The contributions
After the very brief introduction by Simon James and Martin Millett,
John Creighton contributes a chapter on the Iron Age-Roman transition.
Rather than discussing some of the recent ideas emerging from postcolonial
theory however, he chooses to concentrate on the role of client
kingdoms and obsides within the Roman empire. The latter refers
to the tradition of friendly or client kingdoms sending their children
(often the eldest son) to Rome to be educated and brought up in
a Roman manner. Interestingly, many of these obsides went on to
defy Rome. In a deliberately speculative and provocative manner,
Creighton then considers two case studies from southern England
(Gosbecks and Fishbourne). Here, instead of traditional narratives
suggesting that the earliest Roman-style features dated to the conquest
of 43 AD or its immediate aftermath, the evidence could also support
the notion that these were pre-invasion sites, where Roman-style
troops or even Roman legionaries or auxiliaries themselves were
garrisoned. This could have been to support client rulers before
the actual invasion itself, and might reflect cross-Channel contact
some years or even decades before the conquest. Such ideas would
need to be tested through comprehensive fieldwork, but they are
certainly intriguing, and show how traditional, linear culture-history
narratives might actually be more complex, and how we should re-examine
many previous assumptions about Roman Britain.
J.D. Hill then contributes an article on recent theoretical approaches
to identity in Roman Britain, specifically looking at ‘Romanisation’,
gender and class. There are many excellent ideas in this section,
which for me at least must be one of the strongest contributions
in the book. It clearly demonstrates the exciting possibilities
offered by more self-critical, theorised approaches to the data.
In many cases, this work has been strongly influenced by exciting
developments on postcolonial theory and material culture studies,
and this has also been frequently on the agenda of TRAC (the Theoretical
Roman Archaeology Conference). However, although this paper is a
good summary of current thinking, I feel that it also conceals some
hidden tensions and disputes. The main focus of J.D. Hill’s
research is in the British Iron Age. Was he brought in as an agent
provocateur, to examine Romano-British studies as a self-confessed
outsider? This certainly brought some interesting and fresh perspectives,
but does this imply that some Romano-British specialists are still
unwilling to engage with social theory? Good though his section
was, I nevertheless felt that it contained some very negative remarks:
While the language of these debates is strange and alien to many
of us, and their full working through is yet to come, at their
heart they are all stressing the need to understand the social
realities of different peoples’ lives in Roman Britain (Hill
2001: 12).
This half-apologetic statement hardly furthers the cause for the
use of self-critical social theory within Romano-British studies.
True, the language employed in these debates often requires intense
concentration, and may indeed seem ‘strange and alien’
to some, but this is because such words have very specific meanings.
It is now widely recognised that we have to be much more careful
with how we employ language within archaeology. I accept that some
very theoretical discussions may appear somewhat dense to those
without knowledge of many of the terms used, and there is no doubt
that some theoretical discussions should be explained in more everyday
language to make it more accessible to all. However, we all have
theories about the past, and one thing such discussions do is to
make us critically re-examine our own beliefs and preconceptions.
All archaeology could be accused of employing strange and alien
language. It always amuses me when I hear colleagues moaning about
the use of theoretical jargon, that the same people will then often
go on to talk about SMRs, APs, EH, geophys, dendro, hi-macs, drotts,
JaCoBs, RSJs, acro-props, stiffs, boss strat and ‘big matrix
pleasure’ without batting an eye. Other people in pubs must
wonder what the hell we are on about most of the time, and also
why the letters ‘IFA’ seem to cause so many outbreaks
of anger or mirth.
It is also very disingenuous of J.D. Hill to refer to theoretical
debates in this way, when he was accused of exactly the same thing
in the late 1980s when he was one of those bringing fresh, theoretically
informed perspectives to Iron Age studies. This playing to the gallery
or ‘dumbing down’ only reinforces the notion that theory
will always remain bizarre, and is something to be added to interpretation,
rather than it becoming an important and intrinsic part of our everyday
archaeological practice. Theory is not just something that can be
applied to sites or assemblages after they have been excavated.
