High resolution records oflead and some other elements in Holocene raised bog deposits from the eastern Netherlands were compared with corresponding pollen records for the period 1000Be to AD 1000. Trends in the curves of herbaceous human influence indicators parallel the recorded fluctuations of the aerosol input in the deposit. The chemical records may, in all probability, provide detailed information regarding the combined effects of soil erosion by agriculture (dust emission) and domestic fires in the regions around the bogs. Iron smelting operations may also have been responsible for the emission of aerosols into the atmosphere. The deposition oflead apparently corresponds to periods of agricultural and industrial expansion and depression. Already during periods of high population densities in prehistoric times some 'anthropogenic' aerosols dominated over 'natural' fractions. Relatively high lead levels in excavated prehistoric bones from agricultural societies may be explained by an increased uptake of airborne lead (in soil dust and smoke) via the lungs. Geochemical analysis can provide a more complete historical/prehistorical perspective of anthropogenic influence, especially in combination with palynological records.
I t is not widely appreciated that the Roman presence in NorthWest Europe radically transformed a number of basic technological processes, marking a fundamental break in native traditions at a mundane level which must have profoundly affected people's everyday experience. 1 Archaeologically, amongst the more eye-catching innovations are the changes in the methods of skin processing and the manufacture of footwear. It is becoming increasingly evident that, prior to the Roman conquest, the native peoples of NorthWest Europe were unfamiliar with the techniques of vegetable tanning. 2 Skins were treated with oils and fats or by methods such as smoking, and they continued to be processed in these ways in regions beyond the Roman frontiers. Since none of these curing methods results in permanent and water-resistant leather, 3 artefacts made of animal skin will only survive under exceptional environmental conditions, such as extreme dryness (e.g. in Egypt), salinity (e.g. in the salt mines of Hallstatt), or in peat bogs, where a sort of secondary, natural tanning process has taken place. 4 In contrast, true tanning using vegetable extracts gives a chemically stable product, resistant to bacterial decay, which survives well in damp, anaerobic conditions. The Classical world appears to have been conversant with vegetable tanning from about the fourth century B.C., 5 but where this knowledge originated and how it spread is as yet unclear. As a direct result of this technological innovation, leather goods first become fully visible in the archaeological record of NorthWest Europe from the start of the Roman occupation. Shoemaking is equally affected by Roman practices, with the appearance of a variety of distinctive footwear styles which are technologically and stylistically unrelated to earlier, native types. The most obvious introductions are hobnailed shoes and sandals, but even the single-piece shoes (carbatinae) which are technologically similar to pre-Roman native footwear are totally different in concept (FIG. 1, No. 10). 6 The emergence of leatherwork as a major component of waterlogged archaeological assemblages thus reflects the introduction of a technological package encompassing both the raw material and the products made from it. Here, there is no question of continuity of old traditions expressed in a new medium: it is radical change which, particularly in the first generation following the conquest, undoubtedly carried both political and cultural connotations. In contrast to prehistoric and, indeed, medieval footwear, Roman shoemakers employed a number of distinct technologies to manufacture a variety of shoe styles, some, apparently, with quite specific functions. Thus the crew of a grain-ship sunk in the Rhine around A.D. 210 each had at least one pair of closed shoes and one pair of sandals. 7 This awareness of appropriate use 1
By PETER CONNOLLY and CAROL VAN DRIEL-MURRAY N o Roman saddle survives complete. For its reconstruction we are therefore reduced to depictions or models of saddled horses and to making sense out of what archaeological evidence remains. Since Groenman-van Waateringe's study of 1967,' it is clear that the archaeological evidence for saddles consists of the leather outer casing and metal horn stiffeners: neither of them, however, have ever been found in association. Since a previous publication in Britannia on the Roman saddle, 2 the first author has had the opportunity to examine the eight bronze horn plates from Newstead in Scotland, now in the Museum of Antiquities in Edinburgh. 3 In this same period, the second author had gathered together all recognizable leather fragments of saddles known to date, making them available for general study and published in the same volume as a further important collection of saddle leathers from Carlisle, England. 4 Several of the newly-published pieces shed new light on the construction of the saddle and it seems necessary to reassess the views put forward earlier."" The purpose of a cavalry saddle is twofold, to provide a firm seat for the rider and to shift the weight of the rider away from the horse"s backbone to its flanks. The construction of the saddle must, to some extent, have compensated also for the absence of stirrups. Any interpretation of the surviving material must work within these basic practical constraints. The outer form of the saddle is not in dispute: 6 it is a pad with four upstanding horns which on depictions seem to grip the rider firmly in his seat. The back horns stand upright, supporting the buttocks, while the front horns project sideways over the thigh, as can be seen in particular on the tombstone of Romanius from Mainz and a Jupiter statue from Vienne-en-Val in France (FIGS I and 2). 1 This is not always obvious from photographs, which are usually taken from the front. In addition there are various straps, like the girth, breast band and breaching which are functional, and others, the so-called triplet straps, which are not. All the straps can be extensively decorated with beads, phalerae, bronze
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