Roman Archaeology in the 21st Century

Abstract

this might intersect with the interests of both other disciplines and a wider public. It is certainly the case that academic priorities in UK universities have shifted over time, and are likely to continue to do so in the future, especially as changes being initiated by the present government to the funding of higher education in the UK come into effect. In this context, all specialist fields will be forced – quite rightly – to examine their place in the creation of knowledge and understanding, and in the training of professionals in those fields. I want to argue here that Roman archaeology is, perhaps contrary to appearances from the outside, already in a strong position to do this. To a considerable extent, this is due to the way in which debate about archaeological theory has progressed within Roman studies. There is no doubt that the theoretical convulsions affecting many other parts of the discipline from the 1960s to the 1980s, originating primarily in the study of prehistory, passed Roman archaeology by. Nonetheless, the last 15 years have witnessed a significant amount of catching up. Two of the pioneers of this revolution were both, incidentally, connected to the Institute of Archaeology. In 1988, Richard Reece published My Roman Britain, a book both challenging and entertaining, and one of the most theoretically-sophisticated archaeology books never to be considered (even by its author) as a ‘theory book’. In 1990, Martin Millett – a former student at the Institute – published The Romanization of Britain, a book which consciously broke with the textual traditions of Classical Archaeology and brought the study of Roman Britain into contact with, particularly, contemporary processual approaches to social and economic life. Since this point, the floodgates have opened. In 1991, the Theoretical Roman Archaeology Conference (TRAC) was established by a mixture of academics and fieldworkers, led by Eleanor Scott. This open forum for the discussion of ideas about the Roman past is still going strong (http://www.romansociety.org/trac.htm). More importantly, its agendas – dominated, it is probably fair to say, by broadly post-processual themes such as meaning and identity – are exerting increasing influence over mainstream Roman archaeology. This is evident in the sessions at recent Roman Archaeology Conferences