Agriculture and Industry in South-Eastern Roman Britain

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Bird, D. G. (David G.), editor of compilation.

Title: Agriculture and industry in south-eastern Roman Britain / edited by David Bird.

Description: Oxford; Philadelphia: Oxbow Books, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016044907 (print) | LCCN 2016047110 (ebook) | ISBN 9781785703195 (paperback) | ISBN 9781785703201 (ePub) | ISBN 9781785703201 (epub) | ISBN 9781785703218 (mobi) | ISBN 9781785703225 (pdf)

Subjects: LCSH: Weald, The, Region (England)--Antiquities, Roman. | Kent (England)--Antiquities, Roman. | Surrey (England)--Antiquities, Roman. | Sussex (England)--Antiquities, Roman. | Romans--England--Weald, The--History. | Agriculture, Ancient--England--Weald, The, Region. | Industrial archaeology--England--Weald, The, Region.

Classification: LCC DA147.W532 A47 2016 (print) | LCC DA147.W532 (ebook) | DDC 338.09362/2--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016044907

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Front cover: Stylised ‘mosaic’ of agricultural and industrial activity based mostly on representations from the 2nd and 3rd centuries in the north-western Roman provinces. Illustration by Lyn Spencer.

Contents

List of Figures

List of Tables

Contributors

Editor’s Foreword

  1.  Introduction: Population and the Dynamics of Change in Roman South-Eastern England

Michael Fulford and Martyn Allen

  2.  The Environment of Southern Roman Britain

Petra Dark

  3.  The Countryside of the South-East in the Roman Period

David Bird

  4.  Kent Roman Rural Settlement

Paul Booth

  5.  Rural Settlement in Roman Sussex

David Rudling

  6.  Rural Settlement in Roman-Period Surrey

David Bird

  7.  Market Forces - A Discussion of Crop Husbandry, Horticulture and Trade in Plant Resources in Southern England

Gill Campbell

  8.  Querns and Millstones in Late Iron Age and Roman London and South-East England

Chris Green

  9.  The Exploitation of Animals and Their Contribution to Urban Food Supply in Roman Southern England

Mark Maltby

10.  The Roman Salt Industry in South-Eastern Britain

Edward Biddulph

11.  Leatherworking in South-Eastern Britain in the Roman Period

Jackie Keily and Quita Mould

12.  Working Skeletal Materials in South-Eastern Roman Britain

Nina Crummy

13.  The Development of Iron Production in the Roman Weald

Jeremy Hodgkinson

14.  Ironwork and Its Production

Ian Scott

15.  Roman Non-Ferrous Metalworking in Southern Britain

Justine Bayley

16.  Clay, Water, Fuel: An Overview of Pottery Production in and Around Early Roman London

Louise Rayner

17.  The Supply of Tile to Roman London

Ian M. Betts

List of Figures

Editor’s foreword: Edward Walker.

List of Tables

Contributors

MARTYN ALLEN, PhD, Department of Archaeology, School of Archaeology, Geography and Environmental Science, University of Reading, Whiteknights, PO Box 227, Reading RG6 6AB; m.g.allen@reading.ac.uk.

JUSTINE BAYLEY, BSc, MSc, PhD, FSA, Howcroft, High Street, Harmondsworth, Middx UB7 0AQ; mail@justine-bayley.co.uk.

IAN BETTS, PhD, Museum of London Archaeology, Mortimer Wheeler House, 46 Eagle Wharf Road, London N1 7ED; ibetts@mola.org.uk.

EDWARD BIDDULPH, BA, MA, FSA, MCIfA, Oxford Archaeology, Janus House, Osney Mead, Oxford, OX2 0ES; edward.biddulph@oxfordarch.co.uk.

DAVID BIRD, BA, PhD, FSA, 14 Kings Road, Guildford, Surrey, GU1 4JW; davidgeorgebird@ntlworld.com.

