The Roman Watermills and Settlement at Ickham, Kent
The Roman Watermills and Settlement at Ickham, Kent

Author: Paul Bennett

Publisher:

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 404

ISBN-13: 9781870545198

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This is the account of 'rescue' excavations undertaken during gravel quarrying between 1972 and 1974 at Ickham on the Little Stour river in Kent. Initially excavated by a local amateur group led by the late Jim Bradshaw, who had discovered the site, the final season was funded by the then Department of the Environment and directed by Christopher Young. Four watermills were identified, flanking a road, possibly the main route from Richborough to Canterbury. The earliest mill was in use in the early third century AD, the others during the fourth and early fifth century. The timber mill buildings and channels were associated with fourth-century pottery, coins, a wooden votive figurine and many other finds. Metalworking waste, furnace debris and tools suggest the mills formed part of an industrial settlement. Other metal objects include parts of pewter dishes, fragments of a lead tank and unusual lead alloy pendants which may have been made on site in the late fourth or fifth century. With twenty-three specialist contributors, extensive reports on these and many other small finds, the millstones and the important assemblages of late Roman pottery, constitute a large part of this long-awaited monograph.

Farming Transformed in Anglo-Saxon England
Farming Transformed in Anglo-Saxon England

Author: Mark McKerracher

Publisher: Oxbow Books

Published: 2018-02-21

Total Pages: 242

ISBN-13: 1911188321

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Anglo-Saxon farming has traditionally been seen as the wellspring of English agriculture, setting the pattern for 1000 years to come – but it was more important than that. A rich harvest of archaeological data is now revealing the untold story of agricultural innovation, the beginnings of a revolution, in the age of Bede. Armed with a powerful new dataset, Farming Transformed explores fundamental questions about the minutiae of early medieval farming and its wider relevance. How old were sheep left to grow, for example, and what pathologies did cattle sustain? What does wheat chaff have to do with lordship and the market economy? What connects ovens in Roman Germany with barley maltings in early medieval Northamptonshire? And just how interested were Saxon nuns in cultivating the opium poppy? Farming Transformed is the first book to draw together the variegated evidence of pollen, sediments, charred seeds, animal bones, watermills, corn-drying ovens, granaries and stockyards on an extensive, regional scale. The result is an inter-disciplinary dataset of unprecedented scope and size, which reveals how cereal cultivation boomed, and new watermills, granaries and ovens were erected to cope with – and flaunt – the fat of the land. As arable farming grew at the expense of pasture, sheep and cattle came under closer management and lived longer lives, yielding more wool, dairy goods, and traction power for plowing. These and other innovations are found to be concentrated at royal, aristocratic and monastic centers, placing lordship at the forefront of agricultural innovation, and farming as the force behind kingdom-formation and economic resurgence in the seventh and eighth centuries.

Roman Artefacts and Society
Roman Artefacts and Society

Author: Ellen Swift

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 328

ISBN-13: 0198785267

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In this book, Ellen Swift uses design theory, previously neglected in Roman archaeology, to investigate Roman artifacts in a new way, making a significant contribution to both Roman social history and our understanding of the relationships that exist between artefacts and people. Based on extensive data collection and the close study of artefacts from museum collections and archives, the book examines the relationship between artefacts, everyday behavior, and experience. The concept of "affordances"--features of an artefact that make possible, and incline users towards, particular uses for functional artifacts--is an important one for the approach taken. This concept is carefully evaluated by considering affordances in relation to other sources of evidence, such as use--wear, archaeological context, the end--products resulting from artifact use, and experimental reconstruction. Artifact types explored in the case studies include locks and keys, pens, shears, glass vessels, dice, boxes, and finger-rings, using material mainly drawn from the north-western Roman provinces, with some material also from Roman Egypt. The book then considers how we can use artefacts to understand particular aspects of Roman behavior and experience, including discrepant experiences according to factors such as age, social position, and left- or right-handedness, which are fostered through artifact design. The relationship between production and users of artifacts is also explored, investigating what particular production methods make possible in terms of user experience, and also examining production constraints that have unintended consequences for users. The book examines topics such as the perceived agency of objects, differences in social practice across the provinces, cultural change and development in daily practice, and the persistence of tradition and social convention. It shows that design intentions, everyday habits of use, and the constraints of production processes each contribute to the reproduction and transformation of material culture.

The Roman Watermills and Settlement at Ickham, Kent
The Roman Watermills and Settlement at Ickham, Kent

Author: Paul Bennett

Publisher:

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 404

ISBN-13:

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This is the account of 'rescue' excavations undertaken during gravel quarrying between 1972 and 1974 at Ickham on the Little Stour river in Kent. Initially excavated by a local amateur group led by the late Jim Bradshaw, who had discovered the site, the final season was funded by the then Department of the Environment and directed by Christopher Young. Four watermills were identified, flanking a road, possibly the main route from Richborough to Canterbury. The earliest mill was in use in the early third century AD, the others during the fourth and early fifth century. The timber mill buildings and channels were associated with fourth-century pottery, coins, a wooden votive figurine and many other finds. Metalworking waste, furnace debris and tools suggest the mills formed part of an industrial settlement. Other metal objects include parts of pewter dishes, fragments of a lead tank and unusual lead alloy pendants which may have been made on site in the late fourth or fifth century. With twenty-three specialist contributors, extensive reports on these and many other small finds, the millstones and the important assemblages of late Roman pottery, constitute a large part of this long-awaited monograph.

