The following section considers the results of the preceding analyses for both object/body type deposited along with a discussion of patterns of difference and similarity between the four main location types under consideration.The preceding analyses are compared across site types and major differences between the depositional practices of those location types are
6% 47% 6% 18% 23% 1st 1st-2nd C 3rd C Used until 4th C Unknown
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highlighted. Furthermore, in accordance with this project’s research agenda, the characteristics of the urban depositional practices are prioritised in order to define variations between deposits found within the towns as compared to all of the other location types.
Animal remains
In general, deposition of animal remains was significant for all location types. Approximately 40% of subterranean features in urban locations, 71% of features in non-urban locations, 67% of features in sacred precincts, and 50% of features in Roman military forts contained some type of animal deposit. Common to all location types was the deposition of dog, sheep/goat, cattle, deer and oyster. However these species may have appeared infrequently and/or there may have been great variation in their numbers within any given feature.
Deposition of domesticated species is proportionately much higher than deposition of wild species across all of the location types. Deposition of wild species was always relatively rare with the exception of deer, oyster, and crow/raven. Deer is the most commonly deposited wild species and was found to varying degrees in all locations although it was extremely rare in urban centres with only one example from London. Deposition of wild black bird species of crow/raven were also found across all types of sites although again the deposition of any kind of wild bird species was extremely rare within the urban data set. Oysters were found in very large numbers within some of the features from non-urban and rural location, but were uncommon in the urban centres.
Major patterns of difference between location types were found for horse deposition. Horse remains were found relatively frequently in non-urban and sacred precinct locations. Horse remains were extremely rare for the urban locations and absent entirely from the Roman military forts. This pattern of distribution for horse is also found across the three major case studies of Silchester, Dorchester and Verulamium and thus it appears that horse was inappropriate for deposition within urban places as well as within military forts. Horse and deer were not chosen for deposition in any of the urban centres, apart from the one example from London which contained both (F131).
The deposition of dog remains is common to all location types and is significant both in the pattern of distribution observable for all location types but also that dog deposits are often found in high numbers within many given features. High numbers of dog individuals within any
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given deposit was evident for the subterranean features found in non-urban locations. Indeed, it is the features from this data set that are generally the most complex in terms of arrangement, use and numbers of deposited animals and objects. So not only dogs are found in high numbers but also sheep/goat and bird are also sometimes found in very high numbers within particular features.
Pig deposition was common to all location types apart from the urban data where this species was absent. Pig deposition was also found to be absent from Dorchester and Verulamium and rare at Silchester. Therefore, along with most wild species, horse and pig were rarely used as depositional bodies within the range of urban depositional practices. This pattern was in contrast to all of the other location types where pig was relatively common.
Within the urban data, cattle remains were only present at Caerwent and Wroxeter, suggesting inter-urban patterns of difference that were also discernable between Silchester, Verulamium and Dorchester, as discussed below in the proceeding chapters. Furthermore, cattle numbers were sometimes high within any given feature from these urban locations. What has emerged from this analysis then is that there were clear differences between urban and non-urban locations in terms of the types of species chosen for deposition. Furthermore, there is a possible pattern of difference discernable between the towns when species type is considered. Inter-urban difference is an important finding for this project as it supports the argument that processes of urbanisation were unique to individual locations.
Other patterns of difference have been found in terms of numbers of individuals deposited within any given feature, with the non-urban and sacred precinct locations most likely to have large numbers of individuals deposited within one feature. These features from non-urban and sacred precinct locations are also more complex in ways other than just large numbers of individuals: there is also evidence for animals being arranged in particular ways and being used for layering and construction of visual patterns within the feature.
Identified patterns of difference however must be considered within the broader context of the similarities between the location types as well. There are many species common to all location types as listed at the beginning of this section, with dog being particularly common across all location sites. Furthermore, the deposition of domesticated species is always higher than deposition of wild species across all location types. Therefore there are similarities that unite all of the features from all of the locations in terms of animal deposition but that the
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enactment of special/ritual deposition also had room for practices unique to each location type.
Human remains
Although both the appearance and number of examples of human deposition is small, there are instances of it found across all site locations. Significantly there was only one example of infant deposition found within a feature from Cirencester and it was otherwise entirely absent from all of the other site types. The paucity of evidence for infant deposition is at odds with the data from Silchester and Dorchester where the deposition of infant remains was relatively common within these urban spaces and is discussed more closely in the proceeding chapters. There are examples of the deposition of complete skeletons from all site types apart from military forts where only bones were deposited. Although there are some examples of complete skeletons being deposited mainly from the non-urban and sacred precinct locations, it was more common to find bones and skulls of adult humans being deposited along with other objects and materials. It is clear however that the deposition of human remains was not a common practice compared to the deposition of animal remains and other objects. Furthermore, the deposition of adult human remains has been found to have been rare in all urban locations including Silchester, Dorchester and Verulamium which are discussed in the proceeding chapters. The deposition of infant remains however was common to Dorchester and Silchester but not to Verulamium. Thus, patterns of deposition of infant remains represent inter-urban differences which are discussed in Chapter Six.
Pottery
The deposition of pottery is significant for all location types. 60% of features from urban locations contained pottery, 64% of non-urban features contained pottery, 38% of features from sacred precincts contained pottery and 50% of features from military forts contained pottery. Common to all of the features is the frequent deposition of either whole or nearly whole pots (for example see F67, F126, F127 from the ‘other urban’ database, Appendix 2; F259, F48, F49, F69 from the non-urban database, Appendix 3 and F57, F85, F256 from the sacred precinct database, Appendix 4).
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A pattern of difference that has emerged is the presence of single pot deposition within urban centres. There are 6 examples of single complete pots found without any other associated objects or materials from the urban features. Often these single pots (often complete with lids) are located within building deposits underneath houses (see F22, F25, F26 from the ‘other urban’ database, Appendix 2). Thus, this appears as a distinct practice enacted within the subterranean spaces of domestic (and sometimes urban temple) structures. There is only one other example of a single pot find from other locations with a ‘roman vessel’ filled with acorns found at F60 in the non-urban data.
The other main pattern of difference found between the location types is that within the non- urban data there were a number of examples of the deposition of funerary urns (with or without evidence for human remains) (for example see F76, F251, F253, Appendix 3). These types of vessels have not been recorded for any of the other site types. Furthermore the deposition of vessels just termed ‘urns’ was very frequent for the data from the non-urban sites although whether these vessels were believed to have been funerary urns was not specified (see Ross 1968). Again, however, this terminology has not been used for any of the other location types and is thus suggestive of a distinctive practice of deposition associated with human and animal funerary/votive rituals within the data from the non-urban locations. Like the number of animal individuals deposited within a single feature from the non-urban and sacred precinct often being very high, pottery numbers too are much higher in terms of vessel numbers within the non-urban and sacred precinct features. Overall then the deposition of pottery is characteristic of these subterranean features from all location types. However, the distribution of the appearance of pottery within the features from the sacred precinct data is lower than the other location types where pottery was found frequently across all of the given features. A pattern of single pot finds being associated with urban locations (and domestic and temple structures: F22, F25, F26, Appendix 2) is a difference that is further investigated below within the analyses of the data from Silchester, Dorchester and Verulamium.