The public baths, functioning as a hygienic and social center, were among the most important public spaces in the Roman world. While ancient texts give scholars some indication of the social backdrop of the public baths, these records, written by upper class males, are largely silent on the activities of women, children, and the lower classes (cf. Allison 2007a:343, 346). As a result, scholars have only a partial understanding of the bath's social role in the lives of the ancient Romans. Archaeological assemblages of objects which the Romans lost or left behind in the baths are an under-utilized resource for information on this social environment. To examine the social environment of the Roman baths, my dissertation collects published and unpublished artifact data from 27 public and military baths in Italy and the western Roman Provinces, including Britannia, Lusitania, Raetia, and Germania Superior. 13 baths, whose assemblages are definitively linked with use of the baths ("primary assemblages"), will serve as the basis for this study, while artifacts from the other 14 baths, whose contexts are less clear ("secondary assemblages"), will serve as a comparative sample. These small finds provide data on the social environment of the Roman baths, specifically the genders, ages, classes, and activities of bathers. To interpret these finds, I turned to Roman small finds scholarship (e.g. Eckardt and Crummy 2008; Allason-Jones 2011), which together with site publications and finds catalogues, provides a starting place for determining the primary function of various objects. Studies which link artifacts with genders, ages, and classes (Nevett 1999; Allison 2004a, 2006a; Allison et al. 2005) serve as a model for my methodology for associating objects with social groups, which incorporates data from ancient texts, burials, and art. Using three different data sets to attribute a gender, age, and class to these objects helps to ameliorate the shortcomings of each, and I interpret associations between social groups and artifacts across multiple datasets as an accurate reflection of the connections that the Romans themselves saw between different objects and people. Having associated artifacts with activities, genders, ages, and classes, I examined the primary assemblages from the main 13 baths to determine which activities took place and where, as well as the genders, ages and classes of the individuals using each bath. These artifacts, supported by the secondary assemblages, confirmed many current scholarly views on Roman baths, such as the prominence of social display and eating and drinking, and provided new information about activities, including cloth-working and medical procedures, and how these spaces were used, including room multifunctionality and the presence of women and children in military baths. Since my sample includes a number of urban public and military baths from a variety of provinces and time periods, I also analyzed their artifact assemblages for information on temporal and geographic variations in Roman urban public and military baths. Across bath types, dates, and locations, a number of activities appear as regular parts of the bathing environment, and even less commonly represented activities are not isolated to a region, time period, or bath type. The lack of strong regional, temporal, or typological variation in artifact assemblages may indicate that the social environments of urban public and military baths differed little throughout the Roman period and across the empire.

This research focuses on artefactual assemblages from temples in the south-east and east of England from 50 BCE to 250 CE. In order to evaluate these data, which primarily consists of faunal remains, coins, and items of personal adornment, quantitative methods to perform intra-site and inter-site analyses are utilised. As a result of the analyses conducted, a range of social practices were identified, including those specific to individual temples, and those that were shared to varying degrees across the breadth of the study area. The study also examines how a site’s unique environmental and political conditions characterised the assemblages of each temple. Moreover, it reveals that the pre-Roman Eastern and Southern kingdoms continued to influence the nature of practices on temple sites into the Roman period, and that the impact of Roman conquest was much less persuasive as might be expected from previous research on religion in Roman Britain. The conclusions of this study emphasise the significant future potential of the finds evidence to illuminate studies of religion in the Roman empire, as well as highlighting the diverse nature of religion in early Roman Britain.

Durant l’Antiquité, Valence bénéficie du prestigieux statut de colonie romaine, au même titre qu’Arles, Vienne et Lyon. Sa position au confluent du Rhône et de l’Isère et au carrefour de plusieurs itinéraires terrestres - Voie d’Agrippa, Voie des Alpes - lui conférait un rôle stratégique et économique considérable. Cette région, au cœur de la moyenne vallée du Rhône, occupe une position charnière qui lui assure, au moins depuis le Premier Âge du fer, un rôle d’intermédiaire entre le bassin méditerranéen et le monde celtique.Elle bascule dans l’orbite de Rome en même temps que la Gaule méridionale, soit dès la fin du IIe s. av. J.-C. Valence est fondée dans un deuxième temps, vraisemblablement entre 46 – 36 av. J.-C. et acquiert son statut de colonie de droit romain peut-être dès cette date avancée selon P. Faure et N. Tran (2013). La fondation d’une colonie romaine s’accompagne d’une division du sol public, matérialisée par une centuriation afin qu’il soit distribué aux membres du corps civique nouvellement créé comprenant plusieurs milliers de colons. Dans ce contexte historique précis, ces citoyens sont principalement des vétérans de l’armée romaine alors constituée majoritairement d’Italiens. Ce phénomène a donc un impact démographique et culturel considérable pour la vie des populations locales. Le statut juridique avantageux conféré à ces communautés leur assure également des avantages économiques importants stimulant les productions agro-pastorales et artisanales. Les travaux consacrés aux provinces gauloises ont montré que les siècles suivants ne sont pas exempts de mutations économiques et culturelles importantes qui touchent les structures de peuplement et de production. Partant de ce constat, j’ai choisi d’aborder cet impact culturel et économique à travers la culture matérielle (vestiges architecturaux, objets de la vie quotidienne) et l’analyse de l’occupation du sol. Le cadre chronologique et spatial retenu doit permettre d’observer de manière dynamique l’évolution des modes de vie et des activités agro-pastorales et artisanales dans les campagnes de la cité de Valence. L’examen des caractéristiques de plusieurs centaines d’établissements ruraux doit permettre de proposer une lecture diachronique et complexe de l’occupation et l’exploitation de ce territoire, d’aborder les rapports qu’entretient la colonie avec l’espace rural. L’approche chronologique et fonctionnelle des bâtiments et des objets de la vie quotidienne permet d’apprécier plus finement l’évolution dans le temps des techniques, des modes de vie, mais aussi de relever la diversité des situations locales à une même période. / During the Antiquity, Valence is known as a roman colony like Lyon, Arles or Vienna, settled in the middle Rhône valley at the confluent of the Rhône and the Isère, and also at the crossroads of alpine route and the Via Agrippa. This strategic position confers to the colony an important role in the economy of the roman Gaul. Since the early Iron Age, this area is a link between the mediterranean and the celtic worlds.Even if the region is conquered by Rome since the end of the II c. B.-C., the colony is founded later, perhaps between 46 and 36 B.-C. and maybe already own his prestigious status of colonia of roman rights according to P. Faure and N. Tran hypothesis (2013). As a consequence of the foundation, the public soil is divided, centuriated, and distributed to thousands of new citizens.In this specific historical context, the citizens are chosen among the veterans of the roman army, who were Italians at this time. This decision should have huge demographic and cultural consequences on local communities. The legal status of the citizens gives them considerable economics advantages that stimulate the local economy. The studies devoted to the gallic provinces have shown that the following centuries see numerous changes affecting settlements and economic structures.Considering this historical context, I have chosen to evaluate the cultural and economic impact of this foundation by studying settlement patterns and material culture (architectural remains, objects of the daily life) between the II c. B.-C. to the VIth c. B.-C.The study of few hundreds of settlements allows us to introduce a complex and diachronic view of the settlements, their economic roles and relations with the colony.The chronological and functional study of the buildings and daily life objects allow us to assess finely the evolution through time about craftsmen’s techniques, lifestyle and highlight regional differences during a same period.