An unusually complex fourth-century infant grave excavated in Baldock in 1988 produced a complete Dea Nutrix figurine. Whilst not uncommon as site finds, Deae Nutrices are less frequently encountered as grave gifts in Britain than in Gaul. The reasons for its inclusion as a grave gift are explored, as are wider questions of Romano-British burial practice in the town, the significance of Dea Nutrix as a deity, and the nature of funerary ritual. An assessment is also made of the status of the Roman town.

The dates and purposes of Offa’s Dyke and Wat’s Dyke have long been a subject of debate among historians and archaeologists. This paper examines and critiques several of the more unusual claims made over the past century. Prominence is given to the use of ancient literature and widespread misunderstandings of scientific dating techniques, both of which have been used to suggest a Roman date for the origin of the dykes close to the modern Anglo-Welsh border.

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The Historia Brittonum remains a textual puzzle because of its variant recensions; printed editions generally present conflated versions of the text. The Harleian Recension is usually thought to represent the version closest to the original. The present approach to its textual history uses cladistics to recognise characteristics shared between recensions. These determine those of ancestral groups and indicate the points at which different recensions split off, demonstrating that the work grew by accretion. The Harleian Recension is shown to be a late development. All existing printed editions of the work are defective: every reading must be based on judging the position of all witnesses on the cladogram. Where the readings of the Chartres and Edmundine Recensions agree against the others, they take precedence. The earliest recoverable form of the text is the recension of 829×30, here termed 'Merminian'.

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