The fact that J.D. Hill felt that he had to write in such a negative
and half-apologetic manner may show just how much resistance there
still is to many of these ideas within Romano-British studies.
Lindsay Allason-Jones contributes a section on material culture
and identity. As these form some of my research interests, I was
particularly expectant about this chapter. Yet overall it is rather
disappointing. Rather than presenting an overview of recent work
in this field, she instead offers a single case study (Allason-Jones
2001: 21). Unfortunately, this work has already been published elsewhere
(Allason-Jones 1988). She does however discuss some possible future
research questions that finds studies of Roman military, civilian,
religious and burial assemblages could explore. Whilst she welcomes
some of the English Heritage statements on research frameworks,
she also makes the very valid and important point about who is going
to do the work on existing artefact collections, and study the new
ones? There are currently very few undergraduates and postgraduates
currently undertaking work in finds. This problem has been noted
by many of my colleagues in both contract and academic archaeology,
and by specialist finds organisations such as the Medieval Pottery
Research Group.
As Allason-Jones states, there is likely to be a skills shortage
in material culture studies in the years to come. To blame it on
students ‘often preferring to do their dissertation or theses
on more theoretical topics’ (Allason-Jones 2001: 24) seems
to be rather a trite comment though, and perpetuates a stereotypical
theory: practice division that is divisive and extremely unhelpful
(q.v. Pluciennik 2001). Surely these problems result more from students
not wishing to embark on time-intensive analysis, due to the increasingly
strict deadlines being applied to postgraduate work from universities
and research councils, and for undergraduates the increasing lack
of personal tuition from lecturers (which the training of people
in finds work requires). This has occurred when rising student numbers
have not been met by a concomitant increase in funding and staff.
Most lecturing staff now find themselves barely able to cope with
preparing and giving lectures and marking the assignments from them,
let alone contemplate one-to-one tutorials. Many of these difficulties
have been summarised succinctly elsewhere (Collis 2001b), and are
certainly recognisable to my colleagues in many different universities,
and myself.
Allason-Jones’ 1988 paper, and her chapter in Britons and
Romans, are both marred by their uncritical notion of ‘small
finds’ (although she is by no means alone in such assumptions,
e.g. Spradley 2001). This concept brings with it a number of theoretical
and practical problems. The designation of an object as a ‘small
find’ gives it a reified and privileged status (explicitly
or implicitly) over other objects from the same archaeological context.
Furthermore, it may be attributing meanings to objects that reflect
contemporary understandings and preoccupations, rather than the
meanings material culture might have had in the past. This method
of ascribing importance to particular objects is predicated on values
derived from antiquarianism (Cumberpatch and Dunkley 1996: 7). Objects
are considered as having importance in their own right, rather than
their potential for facilitating interpretation of the context they
have been recovered from, and the past human activity reflected
in that context.
Yet the ‘small find’ may not offer any greater insights
into past human activities or beliefs than the mass of other material
from the context. Indeed, they may have less ‘inference potential’
(q.v. Adams 1991). For example, a lost intaglio or a worn
coin from a secondary pit deposit may tell us little about the nature
of occupation on a particular site, but the pottery, animal bone
and palaeo-environmental remains from the same context may provide
much more information, and thus have more ‘inference potential’.
There is also the practical problem of another layer of recording
being necessary to link separate ‘small finds’ and sample
numbers to the context number, and to have three strings of numbers
for the material recovered. This increases the danger of mixed numbers
and poorly numbered bags.
It may be more productive to follow the approach pioneered by Professor
John Collis on his excavations on Iron Age and Gallo-Roman sites
in central France (e.g. Collis 2001a; Loughton 2000). This was subsequently
adopted and developed by several British contract field units such
as the South Yorkshire Archaeology Unit (now sadly defunct). Here,
although objects can be bagged separately from bulk finds according
to their individual conservation needs, they are merely assigned
different bag numbers within the overall context number (Collis
2001a: 84-86; Cumberpatch and Dunkley 1996: 7). This restores the
individual context as the primary unit of recording. Rather than
having separate sample numbers, sample bags or tubs too can also
have bag numbers attributed to them, with the context number still
paramount. Finds, samples and context information thus remain more
closely linked, and communication between specialists during post-excavation
is also facilitated. I am surprised that a finds specialist like
Lindsay Allason-Jones has not come across such self-critical and
valuable work. It is high time that ‘small finds’ became
a redundant category within British archaeology.
