British Archaeology, no 26, July 1997: Reviews

DARTMOOR
Sandy Gerrard
Batsford, £15.99
ISBN 0-7134-7529-3 pb

In this book about Dartmoor, Sandy Gerrard takes a chronological approach, so that the reader gains an overall picture of human activity in the area. The final chapter concentrates on palimpsests of four areas which peel back succeeding layers of time, showing vividly how different land uses have left their mark. The book is heavily illustrated, with reconstruction drawings, maps, photographs, diagrams and plans which are well integrated with the text.

The chapter entitled `The Solid Imprint of the Bronze Age' is particularly exciting because this `solid' evidence is open to varied interpretation. We are told of various types of Bronze Age settlements, most with field systems attached, and some with animal enclosures; but also of other settlements which were for a while simply clusters of unenclosed roundhouses with small garden plots. How did their economy work? Tin exploitation seems unlikely. Perhaps, says Gerrard - who is English Heritage's Monuments Protection Programme archaeologist for Dartmoor - the inhabitants relied on the vast tracks of higher moorland grazing for their animals which were only brought down to be slaughtered. The layman as well as the expert can hazard an interpretation of the cairns, stone rows and circles, which seem to bear witness to the social cohesion and spiritual aspirations of these people.

The increasing sophistication of man's exploitation of Dartmoor is charted in the evidence for the development of tin mining, the china clay industry, and other such activities. The many uses of granite are listed, but the author passes over the continuity of skill here, of which the chief witness is the ubiquitous dry granite walling dating from the Bronze Age to the present day.

The Appendix of `Places to Visit' will no doubt tempt those who have read the book. The attractive settings of the medieval Hutholes settlement and of the Bronze and Iron Age Kestor Round Pound (where long years ago I was a novice assistant of the great Devon antiquary, Lady Aileen Fox) would be among my priorities.

Margaret Davey is the former Hon Sec of the Dartmoor Preservation Association

THE LANDSCAPE OF ROMAN BRITAIN
Ken Dark and Petra Dark
Sutton, £18: 99
ISBN 0-7509-0964-1 hb

Most archaeological reports, near their end, contain an `environmental section' which discusses the original appearance of the site in question, and changes in the landscape around it. For many readers, it is these sections, rather than those on the finds, that breathe most life into site reports.

This book brings together all the environmental material to date for the Romano-British period and discusses it in the context of the current debates on Romanisation. It starts with a review of the kinds of data available and how they can be interpreted, and then looks at the `natural' landscape, drawing out the complicated chain connecting human actions, natural events and the environment. The main part of the book is the reconstruction of the Roman landscape within two major (and academically well-established) regional types, the villa and the native landscape, followed by sections on agriculture and on urban and industrial landscapes. Finally the end of Roman Britain is looked at in terms of its impact on each component of the landscape.

Much of the book is a well-referenced review of the literature. This is made livelier by the addition of closely argued theories on the origin and function of villas, their relationship with temples, the function of larger buildings in the villages, the degree of land use pressure, the extent of Christianity in the countryside, the level of Romano-British industrialisation, the meaning of the dark earth in Roman towns, the post-Roman environmental collapse in the Hadrian's Wall area, and many other matters as well.

The book argues for a high degree of Romanisation against the view that villas, temples and indeed towns were tacked on to a basically prehistoric countryside. Whether this is accepted or not, the effect of the book should be to give the landscape and the environment equal weight with the better known economic, political and cultural aspects in any discussion of Roman Britain.

Peter Ellis is a Field Officer with the Birmingham University Field Archaeology Unit

LIFE IN ROMAN BRITAIN
Joan Alcock
Batsford, £15.99
ISBN 0-7134-6745-2 pb

This book could prove the antidote to anyone uninterested by Roman Britain. Just 128 pages long but stylishly written, it is a mine of fascinating information where recent research is integrated with subtle reinterpretation of the well-known. Fans of the military may feel hard done by - especially when the Ermine Street Guard appears on the front cover - but to make the subject manageable the author (who happens to be a specialist in the history of food at London's South Bank University) has concentrated on civilian rather than army life or political affairs. Seven chapters cover administration and society; religion, belief and death; recreation, leisure and public entertainment; domestic housing; food, drink and eating habits; personal life-style; and art and decoration. The one surprising omission is discussion of coinage.

Modern scholars tend to apply geographical or archaeological models to Roman Britain. This book recalls an earlier tradition of historiography, where reconstruction is enlivened by liberal reference to Classical authors and where the personal triumphs over the impersonal. A vision through rose-tinted spectacles? Perhaps. But what insights are provided by the Vindolanda writing tablet which invites the prefect's wife to a birthday party 35 miles away, or by Plutarch's description of his meeting with a Greek schoolmaster who had sailed along the west coast of Scotland! The downside is that the clock seems stuck some time in the late 1st or 2nd centuries, when archaeological, literary and epigraphic sources for Britain are at their most copious. For the new world of the 4th century - when public buildings in towns had mostly been dismantled, when great villas dominated west country landscapes, and when Germanic styles in art and dress had become fashionable - the reader must look to other books.

Francis Grew is a Roman specialist at the Museum of London

THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE ROMAN WORLD AD400-900
eds Leslie Webster and Michelle Brown
British Museum, £18.99
ISBN 0-7141-0585-6 pb

This book is a combination of short essays and the catalogues of five exhibitions in different European centres. The essays give readable and authoritative summaries of key topics in the post-Roman period - power, wealth and trade, culture, religion and writing. Together with the lavishly illustrated catalogues, they clearly demonstrate the continuing influence of Rome, and the way in which the Roman inheritance was blended with other cultures during what used to be known as the Dark Ages.

This long period is seen not as a time of decay, but one of positive development of the different strands of European culture. One has the sense of a lost opportunity when this fluid, experimental and diverse period was superseded not by a new Europe to succeed Rome, but by a collection of tribally-based nation states.

As the subject is wide and complex, the essays necessarily give a broad view of the individual themes. Nevertheless, for the specialist and general reader, this book provides a valuable overview of this important period.

Essays on `wealth and treasure' (Max Martin) and `the transmission of ideas' (Ian Wood) provide fresh and stimulating views.

For many readers the most pertinent comparisons may be those drawn between the fate of Britain and that of the continent at the end of the Roman period. The general view taken by the continental authors in this collection is that discontinuity in Britain was greater than elsewhere, where incoming aristocrats aped the lifestyle and status of late Roman provincials much more closely. However, Marion Archibald, Michelle Brown and Leslie Webster (all from the British Museum), in presenting the British Museum's recent exhibition `Heirs of Rome', strongly emphasise the theme of continuity, for example in the Sutton Hoo burial, as well as in the imagery of Christianity, book production and coinage.

Rosalind Niblett is the District Archaeologist for St Albans