Previously unpublished Roman pottery from the Thames Estuary was studied by the author in 1985 and 1986 for the voluntary body Marine Archaeological Surveys (MAS) and is presented as a contribution to wider initiatives on the Roman archaeology of this important social and economic artery between South-East England and the wider world. The purpose of this paper is to complement the ongoing review by Michael Walsh of Roman wrecks in UK waters (a research partnership between Southampton University and the British Museum) and that of the ‘Pudding Pan’ assemblage, much of which is in private collections.

This paper considers two vessels, one found at Silchester in Hampshire, the other at Flexford, near Guildford in Surrey. Both are products of the samian workshops at Rheinzabern and both owe their design to metal prototypes. Neither has any apparent known parallel for its combination of form and decoration and both are a valuable reminder that even in such a large enterprise as the samian potteries individual forms could be made, perhaps in response to a specific request or as experiments by the potters. They also form an important contribution to our knowledge of late samian ware in Britain and add to previous evidence for the use of samian in ritual contexts.

This paper investigates how common intensive milling practices were in southern England during the Romano-British period, by analysing the distribution of millstones, based on an extensive corpus of almost 4,500 querns and millstones compiled by the author. In order to do this, it was necessary to establish criteria for distinguishing millstones from rotary querns, the details of which are set out in an accompanying appendix; this is something which has hitherto not been published. Using the guidelines thereby defined, the distribution of millstones is considered and described by stone type. The resulting data are then used to discuss the following key points: How frequently did mills occur? What types of mills were in use, and when? What were those mills used for?

This paper deals with magic figurines from the Western provinces of the Roman Empire based on an inventory of twelve figurines and their archaeological context. It underlines the place of the figurines in the ritual of defixio and demonstrates that complex curse rituals such as those described in the Greek Magical Papyri (GMP) were not performed only in the Mediterranean basin. It also notes that these magic Western figurines are often found in important places (such as cities and large villas) and in late contexts.

Pipe-clay figurines are an important but under-examined category of Roman material culture in Britain. This paper presents the first typological catalogue of the 168 deity, animal and human figures imported to Roman London from Gaul during the first and second centuries a.d. As in many other collections Venus figurines are the most common type, although there is considerable diversity in form. Comparison with continental collections highlights distinctive patterns of consumption between London, the rest of Britain and Gaul, with the city displaying relatively high numbers of exotic/unusual types, as appears to be typical of Londinium in general. The spatial distribution of the figurines is mapped across the settlement, while their contexts and social distribution on habitation, trade and religious sites throughout the city are explored. Whole specimens from burials and subtle patterns of fragmentation also provide a direct insight into the religious beliefs and symbolic practices of the people of Roman London.

A collection of six fist-and-phallus amulets from excavations at Catterick, North Yorks., is here reconsidered alongside their unique context. The group consists of five amulets from a single infant inhumation and a sixth found separate from the rest. All exhibit features defining them as a clear group of objects; they are all curved with a phallus and a fist making the manus fica joined in the centre by a scallop shell. There are three left-handed and three right-handed fists. The traditional interpretation of fist-and-phallus type amulets relates to military ideas of strength and virility, but in the context provided by this small group it is clear that their apotropaic function should be given additional credence. No other context in Roman Britain directly associates the fist-and-phallus type and infant inhumation.

Two damaged, weathered marble portraits, both discovered in the 1780s at opposite ends of Roman Britain, one at Bosham in West Sussex, the other at Hawkshaw in Peeblesshire, are here re-examined and identified as portraits of the emperor Trajan. The Bosham head is interpreted as a post-mortem image of the deified Trajan set up at the margins of Chichester Harbour, probably during the visit to Britain by the emperor Hadrian in the early a.d. 120s. The Hawkshaw portrait of Trajan appears to have been refashioned from a likeness of Domitian and may originally have been part of a monument created to celebrate and commemorate the total conquest of Britain, in the early a.d. 80s, which was decapitated and buried during a period of unrest on the northern frontier.

