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21-81 493 666.Pmd 514 S. Zimmer: L. Rübekeil, Diachrone Studien zur Kontaktzone zwischen Kelten und Germanen Michael F ulford und Jane T imby , Late Iron Age and Roman Silchester: excavations on the site of the forum-basilica 1977, 1980 – 96. Britannia Monograph Series No. 15. Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies, London 2000. XXVI und 613 Seiten, 242 Ab- bildungen / T afeln, 113 Tabellen. The forum and basilica of Calleva Atrebatum , the de- serted Roman town in the modern parish of Silchester, constitute one of the classic sites of Roman provincial ar- chaeology, reproduced countless times in textbooks and comparative studies. Any advance in our knowledge of this monument is therefore potentially of the greatest significance not only for the study of Roman Britain, but also of Roman civic architecture on a larger canvas. Though there had been earlier work on the site, it was the excavations of G. E . F o x a n d W. H. St John Hope, published in 1892, which first presented the plan of the entire complex. Thereafter the remains were covered over, but fears about the possible impact on them of ploughing led to an evaluatory excavation in 1977, then a major campaign of excavation in 1980 – 86. The aim of this latter was to exploit the 1 m or so of intact stratigra- phy that had been demonstrated to remain intact, the depredations of the Victorian excavators having been largely confined to the upper, late Roman and later de- posits. This stratigraphy yielded information of the first importance about the pre-Roman settlement of Calleva , about developments in the mid and later first century ad and about the construction and use of the basilica known from the nineteenth-century excavations. This huge report falls into three principal sections. The first is the detailed exposition and discussion of the stratigraphic sequence, clearly laid out and easy to fol- low. The second is a series of detailed specialist reports on a wide range of artefactual and environmental evi- dence. It is worth noting here that the great majority of this evidence came from ‘secondary’ contexts, that is to say from the fills of pits and other features (particularly for Period 3) or from make-up and construction depos- its (Periods 4, 5, 6). Essentially, therefore, these were deposits where material was discarded, material quite possibly from a number of sources and not necessarily from the vicinity of the excavated site. It is reasonable to posit that this material came from the wider complex of Silchester, but this uncertainty over source and the probable mixing of material from different sources does mean that analyses have to work at the level of Silches- ter in general rather than that of just the excavated area. This is a limitation that most of the specialists recognise, and discussions are framed accordingly. The third part is a general synthesis drawing on the structural, artefactual and environmental evidence to attempt a coherent pic- ture of the development of the site and of Silchester through time. Because these classes of evidence are all at their fullest for the first century ad , before and after the Roman invasion of Britain, that is where the discussion is most detailed. This chronological focus also correlates with a current major research interest in British archae- ology and major research focus of the Silchester project, the nature of late Iron Age society and the impact of the transition to Roman rule and culture. In this review I shall also adopt an essentially chronological approach. A. S. Esmonde Cleary: M. Fulford / J. Timby, Late Iron Age and Roman Silchester 515 Silchester has long been recognised as a major late 32 ha compared with the many square kilometres of a Iron Age site, of the loose class called by British archae- Camulodunum o r a Verulamium . Nevertheless, these ologists an oppidum , a type of site characterised by its excavations have enormously expanded both our large defended area and evidence of its being a centre for knowledge and our models of and for pre-Conquest political control, religious activity, specialised manufac- Calleva , and the discussion in the Synthesis is a master- ture and long-distance trade. In contrast to the much piece of integration of data and drawing out of the argu- more numerous hill-forts of the Iron Age, these sites are ments. generally low-lying, thus conforming more to modern Period 4 sees another major spatial reorganisation and German than to the French archaeological usage of op- according to the excavator marks the Roman arrival at pidum . From earlier work it was known that Silchester Silchester shortly after the invasion of ad 43. At least had a series of probably defensive earthworks surround- two substantial, timber buildings were constructed on ing the area later occupied by the Romano-British town; an alignment almost on the cardinal points of the mod- there are also several issues of late Iron Age coins bear- ern compass, and thus at 45° to the alignment of the late ing the mark Calle , and earlier excavations had yielded Iron Age streets, which the buildings overlay and thus pre-Conquest pottery and other material imported from suppressed. Most of one north – south, long, rectangular Gaul or Italy. Thus Silchester fitted most of the criteria building was excavated, its plan was simple consisting of for an oppidum in the British sense. The Victorian exca- a series of rooms of different sizes fronted by a row of vations did not yield much information about this peri- timber posts; the building had undergone at least one od and the hope was that their excavations had been too major reconstruction. Adjacent to its northern end was superficial to disturb the deposits of this date. This hope the western end of an east–west, rectangular building. A was fully rewarded with the discovery of significant ev- beam-slot near the southern end might be part of anoth- idence for three major phases of pre-Conquest activity. er building, or conceivably the end wall of the north- The first (Period 1), consisted of a number of features, south building projecting to the line of the posts. The mainly wells and possible round-houses, apparently buildings are difficult to parallel in late Iron Age British conforming to no overall plan and dating to the closing archaeology, but not at all difficult to parallel in Roman decades bc . In Period 2 this was replaced with activity timber building technique. Fulford’s reconstruction of to a much more structured overall plan. Two metalled the form and function of these buildings is heavily influ- streets were laid out on an axis at almost 45° to the car- enced by the later forum and basilica; he proposes that dinal points of the modern compass, and meeting at the two buildings form part of a series of structures sur- nearly 90°. These certainly betoken the control, man- rounding a square courtyard. What this arrangement is agement and division of space, though whether they for is uncertain; Fulford proposes two possible explana- amount to evidence of a ‘street-grid’ is impossible to say tions. One sees the buildings as ‘military’ and forming on the present evidence. The dating, to the final years of part of a major structure in a fort / fortress, possibly a the first century bc , makes it clear that these date to be- principia , but given the evidence for metal-working per- fore the Roman conquest, whereas traditionally it had haps a fabrica . Otherwise a ‘civil’ explanation would see been thought that formal streets and street-systems this as a precursor to the later forum. In fact, there is lit- could only have been an introduction by the Romans. tle or no evidence that the buildings have to be part of a The streets were defined by ditches and flanked by rec- courtyard arrangement; the eastern verandah of the tangular, timber buildings associated with wells and north-south building was at the eastern limits of the ex- other features. It would be tempting to see this radical cavation and there could have been another building restructuring of the settlement as a single act of replace- close by, or just across the gravelled area to the east of ment of what had gone before, but in fact the stratigra- the building. The north–south building certainly resem- phy and the dating evidence do not permit such a neat bles structures known from installations of the Roman antithesis. In Period 3 much more substantial roadside army. A row of variably-sized rooms fronted by a row ditches were dug and a series of large rubbish-pits creat- of posts calls to mind the tabernae lining the principal ed alongside them. It was from the fill of these that streets of the legionary fortress at Inchtuthil (the appar- much of the artefactual and other evidence came. Also ent regularity of these chambers on most reconstruction of this Period was an extensive horizon of ‘dark earth’ plans of the fortress is belied by the evidence of the ones which had accumulated over the features of earlier Peri- actually excavated). Nearer in time and space are the ods, and again contained large quantities of material, es- Claudian barracks in the fort of Hod Hill, which had pecially evidence for metal-working. In places it seems only one row of rooms to the contubernia , not the usual to have been open long enough for a turf-line to devel- two. But such plans can also be found in ‘civil’ buildings op. Overall, the finds of coins, probable coin-moulds, of the Augustan and later periods in Gaul, and some of imported pottery and other objects from Periods 2 and the earliest buildings in London are not dissimilar nor 3 conform well with the model for an oppidum .
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