Exports of Italian wine to Gaul were in steep decline from c. 50 B.C. A quite different picture emerges from Britain where finds of the Italian Dressel I amphora peak at the very end of the form c. 10 B.C. The discrepancy between Gaul and Britain is explained by the export of commodities from Britain to supply the Roman army on the Rhine, and is the expression of a direct interest in the island by the Roman state. Afterwards, the number of wine amphoras reaching Britain declined sharply: in the 50 years before the Roman invasion the volume of amphora-borne wine imported by Britons fell by between two-thirds and three-quarters. This decline is apparent from both rich graves and settlement sites. The fall in the number of wine amphoras cannot be accounted for by the replacement of the amphora by the barrel as the standard commercial wine-container: we are dealing with a real decline in the volume of wine traded. In Gaul there was a similar slump in wine imports from Italy, and the same pattern is repeated in Mediterranean shipwrecks. It can be explained by growing demand for wine in Italy itself: wine that had hitherto been exported was now consumed in the peninsula.

The research undertaken on the Scheldt Valley Commercial Activity Zone was the frst large-scale excavation in the Valenciennes region (northern France), permitting an insight into the organization of a large territory. It has yielded a great wealth of data on land use and settlement and it forms a key point of reference for any future research within the region for each of the studied periods. The article discusses the characteristics of the occupation of the territory, allowing the development of new models for the occupation, structure, and management of the land and the institution of settlements and their related material culture. It argues for a Roman-indigenous land cadaster, until now not observed for this part of Roman France. The different enclosures and their internal organization are described (buildings, wells, ponds, an artisanal zone, a road system, and a burial zone), showing the persistence of numerous protohistoric sites into Roman times, which is explained by the continuity of the agricultural system and a voluntary integration into a Roman administration. The Onnaing-Scheldt Valley demonstrates the importance of large-scale excavations for the understanding of land use.

This paper examines the landscape context of the Bartlow Hills, a group of large Romano-British barrows that were excavated in the 1840s but have been largely neglected since. GIS is employed to test whether it was possible to view the mounds from nearby roads, barrows, and villas. Existing research on provincial barrows, and especially their landscape context, and some recent relevant applications of GIS are reviewed. We argue that barrows are active and symbolically charged statements about power and identity. The most striking pattern to emerge from the GIS analysis is a focus on display to a local rather than a transient audience.

The Romano-British lead-mining complex at Charterhouse-on-Mendip has long been recognised as amongst the most important industrial sites within the British province. This paper brings together the results of the recent English Heritage earthwork survey of the site which has enabled for the frst time the full characterisation of the settlement and its relationship with the core mining zones of the Blackmoor and Velvet Bottom valleys. It has also allowed a reassessment of life within an industrial settlement such as Charterhouse which challenges many preconceived perceptions of these settlement forms.

The review of a series of oblique aerial photographs recording a Neolithic bank barrow and adjacent post-medieval feld-system identifed the ground-plan of a Roman temporary camp on the rising ground to the north-east of the Roman fort at Raeburnfoot, Dumfriesshire. Further analysis, later confrmed by feld survey, recognised the presence of at least two upstanding gateways of a form usually referred to as the ‘Stracathro’-type and so far only known in Scotland. All the other examples are known only as cropmarks, making the camp at Raeburnfoot the sole visible earthwork camp with these unusual entrances known in the Roman world.

A brooch from Marham, Norfolk, is identifed as being a hybrid Colchester Derivative and its relationship with other Colchester Derivatives is discussed. An examination of the basic distribution of the parent of the Marham brooch, the Rearhook, shows that it is of Icenian origin. Discussion of other rare hybrids along with the dating of the parent reveals that, alone of British brooches, the Rearhook has what may be described as an abrupt cut-off date which can be equated with the suppression of the Iceni. Only one hybrid has any development, and that is the one to which the Marham brooch belongs. The fantail foot found on many Rearhooks also has a later history which is examined. The discussion focuses on the dating and distribution of what may be described as ultimate Rearhook derivatives. The early post-Boudiccan history of the Iceni is alluded to and a case presented for the probable deliberate plantation of Icenians at Castleford.

The left hand and forearm from a slightly over life-size bronze or copper-alloy arm was excavated during 2001 at 20–30 Gresham Street, within the City of London. It was discarded in a quarry pit, which fooded with groundwater turning it into a pond and was subsequently backflled C.A.D. 60–70. The arm was presumably part of a public statue, perhaps of an emperor or god, which had been deliberately broken up. The Boudican revolt of A.D. 60/1 is one possible context for the destruction of Roman statuary in London, but the end of Nero's reign, some ten years later, is another period when any statues of this very unpopular emperor could have been broken up. The article includes a catalogue of previous fnds of bronze statuary from London (where more fragments of arms and hands have been recovered than anywhere else in Britain), the results of metallurgical examination of the arm, and a discussion of iconoclasm in Roman Britain.

Recent excavations by Pre-Construct Archaeology in the City of London uncovered a large hoard of twenty bronze, pewter and iron vessels and other objects in the fill of a Late Roman well. The hoard is the largest group of such objects to be excavated under modern conditions and is exceptionally well dated. This paper provides an illustrated catalogue of the vessels, discusses their date, and suggests reasons for their deposition.

Crocus was an authentic historical fgure. His infuence at the court of Constantius I may be explained in a number of ways, the most plausible being that he provided signifcant military assistance as leader of an unusually large force of warriors from the interior of Germania, not local Alamanni.

Constantius' biography of Saint Germanus, written c. A.D. 480, includes accounts of two missions undertaken to counter the spread of Pelagianism in Britain. Germanus' frst mission is also mentioned in the chronicle of Prosper, dated to A.D. 429. The second mission is undated, and is almost certainly a fantasy. Germanus' supposed initial victory by persuasion is implausible. Also, Prosper's account of Pope Celestine I's anti-Pelagian campaigns demonstrates that the heresy was suppressed in Britain in the frst mission. The chronology of Tibatto's rebellion precludes a second mission, and its chronological anomalies arise from the need to accommodate just such a second mission.