Exploring the Three Cs in Sub-Roman Baldock Author: Keith J
Paper Information: Title: Collapse, Change or Continuity? Exploring the three Cs in sub-Roman Baldock Author: Keith J. Fitzpatrick-Matthews Pages: 132–148 DOI: http://doi.org/10.16995/TRAC2009_132_148 Publication Date: 25 March 2010 Volume Information: Moore, A., Taylor, G., Harris, E., Girdwood, P., and Shipley, L. (eds.) (2010) TRAC 2009: Proceedings of the Nineteenth Annual Theoretical Roman Archaeology Conference, Michigan and Southampton 2009. Oxford: Oxbow Books. Copyright and Hardcopy Editions: The following paper was originally published in print format by Oxbow Books for TRAC. Hard copy editions of this volume may still be available, and can be purchased direct from Oxbow at http://www.oxbowbooks.com. TRAC has now made this paper available as Open Access through an agreement with the publisher. Copyright remains with TRAC and the individual author(s), and all use or quotation of this paper and/or its contents must be acknowledged. This paper was released in digital Open Access format in March 2015. Collapse, Change or Continuity? Exploring the three Cs in sub-Roman Baldock Keith J. Fitzpatrick-Matthews Introduction The ‘small towns’ of Roman Britain are the under-theorised ‘Cinderellas’ of the province’s archaeology yet, at the same time, they should be regarded as the great success story of Roman rule. They were the dominant class of urban settlement, with a huge variety of forms, presumably reflecting different social, economic and political roles. Yet studies of the fifth- century collapse of urban civilisation in Britain focus almost exclusively on the major cities and ignore the ‘small towns’. However, because of their diversity, they have the potential to offer unique insights into the processes that operated from the early fifth century on, to transform Roman Britain into the early medieval successor states.
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