PAUL BOOTH, BA, FSA, MCIfA, Oxford Archaeology, Janus House, Osney Mead, Oxford OX2 0ES; p.booth@oxfordarch.co.uk.

GILL CAMPBELL, MSc, Historic England, Fort Cumberland, Portsmouth, PO4 9LD gill.campbell@historicengland.org.uk.

NINA CRUMMY, MA, 2 Hall Road, Copford, Colchester, Essex, CO6 1BN; ninacrummy@yahoo.com.

PETRA DARK, MA, DPhil, Department of Archaeology, School of Archaeology, Geography and Environmental Science, University of Reading, Whiteknights, PO Box 227, Reading RG6 6AB; s.p.dark@reading.ac.uk.

PROFESSOR MICHAEL FULFORD, CBE, FBA, Department of Archaeology, School of Archaeology, Geography and Environmental Science, University of Reading, Whiteknights, PO Box 227, Reading RG6 6AB; m.g.fulford@reading.ac.uk.

CHRIS GREEN, FSA, 44 Blandford Rd St Albans, Herts UK AL1 4JR; cmg@waitrose.com.

JEREMY HODGKINSON, MA, FSA, 3, Saxon Road, Worth, Crawley, RH10 7SA; jshodgkinson@hodgers.com.

JACKIE KEILY, MA, FSA, Department of Archaeology Collections, Museum of London; jkeily@museumoflondon.org.uk.

MARK MALTBY, MA, PhD, FSA, Faculty of Science and Technology, Bournemouth University, Christchurch House, Talbot Campus, Fern Barrow, Poole, BH12 5BB; mmaltby@bournemouth.ac.uk.

QUITA MOULD, MA, FSA, Barbican Research Associates, 51 Whin Common Road, Denver, Downham Market, Norfolk, PE38 0DX; quita@onetel.com.

DAVID RUDLING, BSc, MA, PhD, FSA, MCIfA, Sussex School of Archaeology, Mays Farm, Polegate, East Sussex, BN26 6TS; david.rudling@sussexarchaeology.co.uk.

LOUISE RAYNER, BA, MSc, FSA, Archaeology South-East, 2 Chapel Place, Portslade, BN41 1DR; louise.rayner@ucl.ac.uk.

IAN R SCOTT, BA, Oxford Archaeology, Janus House, Osney Mead, Oxford OX2 0ES ian.scott@oxfordarch.co.uk.

Editor’s Foreword

David Bird

This book offers an up-to-date assessment of our knowledge of rural settlement, agriculture and industry in and around the three counties to the south of Roman London. It had its origins in a series of conferences set up by the Roman Studies Group of Surrey Archaeological Society, one of several active groups and committees in that Society. The Group was established in 2004, since when it has been responsible for a successful fieldwork programme that has added a great deal to our knowledge of Surrey in the Roman period.

The biennial conferences were initiated by Edward Walker, starting with the subject of water in southern Roman Britain in 2008. Thanks to Edward’s hard work and persistence, the event was a great success and set a high standard of well-qualified speakers, which has been continued in subsequent meetings. Two of these conferences, also organised by Edward, tackled the themes first of food and agriculture, and then industry. It was felt appropriate to publish the proceedings and the talks given at these two meetings form the core of this book. Additional specialist papers were commissioned to tackle subjects not covered in the original programmes.

The merest glance at countrywide distributions of Roman rural settlement (e.g. Taylor 2007, 24, fig. 4.1, 34, fig. 4.9) shows how at this scale the broad sweep of British geology is instantly apparent. It should be abundantly clear that Britain has regions that are essentially the result of the underlying geology and other factors such as climate. Yet this is not always seen as an important contributor to the recognisably different communities in Roman Britain which are becoming more obvious through recent studies of the distribution of categories of finds (see e.g. Crummy and Eckardt 2003 and other papers mentioned therein).

