The Ancients - Housesteads and Hadrian's Wall

Episode Date: July 5, 2020

Housesteads Roman Fort is one of the great, surviving treasures of Roman Britain. Once an auxiliary fort, it occupied a dominant position on Hadrian’s Wall. The Fort has proven vital in helping archaeologists and historians achieve a greater understanding about life on Hadrian’s Wall. From the worship of peculiar deities to everyday sanitation.To chat through Housesteads’ extraordinary archaeology and what it can tell us about life along this frontier, I’m joined by Professor Jim Crow from the University of Edinburgh. Jim has conducted excavations at several locations along Hadrian’s Wall, including Housesteads. He also lectured me a few years back, so it was great to catch up. 

Hi, I'm Tristan Hughes, and if you would like The Ancients ad-free, get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit. With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, including my recent documentary all about Petra and the Nabataeans, and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. Welcome to The Ancients, a new podcast dedicated to all things, well, ancient. I'm Tristan Hughes, and in each episode I'll be chatting with a world's leading historian or archaeologist about our distant past. The art, the architecture, the battles,

the larger-than-life personalities, events that have helped shape the world we live in today. From Neolithic Britain to the fall of Rome, from the Assyrians to Alexander the Great. Today I'm joined by Jim Crow. Jim is a professor at the University of Edinburgh. He's a Roman archaeologist and he lectured me a few years back when I was studying at Edinburgh University. And in particular today we're going to be talking about Hadrian's Wall and Halstead's Roman Fort. Jim has done excavations along the length of the wall, particularly at Sycamore Gap, that famous tree where all those postcards are

taken. But for this podcast we are talking mainly about about Halstead, the amazing archaeology that has survived at that Roman fort, the latrines, the barracks, the wall itself, and what all this amazing archaeology can tell us about life on the frontier. Enjoy. Jim Crow, it's a pleasure to have you on the show. Hello. Hi, Tristan. We haven't seen me for a long time. No, no. For all those listening, Jim was once my professor at the University of Edinburgh, and I have many fond memories. So we're here today to talk about the archaeology of Hadrian's Wall, some of the most remarkable in the entirety of the Roman Empire, would you say? Yeah, I mean, Hadrian's Wall, in terms of its preservation and also the longevity of its study, is the best known frontier in the Roman Empire. It's convenient that it's not as long as the frontiers in Germany and elsewhere. And it's more accessible than some of the frontiers

in North Africa and in, say, Syria. And it has been studied since Elizabethan times. And in some ways, that's one of the challenges of Hadrian's Wall, is that you need to be aware of what folks have said in the past. There's a real depth of scholarship. And it's important that even working in the 21st century, we don't just look at what we can see today, but we're also alert to what people have studied in the past. And you mentioned this depth of scholarship. So for some of these famous forts along Hadrian's Wall, had there been excavations occurring over more than 100 years ago? Well, houses itself, it's not the earliest fort to be excavated, but it certainly,

excavations started there. I mean, quite serious, and you could almost say scientific excavations in the 1820s by a local clergyman, the Reverend John Hodgson. And Hodgson's work was actually very significant, actually much more significant in terms of results and the way he published them than later on in the 19th century. And then subsequently, Halstead's became the focus for quite extensive, not really scientific excavations, but clearances. And then right at the end of the 19th century, in 1898, the Newcastle Society of Antiquaries funded an excavation which was led by a young academic from Oxford, a man called Reginald Bozenkert, who later on became professor at Liverpool. And he effectively excavated over one season and provided for the first time, almost for the first time, a complete plan of a Roman fort. Certainly the first complete plan of a Roman fort from

Hadrian's Wall. Is this what makes Halsted so significant? Do you think its construction is similar to other forts along Hadrian's Wall or does it look iconic in its design? There are certain aspects which are distinctive but what's critical about Housesteads is that and this may apply to other forts and certainly the excavations at Vindolanda which although it's not on the wall is very close to the wall and had a life along with the wall but Housesteads has the great advantage is that it was after the Romans left there was very very little activity on the site. There was a limited amount of agricultural activity from the 16th century onwards.

And then in the 18th and 19th centuries, there was just one single farmstead on the fort. I mean, it's remarkable to think that in Roman times, there were perhaps up to 1,500 people living there. And then after the Romans, after the empire had fallen and all the rest of it, after that period, the site was completely deserted. Now, this is comparable to what we, of course, we can find in other parts of the Roman world. I mean, Syria or North Africa.

