Roman Britain
Reviewed by Peter Carrington
Britain and the End of the Roman Empire
Ken Dar
Tempus £25.00
ISBN 0-75124-1451-8 hb
The end of Roman Britain continues to be a subject of debate. Was it, as Neil Faulkner has recently argued, 'a distant under-developed region . . . the first to fall' (see BA October 2000) or, as Ken Dark would have it, a successful society in the mainstream of Late Antiquity?
Dark's latest offering is a development of his Civitas to Kingdom (see BA March 1998). However, whereas earlier he focused on Roman survival in western Britain, in the present work he considers the fate of the east of the island as well. His thesis remains that the four late Roman provinces of Britain and subsequently their constituent tribal territories, far from collapsing at the beginning of the 5th century, enjoyed a long survival as administrative units and vigorous centres of Romano-Christian culture. In lowland Britain, what Dark calls 'bureaucratic' rule was exercised from towns such as Wroxeter; further west, kings ruled from hillforts. In northern England, the forts of the dux Britanniarum may still have been controlled from York.
While the east of Britain may have fallen under Anglo-Saxon domination by the end of that century, further west sub-Roman states flourished for another hundred years and exported their culture to the extremities of the island more successfully than the legions had ever done. And even in the first area Dark argues that supposedly 'pagan Anglo-Saxon' cemeteries may conceal evidence for British population groups and the first hints of conversion to Christianity.
Dark's story has an incomplete feeling. If Roman culture was so strong in the 5th century British states, why did they not succeed in exporting it to the Germanic immigrants, and why do we now speak English rather than a derivative of Latin? The author hints at some of the answers, but a more thorough treatment would have been welcome. Finally, this book would have benefited from vigorous editing. Language and argument are at times obscure and the illustrations at times uninformative and poorly placed in relation to the text - indeed far more illustrations would have been useful. Civitas to Kingdom is more concisely and clearly written and should be read first by those new to Dark's arguments.
Peter Carrington is a Senior Archaeologist at Chester Archaeology
Town in time
Reviewed by Paul Wilkinson
Time Team's Timechester
C Lewis, P Harding & M Aston
Channel 4 £16.99
ISBN 0-7522-7218-7 hb
This book, generated out of the Time Team television series, explains the possible history and archaeology of a fictional town called 'Timechester' from the Palaeolithic to the present.
Each chapter begins with an introduction to the period, covering general historical developments and how these may have affected the town, with a drawing by Victor Ambrus of the town in each period. There are short explanations of archaeological techniques appropriate to the period. Illustrated boxes throughout focus on different artefacts.
Does the book work? Well, yes and no. It is attractively presented and well structured. Tracing the development of a fictional town does help to make history more immediate. The book will almost certainly be a success because it is a spin-off from a justifiably popular TV series, and it explains many aspects of archaeology in an accessible manner.
But presenting a book that is certain to be popular in an appealing way is no excuse for lack of factual rigour. In the series, specialists are called in to pronounce on a particular piece of pottery or coin, but it seems in the book that none of the specialist essays have been written or checked by an expert. Thus they are riddled with inaccuracies and mistakes. A few examples will suffice. Key words like 'section' are not explained. Straightforward errors include the statement that plans of a site are drawn on gridded paper. Not so - they are drawn onto a plastic film which overlays the gridded paper. Some of the photographs, mostly by Mick Aston, are equally dodgy, such as one chosen to illustrate the essay on 'Fieldwalking'. Where is the 'properly laid out grid' referred to in the text? Why are most of the people carrying metal detectors?
I have sat transfixed by the better Time Team programmes, and from my own teaching I know how inspirational the series has been. It has done much to change the image and popularity of archaeology in this country. This book, however, is a different thing altogether. It is merely cashing in on the series but fails to live up to its high standards.
Paul Wilkinson is the director of the Kent Archaeological Field School
Gods and grain
Reviewed by Nick Thorpe
The Birth of the Gods and the Origins of Agriculture
Jacques Cauvin
CUP £37.50
ISBN 0-521-65135-2 hb
The beginnings of agriculture continue to fascinate, none more so than the earliest of all - in the Near East some 11,000 years ago. All the standard archaeological explanations of change have been brought to bear on the tale of the first farmers: population pressure, resource shortages, climate change, social competition and intellectual development.