The aim of the conferences has always been to focus where possible on the South-East, by which is meant here especially the ancient counties of Kent, Surrey and Sussex (nowadays split into East and West Sussex), the counties surrounding the Weald. They have a strongly marked character of their own that has survived remarkably well in the face of ever-increasing population pressure. Nevertheless, the region is of course not isolated and there are strong links into nearby counties, including across the Thames estuary and indeed much further by sea. The nature of the subsoils and other factors often affects the survival of environmental evidence in the region and therefore some of our papers have also had to range more widely to aid discussion.

Following an introduction derived from the results of the Roman Rural Settlement Project, then an overview of the environment and a consideration of themes relevant to the South-East as a whole, fourteen separate papers cover the topics of rural settlement in each county, crops, querns and millstones, animal exploitation, salt production, leatherworking, the working of bone and similar materials, the production of iron and of iron objects, non-ferrous metalworking, pottery production and the supply of tile to Roman London. The interdependence of agriculture and industry is obvious in many of the contributions, for example the iron tools needed to work the land, or the animal products required as the raw material for bone and leatherworking.

The South-East, as defined above, tends to be comparatively neglected in discussion of Roman Britain, where it is often subsumed into a generalised treatment of the ‘civilian’ part of Britannia that is based largely on other parts of the country. This book therefore aims to redress the balance.

Edward Walker taking a well-earned break during a conference at the Chertsey Hall. Photograph: David Calow.

Acknowledgements

Thanks should first go to Edward Walker and his band of willing helpers from the Surrey Roman Studies Group. This book is in many ways their creation. Edward is a modest man and it is therefore pleasing that after the most recent conference he found himself at a meeting where his neighbour happened to mention that he had been at a Surrey Archaeological Society conference very recently. He explained the title of the conference and asked if Edward was aware of it. When Edward admitted that he was and had in fact organised it, the man insisted on pumping his hand vigorously and telling him that the event got ten out of ten on every point that he looked for in a conference. A well-earned tribute.

The cover illustration arose from ideas suggested in discussion at a coffee break on the Group’s Abinger excavation. These ideas were then worked up by Lyn Spencer and are loosely based on illustrative material mostly of the 2nd and 3rd centuries from the north-western provinces. It is of course not intended to be taken seriously but is simply meant to be evocative of the Roman period and of the subjects in the book.

Bibliography

Crummy, N. and Eckardt, H. 2003. Regional identities and technologies of the self: nail-cleaners in Roman Britain. Archaeological Journal 160, 44–69.

Taylor, J. 2007. An atlas of Roman rural settlement in England. Council for British Archaeology Research Report 151. York.

Chapter 1

Introduction: Population and the Dynamics of Change in Roman South-Eastern England

Michael Fulford and Martyn Allen

Roman Britain stands out in a variety of ways from the Britain of the immediately preceding centuries and from the Britain of the succeeding centuries. The most celebrated and the most obvious distinguishing features are the military and urban centres and the roads which linked them together, the rural architecture of the countryside exemplified by buildings in masonry such as villas and temples, and the rich and voluminous material culture consumed by the various populations. A variety of agencies drove these changes: on the one hand, military and civil administrations imposing new structures for the province as a whole, on the other, competition among local elites using their (largely) landed wealth to take advantage of the opportunities that new concepts and technologies in building and manufacturing gave them to provide state-of-the-art public and private buildings in town and country and to produce consumer goods for the wider population.

Underpinning all these changes was the capacity to produce sufficient food to provide the surplus to support them and to feed those whose priorities were not food production, notably the occupying army of the province. Food production, especially of grain, but also of meat, with its important secondary products of leather and wool, was the principal occupation of the population of Roman Britain, just as it was for the pre-Roman population and it remained a labour-intensive activity even if yields might have improved through the adoption of manuring practices and of improved technologies in ploughing and harvesting. The capacity to sustain ‘Roman Britain’ ultimately depended on maintaining its population, its agricultural productivity and the ability to distribute the surplus; changes in population numbers, whether up or down, could have both local and provincial-wide impact on productivity.

