The Roman military site at Longthorpe, west of Peterborough, was discovered by observation from the air in 1961: no traces now remain on the surface. Excavations between 1967 and 1973 have shown that a 27-acre fortress with timber buildings, accommodating a legionary vexillation together with auxiliary troops, was succeeded by an 11-acre fort. The period of occupation extended from c. 44/8 to c. 62. Crop marks observed from the air at Orton Stanch, 400 m. south-east of the fortress, have led to the discovery of a native farmstead. Excavations there by Messrs. A. Challands, G. B. Dannell and Dr. J. P. Wild have shown that agricultural activities were intermitted for the period of the occupation of the fortress, the settlement being replaced by a large industrial establishment or worksdepot involved in pottery manufacture and possibly in bronze-working with clear military connections. The present report describes the excavation of the fortress: the industrial site is to be published in a future volume of Britannia.

Complete excavation in 1971 confirmed the Roman date and provided a complete plan of the fortlet at Barburgh Mill (NX 903884) which measured 29·50 m by 28·50 m within its single ditch and turf rampart. The entrance was defended by a gate of six timbers probably surmounted by a tower. It contained two timber buildings in plan appropriate for an infantry century. A latrine lay in one corner of the fortlet and two possible hearths between the two buildings. The fortlet was surrounded on the north and east by an outer rampart and ditch and the resulting enclosure subdivided by a medial ditch. The entrance of the outer enclosure was undefended. There was only one structural phase represented at the site and the pottery suggests a date in the Antonine I period, c. 142-58. When the site was abandoned the buildings were probably burnt, the rampart slighted and broken and surplus pottery dumped in the ditches.

Cramond (probably caer Amon, (‘the fort of the Almond’) is a fishing village recently absorbed into the north-west corner of the City of Edinburgh. It lies on the east bank of the River Almond, at the river's entry into the Firth of Forth through a gorge of sandstone rock: a narrow shelf along the east bank provides quay space for a tidal harbour, whose exit is protected from north and east by Cramond Island. The parish church (from 15th century), sometime schoolhouse (18th century) and manse (18th century) overlie the principia and part of the retentura of a Roman fort. A tower (15th century) and mansion house (17th and 18th centuries) stand near. All of these incorporate Roman stones. Medieval Cramond Episcopi once overlay the praetentura; but the cottages, and Roman remains under them, have been cleared by the lords of the manor to make a park.

A small re-excavation of part of this villa has removed some apparent discrepancies in the evidence for the structural development of the buildings, and taken in conjunction with the published material has made a new and more detailed interpretation possible. The results of the excavation are summarized in the text on pp. 227-8, and the deductions as to the history of the villa on pp. 236-7.

In Britain air-photography has proved to be one of the more important tools of the historian and archaeologist working in the Roman period. The principal results of aerial reconnaissance since 1945 have been described in a notable series of papers by the writer's colleague, Professor J. K. St. Joseph, published in the Journal of Roman Studies. Most of the discoveries reported had been made on flights sponsored by the Committee for Aerial Photography of the University of Cambridge. A fuller treatment of the photography of walled towns has also appeared; the present paper likewise is devoted to a single class of site in greater detail than is feasible in a periodic general review. Some of the sites to be described are hitherto unpublished; others, previously noted in brief, now receive a more extended commentary.

Almost 16 years have elapsed since the publication, in 1959, of Dr. Philip Corder's paper on the structure of Romano-British pottery kilns. During this time much new evidence has come to light, especially in the upper Nene Valley, and the series of experimental firings carried out at Wattisfield, Boston, Leeds, Barton-on-Humbers and Chichester has greatly enhanced our knowledge of the techniques employed. The present paper is primarily concerned with pottery kilns of the pre-Flavian period in the Nene Valley and seeks to bring together, under one heading, the new and largely unpublished material from this region.

Fundi appellatione omne aedificium et omnis ager continetur; sed in usu urbana aedificia ‘aedes’, rustica ‘villae’ dicuntur; locus vero sine aedificio in urbe ‘area’, rure autem ‘ager’ appellatur; idemque ager cum aedificio ‘fundus’ dicitur.

‘et simul classis secunda tempestate ac fama Trucculensem portum tenuit, unde proximo Britanniae latere praelecto omnis redierat’.

