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inclusions’ ware of ‘late Roman grog-tempered ware’
tradition (4.IV.3). In this context, it is worth noting that Fulford’s
characterisation of Portchester late Roman grog-tempered ware revealed no
less than four fabric groups (1975b).
The petrological analysis of Iron Age pottery has revealed
that mechanisms could have existed for the dispersal of products from a
single source or group of sources over quite extensive areas (Peacock
1968, 1969; Drury 1978, 58). The wares studied include one which may be
termed ‘coarse’ (Malvernian ware) and two ‘fine’ (Glastonbury ware
and glauconite-rich ‘foot-ring bowls’). It is conceivable that the ‘Aylesford-Swarling’
fine ware of Kent, particularly the east Kent grog-tempered platters and
flagons, was subject to centralised production, but their high quality
compared with contemporary wares suggests that the potters responsible for
them functioned at a level higher than that of the ‘household
industrialist’. ‘Patch Grove’, ‘Thames Estuary shelly’ and East
Kent comb-stabbed storage jars are more plausible candidates for the
status of household industry products. The distribution of the first two
is figured (Fig. 31), whilst the last-named, a first-century A.D. type,
has been recorded on seven sites in east Kent (Brenley Corner, Canterbury,
Highstead, Richborough, Eastry, Wye and Dover: e.g. nos. 28 and 46 here).
The ‘Thames Estuary shelly’ type alone of Kent storage jar types has
been recorded with any frequency outside of the area in which its fabric
group predominates.
3. Postulated Household Industries; localised Traders
The household industries that have been postulated appear for the most
part to have satisfied regional demand only, foregoing the theoretical
option of long-distance trade. Three examples may be cited of pottery
potentially from household industries (on fabric grounds) being
confined
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almost entirely to one settlement. Two of these come from Richborough in the
first century and one from Canterbury in the fourth.
The Richborough examples concern two styles of decoration. The
first is the impression of a tool, perhaps a short length of cord, in a
series of oblique marks on the shoulder of jars ‘hand-made’ in
grog-tempered ware (e.g. no. 45 here; Bushe-Fox 1949, no. 385; Cunliffe
1968, no. 589). Two examples of this style have been recorded in the
neighbourhood of Richborough, at Birchington and at Eastry (where the ‘cord-ridges’
are absent), both unpublished. Parallels can be drawn with jars from
Dragonby in Lincoinshire (Elsdon 1975, fig. 6, nos. 21—2; fig. 18, no. 13
and Plate ha) but none closer to east Kent are known to the present author.
Ettlinger has published examples from Vindonissa, Switzerland (1977, fig.
52, nos. 8—13) and argues for diverse origins. The former parallel
is given a terminus ante quem in the early first century, whilst the
latter is broadly Claudian-Trajanic in date. It is possible that the east
Kent examples derive from a potting camp-follower of Claudius’ legions,
but further research on the pottery of their military bases occupied prior
to the invasion of Britain is needed. A local east Kent man adapting his
products to copy jars brought into Richborough in quarter-masters’ stores
is a second hypothesis.
The grog-and-sand tempered comb-stabbed small jars (or beakers)
of Richborough (e.g. nos. 39-40 here) are paralleled at Colchester (Hawkes
and Hull 1947, Form 108), where they became the predominant form of this
class in the Flavian period. Sandy, possibly wheel-thrown vessels of this
style have been found in ones and twos on several sites south of the Thames
(e.g. Canterbury; Rochester; Eastry: Pollard 1982, no. 19; Southwark: Bird et
al. 1978b, nos. 557 and 798) as well as at Richborough, but the
fabric variant with grog is known
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