Britannia 18

Of some 120 sites discovered or re-examined from the air the most important include: many military sites in the SW peninsula; the pre-Hadrianic phase and two new camps and two forts of Hadrian's Wall; Flavian and Antonine forts and enclosures, among others, in Scotland; new parts of the Antonine Wall; a group of 14 temporary camps with Stracathro-style entrances; and numerous civilian sites. F B

To test the value of ceramic chronologies based on historically dated pottery assemblages, numerical methods have been applied to the forms, decorations and potters' stamps of several samian assemblages dated by the Boudican destruction horizon. Four published assemblages are reliable for comparative dating: Colchester Second Potters' Shop; Verulamium Insulae XIV and XVII; St Swithin's House, Walbrook. F B

All the evidence of extramural settlement is summarized. Official buildings and facilities include: an annexe, probably a temporary construction camp; a large bath-house (1st-4th centuries); a mansio of three timber phases followed by 2nd and late 3rd-mid 4th century stone buildings; a large amphitheatre, c AD 90-350, over a smaller timber one; parade ground; harbour; religious buildings. In the civilian settlement, established by the end of the 1st century, stone buildings replaced timber in the 2nd, and an outlying defensive system may have enclosed the canabae in the 3rd century. F B

?Tanners' marks on waste from ?shoe-making. F B

Suggests that units of 7½ and 3¾ pedes Monetales were used to plan houses, the size of insulae, and the position of houses within them. F B

Reinterpretation of RIB 591 suggests that a vexillation from an Upper or Lower province (III Augusta?) was stationed at Ribchester in AD 208, probably as battle unit rather than building gang.

The 429 and c 435 anti-Pelagian missions of Germanus to Britain, the emergence of Aetius as a powerful force towards reconstruction of the Empire, and other 5th century events are considered in the context of the sources and reliability of documents such as the Gallic Chronicles, Gildas, Patrick et al. F B

Argues that titulus is the correct form of this term for a traverse ditch masking the gateway of a Roman camp. F B

Inconsistencies in distances between towns given in the Antonine Itinerary may be explained by the use of the 'Drusian' mile, a Celtic measurement, rather than that the measurements ran from (fictitious) 'town-zones'. F B

A schematized head on a rectangular body, in Celtic style, was found in the fill of an underground chamber, with Roman material of late 1st-2nd century date; best paralleled at Garton Slack. F B

Brief reports on new discoveries (sites and finds, and inscriptions). F B