During the summer of 1977, rescue excavations of a square, ditched enclosure were undertaken at Rothwell Haigh Colliery, Leeds. Relatively few discrete features were identified, but a 12.3 m-deep well situated within the enclosure was fully excavated. Pottery from the well, which was waterlogged from c. 7 m, indicates rapid infilling most likely in the early to mid-fourth century. Waterlogged wooden objects include a yew bucket, ash spade with iron shoe and ash drinking vessels, while the disposal of complete pottery vessels, a quern disc rough-out, articulated animal parts and a human skull highlight the potential for symbolic deposition. An exploration of the apparently more mundane items shows that they deviate from the normal domestic patterns seen on local sites, suggesting that selection for ritual deposition may have covered areas of material culture not normally associated with such activity.

Excavations to the east of the Roman fort of Inveresk in 2010 partly uncovered remains of a Mithraeum — the first from Scotland and the earliest securely dated example from Britain. A large rectangular sunken feature with lateral benches contained two altars buried face down at its north-western end. One was dedicated to Mithras, with iconography of both Mithras and Apollo as well as libation vessels. The other was dedicated to Sol, with a frieze above showing the Four Seasons. The Sol altar had a recess in the rear for a light which would have shone through his pierced rays, eyes, mouth and nose. Remains of an iron rod behind the nose hint at a more complex arrangement to create special visual or acoustic effects. Paint and plaster traces were recorded on both altars. The dedicator, G(aius) Cas(sius) Fla(…), a centurion, may have been in command of the garrison or of a legionary detachment. Stylistic links, especially in letter form, connect the work to sculptors of Legio XX. The stones and pigments are most likely from local sources. Little of the setting could be explored but there were traces of a precinct. A pit beside the Mithraeum included a large part of a well-used fineware beaker, which represented a deliberate offering. The Supplementary Material available online (http://journals.cambridge.org/bri) contains detailed descriptions of the altars, observations on the stone-working technology, lithology and pigment analysis, with extensive illustrations.

Human skeletal remains from Roman Britain are abundant and provide a rich repository of social as well as biological information concerning health, migration, diet and body/society interactions. At present, skeletal remains tend to be marginalised in studies of Roman trade, the military, economy, urbanisation and the like, yet they have huge potential to contribute to current debates. This article aims to highlight the potential of bioarchaeological analysis for understanding aspects of social identity in Roman Britain through the use of a more integrated, theoretical approach towards embodied interactions. It encourages future collaborative scholarship between bioarchaeologists, archaeologists and historians. The social determinants of health and identity will vary greatly between regions and the only way of establishing the diversity of life across the Roman Empire is through the instigation of a more comprehensive, large-scale, integrated study of funerary and skeletal assemblages.

This research explores the contribution bioarchaeology can make to the study of slavery in Roman Britain, responding to the calls by Webster and colleagues for the greater use of osteological and scientific techniques in this endeavour. It reviews the evidence for the bodies of the enslaved in the primary sources and bioarchaeological evidence from the New World and the Roman Empire. The paper aims to establish patterns of physiological stress and disease, which could be used to reconstruct osteobiographies of these individuals, and applies these findings to bioarchaeological evidence from Britain. It concludes that at the present time, it may not be possible for us to successfully separate out the enslaved from the poor or bonded labourers, because their life experiences were very similar. Nevertheless, these people are overlooked in the archaeological record, so unless we attempt to search for them in the extant evidence, the life experiences of the majority of the Romano-British population who were vital to its economy will remain lost to us.

Bbrockley Hill in Middlesex lies one mile south of Elstree Village and is bisected by Watling Street, which now forms the boundary between the London Boroughs of Barnet and Harrow. It is generally considered to be the site of Sulloniacae which was mentioned in the Second Antonine Itinerary as lying twelve miles from Londinium and nine miles from Verulamium. Excavations from 1937 to 1974, whilst failing to confirm this, have provided evidence of a flourishing coarse-pottery industry there in the first and second centuries. The manufacture of bowls, flagons, jars (some with lids), mortaria, platters and tazze is well attested.

In 1990 the Glamorgan-Gwent Archaeological Trust was approached by Gwent Health Authority with respect to the archaeological potential of the areas of three developments proposed in the grounds of St Cadoc's Hospital on Lodge Hill, Caerleon. These were a College of Nursing and Midwifery at ST 3344 9095, a sheltered housing development to be built by the Abbeyfield (Gwent) Extra Care Society at ST 3280 9097, and a housing estate on an area centred at ST 3283 9090. All three lay within the area of the Lodge Hill Roman cemetery, close to where a cremation and two tombstones (RIB 358 and 392) had been found in 1909 and a sculptured head of Attis in 1972 (see FIGS 1-2). The sheltered housing scheme had already received outline permission. At the same time a watching-brief was being carried out on the widening of Pil-bach Road and the insertion of a new sewer adjacent to the Abbeyfield site.

Cramond (probably caer Amon, (‘the fort of the Almond’) is a fishing village recently absorbed into the north-west corner of the City of Edinburgh. It lies on the east bank of the River Almond, at the river's entry into the Firth of Forth through a gorge of sandstone rock: a narrow shelf along the east bank provides quay space for a tidal harbour, whose exit is protected from north and east by Cramond Island. The parish church (from 15th century), sometime schoolhouse (18th century) and manse (18th century) overlie the principia and part of the retentura of a Roman fort. A tower (15th century) and mansion house (17th and 18th centuries) stand near. All of these incorporate Roman stones. Medieval Cramond Episcopi once overlay the praetentura; but the cottages, and Roman remains under them, have been cleared by the lords of the manor to make a park.

