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Detsicas 1983). BB2 probably represents the tip of the iceberg with regard
to commerce flowing from Kent to the north of Britain and into London.
Agricultural produce and Kentish rag (Greensand building stone), would also
have found a ready market in London (a Roman barge found in London contained
a cargo of rag, and it is known from Roman buildings in the city: Marsden
1966; Williams 1971, 172). Rag was also used at Colchester (ibid.), a
Kentish source being likely in view of the relative ease of sea and river
transport. The mineral wealth of the Weald may have been exploited in part
by men of the Cantiaci under Imperial licence (Cleere 1974, 181). It has
been suggested (Pollard 1983a, 251-88) that pottery flowed in a reciprocal
trade between north Kent and London on the one hand and the Wealden
ironworks on the other. The existence of a trade in raw materials, minerals
or agricultural products between the Midlands and Kent is less easy to
envisage, and it may, therefore, be the case that the pottery from
Oxfordshire and the Nene valley is representative solely of trade in
manufactured goods, if not confined to pottery alone. It is nevertheless
clear from the evidence of Kentish rag, and from the implications of the
assumptions of a high corn yield from the civitas and of its
involvement in Wealden iron ore extraction, that pottery does reflect
broader trade networks. This concept has also been imposed upon the seaborne
trade along the west coast of Britain (Fulford 1981) and may be applied to
the Channel also, where monumental stone and worked or unworked shale may
have accompanied Dorset BB1 and New Forest fine wares in extensive commerce.
Pottery production in any form is subject to changes in the
economic background, but this is a feature particularly characteristic of
'urban' and fine ware industries or any industry whose well-being
depends upon long-distance trade. In the Roman period it was these kinds of
industry which developed most rapidly in the first century A.D., supplying
not only the military market but also civilian populations. It seems
reasonable to equate the
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advancement of these concerns with the expansion of cash as a means of
exchange, for the army and towns were undoubtedly the main agencies through
which money was channelled. Rural industries were apparently less
susceptible to economic changes; apart from the growth of 'Patch Grove',
there is no clear indication of any development in the rural wares of Kent,
beyond the experimentation with sand tempering, until the early second
century. The same can be said of south Essex, and 'East Sussex ware'
never developed beyond the production and distribution level of its late
Iron Age antecedents so far as can be judged (Green 1980). When the rural
industries of north-west Kent and south Essex did develop in the early
second century, villas may already have been in existence (in west Kent at
least) for several decades. These industries in due course showed themselves
to be more resilient to the general depression of pottery production in the
late second to early third century than did their urban counterparts at
Canterbury, Brockley Hill-Verulamium, Highgate Wood (whose market must have
been dominated by London) and elsewhere. This resilience is common also to
the Oxfordshire and Alice Holt coarse ware industries (Young 1977a; Lyne and
Jefferies 1979). It is remarkable that 'urban' industries did not
undergo a general expansion corresponding with that of the large rural
industries (e.g. Alice Holt, Oxford, New Forest) in the later third century.
This phenomenon has been discussed by Fulford (1977b) and the present author
(Pollard 1983a, 365-83).
The evidence (presented in Pollard 1983a, 474-535) strongly
suggests that pottery production and trade on the whole reflect the economic
fortunes of the province(s) in general, within certain limitations of
sensitivity applying particularly to rural coarse ware concerns. Thus, even
if the directions of trade flow exhibited by pottery do not represent those
of other commodities (and this negative proposition does not necessarily
hold true), the production patterns and trade
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