But it's fairly unusual in that sense that we do have this sort of remarkable level of preservation. So the level of preservation is in part due, as you said, because of the post-Roman abandonment of this site. Yeah, sure. I mean, other sites were abandoned and not occupied, but Halstead's, because it's fairly isolated, it was a less obvious place to go and steal stones from. So when Antiquaries went there in the, the first significant Antiquaries went there in the, the first significant Antichrist went there in the early 18th century, what astonished them really was the level of preservation.

You know, there were sculptures lying around, there were bits of buildings sticking out of the soil and it was a remarkable scene. And particularly as this was the beginning of the sort of the enlightenment and the fascination with the classical world, it was like having your own ancient ruin, your own relic of Rome,

pretty much like an obvious, you know, recognisable relic of Rome in a very remote and quite desolate place, certainly from an 18th century perspective. Wow. And of course, in the early 19th century or 18th century, obviously they don't have the technological advances

we have today. So these finds, these monuments and stuff, were they visible to the naked eye? Oh yeah, there was a lot that could be seen. That was basically the situation in the 18th century. And then from the early 19th century onwards, we have then various programmes of excavations or what really ought to be called diggings, because what they were trying to do was not to so much discover what the archaeology revealed, but rather to reveal the monumental structures. In other words, the walls, the gates, the main buildings, the granaries and so forth.

Fascinating. Hundreds of years of archaeological history. With all these excavations, what do we now know about the initial construction of Halstead's Roman fort? Well, Halstead's, like several forts, was, well, like all the forts on the wall, was secondary to the initial planning of the wall. And there's a continuing debate about what this means. And I'm not sure I really want to go into that, because there's so much speculation. But at the same time, at Halstead, we can see very clearly that initially the wall was constructed. One of the turrets was built on what was going to be the site of the fort, and there was a castle not very far to the west of the fort. This is part of the regular system of small towers and small forts

with gates, which were situated every mile along the wall. So the construction of the wall as a barrier started, and it was what we call the Broad Wall. So it was about eight to ten feet, well, in old money, wide, but it was only constructed as we can see it as a foundation. It was never completed as a proper wall. We're not sure whether the turret, the tower which was built over by the fort, how far it was actually completed. But then what clearly happened was construction work started not so much on the wall itself, but on the building of forts with garrisons on the line of the wall. So this whole narrative, if you like, the structural narrative of how the wall evolved and how the planning system evolved is recognisable very clearly at Halsteads.

And then once the fort walls have been constructed, and it has a very characteristic rectangular shape with sort of curved corners like a playing card. Once that had been constructed then the line of Hadrian's Wall was brought up to the line of the fort so we have this sort of sequence and we can recognise a similar sequence at other places and yet in some other places it's somewhat different. So we're fairly sure that houses is one of what we call the primary forts on the line of the wall, whereas in other instances, the forts were clearly built after the wall itself had been completed. So there's a complexity, which is important

for those who are interested in trying to disentangle the process of construction, and what factors may have influenced this. And there's a continuing and still a lively debate about this amongst scholars. I mean, talking about the factors which may have influenced its construction, when you visit somewhere like Halstead, you know, atop that hill, as it were, and how far it can look into the north, do you think there was a strategic reason behind why they built Halst where it is yeah i think the i mean the the mark us and turret system of the wall is very regular i mean it's irregular in one or two places but it's principally very regular every mile there was a little fort with a gate which

had probably between 8 and 15 men as a garrison and then there were these towers two towers between each of the markers so that was very regular across the whole of the Isthmus between effectively the mouth, towards the mouth of the Tyne and towards Carlisle and then beyond Carlisle along the Solway, along the Cumberland coast. So the whole line of Hadrian's Wall, what the Romans saw as 80 Roman miles, 76 modern British miles, there were this regular system of Markastles and towers. Now the system of forts was slightly more reflexive. It was pragmatic in that they weren't at specifically at eight mile intervals. They were modified. And so, you know, there was a fort at Chester's at the crossing of the North Tyne where there was a bridge.