Since the themes of this book are agriculture and industry, the latter very much dependent on the former, it seems appropriate to review the evidence for population and population change in the South-East between the late Iron Age of the 1st century BC/early 1st century AD and the 5th century and to relate it to major changes observable in the archaeological record in the region.

Our first insights into Britain’s population come from ancient, written sources; not precise census information but some direct and indirect comments from historians. From the mid-1st century BC Caesar, for example, remarks on the settlement of coastal regions of Britain by immigrants from Belgic territories, noting that they were called after the tribes from which they originated (De Bello Gallico 5, 12). In the same chapter he also noted that the population was very large and their homesteads numerous. Writing towards the end of the 1st century BC Strabo comments that the expected tax return from conquering Britain would be matched by the costs of an army of conquest and occupation comprising perhaps one legion and some cavalry (4, 5, 3). The anticipated tax revenue was, presumably, directly related to the size of the population. In another passage he commented that more revenue was gained from dues on trade than might be expected as tribute gained through conquest (2, 5, 8). Strabo also noted that slaves were among the exports from Britain (4, 5, 2). Even without actual numbers, these two sources indicate both inward and outward flows of people before the Claudian invasion and an overall size of population not consistent with the production of great surpluses. We do not know what information Strabo drew on as the basis for his comment on likely tax revenues, but it suggests that planners and decision makers were not expecting an agricultural return comparable to that derived from, say, the Mediterranean provinces of Africa and Egypt. Indeed, with Tacitus’ celebrated rhetorical remark that gold and silver were the reward of victory (Agricola 12, 15), the emphasis is on the anticipated return from mineral exploitation. Citations of actual numbers are those given in relation to rebellion and great battles, most notably the numbers associated with the Boudican revolt of AD 60/1: those slain in the three cities of Colchester, London and Verulamium, amounting to some 70 to 80,000 (Tacitus, Annals 14, 33; Dio Cassius, Roman History (Epitome) 62, 1), while the number said to have fought on the side of Boudica at the final battle which quashed the revolt amounted to some 230,000 with the number killed by Rome put at 80,000 (Dio Cassius 62, 8; Tacitus Annals 14, 37). Aggrandising, as they do, the magnitude of the final Roman victory, these very large numbers are not to be taken literally. However, we are on slightly more reliable ground if we count the numbers serving in the Roman army in Britain in so far as we are quite confident of the sizes (at full strength) of the different units which made up the army of legionaries and auxiliaries. Yet, even if we might be reasonably certain of the numbers of legions present in Britain at any one time, it is a different story for the number of auxiliary regiments where we look to the evidence of diplomata and other epigraphic sources for enlightenment on the number at any one time and the changes over time. A thread common to both legions and auxiliary regiments is a prevailing uncertainty about the strength of individual units at a particular time or, indeed, over time. Nevertheless, estimates for the size of the garrison of Britain and its changes over time probably provide the most reliable figures for the province as a whole, at least, perhaps, until the 3rd century.

Fig. 1.1: Graphs showing proportional change in Roman rural settlements over time across Greater London, Kent, Surrey and Sussex between the 1st century BC and the late 4th century AD.

