The Romanization of Pottery Assemblages in the East and North-East of England during the First Century A. D.: A Comparative Analysis

Abstract

he spread of Roman material culture in Britain in the decades before and after the Claudian invasion has long been an important field for scholars of Roman Britain. Two traditional concerns have been the supply of the Roman army and the distribution of Roman items to civilian and native populations 1 during this transitional and formative period. These areas have often been studied independently of each other. The examination of the supply and spread of material culture is valuable in its own right, but can contribute to our understanding of broader developments such as the impact on indigenous populations of Roman culture, the nature of the Roman economy, military organization, and Romanization. It is the intention of the current paper to outline and consider the incidence of one class of Roman artefact in a region of Britain and to demonstrate how the comparative study of such material may assist our understanding of social and economic developments in the first century A.D. The artefact type is pottery and the area of study is the eastern side of England from Leicester to Co. Durham. The perspective is chronological and comparative and it draws principally upon quantitative data. The current paper is derived from a wider study of the arrival and distribution of early Roman material culture into Britain. As part of that work the author looked at the composition of pottery groups from a range of sites occupied during the first century A.D. in the East Midlands, Yorkshire, and the NorthEast of England. 2 The presentation of some of these groups forms the principal subject of this paper. The pottery groups are arranged 1 e.g. S.D. Trow, 'By the northern shores of Ocean: some observations on acculturation process at the edge of the

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

“…Against this background, it is likely that non-urban settlements of pre-Roman origin were able to tap into this supply during periods of saturation at military and urban centres, explaining the greater prevalence of imports at nucleated settlements in close proximity to the road network. Unfortunately Willis' (1996) study lacked a comparable sample of rural settlements, although Evans' (2001, 27-28) functional analyses of pottery in central-southern and south-west England confirm the patterns here that the general distinction between urban and rural assemblages is much greater than that between villas and lower-status rural sites. Even though significant regional traditions remained in some areas, such as the emphasis on drinking vessels at rural sites in the Severn Valley (Evans, 2001, 29), these patterns should be seen to represent the successful integration of pre-Roman traditions within the globalizing system rather than a conscious choice of 'resistance'.…”

“…This picture of globalizing change in pottery supply in the east of Britain presents further confirmation of the first of Going's (1992) log phases of synchronous change in the Roman economy at the end of the 1st century AD. In terms of the supply of imports, both Willis (1996) and Evans (2001) note the tendency of military sites in Britain to receive greater quantities than at nonmilitary sites. Although the absence of long-lived military sites in the south-east prevented similar observations being made in this study, such patterning confirms the notion that the consumption of imported pottery in the province was determined by state-driven supply networks rather than market forces.…”

The Making of Britain's First Urban Landscapes: The Case of Late Iron Age and Roman Essex

“…45 Based on Willis 1996. functional classes of pottery by phase at each site. 46 Details of assemblage size and the means of quantification are also presented in Table 2.…”

The Material Culture of Small Rural Settlements in the Batavian Area: A Case Study on Discrepant Experience, Creolisation, Romanisation or Globalisation?

“…Many objects are not appreciated because they are Roman, but because they are new, modern, or tasty (Freeman 1993: 443-444;Wells 1999: 127-128;Hingley 1996: 42). Moreover, objects that may originate from the Mediterranean, could have been used later in a different way, even to stress opposite meanings (Willis 1996;Grahame 1998;Webster 2001: 215-218;Mattingly 2004: 7). As a last point concerning material culture, many objects labelled 'Roman' do in fact precede the Roman conquest of Britain, and it is doubtful whether they were seen as Roman.…”