Ecclesiastical Lordship, Seigneurial Power and the Commercialization of Milling in Medieval England
Ecclesiastical Lordship, Seigneurial Power and the Commercialization of Milling in Medieval England

Author: Adam Lucas

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-04-29

Total Pages: 437

ISBN-13: 1317146476

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This is the first detailed study of the role of the Church in the commercialization of milling in medieval England. Focusing on the period from the late eleventh to the mid sixteenth centuries, it examines the estate management practices of more than thirty English religious houses founded by the Benedictines, Cistercians, Augustinians and other minor orders, with an emphasis on the role played by mills and milling in the establishment and development of a range of different sized episcopal and conventual foundations. Contrary to the views espoused by a number of prominent historians of technology since the 1930s, the book demonstrates that patterns of mill acquisition, innovation and exploitation were shaped not only by the size, wealth and distribution of a house’s estates, but also by environmental and demographic factors, changing cultural attitudes and legal conventions, prevailing and emergent technical traditions, the personal relations of a house with its patrons, tenants, servants and neighbours, and the entrepreneurial and administrative flair of bishops, abbots, priors and other ecclesiastical officials.

The Material Fall of Roman Britain, 300-525 CE
The Material Fall of Roman Britain, 300-525 CE

Author: Robin Fleming

Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press

Published: 2021-06-11

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 0812252446

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"An examination of the transformations in lowland Britain's material culture over the course of the long fifth century CE during the late Roman regime and its end"--

Maritime Kent Through the Ages
Maritime Kent Through the Ages

Author: Stuart Bligh

Publisher: Boydell & Brewer

Published: 2021

Total Pages: 588

ISBN-13: 1783276258

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A wide-ranging history of the geography and communities of Kent from the earliest times to the present day.Kent, with its long coastline and its important geopolitical position close to London and continental Europe, and on major trading routes between Britain and the wider world, has had a very significant maritime history. This book covers a wide range of topics relating to that history from the earliest times to the present day. It sets Kent's varied coastline and waters in their geological and geographical context, showing how erosion and sediment deposition have contributed to the changing nature of maritime activities and populations. It examines Kent's strategic role in the defence of the country with the development and redevelopment of coastal defences, including four naval dockyards. It goes on to consider the supporting industries which grew up around the coastline, those which supplied raw materials and agricultural products from the county's hinterland, and its wider national and international trading links. It also discusses the diverse coastal communities of Kent and how they have changed in response to the demands of defence, trade, and changing population and migration patterns. In addition, the book includes detailed case studies which explore particular subject areas as exemplars of the major themes covered by the book.l trading links. It also discusses the diverse coastal communities of Kent and how they have changed in response to the demands of defence, trade, and changing population and migration patterns. In addition, the book includes detailed case studies which explore particular subject areas as exemplars of the major themes covered by the book.l trading links. It also discusses the diverse coastal communities of Kent and how they have changed in response to the demands of defence, trade, and changing population and migration patterns. In addition, the book includes detailed case studies which explore particular subject areas as exemplars of the major themes covered by the book.l trading links. It also discusses the diverse coastal communities of Kent and how they have changed in response to the demands of defence, trade, and changing population and migration patterns. In addition, the book includes detailed case studies which explore particular subject areas as exemplars of the major themes covered by the book.

Capital, Investment, and Innovation in the Roman World
Capital, Investment, and Innovation in the Roman World

Author: Paul Erdkamp

Publisher:

Published: 2020

Total Pages: 508

ISBN-13: 0198841841

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Investment in capital and innovation in its uses are often considered the linchpin of modern economic growth, but has this always been so? This volume aims to shed new light on the ancient Roman economy in the first book-length contribution focusing on the allocation and uses of capital and credit and the role of innovation in the Roman world.

Sea Eagles of Empire
Sea Eagles of Empire

Author: Simon Elliott

Publisher: The History Press

Published: 2016-08-03

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 0750969318

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Winner of Military History Monthly 's 2017 Book of the Year Award The Classis Britannica was the Roman regional fleet controlling and protecting the waters around the British Isles – in other words, Britain's first-ever navy. For over 200 years it played a key role in the northern frontiers of the Roman Empire: it helped to establish the province of Britannia and assisted in Roman military campaigns, as well as controlling the continental coast through to the Rhine Delta. Outside of war, the Classis Britannica also offered vital support for the civilian infrastructure of Roman Britain, assisting in administration, carrying out major building and engineering projects, and running industry. Later, its mysterious disappearance in the mid-third century ad would contribute to Britain finally leaving the Empire 150 years later. In Sea Eagles of Empire, acclaimed historian Simon Elliott tells its story for the very first time.