In 1974 the authors began an aerial reconnaissance of the valleys and plain of North Cumbria, in an attempt to assess their potential for settlement site location. The drought that occurred in the summers of 1975 and 1976 enabled this programme to reap a rich and unexpected harvest. By the summer of 1975 a scatter of sites had been located, of which one of the more significant concentrations lay in the good farmland of the central Eden Valley, where a belt of Grade 2 agricultural land contained not only numerous farmsteads but also three Roman fort sites. Numerous crop-mark sites of enclosures and other features were located, particularly around the fort site at Brougham. Sites were located as parch-marks in pasture land, due to the unusual drought, as crop-marks in cereals and root crops, and further examples of shadow sites were also located on the more elevated areas. By these means it became possible to rectify the upland bias that had hitherto distorted concepts of ‘native’ settlement distribution in the Roman period, perhaps most obviously to be found in the Royal Commission for Ancient and Historical Monuments volume for Westmorland published in 1936. With this corpus of new evidence available it became highly desirable to excavate at least a single example from among the body of sites that had been discovered, and to establish as much as possible about the settlements and their occupants. An even larger body of evidence of settlement became available from the North Cumbrian plain where previously only a handful of sites had been located. It became possible to excavate farm sites from each zone in succeeding years (1976–1977), although factors leading to the selection of the two sites were different. Initially, an example was chosen close to Penrith for a trial excavation in 1975, run with the help of local volunteers. The evidence of plough damage which was produced as a result of this initial excavation led to the adoption of the project by the Department of the Environment, and it was with their backing that a more extensive programme was undertaken in the summer of 1976. In contrast the Silloth site was excavated at the instigation of the Department of the Environment prior to destruction of the site by the construction of a small estate of bungalows.

The products of the New Forest Roman pottery kilns have been known since the middle of the nineteenth century through the work of Akerman, Wise and Bartlett, and in this century through Sumner and Cunliffe; but, as yet, there has been no attempt to define the distribution of the individual types made in the New Forest. As a result certain late colour-coated wares in distant parts of Britain have been mistakenly attributed to the New Forest with little consideration of obviously different fabric characteristics. Products of the New Forest kilns have often been confused with those of the Oxfordshire kilns discovered at Sandford, Rose Hill and Dorchester, Cowley and Headington; the pottery is similar in form, and similar but by no means identical in fabric, to that of the New Forest and so a clearer distinction between the products of the two industries has become necessary. The aim of this article is to show the nature and distribution of the New Forest pottery types and the place of the industry in the development of colour-coated industries in Roman Britain.

In 1993 excavations were undertaken at Ochre Brook, Tarbock, about 13 km east of Liverpool, in advance of the construction of the M57–A562 link-road, by R.W. Cowell and R.A. Philpott of the Field Archaeology Section of Liverpool Museum. The work located fragments of two enclosure ditches, a western entrance, and part of the interior of one enclosure, features generally similar to the boundary ditches often associated with rural settlements. However, inside the enclosure was a more or less rectangular building, 11.2 by 5.85–6.9 m in dimensions, its post-holes packed with stone and tile. From pits to the north of the building and from the fills of the enclosure ditches were recovered over 320 kg of apparently unused tile, including many underfired fragments and distorted over-fired waste, as well as burnt clay debris, mostly oxidised. There was, in addition, a relatively small amount of rather crudely made pottery (about 7.5 kg), some underfired. Petrological analyses by David Williams (University of Southampton) suggested that both the pottery and the tile had probably utilised the same basic clay source. Among the mostly orange fired clay debris examined by V.S., were several oxidised fragments of obvious kiln structure, the largest piece comprising the probable junction of the lining-wall of a kiln chamber and its protruding pier or pilaster. Though no actual kiln structure was found in situ in the area excavated, the evidence in toto strongly suggests that tile manufacture had taken place somewhere in the immediate vicinity, with perhaps a small amount of pottery being made simultaneously, in non-commercial quantities.

In my Legionary Recruitment and Veteran Settlement during the Principate, I showed that legionary veterans displayed an increasing tendency to settle at the stations where they had served, rather than return home or move elsewhere, and that such settlement encouraged the development of hereditary service. The army indeed became so dependent on hereditary service that it was eventually made compulsory, probably by Diocletian.

The character and origin of the Roman naval forces outside Italy in the early Principate is obscure. They are usually referred to as ‘provincial’ fleets: they appear on the military diplomas only rarely. The earliest of these refers to classici who were discharged from a fleet in Egypt in A.D. 86; since the diploma was only issued after a minimum of 26 years' service, the fleet can presumably be dated to 60. Its existence under Nero is confirmed by an inscription recording a sub-prefect of the classis Alexandriae of the time and an edict of a prefect of Egypt in 63 referring to the personnel of the fleet. So far as the northern provinces are concerned, the Classis Flavia Moesica is so named on a diploma of 92. The recipients may have started their 26 years' service in other formations; but it is equally possible that they entered directly into the Moesian fleet in 66, which can then be presumed to have been in existence under Nero.

