Forest Clearance and the Roman Army

Abstract

138 All calibrations are derived from the Radiocarbon calibration and statistical analysis programme produced by the Research Laboratory for Archaeology, Oxford, based upon M. Stuiver and P. Reimer, Radiocarbon 28 (1986), 1028-30. 139 It is interesting to note that, when quoting the crucial dating evidence, Dumayne (1994, 220) chooses not to use the mid-point at the 68 per cent level of confidence which she uses elsewhere when quoting other dates from the same core (Dumayne and Barber 1994, 167 and 169). The equivalent date for the onset of major clearance would be A.D. 185. Where she obtains the figure of A.D. 130 is not clear, but it is not the mid-point of any of the calibrated ranges of figures which can be derived from the original date (contra Dumayne 1994, 220). 140 Most of the forts on the turf wall sector of Hadrian's Wall were of timber construction. The extent to which internal buildings in other forts on the Wall may have been partly built of timber is disputed (see W.S. Hanson, 'Building the forts and frontiers', in D.J. Breeze (ed.), The Frontiers of the Roman Empire (forthcoming)) but the assertions that stone footings were provided for timber superstructures (e.g. D.J. Breeze and B. Dobson, Hadrians' Wall (1987), 46-7) are largely unsubstantiated. 141 The calculations were actually produced by this author (Britannia ix (1978), 297-8), though credited by Dumayne to a secondary source.

Scotland: The Roman Presence

“…Despite attempts by some palynologists to suggest otherwise (e.g. Dumayne and Barber 1994), major forest clearance linked to the extension of agriculture is a late Iron Age phenomenon unrelated to the arrival of Roman forces (Hanson 1996;Tipping 1997). What remains in debate is the extent of (and motives behind) that clearance, and the size and, indeed, location of the Caledonian forest which features in Roman literary accounts as early as the writings of Pliny in the mid-first century AD (Breeze 1992).…”

Zones of interaction: Roman and native in Scotland

“…Despite recent assertions that the Roman army played amajor part in the clearance of the natural forest cover in large areas of northern Britain, particularly immediately to the north of the central sector of Hadrian's Wall (e.g. Dumayne 1994), significant Roman involvement in this process cannot be substantiated (Hanson 1996). Indeed, recent aerial survey work has indicated Iron AgeIRomano-British agricultural activity in precisely that area (Gates 1999).…”

Social Dynamics on the Northern Frontier of Roman Britain

“…Here, on the eastern side of the settlement, a metalled trackway flanked by fields led towards the river crossing, whilst elsewhere there is an indication of open land perhaps implying pastoral farming (McCarthy 2002b; Keeley 1990, 315–16). However, it is abundantly clear that in the north generally there were significant clearances during the Iron Age and that crop husbandry was well established (Dumayne and Barber 1994, 171; Mercer and Tipping 1994; Hanson 1996; van der Veen 1992). Settlement in the vicinity of both sites is to be expected and a number of enclosures have been located within the surrounding are a of Corbridge, although they are currently undated.…”

“…The effects of cultivation, pastoralism and the use of wood, timber and other resources on the natural environment are impossible to quantify for the pre‐Roman Iron Age, but the records of dendrochronology at Carlisle and pollen sequences from mires in the northern military zone show that there had been much clearance in the centuries leading up to the arrival of the Romans (McCarthy 1995; Hanson 1996). Local disruption will have occurred because the arrival of large numbers of troops and their horses and other livestock will have placed increased demands on local supplies.…”