people and spaces in roman military bases || concluding comments

Cambridge Books Online

http://ebooks.cambridge.org/

People and Spaces in Roman Military Bases

Penelope M. Allison

Book DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139600248

Online ISBN: 9781139600248

Hardback ISBN: 9781107039360

Chapter

13 - Concluding comments pp. 344-358

Chapter DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139600248.014

Cambridge University Press

13 Concluding comments

The combination of the rich textual, artistic and other material-cultural

resources from the Roman world render the approaches taken in this study

conceivably more complex for Roman archaeology than for many other

branches of the archaeological discipline, but at the same time more reward-

ing. A principal significance of this study is its demonstration that much can

be learnt about Roman socio-spatial practices through more theorised and

holistic approaches to material culture, and specifically to artefacts. While

written and pictorial sources can assist in the reading of material culture,

the predominantly elite male voices they project mean that they can present

biased views and are not always the most appropriate tools with which to

direct that reading. Investigations that interpret the structural remains of

military bases through textual analogy can also lead to very prescriptive and

biased views of human behaviour at these sites. However, a more integrated

approach, that considers the artefactual evidence, potentially provides more

nuanced information on the interactions of the members of these commu-

nities – combatant and non-combatant, male and female, adult and child,

slave and free – who were both viewers and active participants in the pro-

duction and utilisation of material culture and space within these military

bases.

While studies of Roman military sites have concentrated on the expres-

sion of military bases as a male domain, a combat zone at the edge of the

civilised world, these sites were both habitation and administrative spaces,

involving a whole frontier community. The main questions for this study

have concerned how artefact assemblages can inform on the various activi-

ties, and spheres of activity, distributed around the different components of

first- and second-century military bases, and what we can learn from these

patterns about the members of these communities involved in these activ-

ities. To this end, these assemblages and their distribution patterns inside

these military bases have been analysed as the principle evidence for socio-

spatial behaviour, to test traditional approaches to the structural remains of

these military installations and to develop insights into the characters of the

communities living and working inside the walls of these military bases. The

sites selected for this study have relatively good artefact data but none are344

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Approaches 345

ideal. Essentially, few Roman military sites have artefact assemblages that

are ideally excavated and recorded, with good taphonomic information, for

a consumption-oriented approach that can have definitive outcomes. As

argued by Cool and Baxter, though, ‘even “poor quality” data can provide

useful insights into past societies’ (2002: 365).

APPROACHES

Two conceptual frameworks have underpinned this study so that the physi-

cal layouts and artefact assemblages of these sites could be used to investigate

the spatial patterning of behaviour. The first concerns the characterisation of

artefacts in terms of the activities and actors for which they are the material

residues. These characterisations have drawn on past artefact classifica-

tions, but have frequently included a critique of these. Only a selection of

artefacts from these sites were so characterised, their selection being based

on their potential association with specific activities which, in turn, are

more evidently associated with particular identities. Most notable among

such activities was that concerned with ‘being’ rather than with ‘doing’ –

i.e. ‘dress’ – and the most clearly distinguishable identity categories were

articulated by gender. These categorisations were expressed both in abso-

lute terms and as tendencies, a more speculative approach which, in some

respects, can make up for data quality. An important aspect of this study

is that its approach to artefact classification crosses traditional ‘specialist

boundaries’ by ‘integrat[ing] different categories of finds’ (Cool and Baxter

2002: 277). That said, many of the artefacts used in this study are those

commonly referred to as ‘small finds’. Such artefacts have indeed been

subject to more consumption-oriented approaches than have more pro-

lific material types, such as ceramics. Depositional processes – that is, the

higher likelihood for the loss or discard at or near location of use for these

types of artefacts – also make them more suitable for meaningful spatial

analyses.

It is anticipated that some scholars will disagree with some of these

artefact categorisations – being either too limited, or too positivistic and

over-interpretative. As discussed at the outset of this book, many distinc-

tions between combat and non-combat activities are problematic, as are

gender distinctions. For example, many supposedly female roles, in civilian

urban contexts, may well have been carried out by non-combatant men

in such military contexts – slaves and other support personnel. And some

specific artefacts found in these contexts and categorised as ‘female’ may




well have been soldiers’ keepsakes. For such reasons, the categorisations in

this study have tended to be rather conservative, favouring the premise that

males were the most prominent members of these communities. For exam-

ple, activities such as sewing and leatherwork have been gendered ‘male’

activities for this study, and the subject of who did the cooking has been not

broached. In rural settings the roles of women, in particular, were likely to

be more varied and all-encompassing than in the urban sphere (see e.g. van

Driel-Murray 2008: 87–9), and this is potentially the case for the women

in the military sphere, particularly in smaller forts, where the activities of

male or female support personnel may often have been indistinguishable.

