Welcome! Dive In!
Welcome to Functional and Spatial Analysis of Small Finds from Roman Military Sites! This website began as a way to provide access to the data and results used in the study which is the subject of the book Roman Soldiers and the Roman Army. That study has since grown and expanded, and hopefully will continue to do so!
Purpose of this Site
Functional and spatial analyses of artefacts are two methods that can be used to examine the behavioral activities which created an archaeological site. On this website the two methods are used to examine the activities of Roman soldiers in Roman military sites. At the moment most of the sites used in this examination are forts; however it is the intention of the researcher to add data from fortresses, fortlets, etc, as time permits. Additionally, the data currently concerns only the northern part of the Roman province of Britannia. Once again, the intention is to eventually add data from other areas of the Roman Empire. If you have any areas or sites you are interested in adding, let the researcher(s) know.
The development of functional and spatial analyses used in this research and their theoretical underpinnings are not examined in detail on this website. Neither is the process by which the data was computerized and analyzed in a database. That information can be found in the book, Roman Soldiers and the Roman Army, and in forthcoming article(s), listed on the publications page.
Another goal of the study was to make the discoveries at 'old' Romano-British military sites, those excavated before the rise and establishment of the computer era, available for use with computers. This goal is accomplished with the publication of this website, although access to the 'raw' data, that is the data coming from the published reports for each site, is still being coded for the website. At this point in time the analyzed data and particulars from each site used in the study can be found in the sites portion of the website.