Segedunum (Wallsend) Roman Fort: Reconstructed Baths - Changing Room, © Rikke D. Giles 2004

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.

Help Wanted!

It is the intention of the author/researcher and webmaster of this website to continue adding Roman military site data to the database, and analyzing and presenting that data here. Another goals is to include other types of sites beyond forts, such as fortlets, fortresses, watchtowers, marching camps, etc. If you have a Roman military site you are interested in having added to the database, or you are interested in adding sites to the database yourself, or have questions which have not (yet) been discussed on this site or in various associated publications, please contact the Research Admin.

And finally, if you are interested in expanding this database beyond Roman Britain into other parts of the Roman empire, and have suggestions about the military sites to be used in such work, please, again, contact the Research Admin.