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A Composite Coastal Cordon on Exmoor? Exploring Local Influence on First-Century a.d. Fortlet Use

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 April 2018

Matthew Symonds
Matthew Symonds*
Affiliation:
Current World Archaeology, [email protected]
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Abstract

Exceptional aspects of the design and location of a pair of first-century fortlets on the Exmoor coast are explicable as a product of local influence. Previous explanations for the remote setting of these small posts and the distinctive defences securing them have focused on a signalling role, with the fortlets serving as a means to transmit messages to naval vessels patrolling the Bristol Channel. Instead, both the landscape setting and articulation with local settlement patterns imply that these installations strengthened pre-existing measures to counter coastal raiding. Parallels between this variant fortlet design and settlement morphology in the South-West peninsula suggest that the army co-opted an indigenous architectural style. The two fortlets could act as components of what was effectively a composite coastal cordon, built on collaboration between the Roman military and the local population.

Keywords

Roman militaryfortletExmoorDumnoniihybridisationcoastal controlOld BurrowMartinhoe
Type
Articles
Information
Britannia , Volume 49 , November 2018 , pp. 53 - 77
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2018. Published by The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies 

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References

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