In this paper, I investigate how eighteenth-century antiquarians engaged with the remains of Roman bath buildings in Britain and discuss their multifaceted attitude towards the ancient practice of bathing, with a focus on the city of Bath. I also examine the interests and priorities of Georgian scholars in studying Roman baths and their structure, highlighting their sometimes uncritical use of Classical sources and tracking the origins of their misconceptions regarding the components and function of these facilities. Finally, I briefly address the elusive socio-cultural legacy of Roman baths and bathing in eighteenth-century Britain, stressing influences and differences in practice and architecture.

The Roman period sees the introduction of many new plants and animals into Britain, with a profound impact on people's experience of their environment. Sweet chestnut is considered to be one such introduction, for which records of sweet chestnut wood and charcoal from archaeological excavations of Romano-British period contexts have been used as evidence. This paper reviews the records for sweet chestnut in Britain pre-a.d. 650, by critically evaluating original excavation reports and examining archived specimens. This review re-assesses the original identifications of sweet chestnut and/or their dating and concludes that most of the evidence that justified sweet chestnut's status as a Roman archaeophyte is untenable. The review emphasises the importance of securely identifying and directly dating plant material and of long-term curation by museums and archives. The Supplementary Material online (https://doi.org/10.1017/S0068113X19000011) contains details of all published records of finds of sweet chesnut.

The Canterbury Hinterland Project (CHP) has combined aerial photographic and LiDAR analysis, synthesis of HER and other data across east Kent with targeted survey south and east of Canterbury. We present possible hillforts, temples, large enclosures, a major trackway, linking paths, burials and high-status Roman-period complexes and argue that people organised the landscape to communicate meaning in two main ways: a ‘public’ face oriented towards the Dover–Canterbury road and expressions of ritual and remembrance for local groups. The character of this rural population has traditionally been understood in terms of its relationship to the civitas capital and villas; we look beyond this to examine a more detailed vision of possible social interactions.

The evidence of the character and purpose of settlements previously described as defended ‘small towns’ is reviewed in the light of knowledge accrued since the implementation of Planning Policy Guidance 16 in 1990, the same year as the publication of Burnham and Wacher's survey, The ‘Small Towns’ of Roman Britain. This review focuses on four of the more extensively excavated settlements: Alcester, Cambridge, Godmanchester and Worcester. In the absence of convincing urban attributes, it is suggested that this category of settlement should more appropriately be regarded as defended villages (vici). These cluster in and around the West Anglian plain and on Ermine Street, suggesting a strategic function to protect grain and other food supplies and their movement, potentially either to the northern frontier or south to London and, perhaps, export to the Continent.

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.

An unusual copper-alloy fragment was recovered during excavations at Vindolanda in 2008. It has been identified as part of a calendar or water clock. A very similar fragment was found near Hambledon in Hampshire in 2017. Further investigation of the Vindolanda and Hambledon fragments and of similar objects from Frankfurt, Salzburg and Grand reveals that the Vindolanda and Hambledon fragments were once attached to clepsydrae to form time-keeping devices that are unattested in ancient sources, but that might be called ‘calendrical clepsydrae’.1 The links between similar artefacts and deities associated with water and healing are explored and evidence for a shrine located near sulphur springs in the Allen Valley is also discussed. The Vindolanda calendrical clepsydra is placed within this social and religious context.

Disarticulated human remains were recovered from a first-century fort ditch at Vindolanda on the north-west frontier of the Roman Empire. Ancient DNA analysis revealed the skeleton to be that of a male individual and forensic taphonomic analysis suggested a primary deposition of the body in a waterlogged environment with no obvious evidence of formal burial. Occurrences of disarticulated human remains outside a cemetery context are often overlooked in Roman bioarchaeology. This discovery adds to the growing body of literature regarding alternative funerary practice in the Empire, highlighting that the concept of burial and disposal of the dead is more complex than ancient historical sources suggest. Details of the DNA analysis are provided in the Supplementary Material available at https://doi.org/10.1017/S0068113X1900014X.

This article contains full editions with commentary of a selection from the ink writing-tablets discovered in the excavation of 2017, four letters written by or to the prefect Iulius Verecundus. The editions are numbered continuously from 890, following the sequence in Tab. Vindol. IV.1 and 2.

This paper is a detailed study of the language of the writing-tablets from Vindolanda reported on by Bowman et al. in this volume.

The Roman fortress at Carpow, Perthshire, was excavated in 1961–62 and 1964–79. The gates of the fortress are the key to our understanding of its occupational history. The suggestion made here is that they were initially constructed in timber, at the same time as the associated turf rampart, but were soon replaced in stone specifically to support heavy dedication slabs set above them. A new arrangement of the surviving inscribed fragments at the East Gate is proposed, and new readings adopted, which confirm their traditional Severan dating. The Supplementary Material which includes detailed descriptions of the fragments and possible restorations is available at https://doi.org/10.1017/S0068113X19000138.