There can be little doubt that the subject of Roman military signalling installations has generated an excess of enthusiastic but misguided speculation. This paper is an attempt to demonstrate the limitations of Roman military signalling, and perhaps thereby assist archaeologists in the identification of buildings which may have had a signalling role. In essence, to establish the existence of a signalling function one has to prove requirement, feasibility and capability.

During his excavation of the Roman fort at Waddon Hill, near Stoke Abbot, Dorset, in 1967, Dr Graham Webster found a coin of exceptional interest. It is the second known, and best yet, specimen of Mack 314, Evans XIII 7. It is now deposited on permanent loan at the British Museum.

The student of inscriptions is often confronted with variations and peculiarities of spelling. Sometimes these are simply the result of errors on the part of the stone-cutter. But in many cases these variations are of much greater significance, since they derive from the spoken language. It seems reasonable to attempt to distinguish the latter from mere errors in stone-cutting. This paper aims to facilitate this for students consulting British inscriptions.

The Roman fort at Mollins lies at about 75 m above sea level, on the south bank of the Luggie Water, a major tributary of the River Kelvin (FIG. I). The site (National Grid reference NS 714 719) lies on the side of a small ridge, and faces northwards over gently undulating ground. The substratum is glacial till and, although the site is moderately well drained, under natural conditions the broad flood plain of the Luggie Water, which borders onto the northern edge of the fort, would have been formerly very poorly drained.

The archaeological site comprises a Roman fort which was probably built and later deliberately demolished during the Agricolan campaigns around a.d. 80 to 90.

This paper is intended as an attempt to assess the importance of the importation of overseas foodstuffs and other organic commodities to Canterbury during the late Iron Age and Roman periods through the evidence of amphorae. The material has been collected during the programme of excavations conducted by the Canterbury Archaeological Trust at the following sites around the town (FIG. I); Rosemary Lane Car Park (The Castle Vol. i of the Archaeology of Canterbury series); 77–9 Castle Street, 3 Beer Cart Lane, 69a Stour Street (CBR I–IV in Vol. 6 forthcoming); 16 Watling Street and Marlowe Car Park sites (MI–IV in Vol. 5 forthcoming); St. Gabriel's Chapel and Linacre Gardens in the Cathedral Precincts (Vol. 4 forthcoming); the Mint Yard and ‘Aula Nova’ (Norman Staircase) also in the Precincts (Vol. 3 forthcoming); St. Radigund's Street (Church Lane, Vol. 2). Although excavations are still in progress it was felt wise to attempt an analysis of all the material recovered only up to the excavation of the Marlowe IV site in 1980, the 234 kg of amphorae sherds unearthed up to that date being regarded as a sufficiently large sample to be statistically reliable, in general terms, towards reconstructing the pattern of amphora importation into the town. Further excavations might yield further types and help to refine the quantified figures, although they should be of little overall consequence.

This article contains full editions with commentaries of the second and final instalment of the approximately 37 ink writing-tablets from Vindolanda discovered in the excavation seasons of 2001, 2002 and 2003. The editions are numbered continuously from 870, following the sequence in Tab. Vindol. IV.1, and are grouped in the following categories: Military Document, Letters, Descripta.

In late summer, sometime between cal a.d. 340–405, a hoard of tightly packed, stacked copper-alloy vessels was deposited in the Vale of Pewsey, Wiltshire. The corrosion of the vessels allowed for the preservation of delicate plant macrofossils and pollen. Analysis of this material has provided insights into the date, season and context of this act of structured deposition. A second hoard of similar vessels was deposited in the fourth or fifth century only a few miles away at Wilcot. The hoards and their deposition relate to Romano-British lifeways, at a time when the region was on the cusp of a dramatic period of change. The distribution of late Roman coins and belt fittings offers further insights into the social and economic character of Wiltshire at their times of deposition.

For the first time petrological and geochemical analysis of the Marcus Favonius Facilis legionary tombstone at Colchester (RIB 200) was undertaken to determine its geological source. The results show the material to be identical with samples obtained from the Middle Jurassic quarries at Norroy-lès-Pont-à-Mousson of Eastern France. Rather than quarrying what became the more accessible native freestone outcrop between Humberside and Dorset, stone-masons based at Claudian Colchester were instead relying upon established continental materials from the Rhineland provinces. In this short article, petrological analysis has also been used to establish a geological link between this tombstone and the material used for funerary monuments at the pre-invasion legionary base of Facilis (and of legio XX) at Neuss.

The analysis of organic residues from pottery sherds using Gas-Chromatography with mass-spectroscopy (GC-MS) has revealed information about the variety of foods eaten and domestic routine at Silchester between the second and fourth–sixth centuries A.D. Two results are discussed in detail: those of a second-century Gauloise-type amphora and a fourth-century SE Dorset black-burnished ware (BB1) cooking pot, which reveal the use of pine pitch on the inner surface of the amphora and the use of animal fats (ruminant adipose fats) and leafy vegetables in cooking at the Roman town of Silchester, Hants.

The significance of the well-known central roundel of the mosaic from Hinton St Mary, Dorset, UK, which carries a young male head with a chi-rho monogram behind it and pomegranates on each side, has been much discussed. This paper marshals evidence which suggests that the head is not a representation of Christ, but of one of the emperors of the House of Constantine, perhaps Constantine himself. Some of the implications for the nature of fourth-century imperial culture are discussed.

This paper presents the results of a series of geophysical surveys of Roman forts and their environs carried out by the Gwynedd Archaeological Trust. An almost complete plan of the early wooden fort at Llanfor has been produced. Its densely-packed interior demonstrates heavy garrisoning, probably during very early Flavian campaigning. The small square auxiliary fort of Caer Llugwy has been shown to be a contraction of a larger rectangular fort. Surveys at Pennal, Caer Gai, and Canovium revealed a wide range of extramural development including vici in the form of ribbon development.