Rippon, S., Smart, C., Pears, B. and Fleming, F. (2012) 'Inherited landscapes. The Fields of Britannia Project: Interim Report'. Medieval Settlement Research Group 27: 57-64 (original) (raw)
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The transition from Roman Britain to medieval England and Wales clearly saw profound changes in society and landscape, with the large-scale abandonment of the settlements most closely associated with Romanitasvillas and towns -and the emergence of new architectural styles, burial rites, and other material culture of Germanic character. These changes in the archaeological record suggest profound social dislocation for the higher echelons of society, but have deflected attention away from what may have been a very different story for the majority of the rural population. This article offers a preliminary description of the results of the Fields of Britannia Project, which is examining the potential for continuity and discontinuity in agricultural landscapes across the different regions of Roman Britain. Three strands are explored: the palaeoenvironmental sequences that record how patterns of land use changed over time, the relationship between excavated Romano-British field systems and those of the medieval period, and the ways in which settlement patterns evolved. All three point to considerable potential continuity and a lack of evidence for large-scale post-Roman abandonment of the rural countryside in lowland areas.
New visions of the countryside of Roman Britain, vol. 1: the rural settlement of Roman Britain
2016
Introduction 17 Classification of rural settlement 17 Farmsteads 20 Villas 33 Nucleated settlements: roadside settlements, military vici and villages 37 Summary 43 CHAPTER 3: BUILDINGS IN THE COUNTRYSIDE by Alexander Smith Introduction 44 The architectural dataset 45 Building form and material 47 Building function 54 An architectural continuum: building types 64 From national overviews to regional syntheses 74 CHAPTER 4: THE SOUTH by Martyn Allen The nature of the landscape 75 The South dataset 76 Roman rural settlement patterns 78 Buildings 102 Landscape context and infrastructure 114 Settlement hierarchies: the social and economic basis of settlements 121 Case studies: Middle Thames Valley and the Hampshire Downs Region summary CHAPTER 5: THE CENTRAL BELT by Alexander Smith The nature of the landscape The Central Belt dataset Roman rural settlement patterns Buildings Landscape context and infrastructure Settlement hierarchies: the social and economic basis of settlements Case study: the Cambridgeshire Fen edge Region summary CHAPTER 6: THE EAST by Alexander Smith The nature of the landscape The East dataset Roman rural settlement patterns Buildings Landscape context and infrastructure Settlement hierarchies: the social and economic basis of settlements Region summary CHAPTER 7: THE NORTHEAST by Martyn Allen The nature of the landscape The NorthEast dataset Roman rural settlement patterns Buildings Landscape context and infrastructure Settlement hierarchies: the social and economic basis of settlements Region summary CHAPTER 8: THE CENTRAL WEST by Tom Brindle The nature of the landscape The Central West dataset Roman rural settlement patterns Buildings Landscape context and infrastructure Settlement hierarchies: the social and economic basis of settlements. A case study from the Chester and Wroxeter hinterlands Region summary CONTENTS v Romanprelims.indd 5 15/09/2016 15:33:50 THE RURAL SETTLEMENT OF ROMAN BRITAIN vi CHAPTER 9: THE NORTH by Tom Brindle The nature of the landscape 308 The North dataset 309 Roman rural settlement patterns 311 Buildings 320 Landscape context and infrastructure 322 Settlement hierarchies: the social and economic basis of settlements 324 Region summary 329 CHAPTER 10: THE SOUTHWEST by Tom Brindle The nature of the landscape 331 The SouthWest dataset 332 Roman rural settlement patterns 334 Buildings 346 Landscape context and infrastructure 349 Settlement hierarchies: the social and economic basis of settlements 353 Region summary 357 CHAPTER 11: UPLAND WALES AND THE MARCHES by Tom Brindle The nature of the landscape 360 The Upland Wales and Marches dataset 360 Roman rural settlement patterns 363 Buildings 373 Landscape context and infrastructure 378 Settlement hierarchies: the social and economic basis of settlements 380 Region summary 383 CHAPTER 12: CONCLUSIONS: THE RURAL SETTLEMENT OF ROMAN BRITAIN by Alexander Smith and Michael Fulford Introduction 385 The regions 385 Chronological patterns 404 Rural population 416 Town and country 418 Roman rural settlement: reflections and future research 419 APPENDICES 1. Introduction and guide to the digital resource by Tim Evans 421 2. Kernel density 423 3. Finds categories 425 BIBLIOGRAPHY 426 INDEX (Peter Ellis) 455
2015