Is it right, then, to assume a net inflow, represented by the Roman army, numbering perhaps some 40,000, into Britain in AD 43 and the years immediately following? We have, after all, also to factor in an unknown number of camp followers, those that supplied the army with its materials, its subsistence and its luxuries. The foundation of London owed its existence completely to the merchants profiting from the war of conquest (Tacitus Annals 14, 33). Veterans who chose to stay behind to found colonies like Colchester in AD 49 also added to the complement of incomers. But, though we do not have their numbers, there was also, presumably, a continual outflow of slaves resulting from the ongoing war of conquest. The rapid annexation of the South-East and its apparent light and short-lived military occupation might have spared this part of Britain, but, from the late 40s onwards, the campaigns to the south-west, Wales and the north surely led to a continual, year-on-year, export of slaves across the Channel, though a proportion would have remained, re-settled in a rapidly growing London, the new colonies and in the South-East more generally, as a variety of epigraphic sources attest. So, for at least the second half of the 1st century AD, we should perhaps be neutral as to whether or not the army and its followers amounted to a net inflow into Britain. As the conquest moved further north and the frontier of the province hardened along the line of Hadrian’s Wall in the early 2nd century, the source of slaves would also have shifted in parallel. The north of Britain presumably remained a potential source of slaves as long as campaigning continued beyond the frontier. However, whether or not the acquisition and sale of slaves from the peripheral areas within the province ever ceased altogether, remains unknown.

It is against this background of uncertainties that historians of Roman Britain have tried to estimate population, reaching a broad consensus by the late 20th century and arguing for a large population for the province, larger than that for the England of the later medieval period (only some 2.8 million in the mid-16th century (Wrigley and Schofield 1981)). Over the last 40–50 years the lowest estimate for Roman Britain has been 2 million (Frere 1999, 302–4), the highest 5–6 million (Smith 1977; Salway 1981, 542–52). Frere checked his figures for urban populations against estimates for the population of towns in the later medieval period, as well as comparing his overall figure for Britain with that for England and Wales at the time of Domesday (approx. 1.75–2.25 million) (1999, 256–8; 302–4). The most considered modern estimate incorporating baseline data from three local authority SMRs and 14 rural archaeological surveys is Millett’s (1990, 181–6), which arrived at a figure of 3,665,000 for the first half of the 4th century. To arrive at his urban population figures Millett drew on Hassan’s (1981) data for pre-industrial, Middle Eastern towns and, for the rural population, he extrapolated from the survey evidence on the assumption of a consistent level of population across the areas of grassland, arable and urban areas in England and Wales calculated by Edwards and Wibberley (1971), only excluding ‘the least suitable land’ (1990, 183). More recently, Mattingly has suggested a total population of Roman Britain of some two million. This is based on an estimate of about 200,000 for the total urban and military populations respectively and an assumption that these represented about 20 per cent of the total population (Mattingly 2006, 356).

With insufficient refinement of the evidence to compare early with late Roman, all these figures certainly stand for the 3rd–4th centuries, if not the 2nd to 4th centuries. The paradox, however, is how little changes in the character of urban and rural Britannia between the 2nd and the 4th centuries. No new towns, characterised by a complement of public buildings, emerge after the mid-2nd century, and, using the size of the defended area as a proxy, there is little or no evidence of a change in population size between the end of the 2nd century, when towns were defended by earthen ramparts and ditches, and the end of the 3rd century when those defences were replaced by masonry walls to enclose exactly the same areas. Along with the contemporaneous construction of the coastal forts around the shores of south and east Britain, the latter appear to represent the last significant phase of public building in the province. For the 4th century it is the aggrandisement of private dwellings, mostly in the countryside, but also in some towns, especially in the south-west, which is conspicuous in the archaeological record. For the most part these developments were incremental, representing development of pre-existing structures; few were de novo constructs. So how is it that a population which had the capacity to do so much by the mid-to-late 2nd century achieved so little in the way of building projects in the later Roman period? Several questions immediately arise, most obviously, have we estimated population and population change correctly? However, we also need to remember the imperial context: Britain was part of a large empire, where the state had the power to redirect surpluses away from the provinces which produced them, and here we think particularly of the supply of corn from Africa and Egypt to feed the population of Rome. In the case of Britain there is written evidence for the export of corn to cities in the Rhineland during the reign of the Emperor Julian in the mid-4th century (Libanius Oratio 18, 82–3; Zosimus 3, 5, 2). Equally, individuals could own land in any province and distribute surpluses from one province to anywhere they chose; a great villa such as Piazza Armerina in Sicily could have drawn on surpluses from estates across the empire.