Since 1974, over 100 greensand querns of a type common in late Iron Age and early Romano-British contexts have been collected by five different people from the foreshore at East Wear Bay, situated on the east side of the Channel port of Folkestone, on the coast of south-east Kent (FIGS, ia and ib). The majority of these has been recovered by local enthusiast, Mr M. Dugdale, who reported his findings to the writer. This article is intended as an interim statement to place on record these findings and seeks to show that a major quern-production site was situated hereabouts, which was active during the late Iron Age and early Roman periods.

The discovery of a hoard of bronze bowls and of two bronze human-headed terminals in the vicinity of Amersham is of some importance. In the following account, the context of the finds is discussed by Michael Farley, the bowls and the coins by John Taylor and the heads by Martin Henig.

In the late autumn of 1968 gravel-quarrying at Aldwincle, Northants., brought to light a timber bridge of the Roman period. The working face of the gravel-pit fortunately coincided with one side of the bridge, and thereby exposed the structure in section (PL. IX A). Excavation of the bridge was carried out by D. A. Jackson during the winter of 1968/9 under the sponsorship of the Ministry of Public Building and Works.

In the course of the excavations at Silchester in 1907 remains of a Romano-Celtic temple were discovered in Insula XXXV in the south-east quarter of the Roman city (FIGS 1–2). The building, like many others in the town (including two further temples in Insula XXX beneath the present churchyard), was not set square to the street grid, but its main axis was aligned some 13 degrees north-east–south-west from the east–west street.

Over 800 clay coin moulds, excavated from 85 London Wall in 1988, had been used for casting copies of silver denarii and copper-alloy dupondii and asses which dated from Trajan to Trebonianus Gallus. The discovery of the moulds in the ditch of Londinium's defensive wall led initially to thoughts that this was the concealment of incriminating evidence, but it is now recognised that counterfeiting coins was rife and perhaps even uncontrollable. The wide variety of moulds made it a complicated task to identify the numbers and types of coins used to make the moulds. This article describes the types of moulds found, examines how the moulds were produced, and discusses the prevalence of coin moulds at differing periods and on differing sites in Roman Britain and on the Continent.

A 10-ha site discovered on Langwood Ridge, a spur of Chatteris Island, during the Fenland Survey is amongst the largest open Iron Age settlement scatters known in Britain (Site 26; TL4180 8520). Correlating with a series of linear cropmarks and the possible outline of a stone building on aerial photographs, in the course of the survey a distinct Roman component was also identified. This multi-period settlement, whose ‘in-fen’ situation is directly comparable to Stonea, was assessed by the Cambridge Archaeological Unit of the University of Cambridge in the winter of 1993 in conjunction with the Fenland Management Project (FMP). Nine other Iron Age/Roman scatters are known upon the ridge, including two within the immediate vicinity (Sites 24 and 25; FIG. 2). Moreover, cropmark complexes, respectively involving large field boundaries and more minor paddocks, lie just north-east of the main scatter (Sites 12 and 13). The nearest, the Site 12 field-system, was also trenched in conjunction with the Site 26 fieldwork. Given these densities, one theme of the programme was that of site definition; it is difficult to know where each site begins and ends. As a result, in part, of not being able to adequately delineate the allocated scatter, the investigations grew and to provide broader landscape context neighbouring sites were also sampled (Sites 13, 14, 23–25, and 29).

Britannia. The birth and growth of the Roman Society’s second journal: a centennial assessment.

Occupation at Bainbridge began in the governorship of Agricola. Little is known of the first fort; the visible remains represent a successor fort, established in c.a.d. 85 at the earliest, abandoned under Hadrian and Antoninus Pius, and reoccupied in c. a.d. 160. In the early Severan period, the size of the unit at the fort seems to have been greatly reduced in numbers, and a suite of rooms for an officer was inserted in the principia. Extensive work by cohors VI Nerviorum which took place in c. a.d. 205–7 included the building of new principia, the relocation of the east gate, and probably the addition of an annexe, its wall described in an inscription from the site as a bracchium. The fort was held until the end of the Roman period, by which time the principia had been partly demolished to provide space for a timber building probably accommodating the commanding officer. The aedes and part of the rear range seem to have stood until the ninth or tenth century, when the former was possibly converted into a church. Knowledge of this sequence of occupation depends largely on the results of Brian Hartley's excavations which are published here. The main focus of the report is on the remarkable series of principia, but a review of what is known of the overall archaeology of the fort is also included in the main text. The Supplementary Material (http://journals.cambridge.org/bri) contains a more detailed analysis of some of the other excavations together with various specialist reports.

This paper examines the corpus of over 500 Roman inscriptions from London by studying them as a unique category of archaeological find, one with data relating to the object, the inscription, and the find-spot. The author uses information published in the fascicules of Roman Inscriptions of Britain and in Britannia and links this data to maps of Roman London created for The Archaeology of Greater London (2000). Evidence for ‘zoning’ within Roman London is considered by comparing official and private inscriptions. Inscriptions suggesting retail activity are examined, as are the types of inscription found in London's waterfronts, which are used to suggest different areas of specialism within London's port. Finally, the paper looks at the inscriptions written by men and women, and by citizens and non-citizens.