Excavations at Brandon House, Southwark, uncovered a fragment of Roman pottery with a graffito identified as the Chi-Rho symbol, only the second example to be found in London. This note describes the find itself and its context, presents an overview of similar finds from Roman Britain and offers a glimpse into the significance of the sherd as evidence for Christianity in Roman Britain and its place in the dynamic religious landscape of Roman Southwark.

Recent re-examination of the pottery in the Gloucester Roman pottery type series has identified an unusual large flanged dish in a micaceous fabric from the tilery site at St Oswald's Priory, originally published in Britannia. Petrological analysis indicates that it is of Italian origin. There are currently only a handful of examples of this type known from outside Italy, and this is the first example securely identified from Britain. Supplementary Material, including a high-resolution image of the microphotograph of Gloucester TF214, is available online at https://doi.org/10.1017/S0068113X19000126.

Excavations in Duxford, Cambridgeshire, in 2013, revealed six early Roman (a.d. 50–80) pottery kilns. The kilns were used for the production of flagons, specifically collared and ring-necked varieties. Flagons are generally scarce in contemporary domestic assemblages in Cambridgeshire, often only occurring in ‘special’ contexts, such as burials, while collared flagons are closely associated with military consumption. The excavations also produced a large, significant assemblage of perforated kiln plates. The technology and repertoire of vessels suggest that manufacture was conducted by non-local potters for a specialist market. The site forms part of a group of other early Roman kiln sites in the Cambridge environs and adds to the growing picture of pottery production in the decades following the Roman Conquest.

Previously unpublished Roman pottery from the Thames Estuary was studied by the author in 1985 and 1986 for the voluntary body Marine Archaeological Surveys (MAS) and is presented as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.

The analysis of organic residues from pottery sherds using Gas-Chromatography with mass-spectroscopy (GC-MS) has revealed information about the variety of foods eaten and domestic routine at Silchester between the second and fourth–sixth centuries A.D. Two results are discussed in detail: those of a second-century Gauloise-type amphora and a fourth-century SE Dorset black-burnished ware (BB1) cooking pot, which reveal the use of pine pitch on the inner surface of the amphora and the use of animal fats (ruminant adipose fats) and leafy vegetables in cooking at the Roman town of Silchester, Hants.

In order to study the possibility that some samian (terra sigillata) vessels remained available and/or in circulation for quite some time, a review has been made of closed groups (especially grave-assemblages), as a useful starting point. This paper argues that it is reasonable to expect some complete first-century samian vessels to have survived into the second century; also that some second-century vessels had survived into the fourth century at least throughout Roman Britain.

This paper presents preliminary research into the social and economic impact of early urban settlement in Britain, focusing on the case-study area of Late Iron Age to Roman Essex. Through fresh analysis of ceramic assemblages from Colchester and Heybridge, we describe hitherto unrecognised socio-cultural groupings and identities through subtle differences in the deposition of pottery in the generations before and after conquest. The concluding discussion concentrates on problems that we still have to address in describing the economic basis of early urban society in Britain.

This article details the first unambiguous evidence for occupation in the Late Iron Age, dating to around 10 b.c.-a.d. 25, at the site that was to develop into the Roman Palace at Fishbourne (near Chichester, Sussex). The collection of sealed and well-dated imported and local pottery, accompanied by food refuse and a copper-alloy scabbard fitting, suggests significant activity at the site a generation prior to the Roman Conquest of a.d. 43. The material was found in the bottom of a ditch that had been deliberately back-filled. As such this discovery opens a new chapter in the remarkable story of Fishbourne.