Whereas in the past estimates for the countryside have been based on survey data (e.g. Millett 1990, 184, table 8.3), for the most part comprising sherd and ceramic building material scatters recovered from the ploughsoil, it is now possible to consider the cumulative evidence of excavated evidence from the countryside which also introduces a more refined chronological dimension to the analysis. With the volume of site data now available, it is possible to use settlements as a proxy for estimated population numbers and to consider variability between regions within Britain. Since 2012 the Leverhulme- and English Heritage-funded Roman Rural Settlement project, based at the Universities of Reading and York and at Cotswold Archaeology, has been drawing together data from excavated settlements of which the great majority in all regions have been excavated since the implementation of PPG 16 in 1990. The project has embraced data from sites excavated both before and after 1990 and included both published and unpublished ‘grey literature’ reports. The project is taking account of all types of rural settlement evidence between the late Iron Age (1st century BC) and the early 5th century AD and includes all excavations producing sufficient evidence of plan and/or contextualised finds to characterise the site in question. It is not comprehensive of all excavations; it does not include every evaluation and watching brief or HER record of Roman finds at a particular location. At the time of writing the project has completed data capture from 3500 reports relating to some 2400 settlements from all English (modern) regions and summary results have been presented at seven regional seminars.

Fig. 1.2: Distribution of rural settlements, including villas, in relation to geology across Greater London, Kent, Surrey and Sussex between the late 1st century BC and the mid-1st century AD.

Fig. 1.3: Distribution of rural settlements, including villas, in relation to geology across Greater London, Kent, Surrey and Sussex between the mid-1st century and the end of the 2nd century.

All these regions in England show a marked increase in settlement numbers from the late Iron Age reaching a peak by the mid- or later 2nd century. Within less than 200 years, settlement numbers increase by an order of magnitude of over 100 per cent. At the same time, given the numbers of settlements in the project database, it is now possible to begin to explore the data on a sub-(modern) regional basis. In this case we can consider the pattern of settlement dynamics in Greater London, Kent, Surrey and East and West Sussex, but also set it in a slightly wider context embracing the neighbouring counties of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Essex, Hampshire and Isle of Wight and Oxfordshire (Fig. 1.1). In this regional study we take account of all rural farming settlements with excavated evidence, including villas, but excluding nucleated sites. For the eastern counties of Kent and East Sussex settlements more than double their numbers between the 1st century BC and the end of the 1st/early 2nd century AD, with only slight, further increase to the mid-2nd century AD, when numbers reach their peak. North of the Thames in Essex the increase is of the order of more than 200 per cent by the mid-2nd century. For the neighbouring south-eastern counties of Surrey, West Sussex and Greater London the increase is comparable with a slightly greater than 100 per cent increase for Greater London and Surrey between the 1st century BC and the mid-2nd century, when numbers also peak. While Buckinghamshire does not peak till the second half of the 2nd century with a 200 per cent increase on its 1st-century BC level, Oxfordshire’s peak is a little earlier and with a slightly less than 200 per cent increase on the late Iron Age level. Berkshire and Hampshire’s numbers, however, peak by the end of the 1st/beginning of the 2nd century. To conclude, all counties but Buckinghamshire show a peak in the numbers of excavated settlements by the early to mid-2nd century. With the great expanse of the Weald, very largely empty of farms, the South-East counties betray a very distinctive pattern of settlement through the Roman period. Within these counties (Figs 1.2–1.3) the growth in numbers of farms (of all kinds) is strongly linked to, and builds on the overall settlement pattern of the late Iron Age with no obvious concentrations of new sites. Although there is some expansion in the hinterland of London, it is not particularly prominent and the clay soils are largely avoided. There is apparently no significant expansion of the Roman farmed landscape into either the Weald (other than for ironworking) or the clays and heathlands of north-west Surrey (and east Berkshire).

