Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T04:28:43.518Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Making of Britain's First Urban Landscapes: The Case of Late Iron Age and Roman Essex

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 March 2010

Martin Pitts
Affiliation:
University College London, [email protected]
Dominic Perring
Affiliation:
University College London, [email protected]

Abstract

This paper presents preliminary research into the social and economic impact of early urban settlement in Britain, focusing on the case-study area of Late Iron Age to Roman Essex. Through fresh analysis of ceramic assemblages from Colchester and Heybridge, we describe hitherto unrecognised socio-cultural groupings and identities through subtle differences in the deposition of pottery in the generations before and after conquest. The concluding discussion concentrates on problems that we still have to address in describing the economic basis of early urban society in Britain.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Martin Pitts 2006. 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

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Atkinson, M. forthcoming: ‘Settlement morphology’, in Atkinson, M. and Preston, S.J., Elms Farm: Excavations at the Late Iron Age and Roman Site at Heybridge, Essex, 1993–5, East Anglian Archaeology Report, ChelmsfordGoogle Scholar
Atkinson, M., and Preston, S.J. 1998: ‘The Late Iron Age and Roman settlement at Elms Farm, Heybridge, Essex, excavations 1993–5: an interim report’, Britannia 29, 85110CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Atkinson, M., and Preston, S.J. forthcoming: Elms Farm: Excavations at the Late Iron Age and Roman Site at Heybridge, Essex, 1993–5, East Anglian Archaeology Report, ChelmsfordGoogle Scholar
Biddulph, E. 2005: ‘Last orders: choosing pottery for funerals in Roman Essex’, Oxford Journal of Archaeology 24, 2345CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brooks, H., and Crummy, P. forthcoming: 29–39 Head Street, Colchester: 2000 Excavations, ColchesterGoogle Scholar
Carrol, M. 2004: ‘The genesis of Roman towns on the Lower Rhine’, in Wilson, P. (ed.), The Archaeology of Roman Towns, Exeter, 2230Google Scholar
Castells, M. 1977: The Urban Question: A Marxist Approach, LondonGoogle Scholar
Condron, F., with Perring, D. 2002: ‘Iron Age to Roman’, in Perring, D., Town and Country in England: Frameworks for Archaeological Research, York, 6981Google Scholar
Cool, H.E.M., and Baxter, M.J. 2002: ‘Exploring Romano-British fnds assemblages’, Oxford Journal of Archaeology 21, 365–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cool, H.E.M, Lloyd-Morgan, G., and Hooley, A.D. 1995: Finds from the Fortress. The Archaeology of York, The Small Finds 17/10, YorkGoogle Scholar
Creighton, J. 2000: Coins and Power in Late Iron Age Britain, CambridgeCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crummy, N., and Eckardt, H. 2003: ‘Regional identities and technologies of the self: nail-cleaners in Roman Britain’, Arch. Journ. 160, 4469Google Scholar
Crummy, P. 1984: Excavations at Lion Walk, Balkerne Lane and Middleborough, Colchester, Essex, Colchester Archaeological Report 3, ColchesterGoogle Scholar
Crummy, P. 1992a: ‘Aristocratic graves at Colchester’, Current Archaeology 132, 492–7Google Scholar
Crummy, P. 1992b: Excavations at Culver Street, the Gilberd School, and Other Sites in Colchester 1971–1985, Colchester Archaeological Report 6, ColchesterGoogle Scholar
Crummy, P. 1997: Colchester, ColchesterGoogle Scholar
De Jersey, P. 2001: ‘Cunobelin's silver’, Britannia 32, 144CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Down, A., and Rule, M. 1971: Chichester Excavations 1, ChichesterGoogle Scholar
Down, A. 1989: Chichester Excavations 6, ChichesterGoogle Scholar
Down, A. 1993: ‘The Theological College 1985 and 1987’, in Down, A. (ed.), Chichester Excavations 8, ChichesterGoogle Scholar
