Internet Archaeology 31

This article introduces the types of figurines found in Roman Britain. Over 1000 figurines of Late Iron Age or Roman date are known from Britain, but there has been no consideration of the group as a whole. While many individual pieces have been published in excavation reports or as notes, many more remain largely unpublished and unknown. The publication of this corpus makes the data available to a wide audience, and in particular those involved in the study of Roman material culture. While the majority of figurines are of copper alloy, there is a small number in other metals including iron and lead. The figurines from Britain comprise a wide range of types depicting Roman and Gallo-Roman deities, human figures, birds and animals. The spatial and social distribution of the major types will also be discussed.

The arrangement of divided space dictates to some extent the activities that take place within the smaller spaces created by such division. Access analysis of Hut Platform 4 at the Bronze Age site at Black Patch, combined with study of the artefacts and ecofacts from the site, gives some insight into the relationship between the constructed spaces and the way they were used. The accessibility of places in which activities occur affects and is affected by the perceived status of these activities. The question of whether or not all of the huts and fences on the hut platform were contemporary has been the subject of some debate; this investigation attempts to establish which configurations of huts and fences fit most closely with the distribution of diagnostic artefacts and ecofacts across the spaces in which they were used. This is achieved by generating control and real relative asymmetry values from permeability maps of the spaces in a number of possible configurations, which are converted into visual form for comparison with the distribution of relevant finds.In order to understand the use of space at the site it is important to consider it in an agrarian context; control of movement between spaces is necessary for certain aspects of livestock farming. A degree of flexibility in the permeability of boundaries allows this control to be exerted. Thus, the fences of Hut Platform 4 may have been erected for practical reasons, rather than to create psychological divisions between 'occupants' of the huts. Individual roundhouses were not necessarily thought of by their users in the same way as 'houses' are thought of today the arrangement of structures at the site was perhaps less influenced by ideas about kinship than the excavator supposed. A possible 'fence corridor' could have had a functional use, as similar arrangements of fences are used today for the control of livestock. Access analysis demonstrates the great range of possibilities for control of movement if all fences were contemporary.

A review of Recording, Documentation, Information Management for the Conservation of Heritage Places volumes 1 and 2 by Robin Letellier and Rand Eppich

Editorial for Internet Archaeology issue 31