Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 November 2011
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.
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), 25–46 and fig. 5.Google Scholar
3 Bennett, S. E., Davies, E. and Vignaux, G. A., Surrey Arch. Colls, lx (1963), 19–37.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), 57–88Google 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), 97–100CrossRefGoogle 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), 29–56.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), 163–220.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), 14–100, fig. 12Google Scholar.
36 Fulford, M. G. and Hodder, Ian, Oxoniensia xxxix (1974), 26–33.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.