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This study presents a new 3600-year record of past metal contamination from a bog located close to the Leadhills and Wanlockhead orefield of south west Scotland. A peat core, collected from Toddle Moss, was radiocarbon (14 C) dated and analysed for 2 trace metal concentrations (by EMMA) and lead isotopes (by ICP-MS) to reconstruct the atmospheric deposition history of trace metal contamination, in particular lead. The results show good agreement with documented historical and archaeological records of mining and metallurgy in the region: the peak in metal mining during the eighteenth century, the decline of lead mining during the Anglo-Scottish war and lead smelting during the early medieval period. There may also have been earlier workings during the late Bronze and Iron Ages indicated by slight increases in lead concentrations, the Pb/Ti ratio and a shift in 206/207 Pb ratios, which compare favourably to the signatures of a galena ore from Leadhills and Wanlockhead. In contrast to other records across Europe, no sizeable lead enrichment was recorded during the Roman Iron Age, suggesting that the orefield was not a significant part of the Roman lead extraction industry in Britain. These findings add to the various strands of archaeological evidence that hint at an early lead extraction and metallurgical industry based in southern Scotland. The results also provide further evidence for specific regional variations in the evolution of mining and metallurgy and an associated contamination signal during prehistoric and Roman times across Europe.

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NOTES 241 period, 78 but any assumption that such sentiments were ever the exclusive preserve of the Christian community is without foundation. Whatever its interpretation, the Stonham Aspal ring is clearly of interest as one of the relatively rare pieces of evidence for Greek-speakers in Roman Britain. Tombstones bearing Greek inscriptions have usually been dismissed as aliena acquired by eighteenth-or nineteenth-century dilettanti, 79 and inscriptions on contemporary non-personalized imports 80 cannot be taken to indicate a Greekspeaking owner; Lajinized transliterations, Christian symbols and perhaps, too, the often unintelligible Greek letters that appear mingled with Roman letters and characteres on amulets should also be discounted, while Greek names contained in Latin inscriptions do not necessarily presuppose an eastern origin. 81 But that Greek-speakers did indeed exist in Roman Britain is almost undoubtedly attested not only by the rings discussed above but also by graffiti 82 and by the inscriptions found on altars or dedication slabs. Examined together these are found to be distributed throughout the province, in both civil and military contexts, the altars dedicated by doctors at Chester to the 'Saviour Gods' 83 and more explicitly to Asklepios, Hygeia and Panakeia 84 suggesting, predictably, that doctors might have formed an important part of this Greek-speaking population. A strong eastern element in the community can reasonably be postulated at Corbridge, where the significance of the IAA and FIOAEMIOY 3>IATPON rings already mentioned 86 is reinforced by the presence of altars dedicated in Greek both to Astarte and to Heracles of Tyre. 87 The evidence from East Anglia, however, is much more dispersed: only the regrettably unprovenanced ring found 'within thirty miles of Brandon' 88 could also be from the Stonham Aspal vicinity, and so in this respect the ring from Stonham Aspal should be accorded no more significance than its status as a casual find merits.