The discovery of infant burials on excavated domestic sites in Roman Britain is fairly common but in the past these burials have often been dismissed as a product of unceremonious disposal. There is a growing literature which considers the phenomenon, but it has been dominated by debates around the suggestion that these burials provide evidence for infanticide, with a focus on the osteological evidence for and against this hypothesis. There has been less systematic consideration of the archaeological context of such burials. In this paper we examine the excavated evidence of two large groups of such burials from sites in East Yorkshire which demonstrate that the burial of neonatal infants followed a careful age-specific funerary rite. We suggest that this conclusion further undermines the widespread assumption that infants were disposed of without ceremony and as a result of infanticide.

At Hollow Banks Quarry, Scorton, located just north of Catterick (N Yorks.), a highly unusual group of 15 late Roman burials was excavated between 1998 and 2000. The small cemetery consists of almost exclusively male burials, dated to the fourth century. An unusually large proportion of these individuals was buried with crossbow brooches and belt fittings, suggesting that they may have been serving in the late Roman army or administration and may have come to Scorton from the Continent. Multi-isotope analyses (carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and strontium) of nine sufficiently well-preserved individuals indicate that seven males, all equipped with crossbow brooches and/or belt fittings, were not local to the Catterick area and that at least six of them probably came from the European mainland. Dietary (carbon and nitrogen isotope) analysis only of a tenth individual also suggests a non-local origin. At Scorton it appears that the presence of crossbow brooches and belts in the grave was more important for suggesting non-British origins than whether or not they were worn. This paper argues that cultural and social factors played a crucial part in the creation of funerary identities and highlights the need for both multi-proxy analyses and the careful contextual study of artefacts.

Archaeological fieldwork in the Forth-Clyde isthmus has been dominated by the World Heritage Monument of the Antonine Wall, the Roman frontier built in the second century a.d. Considerably less attention has been given to the evidence for post-Roman experience of the Wall and how it was remembered (and forgotten) in the subsequent centuries. This paper will briefly summarise historical notices of the Antonine Wall, then consider the archaeological and toponymic evidence for early medieval occupation. The role of the Forth-Clyde isthmus as a political frontier is shown to be less significant to our understanding of this period than the evidence for mobility, memory and the contested legacy of Rome in early medieval Scotland.

Excavated in 1992–4, the villa yielded a portion of a whetstone which, on the basis of general shape, the presence of rebated long edges and microscopic petrography in thin-section, was with little doubt made from a sandstone in the Weald Clay Formation (Lower Cretaceous) of the north-west Weald. It is representative of a widely recorded, major stone-based industry in Roman Britain, with finds known to range from the Channel coast to the northern frontier zone.

Craft debris and finished artefacts in Reading Museum's Silchester Collection are used alongside current understanding of Romano-British urban intensive carcass processing and object assemblages to re-assess the evidence for bone- and antler-working in the town over that period.

Two sherds of terra sigillata hispanica have now been identified from Britain, both recognised by their distinctive decoration, while a stamped sherd may also have been made in Spain. Further pieces for which a possible Spanish origin has been suggested are probably East Gaulish. The difficulty of identifying the ware by fabric alone is noted and the reasons for its presence in Britain discussed.

This paper describes how the reinterpretation of published coin evidence from the Portable Antiquities Scheme, coupled with favourable conditions for cropmark formation, led to the discovery in 2013 of a probable Claudio-Neronian fort in the upper Usk valley near Brecon. This extends our knowledge of pre-Flavian installations further into central Wales than the hitherto most westerly known fort at Abergavenny.

Marcham/Frilford is a large religious site with a temple, an amphitheatre and a central shrine feature. Adjacent to the shrine is a large fourth-century structure containing a significant deposit of coins, hobnails and bones. The absence of diffusion of the tiles from the temple roof to the wider site suggests that it continued to function as a religious complex throughout the Roman period; therefore the large structure is unlikely to have been a building which would have blighted the shrine but was more probably an altar platform where rituals were performed in conjunction with it.