A Comparative Study of Roman-Period Leather from Northern Britain. Mphil(R) Thesis
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n Douglas, Charlotte R. (2015) A comparative study of Roman-period leather from northern Britain. MPhil(R) thesis. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/7384/ Copyright and moral rights for this thesis are retained by the author A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the Author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the Author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Glasgow Theses Service http://theses.gla.ac.uk/ [email protected] A Comparative Study of Roman-period Leather from Northern Britain Charlotte R. Douglas MA Submitted in fulfilment for the requirements of the Degree of Master of Philosophy School of Humanities College of Arts University of Glasgow December 2015 © Charlotte R. Douglas 2015 Abstract This thesis draws together all of the data on Roman-period leather from northern Britain and conducts a cohesive assessment of past research, current questions and future possibilities. The study area comprises Roman sites on or immediately to the south of Hadrian’s Wall and all sites to the north. Leather has been recovered from 52 Roman sites, totalling at least 14,215 finds comprising manufactured goods, waste leather from leatherworking and miscellaneous/unidentifiable material. This thesis explores how leather and leather goods were resourced, processed, manufactured and supplied across northern Britain. It considers the potential of inscriptions and stamps to provide insights into the leather trade. It also considers the contribution that the study of footwear might make to our understanding of the demography of Roman settlements, shedding light in particular on evidence which suggests that military communities may have been more diverse than previously thought, and that there were women and children living on the northern fringes of the empire long before the Antonine Wall and its civilian communities were established. Table of Contents 1 Chapter 1: Introduction 1.1 Research aims and methods 1 1.2 The study area 2 1.3 Terms and definitions 3 1.4 Characterising the supply, use and disposal of leather in the Roman period 5 1.5 Ritual deposition of leather in northern Britain 7 1.6 The character of the Roman occupation of northern Britain 9 2 Chapter 2: Distribution, categorisation and quantification 12 2.1 Distribution 12 2.2 Publication data and availability 17 2.3 Context of discovery: military vs. civilian 18 2.4 Site and feature types 22 2.5 Composition of assemblages 23 2.6 Loss and deterioration 27 2.7 Leather from Roman Iron Age sites 28 3 How was leather resourced, processed and supplied on the northern frontier? 30 3.1 Sources of hides 31 3.2 Selection of hides 32 3.3 Supplying the military 33 3.4 Transportation of hides 35 3.5 Processing the raw material: from hides to leather 37 3.5.1 Arguments against the establishment of tanneries in Roman Britain 37 3.5.2 Arguments and evidence in favour of the establishment of tanneries in Roman Britain 39 3.6 Trade and availability of hides 41 3.6 Conclusions 43 4 Providing for a consumer society: evidence for leatherworking and repair of leather goods 44 4.1 Evidence for leatherworking 45 4.2 Long-distance supply of manufactured items 55 4.3 Evidence of repairs to leather objects 56 4.4 Proxy evidence of leatherworking 61 4.5 Conclusions 61 5 Symbols and inscriptions on leather 65 5.1 Definitions 65 5.2 Inscriptions and information 66 5.3 Stamped symbols and inscriptions: trademarks or decorative? 67 5.4 Leather from northern Britain marked marked with both symbols and inscriptions 69 5.5 Leather from northern Britain marked only with inscriptions 71 5.5.1 Inscriptions on footwear 71 5.5.2 Inscriptions on sheet leather and offcuts 73 5.6 Symbols and inscriptions on footwear from northern Britain 79 5.6.1 Official stamps and makers’ marks 79 5.6.2 Branding 81 5.6.3 Symbols or motifs on footwear 82 5.7 Conclusions 84 6 Footwear as an indicator of the presence of women and children on Roman military sites 86 6.1 Marriage while in the military 88 6.2 Space restriction and military organisation: was there room for families in forts? 