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In this paper, I discuss the development of settlement in the Pontine region in light of Rome’s expansionist undertakings. The field survey data acquired over the past 25 years within the Pontine Region Project allow us to reconstruct the changes in rural settlement that occurred between the 6th century BC, the floruit of the Latin urban centres in the region, and the late 4th century, a time at which Rome seems to have affirmed its control over the region. By comparing rural settlement developments and the transformations taking place at urban centres in different parts of the region, I will evaluate when and at which geographical scales changes occurred, and to what extent they may be attributed to local developments or rather to external processes such as Roman colonization.
2024
A summary of over a decade of surveys and excavations at the site of a previously unknown Roman period settlement at the southern end of Margary's RR14 road from London at Bridge Farm, Nr. Barcombe Mills, Lewes, East Sussex, England. Investigations at the site are ongoing and this paper is in the form of a project diary which will need many more years of research before a final written report can be produced. Currently evidence suggests activity at the site from mid/late 1st century through to lthe early 5th with a short-lasting double earthwork defensive enclosure constructed during the late 2nd/early 3rd century. The settlement appears to be based on commercial/strategic requirements more than purely residential providing a transfer hub from road to river at the junction od roads from London, Pevensey and Chichester. More details are available on the projet website: www.culverporject.co.uk.
Roman Villas around the Urbs. Interaction with …, 2004
In this paper the authors present survey results of the Pontine Region Project (PRP), a long term research program of the Groningen Institute of Archaeology (GIA) in the Pontine region in central Italy. The survey data are integrated with topographical and environmental data from the various land systems that have been defi ned by project members in the study area. Specifi c attention is paid to case studies from the Lepine margins, the coastal zone between Nettuno and Circeo, and the Astura valley, areas that the authors refer to as examples of “traditional” land systems where Romanization led to a modifi cation of well-established Archaic exploitation of the land, expressed in the installation of Roman colonies and the rise of various villa types.1 In contrast to this, the creation of a Roman centuriation pattern in the graben area in the central part of the Pontine plain, well-known as the area of the former Pontine marshes, may represent a true act of colonization in a previously marginally exploited area. The analysis therefore suggests that Romanization in these areas was characterized by different rhythms and modes of change that are strongly related to either “traditional” or “colonized” land systems. Further systematic surveys will have to show whether this model can be extended to the whole of the Pontine region.
NAA Monograph Series Volume 3, 2017
Upgrading of the A1 road in North Yorkshire to motorway status has provided a significant opportunity to study a section of this historic and nationally important route. The scheme, which ran from the Dishforth Interchange to Leeming Bar near Bedale, covered a distance of 22km through the Vale of Mowbray, a low lying area of rich agricultural land occupying an interfluve ridge between the River Swale and the River Ure. The road has been in existence for almost 2000 years, acting variously as a focus for travel, settlement, and as a major boundary in the landscape. During the Roman period, it formed one of the principal north-south routes in the north of the province, linking two of the relatively few urban centres; Isurium at Aldborough and Cataractonium at Catterick. In the medieval period, it formed part of the route between London and Carlisle, and as such it remained one of the most prominent features of the area. Its importance increased in the post-medieval period and its early designation as a turnpike and use as a postal road (the Great North Road) resulted in the development of large farms and inns along the roadside. The Roman road, now widely known by its late Anglo-Saxon name of Dere Street, may have formalised a route with prehistoric origins. A combination of environmental evidence from peat cores and excavated Iron Age remains at points along the route provided evidence of widespread tree clearance, extensive field systems, and trackways indicating that this was a populated and organised landscape prior to its annexation by the Romans in the later 1st century AD. The most significant site encountered was the Roman settlement at Healam Bridge, a site which was poorly understood until archaeological work connected to the road scheme was undertaken. The work has shown this site to have been a major roadside settlement of considerable complexity. It lay strategically between two Roman towns and would have been one of the largest settlements in Roman North Yorkshire, an area of few urban or semi-urban communities. The Healam Bridge settlement covered an area of at least 18ha, along nearly a kilometre of the Roman road. The excavation investigated 15% of the known site, making it one of the most extensively excavated roadside settlements in the north of Roman Britain. The route of the motorway was positioned to avoid the known core of the settlement, but the excavation nevertheless examined a substantial transect of the site. Importantly, on the slopes beside the nearby Healam Beck, a well-preserved, deep sequence of partially waterlogged deposits were preserved, containing multiple phases of building and showing episodes of land reclamation and flood defence. The excavated evidence suggests that the settlement at Healam Bridge was probably a Hadrianic foundation, although there was evidence that Dere Street had been constructed through this area by the late 1st century AD. The absence of a significant assemblage of military equipment linked to the evidence for a highly Romanised diet and tableware assemblage suggests that the site was initially occupied by people from elsewhere in England or from further afield, but not by the Roman army. After an apparent contraction during the 3rd century, the settlement saw renewed activity during the 4th century, including evidence for intensive crop processing. Evidence for occupation continued into the 5th century AD. The settlement contained and was surrounded by substantial areas of grazing land. There is widespread evidence that equids were present in significant numbers, and it is suggested that mules were kept and possibly bred here. The supply of these animals represents an important part of the settlement’s economy, perhaps a dominant one, and it is possible that the settlement was established deliberately to supply transport for the army and other branches of the government. The site’s location, one day’s travel between the two Roman towns, would also have made it a natural market centre. Healam Bridge, although by far the largest, was not the sole Roman period site encountered. Parts of two other Roman-period settlements were also found in the southern part of the scheme and evidence for Dere Street itself was also investigated in several locations where it was found to be preserved beneath the former course of the Great North Road.
