seems probable that Dorset BB1, and perhaps also local ‘derived’
products (of which the undecorated bead-and-flange dishes from Cobham Park
and Rochester may be examples, as Dorset vessels are generally decorated)
were out of use by the last years of the fourth century; none can be
ascribed to the destruction and post-destruction deposits at Lullingstone,
and this hypothesis is in accord with the Canterbury evidence (see the
following section). In total, BB1 comprised under 3 per cent of the third-
to fourth-century Rochester assemblage (under 4 per cent of coarse wares),
and 1 per cent of the Chalk ‘cellar’ fourth-century accumulation. A
single vessel of a type current in this century (Gillam 1970, Type 329) has
been recorded in the third-to fourth-century deposits at Springhead, a point
which emphasises the rarity of BB1 in west Kent in the last century of Roman
occupation.
In contrast with BB1, late Roman shelly wares (Sanders 1973)
may have arrived in Kent only in the last third of the fourth century and
perhaps into the fifth (q.v. the following section). There is no
positive dating evidence from west Kent, but earlier examples from the
London area are extremely rare (e.g. Mclsaac et al. 1979, fig. 18,
no. 112, of the first half of the fourth century), as is also the case in
Essex (Drury 1976a, 46). The ware is soft, black to brown, with abundant
shell inclusions, and wheel-thrown. The most common form in Kent and the
London area is the angular hook-rim necked ruled jar (no. 212 here), though
bead-and-flange dishes also occur (no. 213 here), and other forms are known
in the east Midlands, where the centres of production are most likely to
have been located (cf. Sanders 1973). Parallels can be drawn with ‘Portchester
"D" (cf. Lyne and Jefferies 1979, 59—61); both wares
comprise three main forms —the hook-rim ruled jar, bead-and-flange dish,
and dog-dish—, all executed on a wheel and buff-fired often with a
blackened surface. The jar is the most frequently-encountered form in both
wares in Kent and the London area, both areas lying outside the primary
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areas of distribution (Sanders 1973; Lyne and Jefferies 1979, fig. 52, where a
distinction is made between ‘Portchester "D" and an ill-defined
‘Surrey buff ware’ which the present author has elected to ignore). The
shelly ware was evidently less common in Kent and London than ‘Portchester
"D" (Appendix 5), although it achieved a considerable dispersal in
north-west Kent (Fig. 52).
The phenomenon of long-distance importation of course wares to Kent in the
fourth century finds its apogee in ‘Mayen’ ware, thought to have been
produced in the Eifel mountains in the angle of the Rhine and Moselle,
Germany (Fulford and Bird 1975). This ware is wheel-thrown, yellow to brown
or purple in colour, and extremely dense with inclusions of volcanic glass
being particularly distinctive. The forms include jars with a thick everted
rim and internal rim projection (ibid., no. 3), hemispherical and
carinated bowls with an internally-thickened rim (ibid., nos. 6—7)
and conical-sided dishes with an inwardly-everted rim (ibid., nos. 9—10).
Jugs, handled narrow jars, and lids are also known (ibid., nos. 1, 2
and 11). The jars are the most frequently-encountered form in Britain, but
bowls and dishes also occur widely, and other forms more rarely. The ware is
found mainly in south-east Britain. Examples in Britain date to the fourth
or early fifth century (ibid., 179; Pollard forthcoming, d),
including a bead-rim bowl (Fulford and Bird 1975, no. 6 type) from a
post-destruction level above the House-Church at Lullingstone (Pollard 1987,
Group LII, fig. 77, no. 204), a deposit possibly as late as the second
decade of the fifth century or even somewhat later (Meates 1979, 41—2).
Six sites in west Kent from which ‘Mayen’ ware has been recovered have
been recorded (Fig. 52, to which a vessel from Joyden’s Wood of jar
form — Tester and Caiger 1954, no. 42 — in grey ware with volcanic
inclusions may be added), all of which were occupied in the fourth century.
There is no clear evidence of differential distribution of the ware
according to site function or location
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