Evidence for prehistoric activity and settlement in the area covered by the modern city of Lincoln has accumulated gradually. Published accounts of the material from Lincoln have treated it as part of a wider study of the county as a whole, while excavations on various sites in the city prior to 1972 had produced a number of prehistoric artefacts, all occurring in secondary contexts. Since these were residual, a distribution map would not necessarily be of any significance, but it is true that the vast majority were found in the lower part of the city, in the vicinity of (or on the bed of) the River Witham.

The site was first noted on a high level vertical air photograph taken in 1964 by the Ordnance Survey, and a spread of Roman pottery was found to its immediate south-west, and running north, in a field survey carried out by the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England). The site has not appeared on the extensive series of air photographs taken by Dr S.G. Upex, principally owing to the differing level of the local water-table: hardly any of the major geological markings which tend to mask all the archaeology are present on the Ordnance Survey series of the northern part of the parish.

Stone foundations, interpreted as part of a milecastle on Hadrian's Wall, were uncovered in 1985 during the conversion into the Newcastle Arts Centre of 67–75 Westgate Road (National Grid reference NZ 2452 6401). The initial discovery was made and pursued, and almost all the subsequent excavation carried out, by David Fry, the resident potter at the Centre, with constant encouragement from Mike Tilley, the director. The recording on site, and responsibility for eventual publication, was undertaken by members of the Tyne and Wear Archaeology Unit, who are grateful to Charles Daniels and Brian Dobson for their helpful advice during the preparation of this report, and to John Dore, John Casey and Jacqui Huntley for their specialist reports.

AN important though infrequently discussed aspect of Britain's legionary fortresses is the existence, on the analogy of the arrangements made in other provinces, around each of them of a large tract of land which came under the direct control of the resident legion. As a citizen body headed by a deputy or legatus of the emperor a legion could ‘possess’ a territory on behalf of the Roman People and, for administrative and legal purposes, be regarded as a locally sovereign respublica in just the same way as a chartered town or a formally constituted native civitas, as is evidenced by instances where the boundaries of civil territoria run with those of army lands, implying equivalent status. Although lands were also allotted to auxiliary units, overall control of such areas is likely to have rested with the legate of the closest legion, a situation which not only stemmed from the fact that the auxilia were both in theory and in reality auxiliaries to the legions but which also reflected their origin in a period when the legions could be contrasted as wholly citizen bodies with the overwhelmingly peregrine auxilia.

Boughspring Roman villa, Scheduled Monument 437, lies approximately 6½ miles south of Lydney and 4 miles north of Chepstow, Gwent. It is situated on a hillside between the 100 and 125 m contours commanding magnificent views eastwards across the River Severn (ST 570560974). Its site was chosen for the scenery as the villa rests on a terrace cut into the slope between two to three metres deep on the uphill side and raised a corresponding height on the downhill side.

While working on some Celtic iron swords a number of references were encountered which contrasted the swords of the Celts and their methods of fighting with those of the Romans. Polybius (200–118 B.C. or later), writing of the battles of Cannae (216 B.C.) and Telamon (225 B.C.), says that the Gauls fought with great courage ‘in spite of the fact that man for man as well as collectively they were inferior to the Romans in point of arms. The shields and swords of the latter were proved to be manifestly superior for defence and attack….’ This was because the Gaulish swords ‘could only give one downward cut with any effect but after this the edges were so turned and the blade so bent that unless they had time to straighten them out with their foot against the ground, they could not deliver a second blow … their blade has no point.’

In 1849 Mark Anthony Lower published a pioneer paper on the ironworks of East Sussex, but this contained no mention of any ironworking at Beauport Park, near Battle. Ten years later, however, the Rev. S. Arnott, rector of the nearby parish of Hollington, wrote that, although there were no remains of early ironmaking in his parish, ‘there is a large cinder-bank in Beauport Park on which grow firs with oak and ash, all planted by the owner, Sir Charles Lamb’.

As a result of recent road improvements, two examples of a hitherto unknown type of iron-working furnace have been found in Northamptonshire. These are at Laxton Lodge (SP068971) and Byfield (SP505515), at different ends of the county (FIG. I). Most Romano-British furnaces belong to the shaft type which has a maximum diameter of 0–5 m. The more recently found furnaces are between 1–1.4 m in internal diameter which means that the method of working them must have been quite different from the smaller shaft furnaces.

The site of Roman Bannaventa, formerly mentioned as a stopping-place in the British routes of the Antonine Itinerary, straddles the boundary between the Northamptonshire parishes of Norton and Whilton along the line of the modern A5, or Watling Street (FIG. I). Although its general position to the west of Whilton Lodge could be inferred from the local discovery of Roman objects and associated building remains recorded from the early eighteenth century onwards, its precise site was only identified in summer 1970. In that year, air reconnaissance revealed the outline of part of a large, defended enclosure to the west of the modern trunk-road which diverges slightly eastwards from its Roman predecessor. Subsequent investigations, described here, indicate that the enclosure lay awkwardly across the original road which passed through its western half. The defences form an irregular quadrilateral with broad, rounded corners which enclose an area of between 4–4·5 ha approximately centred upon NGR SP 612645 (FIG. 2). The position of the settlement, at the southern end of a raised tongue of glacial sand and gravel between 110–120 m above Ordnance Datum, corresponds closely with the suggested place-name meaning of ‘market on the spur’ or ‘prominent field’, and it may be unnecessary to insist that the name was transferred from the nearby hillfort at Borough Hill, Daventry.

One of the most interesting documents to emerge from Egypt is a wooden tablet from the Fayum (PL XXX). The main text of the tablet reads: M. Acilio Avaviola et Pansa cos. pridie nonas lanuarias T. Haterius Nepos praef. Aeg. L. Valerio Nostro equiti alae Vocontiorum turma Gaviana emerito hone-stam missionem dedit This may be translated: ‘In the consulship of Manius (not Marcus) Aviola (not Avaviola) and (Corellius) Pansa (i.e. A.D. 122), on the day before the nones of January (i.e. on 4 January), T. Haterius Nepos, the Prefect of Egypt, gave an honourable discharge to L. Valerius Noster, time-expired cavalryman of the ala Vocontiorum, from the troop formerly commanded by Gavius.

There can be little doubt that the subject of Roman military signalling installations has generated an excess of enthusiastic but misguided speculation. This paper is an attempt to demonstrate the limitations of Roman military signalling, and perhaps thereby assist archaeologists in the identification of buildings which may have had a signalling role. In essence, to establish the existence of a signalling function one has to prove requirement, feasibility and capability.

The discovery of a hoard of bronze bowls and of two bronze human-headed terminals in the vicinity of Amersham is of some importance. In the following account, the context of the finds is discussed by Michael Farley, the bowls and the coins by John Taylor and the heads by Martin Henig.

The last decade has seen renewed interest in late Roman Britain and its transition to Saxon England. There have been a number of attempts to clarify the chronology of events between the collapse of the central Roman administration and the establishment of a substantial and permanent Saxon presence. These attempts at chronological certainty have, of necessity, focused upon the entries in the so-called Gallic Chronicles since these sources are the nearest in date of composition to the events which they record. Two events in the Chronicles relate to Britain. One records a Saxon invasion in the first decade of the fifth century whilst the second alludes to the subjection of Britain, or some substantial part of it, to the Saxons some thirty years later.