This book set out to explore new ways to study late Roman urbanism in Britain. It represents an attempt to move away from unquestioning perceptions of towns in the later Roman period and urbanism in the Roman period as a whole. The approach taken also necessitated an examination of the late pre-Roman settlement pattern. Amongst prehistorians theoretical developments have greatly advanced our understanding of the late Iron Age, and their approaches can be useful for understanding aspects of the Roman period. Methodologies for studying the late pre-Roman and the late Roman periods in Britain have often differed considerably. Analysis of the late pre-Roman period is embedded in traditions within prehistoric archaeology, whilst examination of the later Roman period has drawn on perspectives from classical archaeology and ancient history. In this book, both methodologies were brought together to provide a coordinated view.
Roman towns developed within the context of pre-existing and numinous landscapes, continuing, but also transforming, aspects of the way in which certain places were experienced, a tradition that continued into the late Roman period. Rather than representing a decline in standards in late Roman towns, this perspective indicates that activity continued the use of these places in meaningful ways. They need to be considered both in terms of what occurred on these sites previously and in terms of the continued use of these places as creative and vibrant localities. Historiographical analysis within archaeology is important, as the study of Edward Gibbon’s The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire has demonstrated. One of the most influential texts on the Roman Empire in the English language, it was especially significant in Britain for interpreting the later Roman period.
Archaeological evidence indicates that there was still considerable activity taking place within the public buildings of towns in the late Roman period and that the structures remained architectural frames around the activity. Moreover, this surviving evidence is likely to be representative of much more that has since been lost or did not leave any trace at all. The surviving evidence includes structural changes to public buildings (sometimes with the deliberate demolition of elements of a structure in order to preserve the rest) and timber structures built within or on the sites of public buildings. One of the major types of evidence within buildings was that of industrial activity, which appeared to focus on the forum-basilica complexes especially.
Although historical documents such as the Notitia Dignitatum and the Theodosian Code can be drawn upon for understanding towns in the later Roman period, the archaeological evidence is extremely complex and requires analysis that pursues a number of
Methodological and theoretical perspectives. Rather than indicating ‘squatter occupation’ and the decline of buildings, the industrial activity was a part of the ‘place-value’ of towns with its ritual significance, reconfirming and reinforcing the symbolic nature of these places as parts of meaning-laden landscapes.
World History
