Homepage Ralph Häussler |
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This page is still work in progress...
More to come... Some online resources:
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Roman Wales
There is an enormous amount of evidence from Wales in the Roman period. But unfortunately, many publications and much of research funding has been focusing on other periods, notably the pre-Roman period and the Medieval period, and some parts of Wales have hardly seen any systematic research for Roman presence. This provides a rather non-representative view of Roman Wales, largely focussing on Roman military installations and the more coastal areas of Wales... But there is a lot of new evidence, increasing on a daily basis: just the PAS alone (the Portable Antiquities Scheme) lists more than 50,000 Roman finds from the past few years in Wales. One aim of my project is therefore to create an online database that contains all available finds from Roman Wales ever discovered. We need to scrutinise carefully the existing interpretations of many sites and discoveries. But it is essential to enhance our knowledge of Wales in the Roman period. And therefore, we need to find funding for new research projects that will have to involve field surveys, aerial photography, LiDAR, etc. Of particular interest are also the transitions periods, between the late Iron Age and the Roman period and the transition to the post-Roman period and the formation of 'Cymru/Wales'. And surprisingly, evidence for religious activities is extremely limited for Roman Wales (see e.g. my FERCAN project: the number of sites and discoveries in Roman Wales appear to be rather limited; a re-examination of the available evidence might at least reveal more 'ritual' activities for the Roman period). Improving our knowledge on Roman Wales will not only improve our understanding of the transformation of society, economy and culture from the late Iron Age to the formation of post-antique 'Wales/Cymru', but it will also help us to better understand the developments in a peripheral region of the Roman Empire. |
Many finds from Roman Wales come fro the south coast and the north coast. PAS has greatly improved our knowledge for seemingly 'remote' areas across Britain, but we need more research. There seems to be a geographical unbalance regarding archaeological research in Wales as well as a preference for Iron Age, Medieval and post-medieval archaeology... |
Agriculture, Farming
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Civic & Religious SitesOur knowledge of civic sites in Roman Wales - towns, villages, farmsteds - and religious sites is comparatively limited compared to other regions of Britain and the Roman West in general. Already a systematic study, for example, of aerial photos from across Wales, including LiDAR, is bound to improve our knowledge significantly and can help to identify potential settlement sites for more in-depth research.
This page is still work in progress... More text & information to come... Also see my projects on Sacred Landscapes and on Celtic religion and the Corpus-F.E.R.C.AN. for Britannia |
Military Sites
This page is still work in progress...
More text & information to come... In the meantime, here is a link to an interactive map of Roman forts in Wales (notice, for example, the conspicious lack of sites along the coast in Ceredigion and Pembrokeshire): http://www.heritagedaily.com/2016/05/roman-forts-in-wales/110968 |