Drury, P.J. 1978: Excavations at Little Waltham 1970–71, CBA Research Report 26, ChelmsfordGoogle Scholar
Evans, C. 2003: ‘Britons and Romans at Chatteris: investigations at Langwood Farm, Cambridgeshire’, Britannia 34, 175264CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Evans, J. 2001: ‘Material approaches to the identifcation of different Romano-British site types’, in James, S. and Millett, M. (eds), Britons and Romans: Advancing an Archaeological Agenda, CBA Research Report 125, York, 2635Google Scholar
Evans, J. 2005: ‘Pottery in urban Romano-British life’, in MacMahon, A. and Price, J. (eds), Roman Working Lives and Urban Living, Oxford, 145–66Google Scholar
Foster, J. 1986: The Lexden Tumulus: a Re-appraisal of an Iron Age Burial from Colchester, Essex, British Archaeological Reports British Series 156, OxfordGoogle Scholar
Fulford, M.G. 1975: New Forest Roman Pottery, British Archaeological Reports British Series 17, OxfordGoogle Scholar
Fulford, M.G. 2003: ‘Julio-Claudian and early Flavian Calleva’, in Wilson, P. (ed.), The Archaeology of Roman Towns, Exeter, 95104Google Scholar
Fulford, M.G., and Huddleston, K. 1991: The Current State of Romano-British Pottery Studies, EH Occ. Pap.Google Scholar
Fulford, M.G., and Timby, J. 2000: Silchester: Excavations on the Site of the Forum-Baslica, 1977, 1980–86, Britannia Monograph 15, LondonGoogle Scholar
Haselgrove, C.C. 1982: ‘Wealth, prestige and power: the dynamics of Late Iron Age political centralisation in South-East England’, in Renfrew, C. and Shennan, S. (eds), Ranking, Resource and Exchange, Cambridge and New York, 7988Google Scholar
Haselgrove, C.C., and Millett, M. 1997: ‘Verulamium reconsidered’, in Gwilt, A. and Haselgrove, C.C. (eds), Reconstructing Iron Age Societies, Oxbow Monographs 71, 282–96Google Scholar
Hawkes, C.F.C., and Crummy, P. 1995: Camulodunum 2, Colchester Archaeological Report 11, ColchesterGoogle Scholar
Hawkes, C.F.C., and Hull, M.R. 1947: Camulodunum. First Report on the Excavations at Colchester 1930-39, Rep. Res. Comm. Soc. Antiq. 14, LondonCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hill, J.D. 2001: ‘Romanisation, gender and class: recent approaches to identity in Britain and their possible consequences’, in James, S. and Millett, M. (eds), Britons and Romans: Advancing an Archaeological Agenda, CBA Research Report 125, York, 1218Google Scholar
Hill, J.D., Evans, C., and Alexander, M. 1999: ‘The Hinxton Rings: a Late Iron Age cemetery at Hinxton, Cambridgeshire, with a reconsideration of northern Aylesford-Swarling distributions’, Proc. Prehistoric Soc. 65, 243–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jacobs, J. 1969: The Economy of Cities, New YorkGoogle Scholar
King, A.C. 1991: ‘Food production and consumption — meat’, in Jones, R.F.J. (ed.), Roman Britain: Recent Trends, Sheffeld, 1520Google Scholar
Lockyear, K. 2000: ‘Site fnds in Roman Britain: a comparison of techniques’, Oxford Journal of Archaeology 19, 397423CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Magilton, J. 2003: ‘The defences of Roman Chichester’, in Wilson, P (ed.), The Archaeology of Roman Towns, Exeter, 156–67Google Scholar
Mattingly, D.J. 2004: ‘Being Roman: expressing identity in a provincial setting’, Journal of Roman Archaeology 17, 525CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Medlycott, M. 1994: ‘Iron Age and Roman material from Birchanger’, Essex Archaeology and History 25, 2845Google Scholar
Mieroop, M. van de, 1999: The Ancient Mesopotamian City (2nd edn), OxfordGoogle Scholar
Millett, M. 1990: The Romanization of Britain: An Essay in Archaeological Interpretation, CambridgeGoogle Scholar
Niblett, R. 1985: Sheepen: An Early Roman Industrial Site at Camulodunum, CBA Research Report 57, LondonGoogle Scholar
Monaghan, J. 1997: Roman Pottery from York, YorkGoogle Scholar
Orton, C.R., Tyers, P.A., and Vince, A. 1993: Pottery in Archaeology, CambridgeGoogle Scholar