So you have a fort next to the bridge. At Halstead's, the fort is on, as you mentioned, on the hill, but beside it is a valley. And that valley was actually initially blocked up by the wall, like all the little valleys in the line of the crags were blocked. But more importantly, there was a good water supply coming from the north. And one of the key factors for Halsteads, houses which has been recognized but i think can be studied more is this whole question that houses is a rather it's a slightly difficult place to build a fort because it's on the top of a hill which has no decent water so if you're going to have a garrison and a community associated with a garrison which is maybe a thousand maybe more

they're going to need regular access to decent water. And remember, the Romans needed their baths. So I think the particular location of houses is close to water, but at the same time, it's a position which is tactically reasonably strong. It's not impregnable, but at least it's got a very good view to the south, a view to the north. So in terms of its location, there's been some careful thinking about it. You mentioned the water supply just then. So in terms of its location, there's been some careful thinking about it. You mentioned the water supply just then. So let's keep on the logistics idea, because that is absolutely fascinating. How did they keep Halstead supplied? Was there a road network? Well, there were roads. I mean, with the construction of the wall, there was a road behind the wall, which we call the military way. And preceding the building of the wall, there was a road behind the wall, which we call the military way. And preceding the building of the wall, there was already a Roman communication network from Corbidge in the east,

which is where the main Roman road from York crosses the River Tyne. So there was this road called the Stain Gate, well, we call it the Stain Gate, it's the medieval name, which ran from Corbidge as far as Carlisle and perhaps beyond. And that's the road that goes through Vindolanda. So it's set back a little from the line of Hadrian's Wall, but relatively close to the line of the wall. So that was one of the main communication systems. And then there was this road which linked all the Marcastles Towers and forts, which was just set back a little way from the wall itself. And then there were link roads. And we know there was a link road between Halstead, say, and Vindolanda.

So there was a link road from Vindolanda up to Halsted and the line of the Stone Gate. So communications were important because, you know, Halsted is in a landscape which is certainly since medieval times has been largely pastoral rather than arable. There's very good preservation, and we can see a lot just by looking at the landscape

and looking in the right sort of ways and recognizing the physical features so we know there are lots of communications and then there would have been routes from hausted to the north and significantly originally hausted had a gate in the one gate in the north on the north wall but then that was changed a little later by the construction of a gate in the gap just to the east, which is called the Nagburn, through which this water supply runs. And that gate was then constructed because the other gate was found to be sort of rather impractical. That tells us that communications through the wall at the forts was actually important to the Romans. Communications through the wall at the Marcos was less important, but communications through the wall at the forts was important. And in turn,

that suggests to us that, you know, the garrisons in the wall were not simply there to sit on their bottoms and play games. They were actually potentially to be active north of the wall as well. So that sounds like one of the great confusions that might emerge. It wasn't just the garrison was there on Hadrian's Wall to defend against possible attacks from the north. Were they, with these gates, were they managing people coming through from the south to the north and from the north to the south? debate. And to be fair, there's a lot of speculation about this. Potentially, they could have been. And certainly in the past, when the Roman presence was seen as, let's say, a rather more positive aspect of life in Northern Britain, then it was argued that the Narrowbone Gate was there so that the Romans could communicate more effectively with the British populations who live north of the wall. I think these days, we're not necessarily, well, not everybody, but certainly many scholars are taking a slightly more negative view

of the Roman presence. The Romans weren't there for the good of the local British population. They were there for their own good primarily and for ensuring the effective security of the province to the south. And in able to actually achieve that, they then had to, I mean, they would have had to have been much more active to the north. So I think the gates were there as much as anything for practical, military, tactical and strategic reasons. Fair enough. With regards to the garrison stationed at Halsted, what do we know about these soldiers?

What we know about the garrisons for the most part, I mean, archaeology is getting rather clever these days and it's using all sorts of scientific techniques. So we can identify from bones, we can identify where people grew up and all that sort of thing. However, we don't have any bones from Halsted's and we don't have many bones from which we can identify as soldiers' bones from Hadrian's Wall, in fact. That's one of the big gaps. And there are parts of Roman Britain where we know, where we have scientific evidence, which suggests we have a very sort of cosmopolitan population coming in from across the Roman world. Fine. So on Hadrian's Wall, for the most part, we have to rely on other methods. And there are lots of sources. And primarily, this is the evidence derives most of all from inscriptions. And there are a whole range of inscriptions. And one of the

advantages of somewhere like Houses is because it was abandoned, because nobody was there, and because it's a bit cold in the winter and so it never has a very significant population um it has a very extensive hall of written stones a whole range of things some of these are rather sort of their official inscriptions and they tell us about emperors and governors and and officers and the construction of buildings. Sometimes they tell us that sometimes they're tombstones and they give us the names of people and so forth. And so there's this very large and extensive range of what we refer to as the epigraphic record. And this extends right up to the later third century. So on that basis, we've got a pretty good idea of the type of, you know,

what unit was in garrison there. So we don't have to speculate who was there. And we know that the unit that was in garrison there for most of the time was the first cohort of Tungrians who were originally raised in what is now southeastern Belgium. And they were German speakers, although it's on the cusp of Germany so rather than speaking a Celtic language they spoke a Germanic language that's originally so we know about them and at one stage they were in before they moved to Halstead before the construction of the fort at Halstead they were actually in garrison at Vindolanda so we can track them we can move around now what's puzzling to some scholars is that they seem to

