Roman Guernsey

Excavations, Fieldwork and Maritime Archaeology 1980–2015

Heather Sebire, Philip De Jersey, Jason Monaghan

• Publisher: Oxbow Books
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9781789250695
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: British History
• Index: History

Before the 1970s, discoveries of Roman material in Guernsey consisted of a few chance finds of coins, plus a handful of sherds of samian pottery from the harbor and from prehistoric megaliths. Since the 1980s, however, two large-scale excavations in the town of St Peter Port, plus accumulated evidence from rescue excavations elsewhere in the island and from underwater discoveries, has demonstrated that there was significant Roman occupation which lasted for several centuries. This volume presents reports of the excavations carried out at La Plaiderie (1983–85) and the Bonded Store (1996–2005) in St Peter Port, together with a gazetteer of all Roman finds recorded from almost one hundred other sites in Guernsey and Herm. It includes a detailed study of the pottery recovered from the two town sites, which demonstrates that Guernsey was a significant port-of-call on the Atlantic trade route and along the length of the Channel. Finds included pottery, including samian, glass, intaglios, metalworking debris, a range of small finds, and environmental data. The volume concludes with a gazetteer of Roman sites and finds on Guernsey and Herm.

II

The finds

4

The Roman pottery

by Mark Wood and Jason Monaghan

The late Mark Wood examined the pottery from La Plaiderie, and at a later stage the pottery from the Bonded Store and some other sites. Based on this work he wrote an extended essay on Roman pottery in Guernsey and maritime trade. The current report is based on extracts from that essay, edited by Jason Monaghan, with additional analysis of the quantified assemblages. Mark also left a provisional drawing list, from which the Catalogue has been developed. The original essay is held in the Museum archive, together with samian and mortaria lists, and it is intended to publish Mark’s thoughts on maritime trade separately.

Introduction

The excavations at La Plaiderie and the Bonded Store each produced about 60kg of Roman pottery. Although this is small in comparison to major UK or French sites, there is a remarkable array of imported pottery present. Taken together, the two pottery assemblages date from pre-Roman to early post-Roman times. The sources of origin of the wares demonstrate both the regional and long-distance connections of Guernsey during the period, indicating that ancient St Peter Port was a well-known port-of-call from the late Iron Age onwards.

Trade in Roman wine along the Atlantic seaboard during the late Iron Age bears witness to the connections Guernsey had with Armorican Gaul and Hengistbury Head in Britain (Cunliffe 1987). Guernsey’s links with these areas can now be seen to be far more significant than was thought previously. There is also now, for the first time, evidence linking Guernsey with northern Gaul, Germany and southeastern Britain from early Roman times, via the Channel. In the light of the discoveries at La Plaiderie and the Bonded Store, it is clear that that not only were there movements across the Channel (the focus of which changed over time during the Roman period), but also along the Channel; these appear to feed into the Atlantic system from a very early date. Guernsey was a link in that overall system, but its significance is hard to assess.

The broad range of mid- to late Roman imported pottery dumped in the Roman Quay site at St Magnus House in London (Dyson 1986) bears a striking resemblance to that which is present and was used on the town sites in Guernsey. While the character of the deposits and the quantities or presence of certain wares may differ, both the site in London and St Peter Port itself clearly represent important ports along Roman maritime routes at either end of the Channel. These distant areas were undoubtedly connected via a series of principal ports-of-call along the Channel coasts.

Previous work

Significant finds of Roman pottery in Guernsey were first made only when La Plaiderie was excavated in the 1980s (Wood 1991; 1994). Further articles on specific Roman wares included reference to material from La Plaiderie (Wood 1993a; Williams and Wood 1995). Selected material from maritime sites was also studied during the same period (Monaghan 1988; Monaghan 1990; Rule and Monaghan 1993). An initial appraisal was also made of material from the Bonded Store (Monaghan 1998). Examination of museum collections and unpublished pottery from Alderney revealed material dating from the late Iron Age through to the late 4th century AD (Wood 1990). Overall quantities of pottery from Alderney are not large, but it clearly also had a significant Roman presence and may have been a port-of-call from the late Iron Age. Curiously, only a handful of Roman sherds were found in excavations around the Roman fort at the Nunnery between 2009 and 2012 (Monaghan 2011–12). Some 500 sherds examined from an as yet unidentified site on Longis Common, thought to have been excavated in the 1950s, included ‘legionary’ type pottery and other wares of the late 1st to 2nd century (Monaghan and de Jersey 2014–15).

