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The Roman Pottery of Kent
by Dr Richard J. Pollard  -  Chapter 2  page 9
Doctoral thesis completed in 1982, published 1988

represented, and the research strategy was thus subjected to frequent revision as fresh material came to light which, on the grounds of the spatial and temporal co-ordinates and (where hypotheses could be formed) functions of the sites concerned could not be overlooked. The site list, Appendix 1, and the site distribution maps (Figs. 2—9) record the quality and location of the material examined, with a list of published reports which were utilised without examining the pottery at first hand. The number of major sites examined for which useful published information on the pottery was available prior to the commencement of museum research comprised slightly under half of the total of major sites that were included in that research. In the cases of the most extensive sites, such as Canterbury, Rochester, Springhead and Richborough, only a portion of the material taken account of in the overall research programme was available in published form.
   The sites that have been the subjects of extensive excavations presented a problem of assemblage selection. The response to this problem varied according to various factors of publication, stratification and the accessibility of the material. The numerous pits excavated at Richborough provide most of the stratified, or at least context relateable, pottery from that site, and a selection was made of those with comparatively large assemblages in storage. The excavations of the Canterbury Archaeological Trust, which were under way during the research period, provided a data base for the city, and this base was supplemented by material from earlier excavation programmes that was available in both publications and the Canterbury Royal Museum. Much of this material was securely stratified, but it was not always possible to ascertain the retention strategies that had dictated the nature of the surviving assemblage; full quantification of all periods of the Roman city was thus not achieved. The imperfections of the resultant coverage should be overcome during future research to be conducted on the 

Roman pottery recovered by the Canterbury Archaeological Trust. The site at Springhead presented a different pattern again, as most of the pottery from the early seasons was discarded by the excavator, the late Mr W.S. Penn, after summary publication (S. Harker, pers. comm.). The pottery reports of this period of excavation employ an over-generalised type series (Penn 1957; 1958; 1959; 1960; 1962; 1964; 1967; 1968) deemed unsuitable by Mr Penn’s successor, the late Mr S. Harker and this author as a basis for analysis of this lost material. The Springhead research has thus been confined to Mr Harker’s recent series of excavations (summaries in Frere 1977; Goodburn 1978; Wilson 1970; 1971; 1972; 1973), which have produced sufficient material accessible at the time of research to provide full temporal coverage, including quantified stratified assemblages for most of the Roman period.
   The material from two sites in Rochester was loaned to the present author by the excavator, Mr A.C. Harrison, for the writing of specialist reports. This material covered the late first/early second to late fourth/early fifth century overall, and was quantified, rendering personal examination of the material published from two other sites (Harrison and Flight 1968; Harrison 1972) superfluous within the terms of the research design. The published material has been taken account of, nevertheless. Examination of the pottery from the Lullingstone villa and the Classis Britannica fort at Dover was confined to the material selected for publication, as this was considered by the excavators (Lt.-Col. G.W. Meates and Mr B.J. Philp, respectively) to provide a full range of vessel types over the whole of the periods of occupation. Subsequently, the pottery from the former site has been re-analysed by the present author (Pollard 1987). In other instances where a larger volume of material exists than it proved possible to examine, assemblage selection was based upon a precursory study of most or all of the collection,

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