Recent developments in the reading of Iron Age British coin-legends have added considerably to our knowledge of Latin in pre-conquest Britain. The picture that is now emerging is of the nuanced and sophisticated use of Latin over quite a wide area of South-Eastern England from the late first century B.C. onwards. The question that then arises is what the implications of this material are for our understanding of key developments in the culture, politics and societies of South-Eastern England in the decades before the Roman invasion. This paper argues that they are really rather significant.

This paper assesses the alternative models currently proposed for the original design of the Antonine Wall. It argues that there is sufficient evidence of a pattern in the structural relationships between the Wall and its various garrison posts to confirm that there was a major change of plan during the construction process. This resulted in the addition of a series of secondary forts, several of which can now be shown to have replaced primary fortlets, and a concomitant delay in the construction programme. An explanation is offered for this rapid change of design, which resulted in one of the most intensively garrisoned linear frontiers in the Roman Empire.

Excavations and fieldwork at Brampton, Norfolk (TG 223237), 1965–1975, have added to knowledge of the Romano-British settlement first recorded in 1667. The settlement lies at an important cross-roads and river-crossing and covers c. 75 acres (30 ha); of this an area of c. 15 acres was enclosed by a defensive ditch, probably in the second century. Industrial activity on the site included large-scale pottery manufacture, and metal-working. Fieldwork and small excavations have been carried out each year since 1965 by a small group of amateur archaeologists under the direction of the author. Excavations by Mr C. J. S. Green for the Norfolk Archaeological Unit in 1974 will be published in a forthcoming report in the series ‘East Anglian Archaeology’. No final report can be published until more large-scale excavations have been carried out, but it is hoped that the following brief account of the site will give an indication of its nature and importance.

Face pots and head pots which, while never common, were clearly much more widely used in Roman Britain than the number of surviving whole vessels might lead one to believe, are among the most attractive and least documented products of the Romano-British pottery industries. Face pots, with their crude, barbaric, rather comic-looking features stuck incongruously on a well-made Roman jar, are quite unlike any other type of Roman pottery, where free-hand figurative decoration is practically unknown. Head pots, with their contrived hair styles and naturalistic features, are more classical-looking and more acceptably ‘Roman’, and yet they seem to be a purely insular development, found only in the remote province of Britain and with no obvious close counterparts anywhere else in the Roman Empire except perhaps in North Africa. The purpose of this article is to outline the development of these two types of vessels in Britain and to make a preliminary attempt to define the regional groups that evolved, with a brief reference to the earlier and parallel developments on the Continent, and finally to discuss, in the light of the meagre evidence available, what might have been their function and possible significance.

The location of the forum at Lincoln has been a matter of dispute among scholars for many years. Since the discovery late last century of the so-called ‘Bailgate colonnade’ (see below, p. 69) various arguments have been put forward both for and against the interpretation of this imposing feature as the frontage of a forum-basilica complex. The evidence consisted of the colonnade itself, the ‘Mint Wall’ running westwards from the northernmost columns and probably forming the northern boundary of the complex and, within the area to the south and west of these, several references to finds of tessellated pavements.

A combination of excavation and study of accurately surveyed street systems of some Romano-British towns enables a distinction to be drawn between those with newly planned layouts and those founded on the sites of military fortresses. The aims of this article are to summarise very briefly, mainly by means of plans, the evidence for both types and to demonstrate how planned street-layouts can be detected.

It is just over one hundred years since Friedrich Hultsch published the second and enlarged edition of his Metrologie, so that it would seem appropriate, in view of the current discussion on Roman town-planning, to proffer some observations on one of the best-known, yet to some extent little researched, Roman towns in Germany.

Several recent articles in this journal have highlighted the fact that much effort has been expended trying to understand the intricacies of Roman planning, both in the civil and in the military context. They have also reiterated the point that one may not take it for granted that a given metric measurement may be simply divided by (say) o · 296 in order to provide a measurement in terms of so many ‘Roman feet’. The imperial and metric weights and measures are the regulated quantities of a modern era obsessed with standardization; one cannot expect such a rigorous uniformity when dealing with Roman standards in the north-west provinces, often based, as they were, on a wooden measurement-rod. However, when confronted with an excavated building or, on a grander scale, a whole town, it is the task of the excavator to examine whether or not a systematic plan on the part of the Roman architect or surveyor could have existed. More often than not there will have been one. The problem then is to identify not only whether the standard foot or the Drusian foot was used, but also whether differences within the length of these measurements themselves are discernible. Only by accurately documenting a great number of buildings on an equally great number of sites can one hope to make good the limited amount of evidence which the ancient authorities have left us.

Excavation at Honeyditches has revealed first century A.D. occupation in the Iron Age tradition, followed by Roman buildings. These included two parallel long timber structures, a large free-standing bath-house and a probable barn. These buildings, together with a house partially explored earlier this century, are interpreted as belonging to a villa complex, probably dating from the second to the fourth centuries. Norman pottery and occupation debris found over the bath-house are published in the Proceedings of the Devon Archaeological Society.

In recent years there has been much discussion of the ancient units of measurement used in both civil and military planning in Roman Britain, without great consensus being achieved. Clearly, this is not a subject for dogmatic assertion, but prolonged re-examination of the evidence has convinced the writer that the units of measurement employed in planning the town houses of Silchester and Caerwent were 7 1/2 and 3 3/4 pedes Monetales. It will be argued that the 7 1/2 and 3 3/4 p.M. units (hereafter referred to as units and half-units) were used not only to lay out the houses themselves, but also to calculate their positions within their respective insulae and, indeed, the overall sizes of the insulae themselves. If right, these suggestions clearly have far-reaching implications for the whole subject of Roman urban planning.

RIB 601 is a sandstone altar which was discovered in 1794 in the churchyard at Halton-on-Lune, three miles upstream of Lancaster. The stone, which is broken on its right-hand side, records a dedication made to Mars by a certain Sabinus and the men of a Numerus Barcariorum. It has been generally assumed that this is the same unit as the Numerus Barcariorum Tigrisiensium placed in the Notitia Dignitatum at ARBEIA (South Shields); this reference in the Notitia has been plausibly taken to apply to the late fourth century. This assumption of identity therefore entails postulating an earlier date for the unit's stay at Lancaster. As far as purpose is concerned, the usual assumption is that the function of the barcarii was one of transportation and lighterage. It is the purpose of this note to re-examine both assumptions.

This study examined absorbed organic residues in pottery to assess differences in subsistence practices in Roman Britain. Through this approach, we investigated foodways at a major urban site and a range of small towns, villas and farmsteads within its hinterland. The study revealed that consumption at Cirencester differed remarkably to consumption at other sites in the surrounding hinterland, with a greater contribution from pigs and/or chickens. Dairy products were a key contributor to the diet at rural sites, including a high-status villa. We contend that both findings are the result of extensification of food production. Thus, we show how reconstructing broad culinary patterns can reveal possible responses of inhabitants to the challenges of feeding the increasing population of Roman Britain.

A hoard of objects found at the early Roman colony at Colchester in a small hole scraped into the floor of a house destroyed during the Boudican revolt includes a group of high-quality gold jewellery, three silver military awards, a bag of coins, an unusual silver-clad wooden box and other items. Buried in haste as the British approached, they provide a remarkably clear image of one couple's background, achievements, taste and social standing. A bulla shows that the man was a Roman citizen, the awards that he was a veteran soldier of some distinction, while parallels for the woman's jewellery suggest that it was acquired in Italy.