INTRODUCTION

There can be no doubt that whatever influence the Roman state had in southern Britain before the Claudian conquest, it was only after it that the major impact of being formally part of the Roman world started to be seen. People and goods poured into the new province. Soldiers, administrators, traders and craftsmen arrived as did items that virtually no Briton would have seen before, such as glass vessels. New patterns of eating and drinking were introduced, but it would be wrong to see a simple Roman – native dichotomy developing. There was no more a single Roman way of doing things, any more than there was a single native way. In this chapter, five case studies relating to the first to second centuries are presented to show some of the patterns. They do not represent all of the ways of life being practised at this time, but they do give a taste of the diversity that emerges from the archaeological record.

SOLDIERS AND SETTLERS AT COLCHESTER

Colchester (fig. 17.1) provides a good place to start exploring practices introduced by the Roman forces. In the late Iron Age an important tribal centre existed there in the Sheepen – Gosbecks area, and it was the place where Claudius came to take official possession of the new province.