be there all the time, and they continue to be there right up until the end of the Roman rule, whereas many people in the past have said, oh no, they must have moved them around, because we know in other instances, there was quite a lot of churn amongst the garrisons, you know, they were moved around, there were military reasons to move people out, and after all, you know, Hadrian's Wall was built, and then within a few years of its construction, all, you know, Hadrian's Wall was built. And then within a few years of its construction, and after the death of Hadrian, the Romans then started to build another wall in Scotland, which we call the Antonine Wall. And presumably, at least part of the garrison from Halsted, and we know about these, again, there's some inscriptions from there,

we know that some of that unit was up on the Antonine Wall. But they then seem to have come back to Halsted. The next question, though, is to what extent was this unit, which had originally been raised in Belgium, let's say, in Tungria, near the sound of Tong, that's the same name, to what extent were these people, did they still bring in people from Tungria or where were the recruits for the unit there? And there's been a lot of discussion about that over the years. It used to be the case that people had presumed that the majority of the people were recruited locally in Britain. And there is evidence for that. But from house dates, it's quite interesting that from the

excavations in the 1970s, and from looking at some of the various other inscriptions, there's an extensive number, or a number, let's say, of German names, which are much more typical of people who lived in Tungria than the people who would live in Roman Britain. So that sort of implies that there was a link still between Tungria and Hadrian's Wall. But I think before people accept that, I mean, we're going to have to get something slightly, a bit of scientific evidence would help. But having said that, there's lots of evidence for,

there's significant evidence for a whole range of different sorts of people there in the later Roman period as well. So is Hausta a good example of the frontier, but also the interconnected global nature of the Roman Empire? Well, I think I would be the first to say it is. In terms of, I've already mentioned that they brought in, there still seemed to be some connection between Tangria, which isn't very far after all, and Hadrian's Wall. But we also know from houses that there were other German units in the third century. And these are slightly different. They're not the standard sort of auxiliary unit who was which made up the garrisons for Hadrian's Wall. made up the garrisons for Hadrian's Wall.

And these are slight, some of these come from Frisia, which is actually Eastern Holland and Northern Germany, which is outside of the Roman Empire. And they have slightly more outlandish names. And they also worship some pretty peculiar by Roman British standards

gods. So there's a whole shrine at Housesteads dedicated to Mars, who was, of course, the Roman god of war. But he's called Mars Thinkscus, which is a German name. And he's actually associated with the Germanic god of war. And he has on various inscriptions, there's some terrific inscriptions now at the Museum of Manchesterester, plus a really exciting relief, which is associated with Mars and together with a whole group of female goddesses

who are the same as the Valkyries. So the same Valkyries who appear in Norse mythology and in Wagnerian opera, there's somebody with a name almost like Brunhilde there. So this demonstrates the numbers of sort of Germans who were in houses in the third century, and they brought with their own gods. So religion is a good way of trying to define this connectivity. And the other thing which is really, I mean, apart from the sort of standard range of Oriental cults that you find at houses like Mithraism,

which you find elsewhere on Hadrian's Wall. And there's a very fine Mithraic sculpture from houses, although the Mithraeum itself, which was excavated at the very bit early in the 19th century by John Hodgson. In addition, there's a less impressive inscription. If you go into the New Museum in Newcastle, it doesn't sort of wow you until you actually look at the text. And this is an inscription which is about a vow to the god Apollo. Fine, okay, Apollo is one of the pantheon of the Roman Greek gods. But it's a particular shrine of Apollo in Klaros. Now, Klaros is in what is now Western Turkey. In other words,

it's Western Asia Minor. It's that sort of very rich, very, I mean, it's part of the Greek world, basically. So this reflects a vow to the Klarian Apollo. And we find inscriptions like this, not just on Hadrian's Wall, but we also find inscriptions in North Africa. And so there's this link all going back to this shrine in what is Western Turkey. And that's just one of those sort of exciting bits of connectivity, which I think, for me, is what makes the study of the Roman frontier in Britain interesting. the study of the Roman frontier in Britain interesting. It's not necessarily all the sort of military stuff, but it's that the world had suddenly been expanded so radically.

And these links, these connections, that's what makes it thrilling. That's really remarkable. And is similar evidence to this repeated at other places along Hadrian's Wall? Yeah, in different sorts of ways. I mean, the other obvious one is from South Shields, which is by the mouth of the Tyne, and from Corbridge itself, which is set back from the wall, but was a town on the crossing of the River Tyne. Now, for Corbridge, you have an inscription, a tombstone, and from South

Shields you have another tombstone, and they refer to an individual, it may not be the same individual, maybe just be the name is the same, but the man's name, just as these names like these German names, this man's name is really exciting because it comes from Palmyra. In other words, it comes from the Syrian desert, and Palmyra was the great trading centre. You know, sadly, it's the place that got smashed by ISIS a few years ago. But, you know, that great city, that great oasis city, that trading city, which linked the Arabian Gulf with the Mediterranean, and then from there linked the rest of the Roman world.

There are two inscriptions where we know there were definitely Palmyrenes, one at South Wales, one at Corbridge. And the one at South Wales is more impressive because it shows a marriage with a British woman from southeast England, a freed woman. And now that's really, that's interesting in a different way. But the one from Corbridge, in terms of this sort of linkage, I think, think to my mind is more exciting because it mentions that this man who was called Baratis was a vexillarius now a vexillum is a flag and it could be he was a flag bearer but it's not too convincing why you should have a Palmyraian flag bearer it's a long way to carry the standard you know joining the flag and all that um it's been suggested not by me but by other scholars in the past that what it actually is

is a flag seller okay that's fine because we know that we know that roman units had vexilla they had these flags and we have representations for instance there's a splendid representation on one of the um the stones that were set up along the line of the Antonine Wall. But the point about these vexilla is that many of them were made of silk. And silk was not from the Roman world, but was from China. So you potentially have this link between silk, which at that stage was still only made in, it was later on, of course, from the 6th century, it came to be produced in the Eastern Roman Empire. But silk, which was made in China, was being traded through Palmyra, which we know of. And that may be the explanation why we get these Palmyrians on Hadrian's Wall, because they were flogging silk to the garrisons along the line of the wall. And all part of this great sort of connected link, which drags us from, you know,

the very eastern part of Eurasia to pretty much the west. That's amazing. So these Germanic soldiers stationed in house deads could go down to the town to go to a trader who himself may have come from Palmyra or somewhere else in the empire to buy goods, which have come from even further away beyond the borders of the empire? It's possible, yes. We haven't got any traces, as far as I know, we haven't got any traces of silt from Hagen's Wall.

We have silt later on, but it's much, much later. So, but yes, there is a certain, you know, I mean, as I say, it's beginning to be a little hypothetical there. And I'd be the first to admit it. But at the same time, you know, these links existed and we know they did. So it's it's pretty astonishing, isn't it? And the Clarion Apollo one is similarly, it's these religious links. is simile. It's these religious links. And these must be sort of directives which come from the state for the health of the emperor. And therefore, you then record that you set up this inscription, which, you know, sets up and records that you have prayed for the emperor and you've understood

this particular vow that comes from Kleros. And the dates of these findings, do they come at the time of the height of the empire rather than the late period? Yeah, I mean, Kleros. And the dates of these findings, do they come at the time of the height of the empire rather than the late period? Yeah, I mean, Kleron and Apollo is not entirely sure. I think it's late second or very early third. Baratis, we can't date, but I think stylistically the Baratis in South Shields is more likely to be the same sort of period, late second and early third century. That's the high point of when these connections, you know. And, of course, in the early 3rd century, an entire emperor and all his quarrelsome kids came visiting

and Septimius Severus was campaigning in northern, well, well beyond the wall into what is now Scotland. So, you know, there was a lot of stuff around at that period. But that's not the explanation. It's just a very active and sort of dynamic period in terms of the history of the war. Oh, definitely. My god sent to me Severus in a bit

because obviously he does quite a bit of a shake-up to the wall, some places in the wall. But going away from the military part of it, what do we know of the non-military population that lived alongside forts such as Halstead's on Hadrian's Wall? Well, once again, we've got two main sources of evidence. We've got the epigraphic evidence, and there's certainly epigraphic evidence, there's names, and there's evidence for people who are not soldiers, women, children, and there are a number of tombstones which indicate that.

And then houses, again, has always been significant in terms of excavations because it was the first site where there was an extensive attempt to excavate the area outside of the fort, on the south side of the fort, which is known as the Vicus, which is the civil settlement. Now, all the forts on Hadrian's Wall have civil settlements. And, you know, research over the last couple of decades using geophysics at other places like Bird Oswald and elsewhere have demonstrated the extent of the civil settlements. However, Halsted's still remains one of the best excavated examples, the other one, of course, being Vindolanda. So we know quite a lot about the civil settlement

immediately south of the South Gate, although only part of it could be excavated in the 1930s and there'd be no attempt to excavate it since then. Although in some ways that would be an area which would be, you know, I think could be very potentially informative because we know that parts of it are well preserved. But that tells us that there are well-organised structures and buildings and buildings which have been interpreted

as taverns and all sorts of things immediately outside of the fort. And so there would have been a significant community which would have grown up from Hadrianic times onwards, but particularly probably from the middle of the 2nd up until the end of the third century, which represented this community outside the fort. So when I speak earlier of a community, a broader community of perhaps over one and a half thousand people living at Halstead, it includes the civilians as well as the soldiers. In further regards to that, with the Romans, other forts along the length of Hadrian's Wall,

is there, I mean, when you look at places like Vindolanda, when you look at South Shields, and you're able to compare the sites and the neighbouring vicuses, can you see evident similarities between them? Oh, yeah. I mean, the similarities and differences. And I think one of the problems with Roman studies is that everybody thinks everything's the same. Because essentially, certainly in the second and early third century, most Roman forts are pretty similar.

Although the Vindolanda isn't, actually. It forever bucks the trend. It's a very peculiar case, but set that one aside. But in terms of the wall forts, they are relatively similar. There are slight variations in size and so forth. But the Vicky, I think the extent of the Vicky has come as quite a surprise to scholars over the last, as I say, 20 years or so, that at places like Maryport, on the Cumbrian coast, at Bird Oswald, that are places like Maryport on the Cumbrian coast at Bird Oswald and other places where these surveys were carried out and and also more limited I mean obviously South Shields is is

slightly south of the wall but South Shields the problem there is that it's within an area which has been quite extensively occupied it's you know there's a modern town all around it so within the area of the Vickers although there have been excavations in the Vickers, the extent is much more restricted than somewhere like Halsteads. So the variations, which is what your question is, there is some variations, but there is a fairly uniformity. And then when you come to Corbridge,

what you have is not a Vickers as such, but something which is pretty close to a town. So there's probably greater variety in somewhere like Corbridge than you would find than say at Halsteads or if you would come to excavate somewhere like Bird Oswald. Fascinating. Now, I must ask this question. Why are the latrines at Halsteads Roman Fort so significant? Ah, well, I think it's partly because they're so well preserved. And also, they have been known and they were excavated. I think they were first excavated in the 19th century. And then they were investigated in much greater detail

before the First World War by an archaeologist. And a very good plan was published, although he didn't actually get around to publishing it until about 50 years after the excavation unfortunately so there's a very good plan of the of the latrines and it's very complex and part of the complexity is the problem it has is of not having a good water supply so not only do you have this uh very sort of substantial latrine in the southeast corner of the fort but you also have these water tanks all

around it which were clearly for the storage of water in order to flush it because you know the garrison houses at full strength it probably wasn't ever at full strength but it was potentially had about 800 men which is um quite a lot of um sewage to dispose of and if the basic way of flushing this place is, you know, rainwater, at Chester's, there is a latrine and it's associated with the bath building, but the latrine at Chester's is actually flushed by the water coming out of the baths. And Chester's is actually fed by an aqueduct. So there's a regular supply of water, whereas Halstead's is largely reliant on rainwater harvesting in other words what can be collected in cisterns and in the north of the whole of Britain the last month we've had no rain so in a situation like that at Halstead's it must have got jolly smelly basically

whereas everybody says oh it always rains at Halstead's well it can and I worked up there and I can vouch for it. But at the same time, there are periods of time when it doesn't rain so much. So that's why we have water tanks and other things. So in terms of the actual monumentality of it, it reflects the fact that the Romans were really very well organised. They recognised that in terms of toilet facilities, you needed to focus them in one place. you had a problem a hygienic problem as well as a sort of an odor problem so they they created this latrine that i have to say that um if you wanted to go for a pee i'm not sure you needed to trek down to the southeastern corner

because we do know for instance in commanding officers houses and things there are there are very often broken pots in corners of rooms and i suspect they were used as sort of urinals, shall we say. So like most of the past, it was smelly. We live in a very sort of sanitised world. At the same time, the latrines are impressive in that they are very well structured, well organised, and were a real attempt to ensure that the waste products were disposed of in a proper way. I mean this whole idea of Romanness within the fort with its layout is very iconic as a Roman fort. Compared to outside the fort's walls with the vicus and with the local British population, how much integration do you think was there between the local Brigantes

tribe and those who occupied forts such as Halsted's? This is actually the $10,000 question that still there is no, there's not even a beginning to get an answer for. I mean, one way obviously would be through a significant cemetery where we could look at this sort of DNA and all sorts of other things, stable isotopes and so forth. The other side don't speak. The Romans do. So we have a one sided picture. You know, there's a Roman voice, but there's no local voice. In many ways, the evidence for interaction is quite slight. In the past, I think in the heydays of the, well, the final days of the British Empire, scholars like to think there was greater interaction between the local populations and the Romans than I think we do now. And I think we recognise that the situation was pretty much them and us.