Parkins, H. (ed.) 1997: Roman Urbanism: Beyond the Consumer City, London and New YorkGoogle Scholar
Peacock, D.P.S., and Williams, D.F. 1986: Amphorae and the Roman Economy, LondonGoogle Scholar
Perring, D. 1991: Roman London, LondonGoogle Scholar
Perring, D. 2002a: The Roman House in Britain, LondonCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Perring, D. 2002b: Town and Country in England: Frameworks for Archaeological Research, CBA Research Report 134, YorkGoogle Scholar
Petts, D. 2002: ‘Votive hoards in late Roman Britain: pagan or Christian?’, in Carver, M.O.H. (ed.), The Cross Goes North. The Age of Conversion in Northern Europe, AD 300–1300, York, 109–18Google Scholar
Pitts, M. 2004: ‘“I drink, therefore I am?” Pottery consumption and identity at Elms Farm, Heybridge, Essex’, in Croxford, B., Eckardt, H., Meade, J. and Weekes, J. (eds), TRAC 2003. Proceedings of the Thirteenth Annual Theoretical Roman Archaeology Conference, Leicester 2003, Oxford, 1627Google Scholar
Pitts, M. 2005a: ‘Regional identities and the social use of ceramics’, in Bruhn, J., Croxford, B. and Grigoropoulos, D. (eds), TRAC 2004. Proceedings of the Fourteenth Annual Theoretical Roman Archaeology Conference, Durham 2004, Oxford, 5064Google Scholar
Pitts, M. 2005b: ‘Pots and pits: drinking and deposition in late Iron Age South-East Britain’, Oxford Journal of Archaeology 24, 143–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pitts, M. forthcoming: Consumption and Identity in Essex and Hertfordshire, c. 50 B.C.–A.D. 200: a Ceramic Perspective, unpub. PhD thesis, University of YorkGoogle Scholar
Rivet, A.L.F. 1964: Town and Country in Roman Britain (2nd edn), LondonGoogle Scholar
Rykwert, J. 1976: The Idea of a Town: the Anthropology of Urban Form in Rome, Italy and the Ancient World, LondonGoogle Scholar
Sealey, P.R. 1999: ‘Finds from the cauldron pit. The spouted strainer bowls’, in Brown, N.R., The Archaeology of Ardleigh, Essex: Excavations 1955–1980, East Anglian Archaeology Report 90, Chelmsford, 117–24Google Scholar
Sealey, P.R. forthcoming: ‘Amphoras’, in Atkinson, M. and Preston, S.J., Elms Farm: Excavations at the Late Iron Age and Roman Site at Heybridge, Essex, 1993–5, East Anglian Archaeology Report, ChelmsfordGoogle Scholar
Shennan, S. 1997: Quantifying Archaeology, EdinburghGoogle Scholar
Stead, I.M. 1967: ‘A La Tène III burial at Welwyn Garden City’, Archaeologia 101, 162CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stead, I.M., and Rigby, V.A. 1986: Baldock: the Excavation of a Roman and Pre-Roman Settlement, 1968–72, Britannia Monograph 7, LondonGoogle Scholar
Symonds, R.P., and Wade, S. 1999: Roman Pottery from Excavations in Colchester, 1971–86, Colchester Archaeological Report 10, ColchesterGoogle Scholar
Thompson, I. 1982: Grog-tempered ‘Belgic’ Pottery of South-Eastern England, BAR British Series 108, OxfordCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wacher, J.S. 1995: The Towns of Roman Britain (2nd edn), LondonGoogle Scholar
Webster, G. (ed.) 1988: Fortress into City. The Consolidation of Roman Britain, First Century AD, LondonGoogle Scholar
White, R.H., and Gaffney, V.I. 2003: ‘Resolving the paradox: the work of the Wroxeter Hinterlands Project’, in Wilson, P. (ed.), The Archaeology of Roman Towns, Exeter, 221–32Google Scholar
Whittaker, C.R. 1990: ‘The consumer city revisted: the vicus and the city’, Journal of Roman Archaeology 3, 110–18CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whittaker, C.R. 1995: ‘Do theories of the ancient city matter?’, in Cornell, T.J. and Lomas, K. (eds), Urban Society in Roman Italy, London, 926Google Scholar
Williams, J.H. 2003: ‘New light on Roman Kent’, Journal of Roman Archaeology 16, 219–36CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Willis, S. 1996: ‘The Romanization of pottery assemblages in the East and North-East of England during the frst century A.D.: a comparative analysis’, Britannia 27, 179221CrossRefGoogle Scholar