Lindsay Allason-Jones also does not really engage with any of the
recent exciting developments in Roman material culture studies,
perhaps because there was no time for her to talk about these during
her conference paper. However, this is a shame, for it is in the
field of material culture studies that some of the most interesting
and dynamic work on Roman studies and the Romano-British period
has taken place. To take just a few examples, there is the work
of Karen Meadows, who has looked at the social context of eating
and drinking in the very late Iron Age and Romano-British periods.
She has linked finds, animal bone and archaeobotanical assemblages
in her discussions of identity, consumption, material culture and
changing social practice (e.g. Meadows 1994, 1997, 1999). There
is also Penelope Allison’s innovative work on Roman household
archaeology in Pompeii (Allison 1997a, b, 1999), employing more
contextual and holistic approaches to material culture studies that
many archaeologists would do well to pursue in Britain.
There are studies by Patricia Baker on Roman civilian and military
medicine and medical instruments, and Andrew Gardner’s work
on the material culture of the late Roman army, which is used to
examine questions of context, social practice, identity and gender
(Baker 1999, 2001; Gardner 1999, 2001). The work of J.D. Hill (1997)
and Gilly Carr (2001) who have used toilet instruments to discuss
issues of ‘Romanisation’ and the body must also be mentioned.
There have also been initial considerations of placed deposits in
Romano-British contexts (e.g. Aitchison 1987; Clarke 2000; Millett
1994; Reece 1988; Fulford 2001). There is also the work of Steve
Willis or Jeremy Evans (e.g. Evans 1995; Willis 1997). I am aware
that I have ‘cherry picked’ here, and have selected
just a few of the articles that I have read in the past ten years
that have particularly excited me. There are many other innovative
material culture studies out there, and is a shame that Lindsay
Allason-Jones does not consider them.
Jeremy Evans’ contribution shows that, using established
techniques of artefactual and statistical analysis, it is nonetheless
possible to ask new questions of the data, and to come up with new
ideas for discussion. He also mentioned the problem that few assemblages
are ever published in their entirety, and outlined some of the many
biases in the information we are able to retrieve. Nevertheless,
I felt that he also failed to mention much of the exciting recent
work in Romano-British artefact studies. His ideas may indeed be
useful for characterising site types, and should certainly be part
of the initial analysis of finds assemblages, but how close do these
ideas take us to understanding the everyday lives and social practices
of people in the Romano-British period? We need to answer some of
the ‘big’ questions certainly, about what a site was
and what its ‘function’ might have been, but we should
not allow ourselves to think that this is where our analysis ends.
Archaeology is about the study of past human lives, and I believe
that we should start to recognise that we have an ethical commitment
to writing histories for these long-dead people.
Keith Dobney’s article on the state of zooarchaeological
research on Roman Britain outlines the principle trade and economic
arguments, but also shows how animal bones can be used to discuss
identity and ethnicity, and ritual and symbolic behaviour. This
shows the possibilities of combining traditional approaches to the
data with new research questions and theoretical ideas. This is
also a feature of Jeremy Taylor’s paper on rural society in
Roman Britain. I think that is was perhaps the strongest paper in
the whole volume, but then I am biased as my own research is on
rural communities. Nonetheless, he covers a large amount of ground,
and incorporated everything from material culture and artefact assemblage
studies to settlement patterns, field systems and land tenure, villas
and social space within Romano-British buildings. I especially like
his diagrammatic means of displaying data from excavated roundhouses,
aisled halls and ‘developed’ aisled buildings. This
builds on the earlier work of Hingley (1990), although this 1990
paper now seems rather essentialist and overly structuralist in
the light of recent contributions from gender and feminist archaeology.
It also acknowledges the contribution of studies of social space
within Iron Age roundhouses (Fitzpatrick 1994; Oswald 1997; Giles
and Parker Pearson 1999). Taylor also advocated the development
of studies and research initiatives based at a much more regional
level. This paper was bursting with ideas, and is a very important
contribution to Romano-British archaeology.
Martin Millett discussed approaches to urban societies, which was
also the theme of another paper within the volume, the result of
a CBA working party. Martin Millett’s paper proposed some
very interesting areas for future research, including looking at
social space within urban houses, and the construction of social
space and movement within urban settlements as a whole. I would
certainly applaud any attempts to bring in ideas such as Tim Ingold’s
‘taskscape’ (Ingold 1993; 2000) to develop what amount
to ethnographies of urban places. This has been something that has
been considered recently for other archaeological periods, or in
other disciplines (e.g. Chadwick In prep; Croll 2000; Mayne and
Lawrence 1999; Rendell, Penner and Borden 2000). There has been
some really exciting, theory-driven multi-disciplinary work in urban
studies. Not only could this benefit Romano-British urban studies
immensely, but more importantly, Romano-British studies could contribute
much to these wider inter-disciplinary debates regarding experiences
of urban inhabitation.
The CBA working party consisted of Barry Burnham, John Collis,
Colin Dobinson, Colin Hazelgrove and Michael Jones, and the results
of their work were originally published on the Internet (http://www.britarch.ac.uk/research/urban1.html).
Their inclusion here sits well with Martin Millett’s paper,
but is to some extent at odds with much of the rest of the volume.
This is not through any faults with the article. On the contrary,
it is a very cogent and succinct summary of the present state of
knowledge, although the unusual referencing is awkward and irritating.
Most importantly though, this working party have proposed a series
of strategies by which these research ideas could be implemented,
ranging from improving on-site practice through to the development
of local, regional and national research initiatives. This is a
far clearer statement of research goals than is to be found in most
of the other contributions to the volume. However, even here, it
may have been timely to suggest concrete ways in which these research
aims are to be addressed, either through existing structures or
existing ones. Contract and curatorial archaeologists in particular
might have benefited more from this. It would have given them clear
documentary support when writing briefs and research designs.
Simon James contributes an article exploring military and civilian
identities and interactions during the Romano-British period. He
suggests some potentially productive questions for future research,
but unlike the other papers, also proposes some real mechanisms
by which these could be achieved. However, these fall down somewhat
in relying on the largesse (or not) of English Heritage, and the
Heritage Lottery Fund. Again, this is a weakness. I feel that it
may be more pertinent to propose ways in which routine, developer-funded
fieldwork can be collated and integrated into these sorts of research
frameworks. This may not be possible under the current unregulated
and unrestricted system of competitive tendering. He or other authors
in the volume might have referred to ideas concerning a general
Development Tax, or other recent proposals to end direct developer-funding,
and to reinstate research back into the heart of archaeological
practice (e.g. Carver 1989; Cumberpatch and Blinkhorn 2001; Graves-Brown
1997).
Finally, Simon Esmonde Cleary has a paper discussing the Roman
to medieval transition. His paper is illustrated by some rather
poorly put together artefact drawings, reproduced for the most part
at inappropriately large scales. This detracts from what is a short
but incisive paper, and one that actually does engage with developer-funded
fieldwork and the opportunities it presents. I also cautiously welcome
his idea that a Late Antiquity framework would less cover in a less
divisive manner the period from the 4th century AD to the 7th century,
and agree that this would re-integrate Britain within continental
developments. However, in some parts of Britain such as Wales, this
might have the effect of over-emphasising the difference between
the Roman and post-Roman periods, at a time when some recent research
is suggesting that there might have been some more continuities
than has been previously thought.
