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present a generalised pattern of spatial variation and
temporal development in pottery forms and fabrics, and in the composition
of assemblages as a whole.
It was not the intention of the research conducted for the
study to provide firm dating for individual vessel types, and indeed the
trend in ceramic studies is a departure from the belief that such dating
can be established at least for coarse ‘kitchen’ wares. The
exceptional quality of the site dating evidence in the northern military
zone, provided by a high recovery rate of building inscriptions and
intensive research into the historical record and its reflections in the
material remains (e.g. Breeze and Dobson 1978), enabled Gillam (1957) to
suggest quite precise dating for his types, although these have undergone
revision in subsequent editions of the paper (cf. Gillam 1957 with
Gillam 1970). The south-east generally does not provide a significant body
of data relating to absolute chronology; however, stratigraphic sequences
and the limited inscriptional and numismatic evidence do allow a relative
chronology to be established from which ceramic ‘phases’ may be
deduced. The study was thus designed to discern these phases and describe
them at assemblage level, stressing the typical components of such
assemblages, whenever possible in a quantified form (see Chapter 2). The
calculation of a date, or more properly a date-range, for an assemblage or
a site relies less on individual elements than on the assessment of the
proportional representation of the whole range of forms and fabrics that
comprise the pottery assemblage.
The dating method outlined above ideally requires a
rigorously quantified data basis, enabling the proportions of fabrics or
forms in an assemblage to be expressed as percentage figures, and thus
providing a basis for intra- and inter-assemblage comparison at the level
of relative-frequency assessment (Orton 1975, 30; 1980, 156-67). Analysis
of this kind, has, until recent years, generally been neglected in
Romano-British pottery studies; it has thus been an objective
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of the research to create such a data base for the benefit of both the
present and future programmes. The value of ‘industry’ studies has been
emphasised above. Of the three major pottery industries known to have been
founded within the study area only one has previously been studied in depth,
and even then only a portion of the products has been discussed. This
industry is the coarse or ‘kitchen’ ware industry centred around the
Cliffe Peninsula between the Thames and Medway estuaries, and it produced
both slipped and unslipped reduced wares. The former ware, generally known
as BB2, has been the subject of intensive research in the past twenty years
(Gillam 1960; Farrar 1983; Williams 1977). Its significance as a ware
exported over long distances has tended to overshadow the more localised
aspects of its distribution within the south-east and its relationship to
the unslipped ware alongside which it was manufactured. The second industry
in question has been known since the early nineteenth century thanks to the
energies of antiquarians on the Medway estuary; referred to as ‘Upchurch’
ware after one of the larger villages that overlook the estuary, this
industry remains something of an enigma. The litoral situation of the
apparent production area, and the poorly recorded attentions of many
generations of antiquaries and treasure hunters have led to the devastation
of that area with little gain in knowledge (Noel Hume 1954; Monaghan 1982,
1983, 1987). Kilns of the Roman period do still occasionally come to light
(e.g. Jackson 1962, 1972/3; Ocock 1966), but there is little doubt that the
overwhelming bulk of the structural evidence has been lost.
The town-based industry that is represented by at least seven
known pottery kiln sites around Canterbury has been generally neglected
except for the publication of most of the kilns themselves (Bennett et
al. 1978, 1980; Jenkins 1956a, 1960; Webster 1940). The industry is of
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