The region to be studied must satisfy two criteria, if it is to justify the
research conducted on it. The first, and obvious, criterion is that there
must be available sufficient material to provide wide and fairly even
coverage of the spatial and temporal parameters defined. The second
criterion is that the region must have well-defined boundaries, provided by
topography or settlement pattern; without such boundaries it is difficult to
decide upon the spatial limits of the area within which data are to be
collected, for settlement zones will tend to merge with one another at their
peripheries. Local artefact dispersal patterns are most easily discernible
within a self-contained region, which suffers comparatively little
interference from neighbouring regions. Modern political boundaries are
rarely meaningful in terms of the topography or the ancient settlement
pattern; they cut across the boundaries of these features more often than
they respect them. The historic borders of the county of Kent are an
exception to this generalisation. The Thames Estuary and the English Channel
wash the north, east, and south-east shores of the county, and the sparsely
populated High Weald provides the southern boundary. To the north-west the
London Clay of what is now south-east London was apparently thinly inhabited
also (Pollard 1977; Sheldon and
.Schaaf 1978). The lower Thames is a less satisfactory
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boundary as the Essex and Kent sides are part of the same
topographic zone. In consequence a selection of sites in south Essex was
included in the research programme. The same can be said of the Surrey
border, which cuts across the chalk and clay-with-flints of the North
Downs. However, few major excavations have been conducted inside Surrey
east of the roadside settlement at Ewell, over 15 km. inside the Surrey
border (Graham 1936; Keulemans 1963; Little 1961, 1964 are published
exceptions); a convenient, albeit false, settlement zone boundary can thus
be drawn between the Roman roads from London to Brighton and Lewes
(Margary 1973, routes 150 and 14 respectively).
The region thus defined comprises somewhat more than 400 km.2
of land, of which a large proportion was apparently only thinly
settled in the Roman period (Ordnance Survey 1978). Within the more
populous areas the river valleys through the North Downs, the
Thames and Medway lowlands at the foot of the Downs, and the area between
the Thames Estuary and the Straits of Dover — a large quantity of
archaeological evidence has been recorded, including much pottery of all
four centuries of the Roman occupation. A wide range of settlement types
is
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