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The Roman Pottery of Kent by Dr Richard J. Pollard  -  Chapter 4  page 57
Doctoral thesis completed in 1982, published 1988


Fig. 19. Imported pre-Flavian fine wares: Distribution. + = absent.

 

There would seem to be no compelling evidence to support the view that the Claudian conquest brought about any rapid, radical change in the production and distribution of pottery in Kent. Developments that can be traced during the pre- to early Flavian period either affected only a very small portion of the population, or can be attributed to the craft of indigenous potters. There remains one great exception to this rule, and that is the introduction of the flagon as an object of common usage. Pre-Flavian forms in a variety of fabrics are present on sites of all types in every locality, particularly in east Kent and along the Thames flood plain. Although the stratigraphic evidence does not provide firm proof,  there is a strong possibility that the widespread adoption of the flagon was a direct result of the Conquest. Dannell (1979, 178) has observed that even in Essex the numbers of later first-century B.C. amphorae do not suggest that wine-drinking became a widespread habit. Finds in Kent of these amphorae (Dressel 1B) are more thinly scattered than north of the Thames (see Appendix 3), although the buckets found in burials at Aylesford and Swarling possibly provide supporting evidence for the consumption of wine at this period (Stead 1971). The lack of known examples of Greco-Roman wine amphorae (except perhaps at Canterbury), the small number of finds of Gallo-Belgic fine

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