The Romans withdrew formal administration and military forces from Britain in about AD 410. There has been much debate about what happened next: continuity and/or Dark Age chaos?
New techniques and new legislation in archaeology can help our understanding of this difficult, transitional period of history. Isotopic evidence of dental remains from human burials, linked with finds from graves of personal jewellery too low in value to have been traded, is being used to track population movements in and out of Britain.
Records of finds of base metals now reported through the Portable Antiquities Scheme have improved our understanding of the coinage of Roman Britain and of the regional patterns of use of jewellery of all periods. GIS-based cost-pathway analysis calculates the relative costs of moving through landscapes by road and river, while survey itself reveals Roman and earlier monuments still visible in the fifth century AD, influencing contemporary settlement choice.
Overall, probably the most significant factor in economic and social change was the gradual abandonment of coinage: from the final years of the fourth century AD, Britain became demonetised.
Click to enlarge
Lovernianus's dedication on the serving platter from the Appleford hoard
The Ashmolean holds rich collections of objects of late Roman date found in and around Oxford. Four collections stand out as significant to the story of the last years of Roman occupation of the Oxford region:
- the pottery kilns of south and east Oxford
- the pewter dinner service and other objects placed in a well at Appleford
- the iron agricultural tools buried just inside the town walls at Dorchester-on-Thames, together with the military belt found at this site
- the complex late history of the Roman farm at Shakenoak
Further Information
Blair, J., Anglo-Saxon Oxfordshire (Stroud: Sutton, 1994)
Henig, M. and Booth, P., Roman Oxfordshire (Stroud: Sutton, 2000)
Salway, P. and Blair, J., The Oxford History of Brtain Vol. 1: Roman and Anglo-Saxon Britain (Oxford: OUP, 1992)
Ward-Perkins, B., The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilisation (Oxford: OUP, 2005, 2006)
Find out more about:
- British Roman Collection at the Ashmolean
- British Collections Online - searchable database of the collection
- Collection Highlight - Late Roman Grave Group from Dorchester-on-Thames
Susan Walker
15 December 2011