Some general thoughts
Apart from John Creighton and J.D. Hill’s contributions,
I feel that there is a lack of discussion of processes of colonialism
and reactions to it. There are also surprisingly few suggestions
as to how material culture and landscape studies could be employed
in these arguments. The latter in particular seem to be conspicuously
absent from the volume, despite the fact that landscape and understanding
human experiences of it has become a key issue across the social
sciences and humanities. It is now becoming a concern in Romano-British
studies (e.g. Petts 1998), but these approaches need to be more
explicitly commented upon. It is mentioned by Jeremy Taylor’s
paper, as was regionality, but these are barely touched upon elsewhere.
All too often, many books and articles published on Roman Britain,
even some written by quite prominent academics, convey the idea
of a homogenous Roman culture being applied across the whole of
the province. They fail to take into consideration the many local
variations that already existed, or that developed through the complex,
two-way interactions of colonialism, and the varied ethnic makeup
of ‘Roman’ immigrants themselves. The study of field
systems, archaeozoological and artefact assemblages could all be
utilised to investigate this, and this should be another important
area for future research.
Despite the cogent contribution from Jeremy Taylor regarding Romano-British
rural settlement, there is little consideration in the volume as
a whole of trying to develop archaeologies of inhabitation or experience
for the period (q.v. Barrett 1999, 2001; Meskell 1996; Shanks 1992).
Most archaeological accounts from all periods still produce universal
bodies devoid of identity, who lack situated human engagement with
the world, and who seem to experience items of material culture
and landscape features in isolation from one another. I believe
that as archaeologists we need to be trying to circumvent these
problems. Such archaeologies would engage more with the day-to-day
social practices and routines of these communities, but would also
allow for the multiple experiences and perspectives of the different
occupants to be considered and explored. There is no outline of
how we can go about imagining these different humanities, and how
exciting recent theoretical ideas concerning such topics can be
worked through our everyday archaeological practice. Yet rural Romano-British
farmsteads and field systems are often the sites most frequently
encountered during developer-funded fieldwork. How can routine,
small-scale investigations such as evaluations contribute to wider
research frameworks? What about advancing some suggestions concerning
the dissemination or publication of these investigations? At the
present time there seem to be real problems with these issues, particularly
when so many sites end up as unpublished site reports.
There was also no clear discussion of the theoretical gauntlet
laid down by TRAC (the Theoretical Roman Archaeology Conference),
the many issues that have been discussed there, or the potentials,
advantages and disadvantages of these approaches. In particular,
many of the points that have been raised by John Barrett and Eleanor
Scott have not been followed up (e.g. Barrett 1997a, 1997b; Scott
1993). This is despite the fact that TRAC, and more theorised approaches
to Romano-British archaeology generally, are now quite clearly having
the same enervating effect on the discipline that they have had
on Iron Age archaeology during the past fifteen years. These may
still sometimes be eclectic and not fully worked through ideas,
but at least people are prepared to write and undertake imaginative
and innovative approaches (cf. Hill 2001; Laurence 1999). Romano-British
archaeology seems to be undergoing a schism. One half is now pursuing
theoretically informed research on identity, colonialism, gender,
class and material culture, whilst the other half steadfastly refuses
to recognise or utilise any of this work, and continues to write
the same meta-narratives concerning military campaigns, trade and
economy, and the development of urbanism. Although the latter are
still worthy research questions, I feel that they need to be re-worked
through understandings of the everyday lives of Romano-British peoples.
Britons and Romans also suffers unfavourably in comparison with
a ‘sister’ volume - Understanding the British Iron Age:
an Agenda for Action (Haselgrove et al. 2001), itself based on an
earlier web document (Haselgrove et al. 2000). Rather than a collection
of individual papers, this Iron Age volume represents a much more
integrated summary of the state of present knowledge, and clear
research aims designed to take our knowledge further. Crucially,
it outlines those areas of Britain where there are research frameworks,
those areas where information is unsorted, and those areas where
little or no work has been done. It also identifies five strategic
areas that will be central to future research on the British Iron
Age, and suggests ways in which these goals can be implemented.
It is an approach that Britons and Romans could well have done with
following.
