Welsh data added to the ‘Roman Rural Settlement in Britain’ web resource

The results of this collaborative project, undertaken by Cotswold Archaeology, the University of Reading, and the Archaeology Data Service, are now available in their entirety on the project website, including the recently acquired information from Wales. This resource brings together the excavated evidence for the rural settlement of Roman Britain, with the over-arching aim to inform a comprehensive reassessment of the countryside of Roman Britain. It includes both traditionally published reports and ‘grey literature’ reports from developer-funded excavations since 1990.

The project, which is funded by grants from the Leverhulme Trust and Historic England, arose from pilot projects undertaken by Cotswold Archaeology and began in 2012. The information collected as part of this project will be used alongside specific site data in a series of integrative studies on rural settlement, economy, people and ritual to be published by the Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies as Britannia Monographs between 2016 and 2018.

The project has not attempted to include all investigations that encountered Roman evidence (such as watching briefs and small-scale evaluations), but has focused specifically upon those investigations that have yielded plan, chronology and quantified finds data susceptible of characterisation and synthesis. The cut-off for inclusion within the resource is publication before 31st December 2014. The project involved extensive liaison and support from the 88 HER/SMR/UAD/Trusts consulted as part of this project, with 1000s of the grey literature reports accessed for this project scanned and made available through the ADS.

This resource is unparalleled, and represents a substantial dataset for further research as well as an invaluable tool for those working within the historic environment sector. We are currently collecting feedback on the website, so any comments you have on the resource would be welcomed – just follow the ‘feedback questionnaire’ link on the website or use the web-based survey located here.