Data copyright © Dr Ewan Campbell unless otherwise stated
This work is licensed under the ADS Terms of Use and Access.
Dr
Ewan
Campbell
Department of Archaeology
University of Glasgow
The Gregory Building
Lilybank Gardens
Glasgow
G12 8QQ
Scotland
Tel: 0141 3305690
This project sets out to produce a database of all imported pottery and glass found in Western Britain and Ireland in the period c. AD 400-800. It arose from the author's PhD thesis (Campbell 1991) on the imports, which used the site of Dinas Powys as its main case study, supplemented by subsequent reporting on import assemblages from many excavated sites, including other key sites such as Whithorn (Campbell 1997) and Dunadd (Lane & Campbell 2000). These imports are a key factor in the dating and interpretation of Early Historic sites in the Atlantic West, but many aspects of their interpretation are controversial. The database accompanies a printed monograph on the imports (Campbell 2007). The imports consist mainly of pottery and glass, but there is a small amount of other material. The main categories of pottery are Mediterranean red-slipped wares (African Red Slipware, Phocaean Red Slipware) and amphorae (Late Roman Amphorae); Continental black-slipped wares (DSPA) and coarsewares (Thomas's E ware). The glass belongs to Campbell's Groups A-E.
The database has two main purposes: firstly, to make the primary data on the imports available to researchers for the first time, so that they can be independently assessed; and secondly, to allow distribution maps to be generated by the user for any group of material.
The material made available here includes not just the database of imports, but also some supplementary textual and tabular material which was too specialised or extensive to include in the printed monograph. This includes fuller details of the Dinas Powys excavations.
Campbell, E (1991) Imported goods in the early medieval Celtic West: with special reference to Dinas Powys. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Wales, College of Cardiff.
Campbell, E (1997) The early medieval imports, in P Hill, Whithorn and St Ninian: The excavations of a monastic town 1984-91, Sutton Publishing/Whithorn Trust, 297-322.
Lane,A and Campbell,E (2000) Excavations at Dunadd: an early Dalriadic capital. Oxbow Monographs: Oxford.
Campbell, E (2007) Continental and Mediterranean imports to Atlantic Britain and Ireland, AD 400-800. York: Council for British Archaeology Research Report 157.