Several factors may account for this steep rise in the number of farming settlements through the 1st and into the 2nd century AD. The rapid growth in the manufacture and availability of pottery which, along with ceramic building materials, is the most ubiquitous aspect of Roman material culture in southern Britain, may have increased the archaeological visibility of settlements already in existence in the late Iron Age. However, while the more stable political conditions which prevailed after the Roman conquest, and particularly after the settlement of the Boudican rebellion may have encouraged natural growth among the indigenous population, it is difficult not to see inward migration into Britain after AD 43 as the major contributor to the growth in settlement numbers. Alongside retiring veterans choosing to stay in Britain, there was clearly an influx of merchants and manufacturers in the wake of the advancing Roman army. If the rapid growth of London can be accounted for by the settlement of incomers of this kind, it is very likely that some of the wealth generated was invested in the acquisition of rural estates and may account for the early and conspicuous development of villas, particularly in north Kent and in close proximity to Watling Street, the main road to London from the Kentish ports of Richborough and Dover. The early villas in West Sussex, on the other hand, may owe their development more to investment by the leading families of the client kingdom of Togidubnus.

Moving to consider the mid- and later Roman periods, while there is some variability in the incidence and patterning of settlements in all the counties illustrated in Figs 1.4–1.5 occupied in the 3rd and first half of the 4th century, there is consistency across all the counties considered here, and across the English regions examined so far more widely, for decline, occasionally steep decline, after the mid-4th century. However, the wider group of ten south-eastern counties (Fig. 1.1) provides a valuable opportunity to examine in greater detail the profiles of settlement change over time once the peak has been reached. There are important differences. For example, if we consider the evidence for all farms and villas in the four counties of Kent, East and West Sussex and Surrey (Figs 1.1 and 1.4) we can see that there is evidence of decline in numbers, particularly in the east, in Kent and East Sussex, but also in West Sussex and Surrey from as early as the mid-2nd century onwards. While the number of recorded settlements from East Sussex is small and possibly unrepresentative, the much larger sample from Kent shows a similar, dramatic decrease of about 50 per cent in the numbers of farms and villas occupied between the second half of the 2nd century (or from the beginning of the 2nd century in the case of East Sussex) and the second half of the 4th century. By the end of the 4th century the number of settlements occupied is less than it was in the 1st century BC. Across the Thames Estuary in Essex, the picture is very similar to Kent with a reduction in the number of settlements from a peak in the late 1st/early 2nd century to a level by the mid/late 4th century similar to that of the late Iron Age. In West Sussex the decline is also striking, but of the order of 35–40 per cent, while in Surrey, the decline is only of the order of about one third, more or less the same as it is for Greater London which spans both north and south of the Thames. While there has long been an awareness of decline in iron-making in the Weald from the early 3rd century onwards (Cleere and Crossley 1985, 84–6; Hodgkinson 2008, 30–4; Hodgkinson, this volume), the picture which emerges from a systematic trawl of the excavated settlement data indicates that decline is more widespread and cannot simply be accounted for by a localised decline in the activities of the Classis Britannica and interest in Wealden iron. Just as in the period of rapid growth in the 1st and early 2nd centuries AD, there is no discernible patterning in the location of abandoned settlements in Kent and East Sussex (Figs 1.4 and 1.5). In contrast, however, if we look further west to the neighbouring counties of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Hampshire and Oxfordshire, there is little evidence of change until the second half of the 4th century, but even then the decrease is not as marked as elsewhere in the South-East. This is in a context where towns required inward migration to sustain themselves. Oxygen and strontium isotope analyses of 4th-century human teeth from the Lankhills Roman cemetery, Winchester indicate the presence of incomers both from elsewhere in Britain and from overseas. Perhaps as high a proportion as 40–50 per cent of the sampled population were brought up outside of Winchester (Chenery et al. 2010; Eckardt et al. 2009). By the end of the 4th century settlement numbers in all counties except for Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire had reverted more or less to the numbers recorded in the late Iron Age.

