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A high range of correlation coefficients obtained from applying
Jaccard’s measure to pairs of sites taking Canterbury, Rochester, Radfield
and Ospringe into consideration has been recorded. With the exception of a
similarity figure of 63 per cent for Ospringe:Radfield, all six permutations
of pairs show a degree of similarity of 66.6 per cent or higher. The figures
for Brenley Corner are markedly lower, between 48 per cent and 59 per cent,
possibly a reflection of the hypothesised termination of domestic occupation
on that site before the end of the third century. Canterbury has the largest
range of fabrics and forms, as befits the civitas capital, but it should
also be borne in mind that the city has been investigated by archaeologists
more intensively than the other four sites in this survey, notwithstanding
the excavation of the Ospringe cemetery. The pottery assemblages are
qualitatively more or less subsets of the total Canterbury assemblage. There
are quantitative differences between Rochester and Canterbury (Appendix 5)
that are interpreted as indicating two marketing zones for coarse pottery,
but these zones overlap, with the result that to some extent wares from
north-west Kent were distributed throughout east Kent and vice versa, with
the central northern region acquiring pottery from both sources as well as
indigenous products of widely fashionable types and exotic imports with a
county-wide distribution.
V. THE FOURTH AND EARLY FIFTH CENTURIES
1. The Fine Wares
The fine pottery of late Roman Britain, both indigenous and
imported, has been the subject of intensive research over the past decade,
encompassing studies of individual industries (e.g. Fulford 1975a; Young
1977a;
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Galliou et al. 1980) and of the competitive interaction of those
industries (e.g. Fulford 1977a, 1977b, 1978c; Green 1977). It is now
recognised that a wide variety of fine wares from numerous sources were
current in Kent in this highly competitive trade, of which Oxfordshire wares
were the predominant participant.
The main features of fine pottery developments in this period
in Kent are the demise of local grey wares; increase in the volume of
Oxfordshire wares; an increase in the importation of fine wares from the
Continent, and the diversity of Romano-British sources represented. A high
degree of standardisation at a generalised level can be detected, with
red-surfaced open bowls, dark tall-necked beakers, and red or dark dishes,
flagons and flasks predominating, white bowls and beakers providing the bulk
of the remaining styles.
The decline in Upchurch Marshes fine ware production may have
begun in the third century, despite or perhaps because of the evident
resurgence of the Romano-British fine pottery industries (Fulford 1975a, 109—11).
The increasing availability of colour-coated wares from Oxfordshire, coupled
with the established importation of Nene Valley wares, may have squeezed the
Upchurch industry to the point where competitive productivity was no longer
feasible. It may be significant that many of the late third- to
fourth-century fine grey ware vessels are necked jars of quite large sizes
(nos. 174—5 here), forms which were not in direct competition with most of
the imports. Flasks and tall-necked bulbous beakers (e.g. Jenkins 1950, nos.
61, 71) may also have continued into the fourth century, along with ‘Drag.
38’ and flange-rim segmental bowls (cf. nos. 162—4 here); no new forms
are encountered, however. Fine grey wares are absent from the fourth-century
soil accumulation in the Chalk ‘cellar’ (Johnston
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