Among the ever-growing scholarship on pre-industrial traditions of recycling, reuse practices and circular economies, M. offers a new perspective on the realities of stripping a Roman villa for its constituent parts in what comes close to being a how-to guide one can readily follow. M. takes an in-depth, material by material approach that considers process alongside the wider societal and industrial frameworks at play, yet never loses sight of the agency of individuals making choices at the localised level. Throughout M. uplifts the work of other scholars in the field, creating a well-referenced volume enmeshed in the conversations and scholarship of today. The research presented adds significant complexity to the previously side-lined ‘abandonment phase’ of archaeological investigations, contributing nuance to our understanding of the late antique period in Western Europe, while also offering a template for investigating reuse and recycling practices in different periods and regions stymied by outdated decline-and-fall paradigms.
M.’s intentions for the book are well set out in Chapter 1, defining the work as contributing to the growing archaeological interest in the end phases of villas by offering thorough analysis of the often overlooked logistical and practical elements of end phase processing. In doing so, she argues that ‘we can gain a much better understanding of how craftspeople and owners treated and understood materials in antiquity, and that the Romans and their predecessors had a much more complex relationship with building materials than has been previously understood’ (p. 13). The villas selected as case studies cover material processing and recycling practices from the third to the seventh centuries ce and provide a decent coverage of the Western Empire, including thirteen examples in modern-day Italy, nine in France, five in Germany, four in Spain, three in England, two in Belgium and one each in Luxembourg, Portugal and Switzerland (Table 1.1). This corpus, selected as ‘the best examples at present’ (p. 17), allows for some insight into regional variation in antiquity as well as regional variation in archaeological recording methodologies that may or may not have identified recycling infrastructure at the time of excavation.
In addition to outlining her intentions, M. offers, rather candidly, some personal insights into her motivations for conducting this research. When setting out in 2007, her objective was not explicitly to understand recycling, but rather the so-called ‘dramatic’ spatial changes of villas in the late period (p. 9). Since then there has been a growing appetite for scholarship that reveals historical examples of environmental management and circular economies in an effort to drive societal change in response to the contemporary climate crisis. M.’s book sits well within this literature, offering clear evidence for late Roman and early medieval materials recycling working within what is now referred to as a circular economy system.
Chapter 2 begins with a useful section addressing the conceptualisation of ‘value’ and how it is ascribed to ‘things’, including buildings and their constituent parts. Monetary, material, cultural and historical value all play a role in the ways in which villas acted as material processing sites and how owners engaged with them during the end phases of their use. These concepts underpin the rest of the text and are clearly cross-referenced throughout, allowing readers to follow M.’s argument as it develops through each chapter.
The rest of Chapter 2 details the material components necessary for the construction of villas, which is followed up in Chapter 3 by an overview of the abandonment and deconstruction or salvage phases of these materials. Here M.’s calculation of the quantities of different materials needed to supply the original site to complete the construction tackles one of the most difficult issues in archaeology, accounting for absence. Her metrics give hypothetical but realistic insights into the quantities of materials, such as roof tiles and marble flooring, that would have been onsite prior to salvage processes, as well as providing an understanding of the costs of transportation and labour, both in construction and in salvage. This approach follows the work of others, including J. DeLaine, who have previously demonstrated the need to interpret Roman economic frameworks in such a manner.
Chapter 4 reviews an important phase in the salvage operation – organisation. A salvage operation requires the sorting and storing of materials in order to maximise the potential value of any individual component. Archaeologically, these sorting and storing processes are usually only evident when interrupted or abandoned, and the intent behind them, intentional or unintentional, is difficult to ascertain. After raising the issues with identifying stockpiling, looking to recent examples from Pompeii, M. focuses on secondary intentional stockpiling efforts in villas, as part of the organisational structures relating to recycling.
Chapter 5 breaks down the reprocessing of villas, material by material, with grounded examples for each. This approach is obvious as each material requires different processes and infrastructure to support recycling of its unique properties. Material specialists will appreciate being able to find their particular area of investigation so readily, but all readers will find that this chapter allows for an understanding of how each material type sits alongside the others in complex salvage processes. In doing so, M. strengthens the argument that a workforce of knowledgeable craftspeople was a highly active component of the late Roman and early medieval period economy.
Chapter 6 marks the turning point in the book, placing the now proven business of villa recycling into wider societal frameworks. Chapter 6 focuses on economic interconnectedness and on how villas acted as nodes within local systems, while Chapter 7 looks at patterns of ownership. M.’s geographically diverse case studies allow for commentary on regional variation, particularly where villa salvage and church construction do, and do not, overlap. Importantly, M. articulates that supplying church construction was only one possible outcome for the recycled items processed from villas and identifies the probability of neighbouring countryside markets as an alternative. Although there is little direct archaeological evidence for this, most of the case studies are not geographically linked to church construction, demonstrating that these materials were intended for elsewhere. M.’s ability to find alternative suggestions to previously dominant ipso facto discourses through logical evaluation of what is missing in the archaeological record is incredibly valuable.
M.’s conclusion, Chapter 8, paints a concise but well-rounded picture of the Roman villa as a ‘material hub’ in the fourth to seventh centuries ce. Dividing the conclusion into four different spheres of research – material value, craftspeople, networks and rural landscapes, and the ancient circular economy – allows M. to demonstrate the key outcomes of her work and her unique contributions to the way in which we observe recycling in the archaeological record.
The book is well illustrated by relevant examples from archaeology with concepts explained using schematic diagrams that should be often cited in future studies. The index is thoughtfully put together and will be of most use for material specialists or those interested in specific architectural installations. One small quibble would be the lack of citation of behavioural archaeological approaches, particularly M. Schiffer (Formation Processes of the Archaeological Record [1986]), who recognised reuse and reclamation phases as identifiable cultural processes, in the opening chapters framing the theoretical backgrounds of the study. This perhaps would have added slightly more background to the development of the study of recycling within the discipline of archaeology.
M.’s volume is a very welcome addition to the growing scholarship on historical reuse and recycling practices, and it has a lot to offer not just to late Roman and early medieval archaeologists, but also to readers interested in industrial archaeology, life-cycle methodologies and sustainability.