In addition, specific artefacts have often been conservatively ‘gendered’.

For example, Furger argued (1990) that plain rings were usually worn by

women but these have not been classified as such in this study. The focus

of this study is on the repeated discovery of assemblages of so-categorised

artefacts inside these military bases, rather than isolated instances. At the

same time, it was found that the artefact distribution patterns identified

indeed served to substantiate the categorisations of specific artefacts in

these assemblages. A particularly pertinent example is the strong associa-

tion of infant skeletal remains inside the fort at Ellingen with other arte-

facts categorised as those of women and children. Such examples demon-

strate the appropriateness of the methodologies used in this study and

that these approaches to artefact consumption and distribution can make a

considerable contribution to understanding artefact use across the Roman

world.

This study has not been explicit about separating children from women

in the artefact categorisation, or in the spatial analyses. The artefactual,

and particularly the infant skeletal, evidence for the presence of small chil-

dren and babies is indirectly concerned with the social concept of gender

and provides a stronger argument for the presence of biological women

(and their families) inside these military bases than for the presence of

male slaves and male prostitutes, transsexuals or cross-dressers, as might

be argued for some artefacts categorised as ‘female’. This study does not

deny the possibility of, for example, ‘ethnic soldiers’ wearing jewellery or

‘cross-dressers’ in these domains (see Casella 2006: 26), but argues that

there is a higher likelihood that these artefactual remains document the

numbers of women who occupied these military bases. Exceptions can

no doubt be found, but the views of the ancient authors on Roman mil-

itary life and standards do not necessarily provide a reliable pretext for

explaining away the archaeological evidence for the presence of biological

women inside first- and second-century military bases and their potentially



Approaches 347

supportive roles in these communities. At the very least this approach

to artefact categorisation can stimulate more critical research into mate-

rial culture consumption, and associated gendered identities and social

behaviours in this and other contexts in Roman archaeology and social

history.

The second conceptual framework that underpins this study concerns

the spatial mapping of material remains to investigate how activities were

played out in this arena and how this informs on the organisation and

structures of these military communities. Here GIS techniques have been

used to visualise ‘legacy data’ (see Allison et al. 2008) and their small-

scale, inter- and intra-site distribution patterns, to investigate consumption

practices within these structurally defined areas. These techniques have

been particularly successful in the foregrounding of activities of minority

groups in these contexts – activities which are usually hidden from view by

the activities of the dominant group of soldiers and by the predominant

concerns of the ancient authors.

Some decades ago, Bishop noted that statistical techniques indicated

clustering of artefact types within certain buildings at certain sites, including

in the fort at Oberstimm (1986: 719). Bishop commented that ‘more work is

urgently needed before convincing results can be produced’. Basic statistical

analyses have been used in this study, particularly to test the robustness of

the data sets (see Appendices B–F). Quantitative comparisons have been also

used for the inter-site analyses and provide good base data for testing against

further case studies. However, the main spatial analytical procedures used

in this study are less specifically quantitative, and might be considered more

intuitive. Such approaches are most suitable for the types of data selected,

which tend to make up a small proportion of the total artefact assemblages

at all these sites, and whose excavation and recording is inconsistent both

within and across these military bases.

So, while thousands of artefacts have been excavated from each of the

sites in this study, a lack of precise depositional and contextual informa-

tion for each artefact has often hindered more definite results. Thus, this

study also highlights the need for more careful and accurate recording and

publication of all finds from military, or indeed any settlement, contexts,

with more explicit attention to artefact recording that considers both pre-

cise context and potential use. At the same time, though, it demonstrates

that with relatively good recording and with comprehensive publication,

old excavations which involved the type of extensive excavation that is rare

today can be re-analysed using such spatial approaches and can produce

new and interesting interpretations.




OBSERVATIONS

The activities and the use of space inside Roman military bases

With its focus on non-combat activities this study presents insights into

some of the less well-researched activities that took place within these

military bases and that were not directly concerned with warfare. It also

emphasises the roles of these bases as living and working places.

