pens were a success, however, the N800s were not successful given the extreme conditions on site. Our findings confirmed that it was important that technology should fit in well with the work being undertaken rather than being used for its own sake, and should respect established work flows. We also found that the quality of data being entered was a recurrent concern as was the reliability of the infrastructure and equipment.

The analysis of organic residues from pottery sherds using Gas-Chromatography with mass-spectroscopy (GC-MS) has revealed information about the variety of foods eaten and domestic routine at Silchester between the second and fourth–sixth centuries A.D. Two results are discussed in detail: those of a second-century Gauloise-type amphora and a fourth-century SE Dorset black-burnished ware (BB1) cooking pot, which reveal the use of pine pitch on the inner surface of the amphora and the use of animal fats (ruminant adipose fats) and leafy vegetables in cooking at the Roman town of Silchester, Hants.

Microfossils recovered from chalk tesserae in mosaics from the Roman town of Calleva Atrebatum, modern Silchester, southern England, are used to suggest a provenance for the source-rock. The microfossils include foraminifera characteristic of late Cretaceous (Campanian) foraminiferal biozone BGS20 (quadrata macrofaunal biozone) and foraminiferal subzone BGS21i (basal mucronata macrofaunal biozone). Calcareous nannofossil assemblages from the same tesserae are poorly preserved, preventing precise age determination, but confirm an age of Santonian to Campanian. As indurated chalk beds of this age are not normally present in the stratigraphically higher chalks of southern England, it is probable that calcretised chalk, formed by secondary calcification beneath Palaeogene rock cover, was used to manufacture the tesserae. This suggestion is supported by a comparative analysis of chalk tesserae from the Norden Roman site in Dorset. Although the provenance of the chalk in some of the Silchester tesserae can be placed only within a broad geographical area of downland in southern England, others may have originated in the Dorchester–Swanage area, some 100 km to the southwest of Silchester, or the Portsdown area of southern Hampshire. None of the tesserae have been constructed from chalk found near Silchester.

By the end of the Roman period, and largely as the result of late Romano-British activity, somewhat over one-half of the tidal wetlands of the inner Severn Estuary between Gloucester and Awre had been embanked and drained. Little reclamation occurred during the medieval period, but early modern-modern times witnessed substantial further activity, leaving scant active salt marsh today. The Romano-British reclamations are recognized on the basis of archaeological evidence and, where direct evidence of settlement is lacking, by the degree to which the reclaimed areas are depressed below the level of the contemporary active marshes along the tidal river. Despite the similarity in the amount of available wetland on both banks, most of the Romano-British reclamations are to be found on the left bank of the Severn, and most of these carry a settlement directly on the alluvium. This distribution pattern points to significant differences in the organization and use of land between the two banks of the river and, when combined with other evidence, suggests that wetland reclamation on the left bank was mostly a feature of the development of large villa estates, with the alluvial settlements representing substantial, outlying farmsteads. Iron-making based on rich ores imported from the Forest of Dean occurred at all the wetland and near-wetland settlements on the two banks, and locally may have taken place on an industrial scale. At Awre on the right bank, however, an early iron-making tradition seems to have survived to a late Roman date.

(1990). The Landscape of Roman Britain: A Review. Landscape History: Vol. 12, No. 1, pp. 25-31.

A major theme of Barry’s research has been the investigation of the relations between the Roman world and western Europe, particularly Britain. While, as we shall see below, his Weldwork has contributed very substantially to this theme, there have been several major synthetic treatments (e.g. Cunlifie 1988; 2001a). He has also sailed vicariously the seaways of the Atlantic and the British Isles through reconstructing the voyage to northern waters of Pytheas, the Greek ‘discoverer of Britain’ in the fourth century bc (Cunlifie 2001b). This contribution explores a little further maritime activity around Britain’s shores in the Roman period, particularly in the period of the first century BC to third century ad, and the ideas expressed by Barry in his Facing the Ocean (Cunlifie 2001a: 417–21; 443–6). Between the last quarter of the first century BC and the mid-third century ad Britain was in receipt of tens of, if not hundreds of thousands, conceivably millions of consumer goods and containers of wine, olive oil, etc. from the Roman world, mostly from the provinces of Gaul and Spain, but also Germany and from across the Mediterranean (Fulford 1991). Universally among military sites of this period, and almost ubiquitous among sites in ‘lowland’ Britain, are finds of Roman coins, originating mostly from the mints of Rome and Lyons, samian pottery from Gaul and, among amphorae, sherds of the olive-oil-carrying Dressel 20s from the Guadalqivir valley of Baetica. How did this material reach Britain? Considerable evidence has been amassed for the location of Roman ports and harbours around the coast of Britain, either indirectly on the basis of, for example, extrapolating the line of a Roman road heading towards an unidentified or lost site on the coast, or directly on the basis of the remains of harbour works such as quays and piling, but were these all of equal importance throughout the period in question (e.g. Brigham 1990; Cleere 1978; Fryer 1973; Milne 1985)? Many categories of material have distributions across Britain, though the incidence of finds is usually greater in the ‘lowland’ southeast, rather than in Wales or in the northern counties south of Hadrian’s Wall, or between the Hadrianic and Antonine frontiers.

The development of an urban property in the Roman town of Calleva Atrebatum (Silchester, Hampshire, England) is traced from the late 1st to the mid-3rd century AD. Three successive periods of building with their associated finds of artefacts and biological remains are described and interpreted with provisional reconstructions of the buildings. Links are provided to a copy of the Integrated Archaeological Database (IADB), archived by the Archaeology Data Service, which holds the primary excavation and finds records.

Objective. To evaluate how flexible learning via online video review affects the ability and confidence of first-year (P1) pharmacy students to accurately compound aseptic preparations.Design. Customary instructions and assignments for aseptic compounding were provided to students, who were given unlimited access to 5 short review videos in addition to customary instruction. Student self-confidence was assessed online, and faculty members evaluated students’ aseptic technique at the conclusion of the semester.Assessment. No significant difference on final assessment scores was observed between those who viewed videos and those who did not. Student self-confidence scores increased significantly from baseline, but were not significantly higher for those who viewed videos than for those who did not.Conclusion. First-year students performed well on final aseptic compounding assessments, and those who viewed videos had a slight advantage. Student self-confidence improved over the semester regardless of whether...

Bill Finlayson has set out the current position of the Academy-sponsored overseas Schools, Institutes and Societies very clearly and accurately. The fundamental issues are the need to maintain and develop the resource base – no organisation would claim that it does not need more, either for refurbishing and developing its physical infrastructure, or for developing its research activities. At the same time, the institutions must demonstrate to the funding bodies, the Council of the British Academy and its sponsor, the Office of Science and Technology (OST), that the research undertaken under their auspices is of the highest quality, equal to or better than that undertaken by comparable organisations in other countries.

(1991). The Romanization of Britain: an essay in archaeological interpretation. By M. Millett. Archaeological Journal: Vol. 148, No. 1, pp. 307-309.

Mosaics represent one of the best known art forms in the Roman world. Their geometric patterns and designs, their figurative images, and their development through time have been extensively studied, and corpora have been assembled for certain provinces of the Empire. In Britain, the study of the surviving mosaics has led to the identification of certain late Roman ‘schools’ (stylistic groupings) of mosaics on the basis of shared stylistic attributes. Now it will be possible to place this work in a fuller context as the long-awaited corpus of all Roman mosaics known from Britain begins to appear. However, whereas the late mosaics undoubtedly show considerable regional distinctness, the position of the earliest work that pioneered the form in Britain is far less clear, perhaps because mosaics of the first and early second century A.D. are fewer and have excited much less interest.