This book enters an already crowded field of publications that examine and interpret the evidence for the last centuries of Roman rule in Britain. These publications have variously favoured ‘long and gentle’ or ‘short and brutal’ interpretations of the end in a debate that has often been hamstrung by the nature of the evidence from the fifth century.
Fleming's book sits in the ‘short and brutal’ camp in that she argues that Roman Britain was part of an integrated economic system and that falling out of that system precipitated rapid change that made profound differences to the lives of people at all levels of society. However, such a categorisation does a disservice to an important publication that stands apart in a number of areas.
The author describes herself as historian, but largely ignores the textual sources. Instead, she opts for a detailed examination of trends across a range of material culture and (generally successfully) straddles the fourth to early sixth century. The focus is very much on ‘Roman’ Britain (the southern and central part of the island that fully participated in the visible products of Empire) and little attention is paid to the west and to Scotland, which responded in other ways to the end of Roman rule.
Her approach starts by identifying the 15 per cent of the population whose well-being was most closely connected to that of the Roman State and whose existence was supported economically by the other 85 per cent. The latter, however, produced sufficient surplus to purchase mass-produced consumer goods. All were tied into a system in which Britain was part of a single economic unit with northern Gaul and the Rhineland, allowing for a mobility of population (and grain pests) to areas that were supplied with bulk shipments of grain from Britain.
Fleming's exploration of the material begins (refreshingly) by highlighting the range of plant and animal introductions into Britain in the Roman period and the range of extinctions that followed, notably the demise of cereal-dependent pests and other species that depended on particular habitats (ch. 2). She also highlights in a stimulating way how human practices were shaped by the presence of certain plants and convincingly demonstrates that such practices disappeared in the post-Roman period in ways that affected the whole population. Such changes did not affect other western provinces, which did not experience the same range of herbal extinctions.
The following two chapters (3 and 4) focus on the use and manufacture of pottery. Fleming charts declines in certain industries in the second half of the fourth century, which she argues were triggered by changes in military supply networks, noting that decline of production at regional centres hastened a loss of technical skills. By the mid-fifth century, the fine-ware industries had disappeared and were replaced locally by part-time potters making handmade pots, the behaviour of which on fires requires different food-preparation strategies. Increasingly scarce pottery and glass acquired new significance in people's lives as well as in funerary contexts. Fleming paints a slightly apocalyptic picture with the citizens of Cadbury Congresbury undertaking ‘systematic scavenging campaigns in search of still-useable vessels at deserted sites in the neighbourhood’ (p. 84), and the inhabitants of a modest farm at Overton Down ‘living it up’ (p. 87) in ways previously inaccessible to them, using glass vessels taken from abandoned high-status sites.
Reuse of material in the form of brick and quarried stone (ch. 5) and metal (ch. 6) is also used to highlight the disappearance of a range of skilled workers (alongside the demand of such skills), evidenced by the low quality of later masonry structures and repairs. Those constructing new buildings in the fifth and sixth centuries opted for a different range of materials. A decline in the numbers of nails available was particularly marked, and metal was used in a much narrower range of tools, a restriction again particularly marked in Britain. Building materials, however, acquired different significance in well-closure events (described in detail in relation to villas at Rudston and Dalton Parlours) and graves.
The book then moves slightly awkwardly to burials, first looking at infant burials in late Roman settlement sites (ch. 7) and their absence from early medieval settlements and arguing that the cessation in the practice of ‘living with little corpses’ marked a fundamental change in worldview, reminding us perhaps of the difficulties in comprehending major aspects of the Roman period. Adult burials are discussed in ch. 8, which takes a welcome polemical approach, decrying the maleness of the existing narrative of the early medieval period and ‘the habitual, sloppy, underinterrogated use of ethnic labels’ (p. 158) by historians and archaeologists. Fleming notes that women dominate the furnished burial record and argues that the material evidences female agency in the emerging new world.
The final chapter on ‘The Great Disentanglement’ returns to catastrophe, arguing that the loss of technological knowledge cast a long shadow in Britain. However, although the period must have been one of ‘distressing dislocation’ (p. 184) for the 15 per cent whose subsistence was based on surpluses produced by others, those others were adopting farming practices that suited their own needs rather than the needs of another group.
This is an important (and very readable) book, although many may not agree with everything in it. It is refreshing to see a book on ‘the end’ that successfully transcends a range of disciplinary boundaries and that exploits a wide range of archaeological evidence in ways that are sometimes innovative and never less than stimulating. Hopefully it will inspire a generation of scholars to look at the period and its material evidence with fresh eyes.
