'Boundary Objects' in Archaeological Finds and Environmental Research: Using Bowker and Star's Concept of the 'Boundary Object' to Analyse and Interpret Disparate Archaeological Legacy Data

Is a big data analytical approach viable using archaeological artefact and ecofact data? In particular is it possible to use Bowker and Star's (1999) concept of the 'boundary object' to manage the issues caused by data scale, complexity, diversity and variable information standards when attempting to carry out this kind of research? This paper reviews the theoretical and methodological debates around archaeological big data as they impact upon research into assemblages of artefacts and ecofacts and presents a methodology for the construction and use of a large archaeological database of legacy artefact and ecofact data created as part of the English Landscapes and Identities Project at the University of Oxford.

Archaeology Lessons From Lockdown

The editorial of the fourth issue of the Theoretical Roman Archaeology Journal (TRAJ) focuses on what we have learned during the COVID-19 pandemic. The editors focus on the positive outcome of the pandemic, while emphasising aspects of the TRAC organisation that can be improved in the coming years. In this editorial we highlight TRAC’s strong tradition of introspection to bring awareness to how we as a community can continue to improve in terms of diversity and inclusivity.

Taskscapes, Landscapes, and the Politics of Agricultural Production in Roman Mosaics

In recent years archaeologists have put forward explanations of the design and impact of mythological and allegorical scenes in mosaics as part of elite Roman visual culture. While scenes of labor have served as evidence to accompany archaeological data on rural life, depictions of labor have received comparatively less attention as part of Roman ideological structures. Through an analysis of mosaics of the imperial period, this article demonstrates the value of adapting Timothy Ingold’s concept of taskscape for understanding the elite strategies of cultural hegemony underlying depictions of agricultural work in Roman art and showcases an approach to the Roman economy rooted in this particular body of anthropological theory. Elites used a set of visual strategies, Roman taskscape features, to promote their ongoing control over agricultural production, a strategy that endured across the Roman world for generations.

Neurological and Neuropsychiatric Diseases through the Lens of Roman Sculpture

Roman sculpture has often given the impression that it provides such a precise simulacrum of the bodies of ancient Romans that their statues can be studied autoptically as if they were a patient. Specialists in medicine and art-history have studied Roman sculptures to the point of producing real medical diagnoses, generating a research niche which, while controversial, has led to some interesting discoveries. However, scholars had sometimes misunderstand certain elements of ancient sculptures, interpreting aesthetic choices as clinical signs. In the article several works of art from the Republican period to the Tetrarchic age will be observed, to assess if the diagnoses made on them are due to actual physical features of the individuals portrayed or not. This article analyses the strengths and weaknesses of the study of ancient pathologies through Roman sculpture to delineate the limits and the possibilities of such approach.

Rebalancing Roman Archaeology: from disciplinary inertia to decolonial and inclusive action

This article analyses the current state of our discipline, particularly its decoloniality and inclusivity. This is investigated via two lenses: data from Roman Archaeology Conferences and Theoretical Roman Archaeology Conferences from 1991 to 2019; and data from the 2019 Roman Archaeology Teaching Survey. These two lenses provide ways into thinking about whose voices are heard in the discipline, current barriers to more diverse voices, and biases within the topics and regions of the Roman world in our research and teaching. The article argues that these data demonstrate a need for change within our discipline, across research and teaching, in order to promote a healthier, decolonial and more inclusive discipline for the future. As a consequence, this article also makes numerous recommendations and suggestions for action to bring about positive change.

Third-Century Inflation Reassessed

The conventional view of inflation in the Roman world, based on evidence from Roman Egypt, is that prices were steady from the middle of the first century AD until around AD 274, other than a doubling of prices between AD 160 and 190. By a quantitative treatment of the data for all available prices, and indicators of prices, this paper shows that this picture is broadly correct for wheat, but that prices for other goods increased throughout the period from AD 160 to 270. This pattern suggests that there were two co-existing market sectors. One for wheat, where prices appear to have been impacted by state action, and another where other commodities were left to find their own market level within a relatively free market.

Innovation and Agency: to what extent did cultural appropriation affect the development of jewellery in Britain from 50 BCE to 150 CE?

‘Native’ style objects from the Roman period are rather frequent in many regions of Britain and have often been considered as evidence for a ‘Celtic resurgence’ or ‘cultural resistance’. Through the examination, with a metallurgical focus, of three prominent jewellery types of the period – brooches, finger rings and hairpins – this paper aims to demonstrate that the conventional cultural theories applied to the material development between 50 BCE and 150 CE are outdated, inaccurate, and no longer applicable. Instead of ‘resistance’ we need to focus on innovation and the individual social agent. Do ‘native styles’ then express a form of cultural resistance? We find native and standard Roman objects side-by-side in the same archaeological contexts. Moreover, these ‘native’ styles are innovations with the social agent having consciously adopted specific ‘Roman’ forms and techniques and adapting them to local ‘taste’ and cultural understandings. This resulted in art forms which were often quite different from late Iron Age artefacts. Significant change and development only seem to start occurring as a result of increasing interactions within an interconnected ‘global’ empire, demonstrating that Britain’s integration into empire-wide socio-economic structures served as a catalyst for speeding up already existing developments that were occurring in pre-Roman times. Through the detailed examination of prominent jewellery types of the period, this paper aims to demonstrate that we need to go beyond concepts of ‘cultural resistance’ and ‘Celtic resurgence’ in order to understand the Roman impact on Britain and the extent to which cultural appropriation was feasible. Most cultural theories applied to British jewellery during this period attribute development to appropriation of Roman culture or conform to the understanding that the introduction to a ‘global’ market was the sole cause for change. However, in the case of the latter it accounts for very little in way of innovative developments, and in the case of the former it seems to have merely acted as a catalyst for the speeding up and continuation of developments which were occurring during the LPRIA. The study of jewellery allows us to identify distinct choices of style, colour and techniques in different parts of Roman Britain. Prominent examples include dragon brooches, snake-figure rings, trumpet brooches and so on. Some designs are unique to specific ‘native’ regions, while others conform to a more global ‘zeitgeist’ across the Roman empire. We can identify a continuing development by which ‘native’ and ‘Roman’ styles and techniques were amalgamated. But this process was much more complex than the theory of cultural appropriation presupposes. We need to consider the social agents involved in the process, the regional variations across Britain, and the diverging identities expressed through the various types and designs of jewellery.