Myles McCallum

For archaeologists the study of the exotic is a difficult task, as “exotic” is a cultural construct difficult to discern in the archaeological record. Exotic items are those that in some way possess characteristics deemed unusual, rare, or unique, and thereby are often highly desirable. Complicating ...

This study, in two parts, reviews the evidence from Pompeii for the production and distribution of pottery. Part 1, the present article, considers the production of pottery. Evidence is scant for the pre-Roman period but includes a refuse deposit containing Black Gloss Ware wasters, a pottery kiln with associated Black Gloss Ware and commonware wasters, and a mold for the manufac ture of Italo-Megarian Ware bowls. There is substantially more material for the Roman period, including two fres coes depicting potters, three graffiti referring to potters, and the excavated remains of two modestly sized pottery production facilities, neither of which has been published in detail. The frescoes suggest that potters at Pompeii used rod-driven, single-wheel potter's wheels. The Via di Nocera facility, which manufactured lamps and com monware, is perhaps the most complete pottery produc tion facility from the Roman world, and it is possible to reconstruct the operations carried out in its ...

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The relative relationship of Holocene climate change, human cultures, and
landscape evolution is unclear. However, palaeoecological and archaeological records, suggest that both have played an important role, acting in combination to varying degrees through time, to affect landscape dynamics. The country straddling the Puglia and Basilicata border region in southern Italy (the Mezzogiorno) is a landscape particularly sensitive to erosional processes, and provides an ideal area where these relationships can be studied. In addition, the affects of climate change in this area are magnified by poor land use practices that are being applied to an unstable, and easily erodible, surface geology. Moreover recent palaeoecological and archaeological research in this hilly country is also providing vital information regarding the role of climate and people in landscape
dynamics. Four summers of preliminary research with a team consisting of a paleoecologist/geomorphologist, archaeologist, and a dendroclimatologist, has begun reconstruction of a full Holocene climate history from the records of alluvial erosion/deposition, spring discharge, and soil formation. These will aid in determing how climate, and human demography in the Puglia/Basilicata region relate to landscape dynamics. Archaeological surveys have already mapped the varying spatial distribution of cultural materials, providing an assessment of where
people lived, population sizes, and their activities during the Holocene. Numerous dated erosion/deposition sequences in alluvium and valley terrace exposures along the Basentello/Bradano River valley detail the regional record of erosional cycles. Dated spring discharge events are beginning to record groundwater recharge linked either to climate, or to deforestation. In addition, dated soil formation episodes are evidence episodes of ground surface stability. A macrophysical climate model of local past effective precipitation is being used to reconstruct
cycles of past erosion. These understandings are being used to predict future outcomes of global climate change.

ABSTRACT It is striking how often archaeological finds which are of great interest to the general public are completely accidental. The Hoxne hoard, the largest single collection of gold and silver artifacts discovered in Britain and the largest discovered anywhere in the Roman Empire datable to the fourth and fifth centuries ad, is a case in point. Discovered in November of 1992 by Eric Lawes while searching for Peter Whatling’s lost hammer with a metal detector in a ploughed field in Suffolk County, the hoard excited immediate media interest. Indeed, this reviewer recalls being present in the UK on a work-study visa immediately after the Treasure Trove inquest in the fall of 1993, at which time he visited the fascinating and well-attended temporary exhibition of artifacts from the hoard in the Coins and Medals gallery of the British Museum. For those unfamiliar with the Hoxne treasure, a brief introduction is perhaps in order. The hoard itself is comprised of a large number of gold and silver coins, gold jewelry, and silver plate and was deposited in the early part of the fifth century ad (sometime after ad 407–408).1 As Johns notes throughout the volume under review, we can only come to know the bare minimum about the individual(s) who interred this wonderful collection of artifacts. The names of those who owned these items and buried them will always remain a mystery, and we cannot say definitively why these items were hidden in the first place. It may be as a result of the dangerous and unstable conditions that plagued Roman Britain during the end of the fourth and beginning of the fifth century ad, or of the changed economic climate that witnessed the collapse of a Late Antique, Romano-British gift exchange network among the elite;2 the treasure may be the spoils from a robbery.3 Still, careful study of the hoard’s contents can provide us with useful information about late antique coinage, personal wealth, adornment, artistic styles and fashion trends, table habits, hoard deposition, late antique onomastics, late antique metal manufacturing techniques, and exchange networks. The goal of the British Museum publications on the Hoxne hoard are to address these questions, while at the same time presenting the artifacts recovered, which serve as the evidence upon which answers to the aforementioned questions are founded, in detail. This volume, which is the second of two volumes dedicated to the Hoxne hoard, the first on the coins having been published in 2005,4 presents, as the title suggests, detailed descriptions of the gold jewelry and silver plate excavated in 1992, complete with drawings and photographs, as well as scientific analysis of the artifacts. The book consists of 15 chapters, a catalogue, appendices on the site of Hoxne’s post-Roman context and the weights of gold jewelry and silver objects, the list of inscriptions on the artifacts, and two concordances, one of the catalogue numbers to the contexts and the other of the contexts to the catalogue numbers. Chapters 2 and 13 present the historical record of the hoard’s discovery and the post-excavational history of the artifacts, including a record of their conservation. Chapters 3 – 9, 14, and 15 present the reader not only with detailed descriptions of the artifacts and well-executed drawings and photographs, but also discussion, interpretation, and at times imaginative hypotheses as to the significance of these artifacts to those who interred them. Chapters 10 – 13 present archaeometric or materials analysis of the artifacts in order to identify the materials used in their manufacture as well as the technologies and techniques employed by those artisans who crafted them. From the first few pages it is evident that this is not merely a descriptive work or a catalogue of the gold jewelry and silver plate from the Hoxne hoard. Rather, Johns makes it clear that she is interested in examining the degree to which the hoard has increased the state of our knowledge about late antique Roman Britain, in demonstrating that scientific analysis and examination of artifacts is essential in their study, in relating the hoard’s contents to the systematic and focused examination of decorative styles and motifs...

Abstract: Thank you for your interest in this graduate work published by ProQuest's UMI Dissertation Publishing group. This graduate work is no longer available through this web page. If you are interested in this or other dissertations and theses published by ProQuest, please try ...