England's western-most Roman town uncovered

[Viggen]

A chance discovery of coins has led to the bigger find of a Roman town, further west than it was previously thought Romans had settled in England. The town was found under fields a number of miles west of Exeter, Devon. Nearly 100 Roman coins were initially uncovered there by two amateur archaeological enthusiasts. It had been thought that fierce resistance from local tribes to Roman culture stopped the Romans from moving so far into the county...

 

...full article at the BBC

 

 

[Centurion-Macro]

Did the Romans ever build in Cornwall? Or was that too west for them?

[Melvadius]

As you should eb able to see from this Map at Roman-Britain.org the main Roman interest in the area were mining related but there is some evidence for other activity including a villa at Illogan.

 

Possibly most military interest arose from the initial 'conquest' of the area after which things remained fairly peaceful.

[DecimusCaesar]

Did the Romans ever build in Cornwall? Or was that too west for them?

 

I think on the whole Cornwall wasn't so heavily colonised by the Romans. I was watching Neil Oliver's series 'A history of Ancient Britain' which included a section on Cornwall under the Roman Empire. Oliver showed a series of Iron Age roundhouses built during the Roman period, which either showed that the Britons in the area retained their culture, or were allowed to live as they wish, as long as they continued to pay taxes to Rome.

[Centurion-Macro]

Did the Romans ever build in Cornwall? Or was that too west for them?

 

I think on the whole Cornwall wasn't so heavily colonised by the Romans. I was watching Neil Oliver's series 'A history of Ancient Britain' which included a section on Cornwall under the Roman Empire. Oliver showed a series of Iron Age roundhouses built during the Roman period, which either showed that the Britons in the area retained their culture, or were allowed to live as they wish, as long as they continued to pay taxes to Rome.

I had no idea they allowed that area of Britain to keep their customs. I just assumed they made everything Roman and left it at that.

 

So I assume there was a very low military presence in the South-West of Britain if it was not important?

[gilius]

Check out this topic for discussion relating to Roman Cornwall:

 

http://www.unrv.com/forum/topic/11767-roman-cornwall/

 

 

They need to be careful when mentioning "town"! Archaeologists should know better than to keep referring to every settlement they find as a "town"...

[Northern Neil]

 

I had no idea they allowed that area of Britain to keep their customs. I just assumed they made everything Roman and left it at that.

 

There are many examples of archaeological sites in Britain which are contemporary to the Roman occupation, but were built to more 'traditional' styles. Most of these are in the North and West, but still clearly within the Roman province itself, and by no means on the margins. Associated with these settlements are significant amounts of Roman consumer goods, so the inhabitants were not by any means rejecting Rome or its culture.

 

My view is that economics rather than an unwillingness to Romanise played a part here; the locals simply could not afford to have builders from relatively distant towns rebuild their settlements in Roman style, so they built in the way they were used to. The Roman administration probably did not care about this, and certainly would not have wasted money building Roman style houses for them, just for appearances sake. Put simply, these were poorer parts of the province, so 'modern' building styles passed them by.

 

So I assume there was a very low military presence in the South-West of Britain if it was not important?

 

I think the area was important, but military presence was not necessary after the initial invasion phase. There were a lot of mining operations in the area, and the locals were happy to receive Roman trade goods and coin in return for valuable metals.

 

Sorry if this all sounds rather prosaic, but people are people in any age and then as now, economics and personal gain/financial security probably had far more influence on people than any stubbornness or resistance to Roman culture.

[Melvadius]

They need to be careful when mentioning "town"! Archaeologists should know better than to keep referring to every settlement they find as a "town"...

 

You should not make the mistake of believing everything that is written in the media is a precise record of what was originally said in the archaeological press notice.

 

Check out a more official report form the University of Exeter archaeologists here