As mentioned above the major group of selected artefacts in this study is

concerned with ‘dress’. This material has been most important in identifying

gender and status differentiations in these military bases, and the places

frequented by different groups. Associations of potentially dress-related

material can also help to better understand how these items were used.

For example, this study has discussed Roman jewellery-wearing habits and

analysed melon beads from burial contexts to argue that these beads were

mainly associated with women and children, with only two known situations

where this was not the case. It has also demonstrated the lack of association

of such beads with horse equipment within the sites in this study, but

closer association with other women’s and children’s dress-related items.

It has therefore argued that the melon beads recorded from these military

contexts were more likely to have been the apparel of women and children,

than of horses or of combatant or non-combatant males.

Another major group of selected artefacts at these sites are those associated

with metalworking. While considerably more metalworking appears to have

being carried out in the auxiliary forts, this may be due largely to the quality

of recording and also the abandonment processes of the individual sites

used in this study. Metalworking was also relatively well represented in the

legionary fortress at Rottweil. This pattern emphasises the importance of

metalworking activities for institutions concerned primarily with weaponry

and warfare.

Among the other industries witnessed in these artefact assemblages are

wood- and leather-working and agriculture. Interestingly, while the evi-

dence is scarce, these industries are most apparent in the first-century

legionary fortresses. It is perhaps noteworthy that the work vexillatio in

the fort at Ellingen had comparatively little such material. Zanier observed

that the occupants of the Ellingen fort appear to have been manufacturing

whetstones (1992: 77). However, it was argued in Chapter 11, p. 293, that

the similar percentages and distribution of artefacts associated with cutting

and sharpening, including whetstones, across all these military bases suggest



Observations 349

that the quantity recorded at Ellingen may have been part of normal fort

life. More detailed investigation of the actual implements categorised as cut-

ting and sharpening might throw further light on this potential industry.

Nevertheless, this example demonstrates that comparative study of arte-

fact assemblages across several sites assists in better understandings of the

significance of an assemblage at a particular site.

Another industry which is hinted at in the tablets from Vindolanda

is cloth-working (see Bowman 1994: 72; Bowman and Thomas 1994:

Vindolanda Tablets II, 192 and 196). The most significant cloth-working

items in this study are the spindle whorls found within the second-century

fort at Ellingen. Spindle whorls were also recorded in the barrack build-

ings in the fortress at Carnuntum (Grunewald 1981: esp. pl. 8, no. 4; 1986:

pl. 11, nos. 1–4) although these could be dated anywhere between the first

and fourth centuries. Further spindle whorls were recorded at South Shields

(Allason-Jones and Miket 1984: 320–2), although, again, these may also have

been from a later period and are not necessarily from the fort proper. The

potential evidence for cloth-working inside these military bases, and espe-

cially the early imperial ones in this study, gives important insights not only

into the diversity of productive activities in these contexts but also into

gendered identities and practices in this sphere, and, again, adds both to the

body of evidence for, and to approaches to, examining the significance of

this activity in this arena.

The apparent evidence for commercial activities within these military

bases might be surprising to some. Tradespeople are traditionally assumed

to have lived outside the gates of these military bases and well-paid military

personnel to have gone outside to trade. All the same, scholars have long

referred to shops inside military bases and the tablets at Vindonissa referred

to barmaids and innkeepers inside the fortress. These artefact distribution

patterns show that ‘exchanging’ of goods and service for cash, and involving

both military and non-military personnel, were likely to have taken place

inside all these military bases, with the possible exception of the fort at

Ellingen. This highlights the resemblance of legionary fortresses and supply

forts to cities and market towns.

To answer questions concerning how these various activities were dis-

tributed around the different components of Roman military bases, on one

level, this study substantiates many of the functions traditionally ascribed

to these components on the bases of their structural layouts. For example,

it confirms the identification and use of infantry barracks or administrative

buildings, the spatial distribution of artefacts in these buildings conforming,




in large part, to traditional ideas of how they were used. Such substantia-

tion serves to validate this approach to artefact distribution patterns and

socio-spatial practice.

On another level, though, many of these traditional functional ascrip-

tions are too prescriptive, and even inaccurate. Assumptions that a certain

building type had a unique purpose and that there was segregation or even

a ‘zoning’ of lived space and domestic activities from other activities, are

shown to be misleading. An over-prescriptive, and no doubt inaccurate,

functional ascription is especially apparent for the two so-called fabricae

at Oberstimm and Rottweil. In these types of courtyard buildings indus-

trial space appears to be integrated with lived space, and potentially the lived

space of higher-ranking officers. The building in Area H at Ellingen may also

have been an officer’s residence where both domestic and industrial activities

took place. This study also demonstrates that many of the buildings iden-

tified by their layouts as soldiers’ barracks, in both legionary fortresses and

auxiliary forts, could be used for a variety of activities, including industrial

and commercial exploits. This mixed use of space, and the more complex

association of building type and activity, was more apparent in auxiliary

forts, whose primary focus was not necessarily active combat. However, it

was also observed in the fortress, Fort I, at Rottweil. At Vetera I, too, there

may have been mixed residential, industrial and commercial activities in

buildings along the main street. This observed complexity of relationships

among residential, industrial and commercial spheres in the Roman mili-

tary bases, as well as the complex use of specific structural types, was no

doubt found across the pre-industrial Roman world and might impact on

our wider understandings of the zoning of Roman space more generally,

notably in the urban sphere.

This study also highlights that leisure activities, often considered to take

place in settlements outside the fort proper, belonged inside. Birley had

argued that soldiers would need to go outside the fort at Vindolanda to

gamble (1977: 36), but substantial evidence for gaming, and possibly gam-

bling, activities was found in the central open buildings inside the fortress at

Vindonissa (Holliger and Holliger 1983: esp. fig. 7; see also gaming counters

found in the so-called fabrica at Vindolanda: Birley 2009: 110). This study

provides further evidence that gaming took place within the fort, again in

public areas, but demonstrates that it also probably took place in officers’

residences. In addition, it suggests that traditional Roman games were likely

to be more prominent in legionary fortresses than in auxiliary forts. The

evidence is slight, and lacks good comparative analyses with external set-

tlements, but it potentially provides insights into acculturation processes



Observations 351

within the Roman army (see Hall and Forsyth 2011). The concentration

of gaming equipment in the so-called praetoria (Building 8) at Oberstimm

may again point to a more lax approach to discipline at a supply fort and

possibly more varied use of the main administrative building in this type of

military base.

Insights into the distribution of writing across the community inside a

military base, and its relative importance in the military sphere, might also

be gained through this study. Again, the evidence is slight and in no way

comparable with that from Vindolanda and Vindonissa. However, many of

the tablets from Vindonissa were found on the fort rubbish dump (Speidel

1996: 13) and the distribution and associations of other writing equipment

found at Vindolanda have not been comprehensively analysed (see Bowman

1994: 14–15; Bowman et al. 2010: 190–1).1 This study shows that most

writing activities took place in the central administrative buildings and the

senior officers’ residences, which clearly ties writing activities to military

administration, and perhaps the central control of this activity. That said, in

Building F at Vetera I writing seems to be associated with more commercial

activities. This points to both the bureaucratic and administrative roles of

writing in military contexts, outlined by Gardner (2007a: 210–11). However,

there is also a stronger association of writing with legionary fortresses than

with auxiliary forts, including in the supply fort at Oberstimm. The lack of

writing equipment in the fort at Ellingen no doubt demonstrates the very

different role of this fort from the others in this study and might confirm

Zanier’s proposal (1992: 165–70) that it was administered from elsewhere.

What is evident though is that writing was a much more important activity

in these frontier communities than it was in an Italian urban domestic

context like Pompeii.

The distribution of ‘toilet’ activities within these military bases could

conceivably be associated with the role and status of personal hygiene in

the military sphere (see Eckardt and Crummy 2008: 91). There appears to

be a stronger association of ‘toilet’ activities with officers’ residences than

with infantry barracks, particularly in the fort at Oberstimm where soldiers’

barracks are better represented, and possibly also Ellingen, although one of

the few items recorded from Building N at Vetera I was a probe. There was a

notable concentration of such items in Building 1 and the area of Buildings B,

C and 3 in the Oberstimm fort, which includes both more personal hygiene

1 Andrew Birley observed (n.d.: 210–15) that third-century styli from Vindolanda were

overwhelmingly from outside the fort and that some fourth-century ones inside, mainly from

the praetoria and what have been identified as commercial buildings.




items and potential medical implements. This pattern is difficult to interpret

but gives insights into status and gender associations of these buildings

and might support a more domestic role for these areas. In these sites,

though, there is also a conspicuous pattern for such items in the streets –

e.g. at Vetera I, in the forts at Rottweil, and in the fort at Ellingen. Eckardt

and Crummy argued that, in Roman Britain, toilet items themselves were

not part of status display, but probably kept in the most private parts of

the house (2008: 92). This distribution pattern tends to suggest that they

may have been more frequently carried around and lost than left at home

and lost. While this may not have been as status symbols it highlights that

personal hygiene activities were more frequently carried out away from the

home.

Artefact distribution patterns can often tell us more about the actuality

of practice than does practice as dictated by the Roman administration. The

designers, builders and users of these buildings and spaces are not necessarily

a homogeneous group. Viewing architecture as the prescriber and dictator

of practice is to bias the evidence towards the perceptions of the builders,

rather than the requirements of the occupiers (Allison 1999a: 4). Military

units came and went and even for those who stayed put, membership could

fluctuate and family circumstances change, irrespective of military strategy.

Some such changes may be traceable in the structural remains, but not

necessarily all of them. The units stationed in each of the military bases

in this study would also have been quite different, and covered different

ranges of status. Some of the observations discussed above draw attention

to these socio-cultural differences. Members of these military communities

no doubt conceptualised the use of space in different ways from those who

designed and built these installations, and also in quite different ways from

of our own.

Women and families in men’s space

An important aspect of this artefact distribution study is the evidence it

provides on the presence of women and families in this traditional ‘men’s

space’. These distribution patterns indicate that women and children could

be found in a range of different contexts within all these military bases,

although not perhaps in central administrative buildings associated specif-

ically with military activities and military personnel. However, they were

found in domestic, industrial and commercial spheres. These women and

children were likely to have been members of senior officers’, centurions’,



Observations 353

decurions’ and ordinary soldiers’ households and to have played an active

part in the productive activities that took place inside these military bases.

The infant skeletal remains inside the fort at Ellingen, in soldiers’ barracks,

and the associated artefact assemblages with high percentages attributable

to women and children indicate their high visibility and show that one

can indeed ‘find evidence for women via bangles and dead babies’ (van

Driel-Murray 1997: 59) in these early imperial forts. The evidence at Ober-

stimm also points to women as members of soldiers’ families and as actively

involved in fort business, including during the earlier occupation phase of

this fort (i.e. c. 40–69/70 ce). This evidence presents a very strong case for

the residency of these women and of soldier families inside these forts. This

implies that such women would have spent most of the day inside these

military bases, rather than outside, as in the case for the Indonesian women

discussed by van Driel-Murray (see Chapter 2, p. 29).

This study has indicated that women and children probably constituted

at least 5 per cent and up to 24 per cent of the inhabitants inside these bases

(Table 12.2). The upper figure is rather high and from the less reliable

assemblage at Rottweil. It is more probable that they made up somewhere

between 7 and 14 per cent of the fort population, a figure which is somewhat

less than that proposed by James (2006: 32). It is interesting to note that

the percentages of women and children in auxiliary forts were not nec-

essarily higher than in legionary fortresses. And, while the evidence from

the latest fort, at Ellingen, is certainly the most compelling, this study does

not necessarily support an argument for an increase in women and fami-

lies in the second half of the second century (see Phang 2001: 3). Rather,

the evidence in the early fort at Oberstimm, and the fortresses at Vetera I

and Rottweil, indicates that women and families were likely to have been

present here in similar numbers as in the latter forts (i.e. Ellingen), and to

have had considerable impact inside the fort walls from an early date. This

evidence also points to the need for greater acceptance of women’s ‘open’

contribution to activities inside military bases, from at least the second half

of the first century. These women did not require specially built space and

neither did they, necessarily, impact adversely on the size of the unit and its

efficiency.

The kinds of people in these military bases

General differences among the purposes of these selected military bases and

the types of units stationed there were identified by the original excavators




through their layouts. This artefactual study provides further insights into

these communities and potentially into the roles, interactions and ethnic

identities of their various members.

One important observation is the differences between the proportions

of combat dress, compared with ordinary dress, in the assemblages across

these different sites. Over a quarter of the dress-related artefacts from the

fortress at Vetera I can be definitely ascribed to combat dress, while such

items are almost completely lacking from the fort at Ellingen. This would

accord with the unit stationed at Ellingen being non-combatant. However,

the fort at Oberstimm, also reportedly a non-combatant unit, had the

highest percentage of combat dress items at these sites. This may well give

insights into the dress of the soldiers stationed at these auxiliary forts, and

potentially their ethnic identity. That is, the soldiers at Oberstimm may

have worn more standard military garb than those stationed at Ellingen and

were perhaps not indigenous. A closer examination of both combat and

ordinary dress at these and other sites is likely to throw further light on this

question.

Differences are also noted in the amount and location of combat equip-

ment among these sites. The proportions of combat equipment in the fort

at Oberstimm are higher than at Ellingen, but not as high as that at Vetera

I. This suggests that the troops stationed in the Oberstimm fort may have

been more involved in active combat than those at Ellingen but, as might

be expected, less so than the legionaries at Vetera I. Or might this indi-

cate changes over the century? Interestingly, most of the combat equipment

recorded at Ellingen belonged to Period 2. The combat equipment in Vetera

I was more prominent in the administrative buildings while in the forts at

Oberstimm and Ellingen it was more evident in the soldiers’ barracks. This

implies more central control of combat equipment in legionary fortresses,

and that this equipment may have been more part of personal equipment

in auxiliary forts. However, there is a lack of comparative evidence from

legionary barracks.

At Vetera I, Oberstimm, and Ellingen, 86–99 per cent of the combat

equipment consisted of projectiles. Swords, shields and daggers were no

doubt more personal items, more likely to be carried away from the site

by the owner and less easily lost. Essentially, and despite the apparent

difference in dress, the soldiers stationed at Ellingen and Oberstimm seem

to have been similarly armed as the legionaries at Vetera I. However, there is

another possible explanation for this prominence of projectile points, and

their location in barrack buildings in auxiliary forts. It was observed that



Observations 355

deer was the most prolific type of animal bone found in the site at Ellingen

and the third most prolific type in the fort at Oberstimm. This suggests that

it was the most important meat in the fort at Ellingen, the hunting of which

may have necessitated these projectiles, either as their primary or secondary

use. Equally, those at Oberstimm may also have been employed as much

for hunting game as for engagement with the enemy. The prominence of

projectile points, perhaps for this purpose, and lack of combat dress at

Ellingen might also concur with the less active and more stationery roles

of the Roman army from the early second century (see Phang 2001: 374).

Again, a more detailed comparison of the actual types of projectiles might

throw more light on the roles of these weapons in these contexts.

Scheidel argued (2007: 423–4) that the status and backgrounds of sol-

diers’ wives is problematic but that there were probably fewer local women

among them than has traditionally been believed. Phang noted that some

90 per cent of women on soldiers’ epitaphs in the early imperial empire had

Roman names and that legionaries, at least, did not often form unions with

peregrine women (Phang 2001: 331). Elizabeth Greene has similarly argued

that military diplomas show soldiers were more likely to bring wives and

families with them, often from other provinces, than to form relationships

with local women (n.d. (1); see also Greene n.d. (2)). For example, Maureen

Carroll discusses the sister of a Treveran soldier who is depicted on a grave

stele from Xanten and who can also be identified as Treveran by her dress

(CIL XIII.8655; see Carroll 2013: 571). Similarly Breeze has argued, from a

Vespasianic inscription from Sabora, that families of the regiment moved

with it, and could take their ‘self-governing rights’ with them (2008: 71).

This artefactual study can, unfortunately, tell us little about the status and

precise ethnic backgrounds of the women in these military bases, although,

the presence of items of local dress (see e.g. Chapter 6, p. 117) suggests that

at least some of these were likely to have been from the region. If indeed

many women were not peregrine and wore Roman dress, then the num-

bers of women presented here, based largely on the numbers of such dress

accessories, are rather conservative. Most of the spindle whorls in the fort

at Ellingen were not traditional Roman types, no doubt leading Zanier to

suggest that they may have been pre-Roman. Rather, their type suggests that

they may have been used by local women. One spindle whorl, however, has

parallels with those at Pompeii, potentially suggesting that it belonged to

an Italian woman. The evidence is too limited but points to the kinds of

materials and approaches that can be used to better understand who the

women inside these military bases were.




Military bases as towns

This study has examined socio-spatial practices within the walls of these

military bases only, but has noted that many of the non-combat activities

identified there have traditionally been assigned to extramural settlements.

