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necked angular roll-rim, and everted-rim, jars, a bead-
and-flange dish, and dog-dishes including a vessel with an exterior
burnished lattice decoration. The ware is mainly found in mid fourth-century
deposits at Canterbury, including 6 per cent of the ‘flood-silts’
assemblage (8 per cent of coarse wares), and could conceivably have been the
product of a single generation of potters, probably operating in the
vicinity of Canterbury itself. It is possible that these artisans sought to
take advantage of the demise of BB1 and sandy wheel-thrown wares at this
time.
A hand-made reduced ware heavily tempered with miscellaneous
inclusions of mudstone, chalk, flint and grog has been described by Young at
Port Lympne (1980, 281, Reduced-ware 8). The formal range is practically
identical to late Roman grog-tempered ware (nos. 204—11 here), and
comprises over half of the sherds found in the recent excavations on the
Saxon Shore fort. One vessel, a biconical bowl (Young 1980, no. 47) with
abundant white inclusions, exhibits moderate grass striations on all
surfaces. The form, and the presence of these lacunae, suggest a Saxon
rather than late Roman vessel, but too little is known about the pottery of
either period in this part of Kent for the attribution to be certain. The
fabrics of the remainder of ‘Reduced-ware 8’ are not closely paralleled
by material from other sites in Kent known to the present author, but a
general similarity to late ‘East Sussex Ware’ from Bishopstone (Green
1977) is apparent. Young (1980, 281) has expressed the opinion that the Port
Lympne ware did not come from East Sussex, however. The date range of this
ware is uncertain, owing to the dearth of stratified deposits at Port
Lympne. Cunliffe (1980, 288) has postulated an abandonment of c. A.D. 350,
which would imply that the inhabitants of this part of Kent used a much
higher proportion of hand-made non-sandy coarse ware in the first half of
the fourth century than did their counterparts in north-east Kent. The
coarse pottery assemblage of Port Lympne, couched in these terms, bears a
closer
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resemblance to that of Bishopstone in East Sussex (Green 1977) than to Canterbury.
Alice Holt wares and Dorset BB1 are the only exotic coarse
wares that are thought to have achieved a significant share of the market in
east Kent, apart from mortaria, in the fourth century. However, Mayen ware
(see the preceding section) is widely distributed (Fig. 52), being found on
several classes of site in small quantities. This import may have been first
introduced to Canterbury in the mid-fourth century (Pollard forthcoming, d),
continuing in use up to the end of the Roman period. The everted ‘lid-seated’
jar (Fulford and Bird 1975, Form 3) is the form most frequently encountered,
as in west Kent, but lids, bowls, dishes, a jug, and a handled jar are also
known. Richborough and Canterbury exhibit the widest ranges of forms
(Fulford and Bird 1975; Pollard forthcoming, d), but this may be a
reflection of the extent of excavations on these sites in comparison with
the remainder of east Kent (excepting Dover, the material for which has not
been studied by the present author). Late Roman shelly wares from the
Midlands or East Anglia have only been recorded at Richborough, Dover (Wilison
1981, no. 599) and Canterbury, and in very small quantities. The sherds from
the last-named site derive from late fourth-
century contexts. A single shelly ware vessel from further north — a Dales
ware jar from the north Midlands or south Yorkshire — has been recorded,
from Richborough (Loughlin 1977, 110; Bushe-Fox 1928, no. 147). This is very
much of a ‘stray’ find, far away from the main area of distribution
(Loughlin 1977) and its appearance may be a result of the movement of
shipping between the Kent military base and the coast of north-east Britain.
The mortaria of the fourth century in east Kent were
predominantly from the Oxfordshire kilns, including red- and white-slipped
wares and plain white ware, as in west Kent. These three wares are found on
all classes of site throughout the region (cf. Young 1977a). Nene Valley
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