People and Spaces in Roman Military Bases

Abstract

This study uses artefact distribution analyses to investigate the activities that took place inside early Roman imperial military bases. Focusing especially on non-combat activities, it explores the lives of families and other support personnel who are widely assumed to have inhabited civilian settlements outside the fortification walls. Spatial analyses, in GIS-type environments, are used to develop fresh perspectives on the range of people who lived within the walls of these military establishments, the various industrial, commercial, domestic and leisure activities in which they and combat personnel were involved, and the socio-spatial organisation of these activities and these establishments. The book includes examples of both legionary fortresses and auxiliary forts from the German provinces to demonstrate that more material-cultural approaches to the artefact assemblages from these sites give greater insights into how these military communities operated and demonstrate the problems of ascribing functions to buildings without investigating the full material record.

Current Trends in Roman Demography and Empirical Approaches to the Dynamics of the Limes Populations

“…Penelope Allison (2008) investigated the presence, activities and status of women and children in Roman military forts on the German frontier during the first and second centuries AD. She concluded that women played a greater role in military life in the early Roman Empire than has previously been acknowledged (see also Allison 2011Allison , 2013. Elisabeth Greene (2011) provides evidence for the presence of women and children within military garrisons during the earliest periods of military conquest and during consolidation in the first and second centuries AD.…”

Full Archives, Meaningless Data? What Artefacts Can Tell about Age and Gender at Large-Scale Cemeteries (Case Study Colonia Iulia Emona)

“…Similarly, I considered only elaborately shaped 'hairpins' as female-related items, as simple pins could well have been used for fastening clothes. Despite Allison's (2013) premise that certain types of brooches can be linked with male or female attire, I was reluctant to connect brooches with either gender, as the location of the brooches in relation to the body is unclear in most of Emona's cases, and experts such as Hoss (2016) disagree on the subject in the case of e.g. flat brooches while Ivleva (2016: 69) states that brooches were worn by both sexes and by all classes.…”

Visiones y revisiones de la infancia en la Antigüedad desde la Arqueología

“…Para ello, Allison recurre a dos casos de estudio de hogares de establecimientos urbanos, de Pompeya, y de otros ámbitos domésticos de tipo provincial, con especial interés en los de carácter militar. Es precisamente dentro de esos contextos campamentales donde esta investigadora realiza su mayor aportación convirtiéndose en trabajo de referencia en cuanto a la identificación de artefactos relacionados con mujeres y niños, claros testimonios de su presencia en recintos militares (Allison, 2006(Allison, , 2013. Huntley (2018: 376-386) destaca las dificultades que presenta el acceso desde una perspectiva arqueológica a esa cultura material y su revisión argumentando que los niños romanos carecieron de unos materiales propiamente distintivos -a excepción, en nuestra opinión, de los juguetes y otros pequeños objetos-.…”