Cauvin has sought over the last 20- some years to counter the dominant trend towards a purely economic explanation for events in the Near East. This is the most substantial presentation of his alternative history, published in French in 1994 and with a postscript updating the book for this translation by Trevor Watkins.
The essence of Cauvin's theory is that a 'symbolic revolution' occurred with the appearance in the Near East of female and bull figurines, and special treatment of bulls (burying their horns in walls), at the time of the origin of plant domestication. For Cauvin this 'revolution in symbols' is a key to the collective psychology of the first farmers. In particular the female figurines show a goddess, the universal mother, while the bull signifies a brute force that is tamed and converted into the virile essence of the male.
He sees both as divine, thus representing the moment in human history when - through the invention of the gods - a chasm was formed between gods and humanity. This first realisation of the limitations of human existence prompted the desire in the earliest farmers to change their state through progress. Unfortunately, this is as far as the model is developed, for the volume rapidly moves on to a survey of the spread of agriculture through the Near East and beyond.
While fully accepting Cauvin's insistence that the Neolithic was more than just a change in the economy, the treatment of the Mesolithic is little more than a caricature. The notion of passive gatherer-hunters has been effectively refuted by archaeologists of the Mesolithic over the last 20 years and it is disappointing to see it rearing its head again in what is otherwise a stimulating and thought-provoking approach to a perennial question.
Nick Thorpe is a Senior Lecturer in Archaeology at King Alfred's College Winchester
Empires apart
Reviewed by Richard Brewer
Roman Officers and English Gentlemen
Richard Hingley
Routledge £16.99
ISBN 0-415-23580-4 pb
This investigation of the origins of Romano-British archaeology explores the way that images of Rome and the Roman Empire were used in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to form an analogy with the British Empire.
Why did some late Victorian and Edwardian politicians and academics seek parallels between the imperial experiences of Britain and Rome? For much of the 19thcentury the Roman Empire had been seen as despotic, corrupt and decadent, in contrast to the British Empire. However, in the late 19th century the term imperialism, with an assumed 'mission' to spread 'civilisation' to others, acquired a positive image. Comparisons with Rome could be used to inform frontier policy (especially in India), administration, and the 'assimilation' of native populations; while Britain might also take warning from the decline and fall of the Roman Empire.
During the same period, imperialism had an effect, in England, on the image of English national origins. Hingley examines the spectrum of English origin myths from the Teutonic myth to the heroes of Ancient Britain (eg, Caratacus and Boudica) and the theory of mixed racial origins. Many of these images of Englishness are reflected in popular literature such as Kipling's Puck of Pook's Hill and William Cowper's Boadicea. The inheritance of the bravery of the ancient Britons combined with the civilising influence of imperial Rome proved popular as well as politically useful.
The incorporation of Roman civilisation into the English character was explained through the theory of Romanisation. Francis Haverfield, who pioneered the theory in 1905, explored the gradual transformation of native Britain to a Roman province, tracing its progress through language, art, religion, urbanisation and the construction of villas. The theory of Romanisation has been fundamental to Romano-British archaeology in the 20th century. However, as Hingley demonstrates, this 'imperial legacy' has distorted archaeological evidence, leading to a strong bias - until relatively recently - on the excavation of sites with 'Roman' attributes such as forts, walled towns and villas. It is only with the advent of rescue excavation that the post- imperial generation has had an opportunity to evaluate a fuller spectrum of sites, including small towns and non-villa settlements.
Historiography is in vogue and it certainly has merits, as Hingley's contribution clearly demonstrates, for it can often serve to show how shallow the foundations are on which some long-accepted notions are based. How we too, in the 21st century, let contemporary ideology influence our interpretation of the past will no doubt be the subject of a similar scholarly analysis in 100 years or so. Let us hope it will be as enjoyable as Hingley's.
Richard Brewer is Keeper of Archaeology and Numismatics at the National Museums & Galleries of Wales
