Excavation of the Roman tilery at Little London, Pamber, Hampshire, has prompted a reassessment of the dating of relief-patterned tile, assigning the bulk of production to the Claudio-Neronian period rather than the late first to mid-/late second century. This material has been privileged for retention in excavation archives but can now be seen as a proxy for the manufacture of a much wider range of ceramic building material, typically discarded on site, which, in the case of products from Little London and pre-Flavian Minety (Wiltshire), travelled distances of up to 100 km. Redating implies more extensive public and private building in town and country south and east of the Fosse Way before the Flavian period than has previously been envisaged. While private building included the construction of bath-houses, heated rooms and the provision of roofing materials, public building, we suggest, provided tabernas et praetoria along the principal roads of the province. In the private sphere such building provides a possible context for Dio Cassius’ mention of the recall and confiscation of large loans made to Britons before the Boudican rebellion. Finally, consideration of fabric needs to be added to the criteria for retaining ceramic building material in excavation archives.

Exceptional aspects of the design and location of a pair of first-century fortlets on the Exmoor coast are explicable as a product of local influence. Previous explanations for the remote setting of these small posts and the distinctive defences securing them have focused on a signalling role, with the fortlets serving as a means to transmit messages to naval vessels patrolling the Bristol Channel. Instead, both the landscape setting and articulation with local settlement patterns imply that these installations strengthened pre-existing measures to counter coastal raiding. Parallels between this variant fortlet design and settlement morphology in the South-West peninsula suggest that the army co-opted an indigenous architectural style. The two fortlets could act as components of what was effectively a composite coastal cordon, built on collaboration between the Roman military and the local population.

This paper assesses the effects which the building of Hadrian's Wall had on the patterns of supply and communication from the continent. Existing systems were strengthened rather than altered, and Hadrian's reign saw the full development of ports and military installations on the North Sea and Channel coasts. Navigation to Britain and sailing conditions on various routes are discussed, comparing their importance in the transport of wine, oil, exotic plants and samian ware and the movement of military personnel. Use of the Rhône–Rhine axis is emphasised for the movement of goods from Central Gaul and the Mediterranean, but other rivers in western and north-western Gaul were of some importance, as the details of samian distribution demonstrate. Finally, non-state organisation of the acquisition and distribution of commodities supplied to the army on Hadrian's Wall is strongly favoured.

A saltern associated with salt production was excavated at Pyde Drove, near Woolavington. The large assemblage of briquetage recovered has allowed for some novel interpretations of the function of the different component types within the hearth structures. The saltern comprised a mound of waste material adjacent to 12 brine-settling tank pits and two salt water channels. A further settling tank was revealed beneath the mound. The pottery indicates that activity on the site dates to the later Romano-British period.

I propose that the usual role of the Notitia Dignitatum's ‘Saxon Shore’ forts was, on both sides of the Channel, to control chronic, ‘everyday’ piracy and to support imperial operations. An exception occurred under Carausius and Allectus when the British forts were augmented to face likely Roman invasion. There was never any integrated cross-Channel system against concerted barbarian seaborne attack, Saxon or otherwise. The ‘Saxon Shore’ was a late fourth-century political expedient, confined to Britain and with minor military significance.

This paper presents a new approach to an old problem, the provincial reception of the image of Roman emperors. Applying 3D computer modelling, we captured the portrait features of Hadrian as represented on coinage minted for the British province, produced a 3D model from a coin and compared it with the bronze head of Hadrian found in London. The aim was to test the possibility, previously posited by other scholars, that the London portrait might have been produced by an artisan who used coin portraits of the emperor as his main – if not only – model. More generally, the paper examines the dependencies of coinage and sculpture on shared models and applies new technology to Roman portrait studies.

Charles and Singleton have explained why Cassius Dio's claim (60.21.2) that elephants were among the equipment prepared for use in Britain during the Claudian invasion of a.d. 43 is probably untrue, if one assumes that by ‘elephant’ he means the animal of that name. It is argued here that the best explanation of this apparent error is that Dio preserves a reference to a type of military machine, probably a siege-tower, rather than to the animal of this name.

Modern Usk is a small market town situated within the county of Gwent on the east bank of the River Usk at its confluence with the tributary River Olway, and on the flood plain of both rivers. It lies at a height of c. 17 m O D, on a major bridging-point of the River Usk, and commands two natural routeways. The first, formed by the valley of the Usk itself, runs from the central highlands of southern Wales around Brecon, south-eastwards to Abergavenny and Usk, and from there southwards to reach the sea at Newport. The second, minor, route follows the valley of the Olway north-east to Raglan.

Several publications give the impression that Roman coarse pottery in the north is closely datable. But Hadrian's Wall and northern forts and the Antonine Wall are dated by historical records, inscriptions and structural periods, and not by any potsherds found in their strata: it is the periods which give their context to the potsherds. The history of this old error is reviewed in two parts: (i) the misuse, since 1930, of Gerald Simpson's work at Haltwhistle Burn fortlet; (ii) the misuse, since 1934, of the evidence for dating the great Corbridge Storehouse and the consequent misdating of Antonine pottery at Corstopitum and Mumrills.

Professor C. Northcote Parkinson has demonstrated that government officials increase by a process of quasi-organic growth, unrelated to the burden of work for which they are responsible. The phenomenon is as apparent in the Roman Empire as in modern Britain; but modern British scholarship working on the evidence from the Roman Empire has carried the process even further by producing an official who never existed - though in fairness it must be admitted that no new post was created. It would be interesting and instructive to follow the process by which this apocryphal administrator became accepted into the canon of governors of Roman Britain, but problems of space mean that we can do no more than show why he must be declared redundant.

During the early stages of excavation at the Chessalls, Kingscote, Gloucestershire (ST 8065 9608) late in 1975, several large fragments of wall-plaster were exposed in the destruction debris of an early-fourth-century building with mortared stone walls. Subsequent excavation revealed that the plaster was lying in situ, face up and face down, concertina fashion, as it had fallen. Dr Norman Davey gave instruction and assistance in the lifting of this material and it was removed to his workshop in Potterne, near Devizes, for reconstruction to be carried out. As a result of several months of painstaking work Dr Davey was able to restore large areas of a mural painting or paintings, which will shortly be put on exhibition in the Corinium Museum, Cirencester.