Furthermore, on a slightly more prosaic level, Understanding the
British Iron Age is well illustrated with line drawings, tables
and photographs, and costs less than £5. Britons and Romans
has fewer illustrations, some of which do not seem particularly
relevant, or at least over-large (e.g. pages 57, 94-95), and yet
it weighs in at over double the length, and nearly four times the
price of the Iron Age volume. The cost may be due to differences
in the amount of grant aid from English Heritage and Historic Scotland
available to each volume. Nevertheless, for the amount of money
expended, readers should expect a more clear cut series of statements
about the ‘state of the art’ in Romano-British studies
than they have received.
Understanding the British Iron Age is a document that curatorial
archaeologists can use readily to inform their project briefs, and
one that contract field units can consult when preparing their research
designs. Many curatorial archaeologists in particular do not seem
to attend TAG (the annual Theoretical Archaeology Group conference)
or more specialised period-based research meetings, and instead
go to more general gatherings such as the IFA Archaeology in Britain
conference. This is partly a result of their rising work commitments,
often exacerbated by local government cuts. They therefore look
to publications that can inform them about recent trends in interpretative
ideas, and outline current understandings of available information.
This is a task that readers may find difficult, given the fractured
nature of Britons and Romans. Many of the individual authors make
some excellent points, and several of them reiterate certain key
problems, such as the need for more material culture specialists
for example. But there is no summary or integration of these ideas.
Only the ‘Themes for urban research’ section was able
to do this, and this is the result of a CBA working party. This
is the result of the volume being a series of published conference
papers, rather than articles written especially for it. Many of
the contributors might have been able to write much better ‘state
of the art’ summaries if they had been given the opportunity
to do so, and a concluding series of key points would have been
welcome. However, I also wonder if it was not possible to achieve
any form of consensus. Compared to the audience attending TRAC (the
Theoretical Roman Archaeology Conference), I have observed that
some of those going to the Roman Archaeology Conference still seem
to be engaged in very traditional archaeology, and are even reactionary
to new ideas at times. J.D. Hill’s half-apologetic remarks
concerning social theory and critical debate may reflect unease
amongst some of the target readership regarding the need for new
approaches to the evidence. Attempting to produce research agendas
to suit all of these disparate elements in Romano-British studies
may simply have proven too problematic.
By contrast, the Iron Age Research Seminars are fairly exclusive
affairs. They are not well publicised, and there is an air of ‘by
invitation only’ about them. To my knowledge only one of these
meetings, held in Sheffield in 1998, has attempted to widen the
list of those invited (this being the only one I have attended!).
Nevertheless, perhaps because these seminars are still dominated
by a dozen or so key Iron Age researchers, they may have been able
to produce a more focused document. Understanding the British Iron
Age is also much less self-conscious about the use of theoretical
ideas, and it offers clear means by which developer-funded fieldwork
can contribute to wider research questions.
Conclusion
Overall, Britons and Romans: Advancing an Archaeological Agenda
is an interesting and timely volume. To be fair, it only claims
to be advancing a research agenda, rather than establishing one.
Despite its many problems, it will form the basis for many discussions
in the next few years. But it could be and indeed should have been
so much better. In particular, no real framework is offered by which
developer-funded fieldwork can be integrated into wider research
goals (apart from the two ‘urban themes’ sections).
No real mechanisms for implementing the research questions are proposed.
A real opportunity has been missed to present a cohesive and clearly
articulated set of ideas and areas for future research.
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Adrian Chadwick
Adrian Chadwick is a Lecturer in Archaeology and Prehistory at
the University of Wales College Newport. He graduated from Sheffield
University’s Department of Archaeology and Prehistory in 1990,
and has worked for many British field archaeology units. In 1999
he finished a part-time MA in Landscape Archaeology, again at Sheffield
University. He is studying for a part-time PhD, on the Iron Age
and Romano-British field systems and rural communities of Nottinghamshire,
South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire. He can be contacted at: adrian.chadwick@newport.ac.uk
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