GATHERING THE HARVEST: THE COLLECTION AND TRANSPORTATION OF AGRICULTURAL PRODUCE IN ROMAN CAMBRIDGESHIRE AND PETERBOROUGH

Abstract

Summary When Rome colonized Britain, it created a transport network spanning the province. This transformed the Iron Age economy, creating large new markets which in turn supported specialized manufacturing. This article explores the impact of transportation on Roman agriculture – the core of the Romano‐British economy. It analyses a large archaeobotanical dataset (1726 assemblages from 87 excavations) covering the later Iron Age and Roman periods in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, UK. The region has a number of distinct soil types, supporting a range of plant communities – these produced both natural resources and weeds. 414 wild taxa were recorded, alongside cultivated cereals. Little change occurred in the diversity of wild plant taxa over time, but there was an association between Roman settlement size and diversity of wild taxa. This shows larger settlements were using the transport network to draw in plant resources from larger areas than smaller settlements were. There was also a strong association of large storage barns with the transport network. In Roman Cambridgeshire, maybe two‐thirds of the rural population lived in settlements receiving plant produce from outside their immediate environment, indicating significant transportation of plant produce and a high level of integration.