89 6.3 Identifying gender through material culture: methodological issues 90 6.4 Looking to indicators of body size to explore demography 92 6.5 Identifying men’s, women’s and children’s shoes: methodology 94 6.6 Women’s and children’s shoes from Roman sites in northern Britain 95 6.7 Women’s and children’s shoes from sites with a civilian element 96 6.8 Women’s and children’s shoes from military sites 101 6.9 Conclusions 105 7 Conclusions 108 7.1 Limitations 108 7.2 Key findings 109 7.3 Looking to the future 113 Bibliography 114 Accompanying CD 1 Site reviews and references 2 Spreadsheet 1: Roman-period leather from northern Britain List of Tables 1. Finds that have been discounted from statistical analyses 13 2. Chance or isolated finds that can be assigned a Roman date 13 3. Roman sites which have yielded leather 14 4. Leatherworking evidence from northern Britain 46 5. Leather marked with symbols or inscriptions from sites in northern Britain 70 6. Inscriptions on footwear 72 7. Numerals inscribed on offcuts and sheet leather 75 8. Words/letters inscribed on offcuts and sheet leather 75 9. Sites that have yielded women’s and/or children’s shoes 96 List of Figures 1. Map showing distribution of leather 16 2. Quantity of leather by site 17 3. Nature of sites from which leather was recovered 19 4. Nature of sites from which leatherworking waste was recovered 21 5. Secondary waste from Birrens 47 6. Secondary waste from Camelon 48 7. Secondary waste from Haltonchesters 52 8. Inscribed secondary waste from Rough Castle 53 9. Shoemaking waste from Rough Castle 54 10. Upper from Mumrills displaying evidence of salvaging 58 11. Front portion of a child’s shoe from Rough Castle, with nails protruding 59 12. Evidence of clump repairs to seat and toe of one-piece shoe from Carlisle 60 13. Bundle of scrap leather from Milecastle 50 TW 61 14. Schematic representation of the points during the supply chain at which inscriptions might be applies to leather, and their functions 67 15. Mortarium from London with conspicuously stamped rim 69 16. Samian vessel from London with PATRINI stamped within the decoration 69 17. Rudimentary heel stiffener from Rough Castle 73 18. Stamped shoe from Rough Castle 81 19. Stamp on shoes from Vindolanda and York 82 Acknowledgement I would like to thank my supervisor, Prof. Bill Hanson for his advice and guidance throughout my research, particularly since the last thing he needed in the run-up to retirement was one final student to supervise! Sincere thanks also to various colleagues at AOC Archaeology Group, who have offered invaluable support in tackling this thesis while gainfully employed: Graeme Cavers, Andy Heald, John Barber and Martin Cook. I would like to thank Carol van Driel-Murray and Elizabeth Greene for their kind encouragement, and for information on material from Vindolanda. I am grateful to those who enabled me to access to material in museum stores: John Lawson (City of Edinburgh Council), Fraser Hunter (National Museums Scotland), Tim Padley (Tullie House), Robert Murray/Andrew Parkin (Great North Museum, Hancock) and Eve Reverchon (Alnwick Castle). I am particularly grateful to Fraser Hunter, who also offered helpful guidance throughout. Thanks are also due to those who have kindly made unpublished information available to me, in particular Christine Howard-Davies, Valerie Maxfield, David Breeze, Keith Elliot and Frances McIntosh. Most of all, I am thankful to Mark. 1 1. Introduction 1.1 Research aims and methods As an everyday material that fulfilled a wide range of purposes, leather can provide a wide range of information; and yet the wealth of information that can be gained from Roman leather from northern Britain has never before been synthesised. The same major assemblages are drawn on repeatedly as comparanda (particularly Carlisle, Vindolanda and Bar Hill1), which heightens the risk of smaller assemblages languishing, all but forgotten, in museum stores. The distribution of sites yielding leather has never been mapped. The amount of material in existence and available for study has not been quantified. This thesis aims to rectify that deficiency. It identifies, characterises and goes some way to interpreting all of the Roman-period leather discovered in northern Britain. The first task was to conduct desk-based research to identify which sites have yielded leather: over 50 are known to the author. Once this was established, the assemblages were characterised. This information was drawn from publications and/or by examining material at museum stores. It was necessary initially to identify where assemblages are stored, and then to assess the condition and characterise the nature of the leather items. Many modern excavations have been written up to modern standards, so assemblages from antiquarian excavations were prioritised for first-hand study. Re-evaluation of a handful of ‘forgotten’ assemblages has yielded a significant amount of new information.2 Assemblages from Castlecary, Mumrills and Strageath, and a limited amount of material from Newstead, was examined at NMS, Edinburgh. Material from various sites in Carlisle and from Kirkbride was assessed at Tullie House, Carlisle.