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of a single settlement (usually a town or a fort, for these tend to provide
both the greatest quantity and the widest diversity of material) in both
cases involving analysis of supply and demand: the industry's 'marketing
area' and the settlement's 'industry catchment area' (i.e. the range
of industries represented in the settlement's pottery assemblage.) The
bias towards fine 'table' wares has been overcome, and these are now
studied in conjunction with the coarsest wares and those of modest quality.
These developments have been greatly facilitated by the advance made in
petrological analysis (e.g. Peacock 1970, 1977a) and the application of
techniques of spatial analysis (Hodder and Orton 1976; Clarke 1977) of sites
and artefacts. However, the pioneering studies of John Gillam into the
pottery of the northern military zone (Gillam 1957, 1960) were
achieved without such aids.
Gillam's approach was basically one of painstaking visual
comparison of forms and fabrics, and this method, if pursued with the
diligence and common-sense that are hall-marks of Gillam's work, can still
pay valuable dividends (Peacock 1977a, 25). If Gillam's seminal
papers on Roman pottery in northern Britain (1957, 3rd edition 1970; 1973)
have provided the inspiration for the present author's research, then the
detailed investigations into specific industries and pottery types that have
been conducted over the last two decades provide the indispensable
framework. In this context acknowledgement must be recorded of the value of
the work of Farrar (1973), Fulford (1973a, 1975a), Greene (1979a),
K.F. Hartley (1963, 1968, 1973a, 1977), Hull (1963), Lyne and Jefferies
(1979), D.F. Williams (1977), and Young (1977a) to the study of the ceramics
of south-east Britain. The debt owed to many other authors will be apparent
in the body of the present study.
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II. THE AIMS OF THE STUDY
In a recent review of the objectives of ceramic
studies in Roman and medieval archaeology (Peacock 1977a), special emphasis
was placed on 'the use of pottery as a tool for studying early economics
and commerce'. The author expresses with enthusiasm the potential of
investigating. 'such humble yet fundamental matters on the organisation of
production and distribution' of locally-produced wares (ibid.). Two
papers in the same volume as this review (Loughlin 1977; D.F. Williams 1977)
serve to illustrate this potential in the field of Romano-British studies,
while Vince (1977a) focuses upon the medieval period with equal
effectiveness.
The overall objective of the study is the elucidation of the
whole network of pottery production, importation and distribution within a
spatially defined area over the whole of the Roman period, in so far as the
available data allow this. The study of continuity and change over time has
been an integral part of the research, and to this end the periods of the
late Iron Age and the fifth century have also been taken account of; in the
main, it is the period from the mid-first century to the early fifth century
A.D. that has been the focus of attention.
The extraction of the information that pottery can provide on
the economic practices of Roman Britain leaves a considerable residue of
information on other aspects of the study of this period; the fields of art
history, religion, diet and technology have barely been touched on. The
relationship between pottery assemblage variation and the differing
functions, social status and prosperity of areas within settlements has not
been pursued in depth.
The major portion of this study is devoted to the description of the pottery
itself and of the industries that produced it within the study region. The
aim of the descriptive chapters is to
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