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The thesis that follows is interdisciplinary in nature, bringing together the fields of contemporary archaeology, cultural and historical Geography to explore the changing landscape of the Dean Forest and Wye Valley National Forest Park. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Forest of Dean was a significant industrial region, a landscape dominated by pitheads, tramroads and railways, coal mines, ironworks, and quarries. However, the twentieth century saw the radical transformation of this landscape, from industry to leisure. In the chapters that follow, it is aspects of this landscape transformation that are examined through the lens of non-representational theory, as each chapter explores the questions: what might a ‘more-than-representational’ approach to contemporary archaeology look like? And, what can archaeological perspectives offer in terms of the development of non-representational theory? Starting from the premise that contemporary archaeology is not just about the recent past, but about how we engage with the past from the perspective of the present, this thesis focuses upon those barely perceptible echoes from the past that have the power to move us in unexpected ways. As such, it examines not just the legacy of the past in the landscape, but its capacity to generate affective registers, to evoke and to unsettle. It develops a distinctly archaeological approach to considerations of materiality and time within non-representational theories, placing an emphasis on matter, memory and haunting, absence and presence. It focuses on new temporalities arising from the time of the ‘event’, new materialisms that are ‘more-than-representational’, and new ways of performing and practicing the archaeological.

Archaeological records at the Navan site are fragmented and difficult to interpret. This site, in County Armagh, Northern Ireland, features artefacts extending over 4,000 years from the Neolithic period to the Iron Age. This thesis provides a framework for understanding this important material culture. Through an analysis of archaeological theories and specific physical items, links are established among the natural world, culture, and the Navan residents’ understanding of the cosmos. This analysis covers the landscape (e.g. topography), constructed objects (e.g. prehistoric infrastructure such as pools, roads and earthworks), and metaphysical concepts (e.g. sound and time), thus building a holistic picture of how these settlers might have viewed themselves, the physical world around them, and the spiritual world they imagined. While it is not possible to determine definitively these groups’ purposes and motives, the thesis finds clues in the incoherentarchaeological evidence. It explores possible functions for archaeological markers whose significance is not clear. These markers could, for instance, have beenmeans of social separation orceremonial signifiers. Therefore the thesis is both an analysis of a particular site and an investigation into how the archaeological process itself, specifically in a situation of challenging evidence, enables distant worlds to be understood.

Sakas in India

Surprisingly, clean mains water has only been universally available to the population of Oxfordshire since the second half of the 20th century. This thesis explores the different methods by which water was obtained between the end of the medieval period and the establishment of the contemporary water companies; it shows how archaeological remains can inform understanding of how different groups lived and interacted during that period. It attempts for the first time to catalogue water supply features within the county, having 910 entries to date. Patterns emerging from the data have been used to suggest themes for further study. Statistics and GIS mapping have demonstrated that the availability and quality of water, including the incidence of early holy and healing wells, are dominated firstly by geology and then by differences between the social classes and between urban and rural areas. Themes explored include the relationship between water and disease, whether water supplies differ between ‘open’ and ‘closed’ parishes, the evolution of holy wells into spas, water in leisure activities, its association with memorials and changing attitudes to hygiene. The thesis also examines the various designation systems in place for protecting historic monuments, the level of recording of water features on local and national lists of monuments and how appropriate this framework is for helping the conservation of a valuable resource.

The migration period was played out during 400-550 AD. This period has also been called the Norths golden era. This is because of the substantial number of gold and jewellery finds from this period. Archaeologists has since the 1930s been debating if the migration period was a time of crisis. This is because of all the discoveries that has been made and interpret as a crisis in Europe. Both the abandonment of the stone settlements and the ring-forts in Öland and Gotland has been used as evidence of a catastrophic crisis. The purpose of this essay is to present the most debated interpretations of the migration period. The questions for this essay is: How does the debate look like from it´s beginning to our present day? Has the debate had any changes? Could the archaeologists have been influenced by their own society? The essay is based on literature studies and presents the different scientists thoughts in the debate. Both the ring-fort and the abandonment of the settlements have had a significant role in the debate and therefore will be presented in this essay. This essay shows that the debate has taken a lot of changes through the years. The conclusion is that archaeologists have been influenced by both their present times and the existing archaeological theory.   Keywords: Migration period, iron age, debate, crisis, climate change, stone-house settlements, ring-fort.

