9th October 2011, 12:16 PM
(This post was last modified: 9th October 2011, 12:23 PM by Dinosaur.)
Very little data is available so far, since it's dead expensive to have done commercially, most of what there is has been done at the whim of the researchers so its all been very targetted with no 'background' baseline to work from - to be fair my pet project is about as targeted as it gets, want to kick holes in the main conclusion of the recent Lankhills monograph (and I suspect I'm not alone, but that's another story...)
There's a perception that by the late 3rd/4th centuries military units in the provinces, whatever the unit title, were recruiting from the local population. The recently published isotope study of skellies from Catterick/Bainesse was argued to support this notion, with mainly 4th century skellies from near the fort all of 'local' origins, but a more varied population of slightly earlier date at the road-side settlement at Bainesse acouple of km away. Unfortunately the study used Pete Wilson's monograph as a shopping list and ignored all the more recently excavated material much of which has rather better dating (some of the 'dates' for the material used can have holes picked in them, Wilson makes it quite clear in his book that some of the dating was 'best guess', and a C14 study of some of the Bainesse skellies produced surprisingly late dates, as has a more recent body from the same area - 5th/6th for a decap with hobnails (hopefully there will be a second date on that one)
Giles Clarke back in the 70s suggested that 'deviant' burials at Winchester Lankhills, primarily guys wearing crossbow brooches and belt-sets but also a number of other well-furnished burials, represented officers or civilian administrators brought in during the 4th century from other provinces. The recent isotope analysis showed that most of the 'rich' burials were probably locals, but all of the crossbow brooch guys tested came up foreign - although for some reason the monograph concluded that they were just part of the 'normal' cemetery population so the jury's still out on that one....but the untested group of crossbow brooches/belt sets at Catterick might clarify things since they had their own small private cemetery (suspicious in its own right) and aren't mixed up with the 'general' population that's already been done (and as noted above there are more 'general' ones that can be done to pad the statistical population) - theres another group of three crossbow-brooch burials at Norton, North Yorkshire as well
There's a perception that by the late 3rd/4th centuries military units in the provinces, whatever the unit title, were recruiting from the local population. The recently published isotope study of skellies from Catterick/Bainesse was argued to support this notion, with mainly 4th century skellies from near the fort all of 'local' origins, but a more varied population of slightly earlier date at the road-side settlement at Bainesse acouple of km away. Unfortunately the study used Pete Wilson's monograph as a shopping list and ignored all the more recently excavated material much of which has rather better dating (some of the 'dates' for the material used can have holes picked in them, Wilson makes it quite clear in his book that some of the dating was 'best guess', and a C14 study of some of the Bainesse skellies produced surprisingly late dates, as has a more recent body from the same area - 5th/6th for a decap with hobnails (hopefully there will be a second date on that one)
Giles Clarke back in the 70s suggested that 'deviant' burials at Winchester Lankhills, primarily guys wearing crossbow brooches and belt-sets but also a number of other well-furnished burials, represented officers or civilian administrators brought in during the 4th century from other provinces. The recent isotope analysis showed that most of the 'rich' burials were probably locals, but all of the crossbow brooch guys tested came up foreign - although for some reason the monograph concluded that they were just part of the 'normal' cemetery population so the jury's still out on that one....but the untested group of crossbow brooches/belt sets at Catterick might clarify things since they had their own small private cemetery (suspicious in its own right) and aren't mixed up with the 'general' population that's already been done (and as noted above there are more 'general' ones that can be done to pad the statistical population) - theres another group of three crossbow-brooch burials at Norton, North Yorkshire as well