Fig. 1.4: Distribution of rural settlements, including villas, in relation to geology across Greater London, Kent, Surrey and Sussex in the 3rd century.

Fig. 1.5: Distribution of rural settlements, including villas, in relation to geology across Greater London, Kent, Surrey and Sussex in the 4th century.

Searching for explanation of change which appears to be restricted to a limited area of south-eastern Britain is difficult. Some have sought to see abandonments in the South-East related to the increase of seaborne raiding which lead to the establishment of the defended Saxon Shore. With a pattern of desertion shared either side of the Thames Estuary it can be observed that a common element in the three south-eastern counties of Essex, Kent and Sussex was increased militarisation with the construction of new coastal forts from the early 3rd century onwards. If coastal raiding was ever a factor in desertions, the new frontier system did nothing to halt decline. Another possibility is that increased nucleation led to the abandonment of single farms, but the incidence of nucleated settlement in Kent and East Sussex and the South-East as a whole does not change markedly between the second half of the 1st century and the second half of the 4th century when there is evidence of decline similar to that seen among rural settlements in general. While other explanations, such as plague or confiscations, might be invoked, the marked localism of the area in which there is marked decline in settlement in the 3rd and early 4th centuries suggest a deliberate movement away, a reversal of the inward migration and settlement of the early Roman period. However, as new opportunities for settlement excavation arise in Kent and East Sussex, particular attention needs to be given to consideration of the context of abandonment. What circumstances can we identify in these counties to account for the increase in abandonments which are different from those prevailing in settlements further to the west which continue to flourish up to the late 4th century and later? By the same token, we also need to be alert to the emergence of new types of settlement in the wake of the abandonments.

This analysis has drawn on the histories of almost 600 settlements across ten counties of south-eastern Britain. While the relationship between these and the numbers of inhabitants occupying them may be a matter for further conjecture, concern about actual numbers of population may also be a distraction. What the excavated evidence can show is the dynamic of settlement: the extraordinary growth of the early Roman period up to a peak in the early-to-mid-2nd century, the flattening of the profile of occupied sites from the mid-2nd century onwards for most of these south-eastern counties up to the later 4th century, but also a localised pattern of steep decline, beginning as early as the mid-2nd century, in the three counties of Essex, Kent and East Sussex, derived from a sample of 179 excavated sites.

What implications do these conclusions have for the wider canvas of Roman Britain as a whole? First, contrary to the prevailing view that population reaches a peak in the later Roman period, particularly the first half of the 4th century, the evidence from the South-East (and this is being confirmed across Roman England) suggests that population peaked by the end of the 2nd century. Second, this case study shows clear regional patterning, particularly in the pattern of decline of settlement numbers in the late Roman period, warning against any wider extrapolation from limited geographical coverage. Third, and in similar vein, the regional variation in numbers of settlements at different periods combined with the unevenness of coverage across different types of geology and soil means that extreme caution has to be exercised in extrapolating from sample study areas. For example, in the South-East, the lack of settlement on the heavy clays, including the Weald, indicates that it is inappropriate to use modern land-use data, such as the areas of grassland, arable, etc., calculated by Edwards and Wibberley (1971) and used by Millett as the basis for his estimate of population (1990, 181–6).

One further inference to be drawn from this regional study and the observations on the variability of settlement outlined above, is that, paradoxically (in light of the explosion of new data on settlement numbers since 1990), it is likely to lead to a general downward revision of actual population numbers of Roman Britain. Recent estimates from the province have always looked high in comparison with medieval and early modern population figures for England and it may well be that we will move back to a figure that is closer to, but probably less than the Domesday estimate of 1.75–2.25 millions.

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