This thesis presents a new systematic arrangement of the coinage of the Gallic Empire as the basis for a revised edition of Roman Imperial Coinage. The coinage of all denominations, gold, silver and bronze, are unified into a single structure of issues. In 260, Postumus revolted against the Roman emperor Gallienus and took control of the Gauls. The chronology of his reign and of his successors is reviewed. The short reign of Domitianus II is interpreted as a revolt against the elevation of Tetricus. A rearrangement of Tetricus’s coinage supported by the epigraphic evidence proves that the elevation of Tetricus II to the Caesarship must be redated from 273 to 272. The location of the mints is discussed. Conclusive hoard evidence proves that the main mint was located at Trier, and not at Cologne. The study of iconography implies that choices were not necessarily made by the imperial authorities, but that more freedom was given to engravers than is usually assumed. The use of earlier coins as an iconographic repertoire strongly suggests that earlier coins were brought to the mint to be melted down. Metrological analyses of gold coins of the Gallic emperors show for the first time that silver was deliberately added to the alloy, following a practice introduced by Valerian and continued by Gallienus. The debasement of the ‘silver’ coinage is studied in parallel with its contemporary evolution within the Central Empire. Coin circulation is used in order to determine the frontiers of the Gallic Empire. It is demonstrated that the Gallic Empire reached its apogee between 262 and 265, ruling over Britain, the Gauls, Hispania and Raetia. The nature of the Gallic Empire is discussed. It is argued that this ‘Empire’ should not be viewed as a form of separatism, as often claimed, but as the unintended result of a status quo following Postumus’s acclamation and the long postponement of a final confrontation against the emperor of Rome.

This dissertation examines the interaction between leisured movement and space in Rome from 100 BC – AD 150, primarily drawing upon archaeological evidence from Rome, central Italy and the Bay of Naples. This thesis argues that leisured movement was significant and that an examination of the relationship between leisured movement and space provides new insights into Roman architecture, gardens, attitudes to design and space. Chapter one reviews the theoretical models associated with the study of movement and space in various disciplines and utilitizes these approaches to formulate the theoretical basis for this thesis. Previous scholarship on movement and space in the Roman world is also reviewed to demonstrate the need for further study. Chapter two focuses on ancient literature and epigraphy to examine leisured movement in ancient Rome and the spaces identified as locations for leisured movement. In chapter three the Severan marble plan and the archaeological evidence for the monumental porticos and temple-porticos in Rome, the public and urban context for leisured walking, are analyzed. An examination of the relationship between leisured movement and space in high-status Roman villas and residences is undertaken in chapter four. Walking, driving, riding and boating and their spatial context played an important role in these high-status residences. Finally, chapter five examines the relationship between leisured movement and space in Pompeian houses, in order to understand how leisured movement functioned in such houses and to demonstrate that leisured movement also had a role in the lives of those below the top of Roman society. This thesis demonstrates that movement was a prominent leisure activity and that it was a complex way through which the Romans negotiated Greek culture. It also establishes that Rome’s public porticos and portico-temples, which housed leisured movement, were original contributions to the architectural canon. Movement and space were interconnected phenomena that interacted upon each other; the design of private and public gardens and porticos often created an ordered approach to movement and space. In sum, leisured movement is a productive lens through which we can study Rome, her cultural and leisure activities, approach to design and conception of space.

