The Tiber Valley Project: The Tiber and Rome through Two Millennia

In 1997 a new collaborative research project was initiated by the British School at Rome. This project draws on a variety of sources of archaeological information to explore the regional impact of the City of Rome throughout the period from 1000 BC to AD 1300. The project provides a common collaborative research framework which brings together a range of archaeologists and historians working in various institutions. In this paper those involved in different aspects of this new project outline their work and its overall objectives

Fusion of secretory vesicles isolated from rat liver

Secretory vesicles isolated from rat liver were found to fuse after exposure to Ca2+. Vescle fusion is characterized by the occurrence of twinned vesicles with a continuous cleavage plane between two vesicles in freeze-fracture electron microscopy. The number of fused vesicles increases with increasing Ca2+-concentrations and is half maximal around 10–6 m. Other divalent cations (Ba2+, Sr2+, and Mg2+) were ineffective. Mg2+ inhibits Ca2+-induced fusion. Therefore, the fusion of secretory vesiclesin vitro is Ca2+ specific and exhibits properties similar to the exocytotic process of various secretory cells. Various substances affecting secretionin vivo (microtubular inhibitors, local anethetics, ionophores) were tested for their effect on membrane fusion in our system. The fusion of isolated secretory vesicles from liver was found to differ from that of pure phospholipid membranes in its temperature dependence, in its much lower requirement for Ca2+, and in its Ca2+-specificity. Chemical and enzymatic modifications of the vesicle membrane indicate that glycoproteins may account for these differences

Structuring of the provincial landscape: the towns of central and western Baetica in their geographical context

This paper analyzes the geographical contexts and spatial relationships of Iberian and Roman towns in central and western Baetica. It uses extensive computer-based analysis of c. 350 Iberian and Roman towns in their geographical contexts to understand the significance of inter-urban visibility in structuring the regionalization of relationships between towns. It also uses network analysis to explore relationships between towns, and suggests that the evidence is spatially contingent - the product and producers of both real and imaginary multidimensional networks. Furthermore, it argues that Rome created a new geographical reality in the region in the sense that it worked within geographical constraints, and adapted pre-existing urban settlement patterns to its administrative necessities. When this is set against the geographical descriptions of Baetica by writers such as Pliny, it allows us to appreciate better the relationship between the day to day reality on the ground and the rhetoric of empire

Structuring of the provincial landscape: the towns of central and western Baetica in their geographical context

This paper analyzes the geographical contexts and spatial relationships of Iberian and Roman towns in central and western Baetica. It uses extensive computer-based analysis of c. 350 Iberian and Roman towns in their geographical contexts to understand the significance of inter-urban visibility in structuring the regionalization of relationships between towns. It also uses network analysis to explore relationships between towns, and suggests that the evidence is spatially contingent - the product and producers of both real and imaginary multidimensional networks. Furthermore, it argues that Rome created a new geographical reality in the region in the sense that it worked within geographical constraints, and adapted pre-existing urban settlement patterns to its administrative necessities. When this is set against the geographical descriptions of Baetica by writers such as Pliny, it allows us to appreciate better the relationship between the day to day reality on the ground and the rhetoric of empire

High Resolution space and ground-based remote sensing and implications for landscape archaeology: the case from Portus, Italy

Ground-based archaeological survey methods, together with aerial photography and satellite remote sensing data, provide archaeologists with techniques for analysing archaeological sites and landscapes. These techniques allow different properties to be detected dependent on the nature of archaeological deposits, although clear restrictions exist, either with their physical limitations, or in the extent and nuances of their application. With recent developments in landscape archaeology technologies, it is increasingly necessary to adopt an integrated strategy of prospection, incorporating both ground-based non-destructive methods and remotely sensed data, to understand fully the character and development of archaeological landscapes. This paper outlines the results of a pilot project to test this approach on the archaeological landscape of Portus, the port of Imperial Rome. Its results confirm the potential that exists in enhancing the mapping of this major port complex and its hinterland by means of an integration of satellite remote-sensing data, geophysical survey and aerial photography. They have made it possible for new questions to be raised about Portus and its environs and, by implication, suggest that integrated fieldwork strategies of this kind have much more to tell us about major Classical sites and other large and complex sites across the globe than by addressing them by means of single methods alone

The late Roman villa of Vilauba and its context: a first report on field-work and excavation in Catalunya, North-East Spain, 1978–81

The first three seasons of a joint Anglo-Catalan research project in north-eastern Spain have concentrated on the Roman villa of Vilauba. It has been shown that the site was occupied for some nine centuries, but the most important discoveries have been the elucidation of substantial phases of occupation from the fifth to seventh centuries A.D., which included in the latest phase a large press building for olive oil. These findings have pointed to the problems of the transition from the Roman to the early medieval period, which have also been met in the field survey of the surrounding region. The medieval settlement pattern had emerged by the ninth or tenth centuries, but its relationship with the Roman pattern remains to be clearly established. Important discoveries have also been made about considerable geomorphological changes in the area, which can be dated to the post-Roman period. A range of techniques have been used in the survey, including recording of standing buildings, geophysical survey and surface collection, which, added to the environmental and pottery studies from the excavation, are shedding important light on the Roman and early medieval rural development of this part of Spain and on the western Mediterranean more generally

Papers in Iberian archaeology 2 parts

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