New Visions of the Countryside of Roman Britain Volume 3: Life and Death in the Countryside of Roman Britain by Alexander Smith
This final volume of New Visions of the Countryside of Roman Britain focuses upon the people of rural Roman Britain - how they looked, lived, interacted with the material and spiritual worlds surrounding them, and also how they died and what their physical remains can tell us. Many previous syntheses of life and death in Roman Britain have drawn mostly upon data from urban or military settings with rural life being limited to the elite residing in villas. Thanks largely to the increase in new information resulting from developer-funded excavations over the past thirty years, this situation has now changed so that we can place the spotlight firmly on the mass of the rural population living in farmsteads and nucleated settlements across the Roman province. This is a world that has rarely been explored before and provides a picture of the countryside of Roman Britain that is - for the most part - far removed from the bucolic scenes of villa-life. The six main chapters in this volume each tackle a different theme relating to life and death in the countryside of Roman Britain, all combining to facilitate construction of a broad social archaeology of the province. Overall the analyses indicate a geographically and socially diverse society influenced by pre-existing cultural traditions and degrees of social connectivity between settlements. There is no doubt that incorporation into the Roman Empire brought with it a great deal of social change though it would appear that this change was largely to the detriment of many of those living in the countryside.
This book establishes a new standard for the integration of environmental and osteological data into the study of the Roman countrysideChapters 6 and 7 are, in this reviewer's opinion, the most important contributions of the volume, not only because they situate the people of the countryside at the forefront of the investigation, but because they articulate a new way to synthesize data that will be invaluable for other areas of the ancient world. * Bryn Mawr Classical Review *
The book is intended for the serious student of Roman Britain. To such a reader, it has much to offer. * ClassicsForAll *
The book is intended for the serious student of Roman Britain. To such a reader, it has much to offer. * ClassicsForAll *
Tom Brindle is a Research Fellow at the University of Reading on a Leverhulme Trust funded project investigating rural settlement in Roman Britain. Previously he was a Finds Liaison Officer for the Portable Antiquities Scheme, first in Northamptonshire and then in Staffordshire and the West Midlands. Michael Fulford is Professor of Archaeology at the University of Reading. His research interests are in the archaeology of the Roman world, particularly in its economic activity and urban life. He has devoted much of his career to Silchester where he began excavating in the first year of his appointment to Reading as lecturer in archaeology in 1974.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780907764465 |
| ISBN 10 | 0907764460 |
| Title | New Visions of the Countryside of Roman Britain Volume 3: Life and Death in the Countryside of Roman Britain |
| Author | Alexander Smith |
| Series | Britannia Monographs |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies |
| Year published | 2018-07-30 |
| Number of pages | 448 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |