Silchester remains the most fully explored of Britain's Roman towns, with a complete plan deriving from the Society of Antiquaries' excavations of 1890–1909. This volume results from a one-day meeting in 2009 to mark the centenary of the completion of the Society's excavations at Silchester. Its 15 contributions reappraise well-known aspects of the town (e.g. Stein on the Silchester pump and Allen on the defences) or focus on aspects of the material culture, particularly the detailed assemblages recovered from the editor's excavations of Insula IX.
In his introduction Fulford argues that the study of towns has been dominated by questions of legal status and their architectural characteristics, further noting in his conclusion that reports tend to prioritise the built environment rather than the activities that take place within it. The space in this volume devoted to the material from Silchester rather than the archaeological sequences ensures that this is not the case here, with Insula IX in particular becoming very much an inhabited space.
The ‘Roman’ identity (by birth or adopted) of Silchester's occupants has, as Hingley notes, been a subject of debate from the late sixteenth century and several contributors address the ways in which new forms of consumption and material culture were adopted, with Robinson suggesting on the basis of plant remains that Roman exotica were consumed by a late Iron Age élite. Timby notes that imported ceramics at late Iron Age Silchester did not penetrate the hinterland to any great extent, suggesting that Silchester was a place of consumption rather than an entrepôt (in contrast to the view expressed by Cunliffe in his discussion of Silchester's Iron Age context). In Insula IX, however, some households seem to have maintained a mutton-heavy diet into the mid-Roman period and Ingrem suggests that their involvement with sheep husbandry may have made them slower to adopt a more ‘Roman’ diet. Eckardt notes that study of ethnicity through material culture is very much dependent on grave contexts, which are lacking at Silchester, but also suggests that we may be asking the wrong questions as the oft-discussed guild of peregrini at Silchester indicates that origins were less important than shared values or needs that were specific to the diaspora situation in which some found themselves.
The highly varied use of space within Insula IX comes across very strongly, with households participating in the organised skinning (and occasional eating) of dogs (Clark), iron working (possibly smelting) in the mid- and late Roman periods (Allen), and copper-alloy casting for which evidence includes a miscast nail-cleaner (Crummy). Veal discusses the often overlooked area of fuel consumption and the use of charcoal for these activities. Animals were a constant presence and plant remains (Robinson) show clearly that they were fed and stalled within the households of Insula IX.
The role of ritual behaviour in household life is another recurrent theme. Crummy's stimulating overview of the Insula IX small finds highlights, in particular, the number of household items, especially toilet sets, seemingly used in a votive context. Timby also notes the number of deliberately-holed vessels that occur in pit groups from both the Victorian and modern excavations, although Clark, in relation to dog skeletons in pits, points to the dangers of the ‘ritual’ argument becoming circular: the presence of dog skeletons has been used to infer the ritual significance of pits and therefore any dog within a pit must have a ritual or sacrificial purpose. However, the dog seemingly deliberately buried in a urinating stance after being killed with a single fatal blow is suggestive of ritual behaviour.
Fulford concludes by arguing that the evidence shows fairly constant small-scale activity over time and that ‘notions of Antonine prosperity or late Roman decline before the 5th century cannot readily be supported’. The richness of the data from Silchester is allowing us to see a picture of urban life in Roman Britain that moves beyond the familiar plans of gridded towns and into the lives of those who walked those streets.
