On Rome’s Ecological Contribution to British Flora and Fauna: landscape, legacy and identity

This paper addresses the flora and fauna of Roman Britain via two long-lived and closely-related notions: the ‘Roman introduction’ and the ‘living legacy’. These concepts connect knowledge and beliefs about the introduction of new species during the Roman period with the idea of direct and enduring biological inheritance in post-Roman societies. The paper explores both the popular and academic prominence of the Romans as agents of ecological change with effects on landscape, identity and diet which are still discernible and resonant today. These notions demonstrate wide currency, from popular stories through to scientific research. Today, archaeobotany and zooarchaeology are the primary means of documenting the flora and fauna of Roman Britain. Yet the discipline of archaeology came late to this topic. This paper outlines the evolving sources of evidence used over the past 400 years to identify those species introduced during the Roman period. This includes consideration of the reception of classical texts, linguistic etymology and genetic analysis. An overarching narrative behind these concepts is the colonial theoretical framework of ‘Romanisation’, or the genealogical appropriation of the Romans as ‘our’ cultural and biological ancestors. Despite interest in the reception of Rome and its archaeological remains, scholars have been slow to recognise the centrality of flora and fauna for understanding historical and contemporary perceptions of the Roman past. This paper opens a new avenue of research by calling attention to the intellectual biography of the dominant interpretive frameworks which structure both scientific approaches to the collection and interpretation of data and popular attitudes towards landscape and identity

The Fabulous Tales of the Common People, Part 2: Encountering Hadrian’s Wall

In 2003, the Hadrian's Wall National Trail was opened, providing a 135 km (84 mile) public footpath along the length of the Roman frontier from Wallsend to Bowness-on-Solway. Each year, thousands of visitors walk the Trail from end-to-end and many more make day trips to visit specific locations within the wider World Heritage Site. In the second of two related papers (see Witcher, 2010), consideration turns from professional and popular visual representations of Hadrian's Wall to the ways in which visitors physically experience the monument and its landscape. The paper explores how embodied and sensory encounters produce and reproduce understandings which are charged with cultural and political meaning. Specifically, the elision of visitors and Roman soldiers through a process of embodied empathy/sympathy is outlined. It is argued that the way in which Western society assumes familiarity with an ancestral Roman Empire actively reduces the interrogative potential of encounters with the monument and limits visitors' ability to reflect on the significance of the Wall. The paper goes on to consider alternative modes of visual and physical engagement, drawing inspiration from virtual communities including geocachers who have used Information Technology such as Global Positioning Systems and Web 2.0 functionality to develop innovative modes of representation and encounter

The Hinterlands of Rome: Settlement Diversity in the Early Imperial Landscape of Regio VII Etruria

Regional survey is revealing ever more diversity of rural settlement across Italy. This paper compares the early imperial period results from thirty surveys across the area of regio VII Etruria in order to identify similarities and differences. Three distinct sub-regional patterns are defined – the suburbium, coastal Etruria and inland Etruria. A range of interpretative models is discussed with particular reference to the role of the city of Rome on economic and social developments. Finally, some of the structural connections between these three regions are emphasized – particularly demography, transport and agricultural strategies

Urbanism in Ancient Peninsular Italy: developing a methodology for a database analysis of higher order settlements (350 BCE to 300 CE)

This article describes the methodology of a two-year research project to create an analytical database and GIS of 583 (proto-)urban centres on the Italian peninsula that existed between 350 BCE and 300 CE. The article is linked to the project's data files, deposited with the ADS, and is essential reading for users of the database. The research design, format and functionality of the database are described in conjunction with the challenges encountered during the methodological development of the project. The relevance of the project to the historical development of urbanism on the Italian peninsula during the period under study is outlined. An overview of the project's results provides an insight into the potential of the research methodology. It is relevant to anyone interested in ancient urbanism, Italian and Roman archaeology, or in the methods and results of combining ancient textual and archaeological legacy data with geospatial data

The Upper Simeto Valley Project: An Interim Report on the First Season

This paper introduces a new survey project, located on the north-west flank of Etna, and presents the preliminary results of the first season of fieldwork (2006). The project research area includes the territories of the comuni of Bronte, Maletto and Maniace (Catania) in the upper valley of the river Simeto. Many individual archaeological sites and features have been identified in this area in the past, but there has been no systematic survey coverage. The long-term aim of the project is to investigate the transformation of the human and physical landscapes of this upland area from prehistory to modern times. But in contrast to many approaches to Sicily which have conceived of cultural change in terms of a series of external conquests, this project aims to use settlement and material culture to assess the changing human and physical landscapes of Sicily from the 'inside out'

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

Double Dutch: two perspectives on the landscapes of first millennium BC Italy

TESSE D. STEK. Cult places and cultural change in Republican Italy: a contextual approach to religious aspects of rural society after the Roman conquest (Amsterdam Archaeological Studies 14). xii+263 pages, numerous illustrations. 2009. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 978-90-8964-177-9 hardback €49.50. P.A.J. ATTEMA, G.-J. BURGERS & P.M. VAN LEUSEN. Regional pathways to complexity: settlement and landuse dynamics in early Italy from the Bronze Age to the Republican period (Amsterdam Archaeological Studies 15). iv+235 pages, 81 b&w & colour illustrations. 2010. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press; 978- 90-8964-276-9 hardback €55