Roman Frontier Archaeology - In Britain and Beyond

Nick Hodgson, formerly of Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums, is now an independent researcher and Honorary Research Fellow at Durham University. Bill Griffiths is a Senior Manager at Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums. Both editors are former colleagues of Paul Bidwell in the Archaeology Department of Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums. They have excavated and published widely on Roman Britain and the Roman frontiers.

Introduction ;


Paul Bidwell – archaeologist ;


The work of TWM Archaeology in the developer-funded field from the perspective of a practising contracting archaeologist – Jonathan McKelvey ;


Bibliography of the published works of Paul Bidwell ;



The pre-Roman Iron Age ;


Late Bronze Age and Iron Age settlement in lowland North-East England – D.H. Heslop ;



Studies in material and scientific evidence ;


A small forest of pines: pinecone motifs in Romano-British sculpture – Lindsay Allason-Jones ;


Paying the army: thoughts on the Annona Militaris and the supply of goods to the northern frontier in Britain – Richard Brickstock ;


Pot mends and repaired pottery from South Shields Roman Fort – Alex Croom ;


Interpreting the samian stamps from South Shields and the supply-chain to Hadrian’s Wall and the hinterland forts – Geoffrey B. Dannell and Allard W. Mees ;


Composite dice from Roman Britain – Stephen Greep ;


Defending the Walls: experiments with replica hand launched Roman weaponry – Bill Griffiths ;


Southern art on the northern frontier: a remarkable Iron Age harness fitting from Doune Roman fort – Fraser Hunter with an appendix by Mary Davis and contributions by Alan Braby, Neil McLean and Lore Troalen ;


Crop prevalence and surplus production in Roman and medieval Northeast England – Marijke van der Veen ;



Southern Britain ;


Failed and failing bath-houses in late first century Britain – Michael Fulford ;


The public baths of Cirencester: antiquarian records and modern interpretation – Neil Holbrook ;


Forty years on: some Roman placenames of South West England four decades after Rivet and Smith – F.M. Griffith ;


Research on the effects of relative sea-level change on the River Exe estuary in the mid-1st century: implications for the location of Roman sea-port and barge-quay facilities serving the Neronian fortress of Legio II Augusta at Exeter – Stephen J. Kaye and John Pamment Salvatore ;



Antiquarian matters ;


Death by quarrying: damage to Hadrian’s Wall at Walltown and the artists who recorded its earlier life – David J. Breeze ;


‘A most interesting and valuable piece of workmanship’: John Collingwood Bruce’s ‘cabinet’
and its treasurised bindings – Roger Miket ;


Hadrian’s Wall in 1801: The accounts of William Hutton and John Skinner – Tony Wilmott ;



The Roman military north ;


The culture of command in the 4th and 5th centuries in northern Britannia – Rob Collins ;


Hadrian and the Ocean – Richard Hingley ;


The art of the mensores: the design of the Roman forts at Wallsend and South Shields – Nick Hodgson ;


The present as epilogue: urban conflict and the ‘Corbridge destruction deposit’ – Alistair McCluskey ;


Unravelling the North Tyne crossings of the Stanegate – John Poulter ;


Declining military vici and emerging markets at forts on the North British frontier: two case studies – Margaret Snape ;


Was Hadrian’s Wall a response to a military threat? – Matthew Symonds ;


Cade’s Road – the ‘missing’ forts and other thoughts on the deployment of the Roman army in Northern England – Pete Wilson ;



Other frontiers ;


Military activities at the western frontier of Roman Dacia – Eduard Nemeth ;


A view from beyond Rome’s southern frontier: technological exchange and trade with the Kingdom of Kush – Derek A. Welsby and Isabella Welsby Sjöström ;


Strategic surprise and John Lydus: Constantine’s ‘last plans’ – Everett L. Wheeler