This thesis examines the post-Roman and Anglo-Saxon religious reuse of Roman structures, particularly burials associated with Roman structures, and churches on or near Roman buildings. Although it is known that the Anglo-Saxons existed in and interacted with the vestigial, physical landscape of Roman Britain, the specific nature and result of this interaction has not been completely understood. The present study examines the Anglo-Saxon religious reuse of Roman structures in an attempt to understand the Anglo-Saxon perception of Roman structures and the impact they had on the developing ecclesiastical landscape. In particular, the study reveals how we may better understand the structural coincidence of Roman buildings and early-medieval religious activity in the light of the apparent discontinuity between many Roman and early-medieval landscapes in Britain. The study begins by providing an overview of the evidence for existing Roman remains in the Anglo-Saxon period. It examines the archaeological and historical evidence, and discusses literary references to Roman structures in an attempt to ascertain how the ruins of Roman villas, towns and forts would have been perceived. Particular attention is paid to The Ruin, a poem in Old English which provides us with our only contemporary description of Roman remains in Britain. The first chapter concludes by examining the evidence for the religious reuse of Roman secular structures in Gaul and Rome, providing a framework into which the evidence in the subsequent chapters is placed. The examination the proceeds to burials on or associated with Roman structures. It shows that the practice of interring the dead into Roman structures occurred between the fifth and eighth centuries, but peaked at the beginning of the seventh, with comparatively few sites at the extreme end of the data range. The discussion is based on the evidence of 115 sites that show this burial rite, but it is very apparent that this number is only a fragment of the whole, as these inhumations are often mistakenly identified as Roman, even when the stratigraphy demonstrates that burial occurred after the ruin of the villa, as is often the case. The placement of the bodies show a conscious reuse of the ruinous architecture, rather then suggesting interment was made haphazardly on the site: frequently the body is placed either centrally within a room, or is in contact with some part of the Roman fabric. Some examples suggest that there may have been a preference for apsidal rooms for this purpose. Churches associated with Roman buildings are then examined, and their significance in the development of the English Christian landscape is discussed. Churches of varying status – from minsters to chapels – can be found on Roman buildings throughout the country. Roman structures were clearly chosen for the sites of churches from the earliest Christian period into the tenth, and probably even the eleventh century. Alternatives to the so-called proprietary model are examined, and their origins and development are discussed, particularly in reference to the continental evidence. The end of the study places the thesis into a wider landscape context, and introduces potential avenues of further exploration using GIS. The study concludes that there are a number of causes underlying the religious reuse of Roman buildings, each not necessarily exclusive of the other, and that the study of these sites can further any investigation into the development of the ecclesiastical topography of England, and the eventual development of the parochial landscape.

In this thesis, the fabrication technology of Roman lead glazes were examined using a number of materials science techniques: namely, electron probe microanalysis, X-ray diffraction, and inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectroscopy. The overall aim of this work was to discern particular technological styles for a wide group of lead glazes by quantifying the chemical and microstructural features of glaze production. Using experimental replication, it was found that two basic methods of glazing could be identified chemically. When applying PbO alone to an earthenware ceramic, the resulting glaze was in equilibrium with the ceramic as indicated by flat compositional profiles obtained along the glaze cross-section. However, when applying PbO·SiO₂ mixtures to earthenware ceramics, gradient profiles indicative of diffusive mass transfer were obtained from the glaze cross-section. On the basis of these chemical criteria, these two methods of glazing were identified in archaeological material. It has been determined that the earliest lead glazes from Anatolia and Italy (approximately 1^st century B.C.) were made using PbO·SiO₂ mixtures applied to calcareous clays with Fe and Cu oxides added as colourants. Later production (post 2^nd century A.D.), seems to have employed PbO alone applied to non-calcareous clays with no intentionally added colourants. The Roman production of lead glazes was compared to both those of Late Antiquity (4^th – 10^th centuries A.D.) which continued to use PbO applied to non-calcareous clays, and to those of Byzantine and Islamic contexts (8^th – 14^th centuries A.D.) which seem to have used PbO·SiO₂ mixtures applied to both calcareous and non-calcareous clays. It is also argued that the technological features of the Byzantine and Islamic glaze production shared more in common with the contemporary Chinese lead glazing tradition (the Sancai wares of the 7^th century A.D.) which also used PbO·SiO₂ mixtures applied to non-calcareous clays, than with the Late Antique glazing tradition.