Households, Settlements, and Landscapes in Iron Age, Roman, and Early Medieval Northumbria: A Spatial Analysis of NorthEast England, c. 100 BC-AD 800 This thesis argues that the spatial organisation of the built environment in northeastern England between c. 100 BC-AD 800 reflects the complexities of culture contact, the transmission of ideas, and social change. It is suggested here that the examination of space and place in Britain between the late Iron Age (c. 100 BC-AD 43), Roman (c. AD 43-410) and Early Medieval (c. AD 410 to 800) periods can be used to analyse the changes and/or continuities in socio-cultural ideas and traditions. Two study regions to the north and south of Hadrian's Wall within the boundaries of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Northumbria are analysed using established and innovative computational techniques to understand what affect, if any, the inhabitants of Iron Age and Roman Britain had on the shape of the Early Medieval built environment. Settlement data was compiled into a Geographical Information System and established spatial analysis techniques that focus on site placement were combined with an innovative use of Visibility Graph Analysis to quantitatively analyse the spatial organisation of households and communities between c. 100 BC and AD 800. Visibility Graph Analysis is used to statistically measure the visual arrangement of built space in order to examine continuities or disruptions to the organisation of structures and settlements. The results alter our understanding of this period by revealing broad continuities in the spatial organisation of the built environment across the analysed time periods. This suggests that regional identity was influential in the formation and use of the built environment in the two study regions between c. 100 BC and AD 800. This has significant implications for understanding how Britain was transformed over the longue durée between the Iron Age and Early Medieval periods. These findings suggest that continuities in the spatial arrangement and organisation of the built environment are indicative of gradual change rather than abrupt disruption, and adds to current debates on how regions of Britain were transformed between late prehistory and the early historic era. "The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should be published without the prior written consent and information derived from it should be acknowledged."
New Visions of the Countryside of Roman Britain: Volume 1: The Rural Settlement of Roman Britain
It has often been stated that Roman Britain was quintessentially a rural society, with the vast majority of the population living and working in the countryside. Yet there was clearly a large degree of regional variation, and with the huge mass of new data produced since the onset of developer-funded archaeology in 1990, the incredible diversity of Roman rural settlement across the landscape can now be demonstrated. A new regional framework for the study of rural Roman Britain is proposed, in which a rich characterisation has been developed of the mosaic of communities that inhabited the province and the way that they changed over time. Centre stage is the farmstead, rather than the villa, which has for so long dominated discourse in the study of Roman Britain; variations in farmstead type, building form and associated landscape context are all explored in order to breathe new life into our understanding of the Romano-British countryside.
1999
This edited collection of papers studies the rural hinterland of the Roman forts and towns of North West England. The volume is in three sections. The first two deal with some theoretical approaches to settlement and the problems of site location and identification within the region. The final part contains four case studies looking at the two most-studied Iron Age and Romano-British enclosures in the region: Great Woolden Hall and Irby, and then the Castleshaw Valley, where research has revealed the tight economic control of the upland landscape of the southern pennies during the Roman period.
2016
There are so many people to thank for all the support, encouragement and advice that I have received over the last three years and the period of study leading up to it. I'd like to thank my mum for starting me down this road as a mere slip of a thing, attempting to find Roman remains in Ilchester (I was looking in the wrong place but I didn't know it then!) and my undergraduate supervisor, Dr Caradoc Peters, who instilled in me the passion, drive and skills to take my studies further. Also thanks to Steve Hartgroves for teaching me not to take it all so seriously! Thanks, too, go to all those people who helped me with the practical skills I needed: Bryn Tapper and Jane Powning at Cornwall HES for their help with GIS matters, Drs Richard Sandover and Chris Smart at Exeter for similar help and advice, and Chris, especially, for encouraging me to persevere in the long haul to finishing the writing up. Thanks to Dr Ben Pears for advice and help with soils characterisation. To Anj Beckham, at Norfolk County Council, Ben Croxford, at Kent County Council, and Chris Webster, at Somerset County Council, for providing me with all the digital information, reports and historic environment records for my regional studies, also huge thanks, as this research would not have been so straightforward without their help. Special thanks and acknowledgement go to my supervisors, Professor Stephen Rippon and Professor Oliver Creighton, for all their help and assistance over the last three years. To Steve, in particular, go thanks for the opportunity to carry out my doctoral research within the scope of the Fields of Britannia Project and for his untiring interest and support. Finally, I would like to thank all those people who were always there to give me support and encouragement, or who dragged me away from the computer to make sure I kept my sanity and perspective: