An Investigation of the Romano-British Pottery Industry on the North Kent Marshes
by Jason Monaghan, B.Sc.
The following is an outline of a project being undertaken for the postgraduate degree of Ph.D. in Archaeology at the London Institute of Archaeology. It is planned to be completed within the three years normally allocated for postgraduate research. It is totally funded by the Department of Education and Science and by the student, so no further financial assistance is required.
The North Kent Marsh industries remain one of the least understood of Romano-British coarse pottery centres. The project aims towards an understanding of its products and their dating and distribution. It is hoped that the end result will be a corpus of forms and fabrics which should aid all Roman archaeologists in Kent and London. The sites of principal interest are those near Upchurch and those of the Cooling-Cliffe peninsula. It will, of course, be necessary to look closely at other Kentish industries and so other local sites will be investigated, together with kilns in Essex and London.
A preliminary work was carried out during 1981-82 as an undergraduate report at the Institute. This used neutron activation analysis to determine the true provenance of the stray finds on Upchurch Marshes. During this time, some familiarisation with Kentish archaeology took place through useful contacts in local groups and museums. The analysis succeeded in proving that the Upchurch pottery was manufactured near where it was found and so confirmed the postulate of a large Romano-British pottery industry at Upchurch.
The first year of the research project will involve tracing the products of kilns and refuse from kiln dumps currently held by local groups and individuals in Kent and elsewhere. The collections of museums and rescue units will be checked to see the quantity of suspected North Kent wares they hold, and the manner in which this pottery is stored and recorded. Once the bulk of known pottery has been located, an assessment of each collection will be made. Sherds which are adequately published will be cursorily inspected in order to integrate form and fabric descriptions with those being adopted for the project. Groups who are making satisfactory progress in cataloguing their finds will be approached for statistical and typological details, and be offered any assistance the researcher can give. Several collections may, however, not now be having work done upon them through a lack of resources by their finders. In these cases, the researcher will offer to take over, or to assist in the documentation of the assemblage.
When a satisfactory corpus of forms known on kilnsites has been assembled, possibly after one year of working on the pottery itself, the investigation will progress to its next stage. Each fabric identified will be keyed to the Museum of London fabrics collection as a permanent reference. Using such references, the occurrence of the wares within and beyond Kent will be looked at. By this date, Richard Pollard's thesis should be available for inspection, thus much reducing the work that needs to be done on Kent itself. By the end of the year, a picture should be emerging of the industry as a commercial concern and statements could probably be made about their economics.
The third year should be spent collating and writing up the information gathered. It is also the time for looking at the related problems in the marsh sites, for example, the rise in sea level and the supply of fuel. A short NAA programme could be instituted in order to sort out remaining problems of assignation and identification. The whole would be rewritten shortly after it is moderated in the hope of seeing it published.