The Bonded Store and La Plaiderie assemblages

Methods and condition

The La Plaiderie assemblage was used to establish a series of codes for fabric, form and decoration (see Appendix). These were applied a decade later to the Bonded Store.

Brenda Dickinson and Kay Hartley have commented on the samian and mortaria respectively. Certain diagnostic amphorae sherds from La Plaiderie were also identified by David Williams. The Roman pottery from both sites is particularly fragmentary, indicating the heavy disturbance these sites have undergone. The acidic nature of the soils in Guernsey has also affected the condition. Rounded water-worn sherds are frequent among the assemblages from both sites, as well as badly abraded and soil-stained ones. There is a fresh water stream with a fluctuating water table at the Bonded Store and both sites lay close to the ancient shoreline, and thus were particularly exposed to weathering. Although the majority of the Roman sherds appear to be residual in later levels, both assemblages have been studied in as much detail as possible due to their significance for Roman studies both within and beyond Guernsey. Coarse pottery was quantified by sherd count (Table 4), with samian quantified separately. Coarse pottery and amphorae were also weighed at the Bonded Store, as were some groups at La Plaiderie. It was decided not to use estimated vessel equivalents (EVEs) due to the small size of deposits and the scrappy nature of much of the pottery. Guernsey has not yet yielded stratified deposits of sufficient size to produce a firm ceramic phasing.

Dating of the sites

The Bonded Store offers the best evidence for the late Iron Age to Roman transition, and has a stronger 1st-century component. The combined evidence of the coins, samian and mortaria attest to activity at La Plaiderie mainly from the later 1st through to the mid-/late 3rd century AD, while the samian and mortaria alone suggest there was a broadly contemporary period of activity at the Bonded Store. La Plaiderie has significantly more east Gaulish samian in the 3rd century, and more activity in the later Roman period. From the 1st century AD through to the end of the Roman period, both assemblages share essentially the same range of fabrics.

The late Iron Age and late Iron

Age/Roman transition

During the late Iron Age, the imported pottery consists of Italian wine amphorae and Armorican wares alongside locally made copies of the latter.

i) La Plaiderie

Activity at La Plaiderie cannot certainly be said to have taken place on the site itself until sometime around the second half of the 1st century BC/early 1st century AD. A few scraps of coarse pottery were found in poor condition and were indistinguishable on the basis of fabric alone either from pottery dating to the Roman period (fabrics TBF1 and AQR) or indeed the prehistoric (Bronze Age) material also found on the site. However, a solitary body sherd from a corrugated bowl, in a different and distinctive vesicular fabric, definitely does date to the late Iron Age. Such suspected local products have been found associated with a few Dressel 1 amphorae (Williams 1996, 51) and pottery types imported from Armorica (along with copies of these in local fabrics other than vesicular ware) on the site at King’s Road on the western edge of St Peter Port (Burns et al. 1996).

Table 4 The Bonded Store and La Plaiderie: summary of coarsewares.

Although no late Iron Age Armorican imports are present in the assemblage from La Plaiderie, the Dressel 1B amphora and the sherd of distinctive vesicular ware represent intriguing evidence for activity (the precise nature of which is unclear) dating to the late Iron Age. Allowing for the fact that the earlier Dressel 1A type may be present among the other four Italian amphorae from the assemblage, this late Iron Age activity can only be dated loosely to the period c.120–10 BC. A few scraps of vessels of Aquitainian origin in céramique fumigée (fabric SCFR) were also present. The third type of Armorican import also usually found associated with Italian Dressel 1 species amphorae is graphite-coated ware. This ware is probably also present but not immediately recognisa...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Acknowledgements
• I. The excavations
• II. The finds
• Bibliography
• Appendix: pottery codes