'Feeding the Fort' : Romano-British Settlement in South East Anglesey Matt Jones
This paper will give an over view of the evidence for a strongly Romanised community within the area of Anglesey opposite Caernarvon in North Wales. The study area is bonded by the Menai straits to the east and the south and by the west and north west by the Afon Braint. This paper will be relying mainly on Antiquarian sources with reference to the few modern documentary and excavation records. The evidence from this area appears to show an area with a long settlement history, with long lived native large/ high statues Iron age sites with strong indication for the adoption of Roman material culture and building styles. Introduction The recent discovery and excavation of the Romanised village settlement at Tai-Cochion on Anglesey by Gwynedd Archaeological Trust, inspired this paper. The excavation has started to revel strong evidence of a native community that was responding to the Roman presence and building a community which represented a Romanised style of settlement (Pers com Hopewell). This Romanised settlement appears to have been developed out of a reaction to the presence of the Roman axillary fort of Segontium on the west coast of the main land. It is the purpose of this paper to study the landscape surrounding the area of Tai-Cochion to give a social and historical context to of the Romano-British landscape in the surrounding area. Roman Settlement The development of Romanised native settlement is not a new phenomenon recent geophysical work from the Roman environs Project showed vici settlement associated with most of the short and long lived forts within north Wales (Hopewell D, 2005,225-69). Excavations carried out within the developed areas surrounding Segontium have produced strong evidence that the fort supported a two vici at its north and south gates (Casey P J & Davies J L,1993). The foundation of these urban environments have often been explained through the presence of the Roman military settlement. Webster (Webster 1966, 32) put forward the model that villages and settlements develop as service centres for the forts garrison. This was built on by Hopkins and Drinkwater (Hopkins1980, Drinkwater1983), they suggest that the arrival of a settled military presence was the foundation of a settled community near the fort, this not only met the needs of the garrison but also develops as an area for the gathering of taxes and resources to maintain the fort in a reciprocal manner. Corney has also noted that the development of small Romanised native towns/villages in Wiltshire has mainly be based on sites discovered along the Roman road systems (Corney M, 2001,5-). These urbanised developments served a number of functions and have been often been termed as 'administrative' or market villages (Bedoyere G,2003,107). These explanations of urban development both rely on the arrival of the Romans to stimulate any form of economic activity or settlement Millett (Millett M,1984). This leaves out the native initiative in reacting to the added stimulus of the arrival Roman army and integrating the army demands into an exciting market economy. These pre-existing native economies and trading areas which may have had a lose structure and then been fixed by the arrival of the Roman military market, the Roman authority could then have nurtured these fixed points as centres of administration and trade(Taylor J 2001,57). Antiquarian Evidence Archaeological records show that native settlement is represented by all types of the typical Iron age settlement types within this area, this included enclosed settlements, single and large
NAA Monograph Series Volume 3, 2017
Upgrading of the A1 road in North Yorkshire to motorway status has provided a significant opportunity to study a section of this historic and nationally important route. The scheme, which ran from the Dishforth Interchange to Leeming Bar near Bedale, covered a distance of 22km through the Vale of Mowbray, a low lying area of rich agricultural land occupying an interfluve ridge between the River Swale and the River Ure. The road has been in existence for almost 2000 years, acting variously as a focus for travel, settlement, and as a major boundary in the landscape. During the Roman period, it formed one of the principal north-south routes in the north of the province, linking two of the relatively few urban centres; Isurium at Aldborough and Cataractonium at Catterick. In the medieval period, it formed part of the route between London and Carlisle, and as such it remained one of the most prominent features of the area. Its importance increased in the post-medieval period and its early designation as a turnpike and use as a postal road (the Great North Road) resulted in the development of large farms and inns along the roadside. The Roman road, now widely known by its late Anglo-Saxon name of Dere Street, may have formalised a route with prehistoric origins. A combination of environmental evidence from peat cores and excavated Iron Age remains at points along the route provided evidence of widespread tree clearance, extensive field systems, and trackways indicating that this was a populated and organised landscape prior to its annexation by the Romans in the later 1st century AD. The most significant site encountered was the Roman settlement at Healam Bridge, a site which was poorly understood until archaeological work connected