And the Romans were one side and the local peoples, the Brigantes or whoever they were, the Votidini further to the east and so on. They seem to have stepped aside, stepped back so far as we can tell. But it's, as I say, it's still a key problem. And there's new discussions, but not entirely convinced by what people are saying. And there are changes. Houses, in any case, is not in a densely occupied area before the Romans arrive. We do know of small farmsteads of Roman Iron Age date. In other words, they're essentially the Iron Age communities, but they're at a Roman time.

But with the exception of one at Milking Gap, which is a little to the west of Houses, none of these have ever been excavated. And the Milking Gap example is slightly unusual in that it lies very close to the wall, in the zone between the wall and the vallum, which lies to the south. And that clearly seems to have gone out of occupation lies very close to the wall in the zone between the wall and the Valum, which lies to the south. And that clearly seems to have gone out of occupation by the middle of the second century.

So it didn't really last very long. But then, you know, we don't know what the Valum was really for, but it seems to have defined a military zone, a protected military zone. So you can well understand the Romans didn't want to encourage these people to still live there. Whereas there are other settlements to the south and to the north of the wall. But as I say, we haven't excavated them. So we don't really know much about the chronology. And in any case, the chronology is much more difficult to work out. Because within a Roman fort, the chronology is, you know, we have coins, inscriptions, we have pots. And on the basis of a whole range of artifacts, we get a pretty good idea of a relatively close sonology within you know a few decades but when we get into the the non-roman world the roman

iron age world of the local populations that they sometimes have a few roman artifacts but we don't know how they're using them and we certainly don't have the range of roman artifacts and so we're reliant then on on prehistoric methods or archaeological methods of dating. And up until recently, there's been very little attempt to use radiocarbon dates systematically on these sites, partly because it's expensive. And until we have a much more extensive use of radiocarbon dates,

we're going to be pretty... The picture's never going to be very clear. There has been an exercise, and this is the difference between the area around Houses and further to the east, close to Newcastle, excavations, a number of excavations over the last 15 years, where they were part of projects which were funded by developers, you know, commercial archaeology. There, because it was commercial archaeology,

they were able to bring in a range of dating techniques. And so we have lots of dates from very significant settlements to the north of Newcastle. And the story that they give is very interesting. But it's not necessarily the same story as we're getting in the central sector. And in any case, nobody wants to build a housing estate, fortunately, it has this. So that means there isn't that commercial resource that can be used by the archaeologists. Well, hopefully, further archaeological excavations will unravel those mysteries. Yeah, hopefully.

Hopefully. I mean, that's fascinating. Going towards the end of the Roman occupation, of course, you mentioned Vinterlander. It's the exception, obviously. It looks like it becomes a castle after the Romans, when the soldier farmers are cut off, as it were, when the Romans leave. But at Halsted's, it sounds like it's a very different picture. Yeah, the world changes from the later third century after about the 270s, 280s, because it's quite clear all along the line of Hadrian's Wall, the settlements that were outside the forts were abandoned. You know, we know there's some coins and the coins just stop. The coins continue inside the forts right up until the end of the 4th century.

But outside the forts, there just aren't any coins. And this is true of Vindolanda, this is true of Halstead, and it's true of other places that have been investigated. So basically the Viki no longer... So what happens to those communities who lived in the external settlements, the extramural settlements, we don't know. It has been suggested in the past that these people moved in with the soldiers inside the forts, but there's actually not a lot of evidence. And the recent publication of the excavations at Housesteads, which were carried out in the 1970s,

has tended to sort of cool down the idea of a sort of a mixed community within the forts in the fourth century. I mean, there may well have been soldiers in their families, but they're not actually showing up too well. So what happens at Halsteads after the Romans, if you like, when, well, basically when they start getting paid, because that's the critical moment, because presumably up to about 390 you've still got a garrison there who are perhaps not as regular as all that still receiving payments payments in kind or payments in money because there's still money floating around and there's still pottery being imported from northern britain so there's still there's still a sort of trading connection