At the invitation of the editor I venture to resume a theme which I have dealt with in some detail and with full illustrations elsewhere. First, because it can form an epigraphic corollary to Mr. B. R. Hartley's substantial paper on ‘The Roman occupations of Scotland: the evidence of samian ware’. In his chart on page 42 he dates the evacuation of Scotland to 211-12 to leave space for the Carpow evidence. Secondly, because summaries can be quoted of the evidence from samian and coarse pottery, on the latter of which there are recent modifications. Thirdly, because two writers, Dr. J. C. Mann and Dr. M. G. Jarrett, have given inadequate reasons for rejecting my dating of the monumental text from the east gate of Carpow fortress to the emperor Caracalla no earlier than 212. These articles must have had a wide circulation, and there is a risk that many readers will have been misled by what seem, at least to me, to be erroneous observations. One note of caution is needed: this interpretation is limited by the evidence which is available now, and it is quite possible that the spades of Dr. J. Wilkes and Mr. J. D. Leach will produce some further text which may upset, or perhaps substantiate, the proposed conclusions.

In the story of imperial Rome no period can be more obscure than that which elapsed between the death of Severus Alexander and the accession of Diocletian (235-84). Here the historian faces a dearth of reliable literary information. Inscriptions and papyri are also in short supply; and consequently recourse must be had to more controversial sources of knowledge—numismatics and archaeology. Thus problems abound. The very chronology of the age is still disputed; and in this dispute the question which continues to attract most attention is that relating to the dates of the so-called ‘Gallic emperors’ who governed an independent west, quite separate from Rome, during the middle years of the third century.

In 367, the enemies of Roman Britain concerted their attacks in what our sole literary source, the contemporary historian Ammianus Marcellinus, calls a barbarica conspiratio. In the archaeology of Hadrian's Wall, this conventionally dates the end of Period III; Period IV begins with the subsequent restoration of the frontiers by Count Theodosius. Damage and reconstruction are archaeologically attested, but how far they were due to enemy action is open to question. This paper is limited to a reconsideration of the literary dating evidence.

Various forms of spectroscopic analysis are used for the study of human artifacts. Three methods are compared in this note on a large Roman cremation.

The ‘Marquis of Granby’ Inn (TQ 1612 0521) stands at the foot of the southern slope of the South Downs, in the village of Sompting, to the east of Worthing, in Sussex (FIG. I ). The local soil consists of some 3 ft. of brown earth on chalk. In the course of recent extensions to the inn part of the slope immediately to the north was levelled. A broken urn and 11 associated vessels lay on the buried chalk surface, beneath the extensions, together with a coin of Geta.

Several publications give the impression that Roman coarse pottery in the north is closely datable. But Hadrian's Wall and northern forts and the Antonine Wall are dated by historical records, inscriptions and structural periods, and not by any potsherds found in their strata: it is the periods which give their context to the potsherds. The history of this old error is reviewed in two parts: (i) the misuse, since 1930, of Gerald Simpson's work at Haltwhistle Burn fortlet; (ii) the misuse, since 1934, of the evidence for dating the great Corbridge Storehouse and the consequent misdating of Antonine pottery at Corstopitum and Mumrills.

This article reports a study of the distribution of Romano-British coarse wares in southern England. The term coarse wares, as used here, includes all wares except colour-coated or painted fabrics, samian and mortaria. These coarse wares were examined in the hope that a detailed study would provide some information about local marketing processes, or at least indicate what was the maximum amount of information that could be obtained from existing pottery-distributions by the methods employed. An area was chosen, the south and west, where a large number of site collections have been recovered. Pottery from as many sites as possible in museums and private collections was examined with the aim of finding exceptionally distinctive types whose distributions could be reliably plotted and whose percentages in each assemblage counted.

The following group of wooden writing tablets is part of the discovery made by Mr. Robin Birley at Vindolanda during the summer of 1973. A brief description of the size and nature of the find is given elsewhere in this volume (pp. 471-4), along with some examples of tablets in the collection. It is planned that the tablets will ultimately be published as a corpus in a volume of the Excavation Report for the site of Vindolanda. In the meantime, however, it is sensible and desirable that some information about the contents of this unique discovery should be made available. The following items are therefore offered as a forerunner to the eventual full publication of the corpus. The aim is to give some account of the progress so far made with these difficult documents and, not less important, to offer scholars an opportunity to scrutinize, criticize and add pertinent information in the hope that they might be later republished in a fuller and better form. This preliminary edition inevitably contains many imperfections and blemishes, as well as problems to which no adequate solution has yet been found. But it is hoped that the importance of the documents justifies the desire to make them available as speedily as is possible, without unduly hampering the completion of what will inevitably be a fairly long-term project.