to the road scheme was undertaken. The work has shown this site to have been a major roadside settlement of considerable complexity. It lay strategically between two Roman towns and would have been one of the largest settlements in Roman North Yorkshire, an area of few urban or semi-urban communities. The Healam Bridge settlement covered an area of at least 18ha, along nearly a kilometre of the Roman road. The excavation investigated 15% of the known site, making it one of the most extensively excavated roadside settlements in the north of Roman Britain. The route of the motorway was positioned to avoid the known core of the settlement, but the excavation nevertheless examined a substantial transect of the site. Importantly, on the slopes beside the nearby Healam Beck, a well preserved, deep sequence of partially waterlogged deposits were preserved, containing multiple phases of building and showing episodes of land reclamation and flood defence. The excavated evidence suggests that the settlement at Healam Bridge was probably a Hadrianic foundation, although there was evidence that Dere Street had been constructed through this area by the late 1st century AD. The absence of a significant assemblage of military equipment linked to the evidence for a highly Romanised diet and tableware assemblage suggests that the site was initially occupied by people from elsewhere in England or from further afield, but not by the Roman army. After an apparent contraction during the 3rd century, the settlement saw renewed activity during the 4th century, including evidence for intensive crop processing. Evidence for occupation continued into the 5th century AD. The settlement contained and was surrounded by substantial areas of grazing land. There is widespread evidence that equids were present in significant numbers, and it is suggested that mules were kept and possibly bred here. The supply of these animals represents an important part of the settlement’s economy, perhaps a dominant one, and it is possible that the settlement was established deliberately to supply transport for the army and other branches of the government. The site’s location, one day’s travel between the two Roman towns, would also have made it a natural market centre. Healam Bridge, although by far the largest, was not the sole Roman period site encountered. Parts of two other Roman-period settlements were also found in the southern part of the scheme and evidence for Dere Street itself was also investigated in several locations where it was found to be preserved beneath the former course of the Great North Road.
Early Colonization in the Pontine Region
In: T.D. Stek & J. Pelgrom (eds) Roman Republican Colonization, New Perspectives from Archeaology and Ancient History, Papers of the Royal Netherlands Institute in Rome - Volume 62 - 2014, 211-232., 2014
This paper presents a study of changes in the urban and rural settlement of the Pontine region in southern Lazio from the Archaic (6th c. B.C.) to the Mid-Republican period (circa 200 B.C.). Its aim is to increase understanding of the colonization of this key area in the context of the political, economic and territorial expansion of Rome during the 5th and 4th c. B.C. Eight colonies were reportedly founded in the Pontine region in this period: Circeii, Cora, Pometia, Norba, Antium, Satricum, Setia and Tarracina, and instances of viritane land distributions are recorded as well. We follow leading ancient historians in presuming that these recorded foundations and distributions should be taken as a reflection of expansionist undertakings of some sort. In this paper, we discuss these two forms of colonization, highlighting the various historical, geographical and organizational conditions under which the colonization of the Pontine region occurred.
Parts 1-3:The Fieldwork and Results, Written and Drawn Records of the post-excavation report of the archaeological investigations undertaken by the Culver Archaeological Project (CAP) in Five Acres on Bridge Farm, Wellingham, Ringmer, East Sussex (TQ4297 1456) in 2014. The site was in a meadow to the west of the Romano-British settlement discovered adjacent to the River Ouse in 2011 (Millum, 2013). This excavation followed on from four trenches excavated in 2013 (Millum & Wallace, 2017). The 770sq.m open area excavation trench was located over a rectangular group of circular anomalies, adjacent linear and other features, observed in the geophysical survey in 2011. The excavation revealed 13 postholes, of 1m+ diameter, forming a rectangular grouping 16m by 6.4m, each containing the base of a waterlogged post averaging 0.45m in diameter/width at 0.8m -1m deep. of a building, probably aisled, dated by pottery to the late 3rd century AD. Waterlogged timbers were collected from two of the post holes including 2 unique worked timbers with ogee-carved ends (see Specialsit Report in Part 4), used as post-pads, which have been interpreted as the truncated ends of rafters from an earlier Roman period building.
A Middle−late Iron Age and Early Romano-British Settlement at
2017
Excavations in 2014 at Shepherds Spring School, Andover identified a rare Early Neolithic pit containing an important assemblage of worked flint and Carinated Bowl pottery. Middle–Late Iron Age and early Romano-British features included a substantial enclosure ditch of at least two phases, storage pits and the remains of the Portway Roman road.