What can this tell us about the activities that took place and the use of space

in such settlements, and their relationships with the inhabitants inside the

walls? It would appear that nineteenth-century ‘separate spheres’ ideologies

have had too great an influence on the need for modern scholars to spatially

segregate activities and types of people. This study serves to demonstrate

that there is a need to focus on how the activities and people flowed between

these different spheres. As discussed in Chapter 2, p. 31, Roman military

bases, particularly in the western provinces, can be considered as towns

and to have involved many of the activities and interrelationships one can

expect in urban contexts. What activities and connections brought fort

and fortress occupants into the arena of extramural settlements and what

activities and connections inside such bases attracted those from outside?

Further examples of the evidence for commercial and industrial activities

inside these military bases, and similarities and differences between different

types of military bases, might give insights into these relationships.

FURTHER INVESTIGATIONS

This study presents some perspectives on the people and spaces inside

Roman military bases and highlights the need for more rigorous approaches

to socio-spatial practices as evidenced through material culture. It also

provides a model for investigating such practices at other military bases,

or indeed any other archaeological site, through more comprehensive

approaches to their artefactual remains and their spatial distribution. A

broader approach to the complete material record, as an active agent in

social relations, can give more nuanced understandings of social behaviour.

Gender and status relations may be played out as spatial distinctions

between activity areas, rights of access and the orientation and distribution

of people in private and communal gatherings. However, attempts at more

theorised approaches to status and gender identities in Roman archaeol-

ogy have often been prohibited by traditional perspectives on the social

structure of Roman institutions, such as that of the military. As argued

by Bird and Sokolofski (2005: 214) investigations of gendered socio-spatial



Further investigations 357

practices can be used to ‘challenge oversimplified notions of separate private

and public “spheres”’ and can also ‘help to explain how power asymmetries

between women and men are carried from one social setting to next’. There

is a pressing need to increase the visibility of women and non-elites in the

minds of scholars working in Roman archaeology, and particularly Roman

military studies, and to develop methods for achieving this.

This study demonstrates approaches to investigating people and their

activities to gain more nuanced understandings of socio-spatial practices

in Roman military bases. The frequent lack of precise contexts for the lim-

ited and scattered artefacts recorded at these sites make them and their

distribution difficult to quantify statistically, but these analyses of artefact

distribution patterns are no less reliable, in helping us understand these

practices inside Roman military bases, than are the analyses of structural

remains with their textual labels. To learn more about the social dynamics of

these communities, systematic and contextualised consumption approaches

to artefacts and to their inter- and intra-site patterning are needed. With an

understanding of the activities associated with these artefacts, their spatial

organisation and the impact of depositional process on these spatial rela-

tionships, we can develop better understandings of the interrelationships of

these activities, and of the various members of these military communities.

By investigating the significance of similarities and differences between dif-

ferent data sets we can develop more informed approaches to the reality of

life inside Roman military bases and to the place and roles of non-service

personnel within these communities.

The patterns observed in this study and the conclusions drawn from

them are based on a limited number of forts and fortresses which are in

different regions, of different types and dates and which have different

excavation histories. It therefore constitutes an exploration of socio-spatial

practices in military space rather than a definitive study. Nevertheless, there

are persistent themes across these sites that demonstrate that this is a fruitful

approach for investigating other military sites. The study forms the basis

for further investigations of this type, and will hopefully encourage debate

and ongoing analyses of artefact categories and their distribution patterns

inside, and outside, Roman military bases, and more rigorous investigations

of socio-spatial practices and better understandings of the different status,

gender and ethnic identities involved.

Even the study of these five sites here is by no means a comprehensive

analysis of them and their material culture – it has not been possible to

include all potential distribution analyses of all artefacts from these sites in a

single book. Rather, this study shows that detailed and more holistic analyses




of artefact assemblages and artefact distribution patterns are powerful tools

for developing more critical approaches to military communities. Further

research in this area which is critically conscious of unvalidated assumptions

in scholarship can further develop our understandings of Roman military

communities. The freely accessible online data and the GIS maps, which

form a part of this project (Allison 2012) can facilitate more inter-site

comparisons.

More critical approaches to relationships and to socio-spatial practices

in the Roman world can also provide useful cross-cultural analogies for

investigating socio-spatial practices in other past societies (although not as

direct interpretations), and also across the social sciences and humanities

that make analogical inferences to socio-spatial practices in the classical

world, particularly in the military sphere. Correspondingly, Roman society

and its material culture provide an ideal realm in which to test the historic-

ity and universality of many such practices and relationships in ‘western’

contexts.



people and spaces in roman military bases || concluding comments

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