Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T04:33:31.680Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Dating of Farnham (Alice Holt) Pottery

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 November 2011

Martin Millett
Affiliation:
Merton College, Oxford

Extract

The extensive Romano-British coarse-pottery manufacturing centre in the Farnham area of west Surrey and north-eastern Hampshire has now been known for over half a century and several isolated kilns have been investigated. Until recently however the dating of the pottery has lacked precision owing to the scarcity of stratified and dated groups near to the kilns. As a result of this and the lack of a synthesis of the kiln evidence excavators have found the pottery of little value as dating evidence. Since 1969 a series of excavations on the Romano-British site at Neatham (Vindomi), about 8 km from the main kiln group, have produced large quantities of the pottery, much of it from a series of stratified groups. A study of this material has resulted in improved dating. This paper presents a dated typology of the more widely-distributed types and re-examines the dating of the excavated kilns.

Type
Articles
Information
Britannia , Volume 10 , November 1979 , pp. 121 - 137
Copyright
Copyright © Martin Millett 1979. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 M. Millett and D. Graham, Excavations on the Romano-British Small Towns at Neatham, Hants. 1969–1976 forthcoming. Cited below as Neatham.

2 Lyne, M. and Jefferies, R. S., Surrey Arch. Colls. lxx (1974), 2546 and fig. 5.Google Scholar

3 Bennett, S. E., Davies, E. and Vignaux, G. A., Surrey Arch. Colls, lx (1963), 1937.Google Scholar

4 Lyne, M. and Jefferies, R. S., Current Archaeology 54, 212–13Google Scholar; also The Alice Holt/Farnham Roman Potteries, C.B.A. forthcoming.

5 A. W. G. Lowther, in K. P. Oakley, W. F. Rankine, and Lowther A Survey of the Prehistory of the Farnham District, Surrey Arch. Soc. (1939). Cited below as Prehistory of Farnham.

6 Prehistory of Farnham, Part III i.

7 cf. Holling, F., Surrey Arch. Colls. lxviii (1971), 5788Google Scholar, especially p. 66.

8 op. cit. (note 7), fig. 1.

9 Lasham, F., Surrey Arch. Colls. xii (1895), 145–56.Google Scholar

10 See Neatham Chapter iii for fuller detail on method. The general theory is most conveniently available in Ch. 10 of Doran, J. E. and Hodson, F. R., Mathematics and Computers in Archaeology (Edinburgh, 1975).Google Scholar

11 Neatham Chapter iv.

12 See Appendix I for list of places where kiln samples are available for examination.

13 Peacock, D. P. S., Archaeometry 10 (1967), 97100CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Fulford, M. G. in Cunliffe, B. W., Excavations at Portchester Castle: Vol. 1 Roman (London, 1975), 293–8Google Scholar.

14 Clark, A. J., Surrey Arch. Colls. li (1950), 2956.Google Scholar

15 M. G. Fulford, op. cit. (note 13), pp. 299–301.

16 Clark, op. cit. (note 14), figs. 6–9.

17 Cunliffe, B. W., Excavations at Fishbourne ii (London 1971)Google Scholar, fig. 114.

18 Williams, D. F. in Peacock, D. P. S. (ed.), Pottery and Early Commerce (London 1977), 163220.Google Scholar

33 I would like to thank the following bodies who contributed towards the travel costs of the distribution study: The V. Gordon Childe Bequest Fund (London Institute of Archaeology); The Society of Antiquaries of London, The Surrey Archaeological Society, and Mr L. P. G. Wright who provided me with transport throughout.

34 Forthcoming study (op. cit., note 4).

35 See for instance Blurton, T. R., T. London Middlesex Arch. Soc. xxviii (1977), 14100, fig. 12Google Scholar.

36 Fulford, M. G. and Hodder, Ian, Oxoniensia xxxix (1974), 2633.Google Scholar

37 Brears, P., Farnham Potteries (London and Chichester 1971), 5.Google Scholar

38 Hodder, I., Britannia v (1976), 340–59Google Scholar.

39 These groups are from Bow; Brentford; Bitterne; Verulamium Theatre; Neatham; and City of London (Palace).

40 Fulford, op. cit. (note 13), fig. 157.