The Roman military presence at Dalswinton is reassessed using a range of remote sensing techniques (geophysical survey, LiDAR and aerial photography). At Bankfoot the absence of internal buildings suggests the postulated vexillation fortress was a more temporary structure; while numerous pits/ovens were identified across the interior of the large Stracathro-type camp. The primary fort at Bankhead was provided with in-turned entrances and two small annexes attached to the north-west and south-east quadrants of the fort. A third much larger annexe extended southwards down to the river. Only pits and furnaces were recorded within the annexes, two of which were expanded in Phase 2. Various buildings, including legionary and auxiliary barracks, were identified in the expanded fort of Phase 2, whose orientation remained unchanged. A mixed garrison of legionaries and auxiliary cavalry is indicated for both periods of occupation. Finally, the fort was deliberately demolished. The Roman attribution of the three nearby enclosures at Butterhole Brae can no longer be supported.

Roughly two-thirds of an assemblage of 156 whetstones from three collections representing two late Roman sites at Silchester can be assigned geologically to the Brownstones (Devonian), Pennant sandstone (Carboniferous) or Stonesfield Slate (Jurassic), imported from the west and north into the town as roof-tiles. The latter were put to further, secondary use as whetstones, some small and portable but others large and laid flat and kept stationary. The whetstones are polished through use, typically on both faces, and a high proportion carry grooves. On some the grooves are short and fine and could represent the sharpening of such items as pins, needles, meat skewers, styli and engraving tools. These grooves are typically found on whetstones from Insula IX, where artisanal and, at best, ‘light-industrial’ activities are recorded. At the forum-basilica, by contrast, the whetstones are more substantial and typically show large grooves of two kinds that point to the shaping and finishing in considerable numbers of iron objects such as knives, cleavers, swords and even possibly ladles. The industrial activity at this site had a distinctly ‘heavier’ quality. The biography of these whetstones — objects seemingly simple and unpretentious — was complex, wherever they were found.

26 carefully positioned fire-pits indicate the location of a Roman marching camp situated near a river crossing and on a terrace of the river Ayr, South Ayrshire, Scotland. Radiocarbon dates from six of the pits provided dates ranging from 2 b.c. to a.d. 231, with an overlap around the Flavian period (a.d. 77–86 to 90). There is some evidence for the clay superstructure of ovens, and botanical evidence for the fuel used and crops cooked. Supplementary Material available online at https://doi.org/10.1017/S0068113X19000059.

A fragment of Roman monumental bronze sculpture was discovered near Lincoln in 2015 and reported to the Portable Antiquities Scheme. This note offers identification of the piece as an over-life-size finger, describes comparable examples and similar pieces from the local area, and makes suggestions as to the original form of the sculpture from which it may have derived. The statue's metallurgical characteristics and making, the possible context of display and the circumstances of deposition are also considered.

Excavations by Chichester and District Archaeology Society on the site of a Roman villa at Warblington, near Emsworth, Hampshire, revealed a small stone cist containing two lead packages. While interpretation as a burial is explored, it appears more likely that the cist and its contents represent a ritual deposit within a domestic structure.

A four-line inscription in Old Roman Cursive on a pot base found in excavations in East Farleigh, Kent, in 2010 appears to be written (at least in part) in metre and has close textual similarities with examples from Binchester, Co. Durham. We describe the new text and then offer some thoughts about the possible relationship of these British texts to extant Latin verse and consider how to interpret the Kentish piece in context. Although much remains uncertain in our understanding of the text, it is a significant addition to the Romano-British corpus.

A unique linchpin depicting a human thumb, discovered in North Lincolnshire in the 1980s, is here reconsidered and particular emphasis is placed on its potential as an apotropaic symbol. This function is explored in terms of the wider material and literary basis for magical gestures in Roman Britain and the Roman world. The relationship between this image and the space in which it was used is also explored.

A large aisled hall building excavated at Topsham, near Exeter, Devon, dates to the late second and third centuries a.d. and would have been used simultaneously for domestic accommodation, crop processing, fish sauce making, industrial activities and storage. Its large size is unique in the hinterland of Roman Exeter and this is almost certainly due to its prime position next to both the Exe estuary and the Roman road between Topsham and Exeter. The issues raised in regard to the relationship between Exeter and its hinterland are discussed.

In 2012, a complete upper stone of a rotary quern with a projecting lug for a vertical handle was found at Hinkley Point in Somerset, south-western England. It is the first late Iron Age to early Roman period quern of this form to be found in England. This note describes its form in detail and discusses its closest parallels in north-eastern Ireland, south-western Scotland, Wales, Isle of Man and Spain. It shows how thin-section analysis demonstrates the quern to have been locally made in Somerset and discusses the movement of ideas about quern design during the late Iron Age to early Roman period.