between the consumers on the wall if you like the people who are producing the pottery in northern Britain and in some cases further beyond. So there are these connections. So obviously they're still, I mean, I wouldn't say they're as thriving as they were in the third century, but they're still continuing. is that the fort itself undergoes a number of changes in terms of both in terms of the internal organization but also in terms of the external defenses the defenses are restored the gates are made stronger there are more towers and so on we can follow that that narrative up till around about 400 but then we're not very clear what happens after that we don't have the evidence that they have from Vindolanda in terms of inscriptions and other evidence which suggests

there are certainly communities living at Vindolanda into the 5th century. So we've got no physical evidence from Hausteds in terms of artefacts, which you do have at Vindolanda. What we do have at Hausteds, and this is intriguing, is that there's a building which is clearly very late, which was excavated in 1898, and we know of from plans and photographs, which has an apse. It's set aside, it's not very large, it has an apse which points to the east. Very close to that building is one of these water tanks, but inside the water tank is a burial which was inserted.

Now, the actual bones haven't survived and we don't know when it was discovered but there's clear traces that there's a a burial which is of a of a late roman early medieval type which is a kiss burial in other words it's lined with stones so this is very close to this rectangular building with the apps and it's been well i suggested that in fact what we have here is actually a church and then subsequently it was suggested that there was there's a building at vinderlander was a church and another building which was possibly a small they're really just small chapels from houses we've got no other christian evidence but they now have some evidence which was subsequently

found at vinderlander again suggesting a christian presence and they also have this post-roman Latin inscription, also from Vindolanda. So there's certainly evidence from Vindolanda of a community continuing into the 5th century and possibly later. Houses are more difficult to see. But there is this late evidence for some form of potentially Christian shrine

and also some other slight buildings on the remains of the late Roman barracks. Fascinating. I found it remarkable what you've said over the last hour, how much we know about Roman life on the frontier from house deads, but also how many mysteries still abound. Yeah, what we still want to know. Yes. No, that's the best it's not just the fascination but it's the challenge as well um and it's a challenge now in you know it's a sort of different sort of um world insofar that well it's even worse in the contemporary world with this current pandemic but in terms of the resources which are going into archaeology these days, you know, over the last 25 years, with the exception of Vindolanda and some excavations at places like Bird Oswald and Maryport,

most of what we know about the new evidence from Hadrian's Wall comes from commercially funded excavations and also the excavations at South Shields. One of the things we need to rebalance in overall studies of Hadrian's Wall, I think, is that we've learned a great deal about what's happening in the east, basically in the Newcastle area, both north and south at the time, and also in some sites on the west. And previously, the central part of Hadrian's Wall, which includes Vindolanda, and of course, there have been much continuing excavations of Vinterlander,

which are continuing to reveal new and new evidence every year. But we also perhaps need to refocus onto the central sector so that we can sort of, what we know about the central sector, previously we knew much more about the central sector, but now we're finding things elsewhere. And we need to sort of focus our questions and say, how do we see what's happening there? And is this happening elsewhere along the line of the wall, so we get a much greater holistic picture? I mean, that's one of the problems. So Sunrise Houses still has the potential. But of course, we then have to find

out who's, you know, well, Historic England or English Heritage, whoever is the current manager, you know, how far they're prepared to finance it. That's not to say that a national body like Historic England isn't prepared to fund excavations because they have, you know, I'm not, I don't want to criticise them because in a period, after a period of significant national austerity, they have still retained major projects, whether they're projects in the West or projects elsewhere in Britain. So they're working in a much tighter budget and in a different sort of environment than when, for instance, the Newcastle project was working in the 1970s. Well, I hope and I'm sure there'll be very good news in the aftermath of this pandemic for the central section of Hadrian's Wall. And Jim, you are definitely doing your part of your excavations. pandemic for the central section of Hadrian's Wall and Jim you are definitely doing your parts of your excavations. Before I started teaching at Newcastle I had for a younger man a great job of

excavating the line of Hadrian's Wall for the National Trust between Castle Nick and Sycamore Gap and the bits that have now become pretty iconic in all the postcards. I think there's even a, you can even get a jigsaw puzzle of Castle Nick. But yeah, so I excavated the wall and excavated the Marr Castle at Castle Nick, that's 39, excavated the wall in front of the tree at Sycamore Gap. That was until Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves came along and made it much more well known internationally. And also I excavated the section of wall at Peel Gap, which is a section of wall with a tower in it. So yeah, those are excavations which I'm returning to and trying to get published hopefully by the end of this year. Fantastic. I look forward to reading that in the near future.

Jim, thanks so much for coming on the show. Pleasure. And I wish you all the best.