New Visions of the Countryside of Roman Britain Volume 3: Life and Death in the Countryside of Roman Britain

Tom Brindle is a Research Fellow at the University of Reading on a Leverhulme Trust funded project investigating rural settlement in Roman Britain. Previously he was a Finds Liaison Officer for the Portable Antiquities Scheme, first in Northamptonshire and then in Staffordshire and the West Midlands. Michael Fulford is Professor of Archaeology at the University of Reading. His research interests are in the archaeology of the Roman world, particularly in its economic activity and urban life. He has devoted much of his career to Silchester where he began excavating in the first year of his appointment to Reading as lecturer in archaeology in 1974.

This book establishes a new standard for the integration of environmental and osteological data into the study of the Roman countryside. Chapters 6 and 7 are, in this reviewer's opinion, the most important contributions of the volume, not only because they situate the people of the countryside at the forefront of the investigation, but because they articulate a new way to synthesize data that will be invaluable for other areas of the ancient world.