Samian: Beyond Dating

Willis, Steven

doi:10.16995/trac1996_38_54

Cited by 12 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…Such a concern with the social and cultural roles of ceramic evidence runs against the grain of traditional economic approaches to Roman pottery (as reviewed by Greene, 2005a,b), and should be seen in the context of other more recent social approaches to Roman pottery (e.g. Willis, 1997;Hawthorne, 1998;Monteil, 2004;Roth, 2007) and finds assemblages (Eckardt, 2002;Cool, 2006;Derks and Roymans, 2006;Hingley and Willis, 2007).…”

Section: Methods and Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

Globalizing the local in Roman Britain: An anthropological approach to social change

Pitts

2008

Journal of Anthropological Archaeology

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Section: Methods and Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

Globalizing the local in Roman Britain: An anthropological approach to social change

Pitts

2008

Journal of Anthropological Archaeology

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“…It seems especially well represented on sites which were important in the Iron Age and maintain centrality after the Conquest. Samian enjoyed a complex relationship with other early imported types, such as GalloBelgic wares, including platters, jars and flagons, with Samian taking over some of the roles of the early types (Willis, 1997(Willis, , 1998. More broadly, these imported wares became part of a repertoire of wheel-turned pottery made in Britain, the potter's wheel being introduced before 100 BC in some parts of eastern England, spreading in a complex fashion over the next 150 years or so.…”

Section: Sourcementioning

confidence: 99%

What Do Objects Want?

Gosden

2005

J Archaeol Method Theory

376

144

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This paper develops an argument for the agency of objects, looking at the effects objects have on people. Groups of related objects, such as pots or metal ornaments, create stylistic universes which affect producers and users of new objects, bound by the canons of style. For an object to be socially powerful in a recognized manner, the form of the object lays down certain rules of use which influence the sensory and emotional impacts of the object. Formal properties of artifacts are influenced by the genealogy of the object class, including historical continuities and changes, and also its perceived source. The forms of objects, the historical trajectories of the class of objects and their perceived sources combine to have social effects on people, shaping people as socially effective entities. Britain's incorporation into the Roman Empire between 150 BC and AD 200 provides an excellent case study through which to look at the changing corpora of objects, which had continuities and changes in form, a set of subtle attributions of sources and a complex range of social effects. KEY WORDS: effects; form; Roman Britain.My attempt in this article is to explore what might be called an object-centered approach to agency. It is often assumed that society is created and reproduced through the actions of human agents who are shaped and constrained by the broader society in which they live. For the prehistorian, the active human subject is a problematical entity, but artifacts are often abundant, although not totally unproblematical as we shall see. There are a number of strands of thought within archaeology and outside which explore the effects that things have on people and I would like to use these to start thinking about the obligations objects place upon us when they are operating as a group. I shall use the incorporation of Britain into the Roman Empire as a brief case study within which to explore these ideas a little more. Periods of change are important in bringing out the relationships

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“…Clarke 1997; Hill 1995). Willis (1997) has identified a number of large groups of unused and near‐complete samian vessels on sites in Britain and demonstrated that they all appear to have been deposited at times of structural or occupational change at settlements and times of site refashioning. The association between ritual activity and the negotiation of structural and landscape change can also apply to the installation of waterfronts.…”

Section: Ritual Symbolism and Waterfront Construction At Londonmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reimagining Roman Ports and Harbours: The Port of Roman London and Waterfront Archaeology

Rogers¹

2011

Oxford J Archaeology

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Summary. This paper explores some theoretically informed ways in which tohave been crucial to our understanding of waterfronts but the material could be used further by examining the social and religious contexts of artificial waterfront development and the impact of these installations in terms of the alterations they made to land and water. Ports and harbours were 2 special places: they were unique environments, providing different experiences from those gained inland (cf. Rainbird 2007). The association of these structures with water, in the form of seas and rivers, might seem an obvious point, and is often taken for granted, but there are many social issues that can be considered in connection with this involvement including those relating to the religious connotations of water and its dangers. These will have been important aspects in the meanings attached to, and experiences associated with, ports and harbours in their local contexts.Using the well-preserved evidence of the port of Roman London as a case study, this paper will examine the cultural attitudes to ports and other waterfront installations with a special focus on religious responses. Some of the earliest recorded finds relating to the Roman waterfront on the north (City) side of the Thames at London were in the nineteenth century (Price 1870, 74-5; cf. Milne 1985, 15), but starting in the 1970s some major discoveries have been made. There is an important account of these excavations by Milne (1985) The Port of Roman London, along with some publications of individual sites (e.g. Miller et al. 1986;Swift 2008;Tatton-Brown 1974) and discussion articles (Brigham 1990;Bateman and Milne 1983), but there has never been a comprehensive report incorporating these sites. Across the Thames at Southwark there have been numerous excavations, some of which incorporating waterfronts (e.g. Cowan 2003; Yule 2005), and there is now an important volume summarising current knowledge (Cowan et al. 2009). Within the context of ritualised and symbolic landscapes and waterscapes, the paper will also explore how the construction of the monumental waterfront at London will have had a major impact on the way in which the relationship between land and water was negotiated. Before that, the paper will examine the concentration of religious structures and material on the waterfront. WATERFRONT ARCHAEOLOGYRoman ports and harbours are a popular, though largely specialised, area of study with the International Journal of Nautical Archaeology providing one useful outlet for research (e.g. Blackman 1982a;1982b;Hohlfelder et al. 2005;Rickman 1988). The assessment of waterfront structures in Roman Britain, however, is still in need of further work (cf. Fryer 1973;Cleere 1978). In

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Samian: Beyond Dating

Abstract: Surprisingly little work has systematically ex.plored whether samian was treated differently from other pottery types in Britain or how it may have been regarded by different cultural and status groups.

Cited by 12 publications

References 2 publications

Globalizing the local in Roman Britain: An anthropological approach to social change

Globalizing the local in Roman Britain: An anthropological approach to social change

What Do Objects Want?

Reimagining Roman Ports and Harbours: The Port of Roman London and Waterfront Archaeology

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