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Measurement of two supposedly Iron Age shrines, using the passus, suggests that they are more likely to be Romano-British Temples.
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Who were the principal Roman land surveyors, and what did they do?
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Was Roman Broadland permanently under water or in the tidal zone? Recently collected evidence of Roman activity on marsh sediments makes this seem very unlikely.
1,592 K bytes Did the survey of the South Norfolk A cadastre extend to Lothingland? Evidence from cartography and aerial photography makes it look possible.
3,028 K bytes Following recent discoveries of Roman material in the "Great Estuary" of Broadland, its status as an intertidal or marine environment throughout the Roman period is debated.
86 K bytes An article on the orientation of Roman camps and forts, published in The Oxford Journal of Archaeology, based its conclusions on faulty statistical analysis. Its only verifiable claim is that the surveyors of Roman camps seem to have preferred orientations within ten degrees of the meridian. Its other claims are not supported. The supposed anomalies of orientation do not need to be explained.
Several systems of Roman land survey have been proposed in Britain. Some of them have remarkable and apparently consistent relationships with Roman roads and other military structures. Such evidence suggests that these surveys probably took place and formed the basis for systems of land administration. It is also possible that, as these cadastres were developed, the locations of some Roman military structures were planned with the aid of the maps that the surveys had produced. This planning created military landscapes, as an individual layer within a multi-layered landscape.
790 K bytes Interpretation of maps in the diagrams of the agrimensores needs to allow for the methods which may have been used to represent survey lines of limitatio, particularly when they were not expressed as physical divisions of centuriation on the ground. When this is recognised it becomes apparent that two authors, who appear to differ, may well have been describing a single process used for two purposes: fixing territorial boundaries and calculating the area of enclosed land.
1,020 K bytes Arguments against a prehistoric coaxial landscape in South Norfolk, and for the existence of a Roman cadastre, are extended to another area, in Hertfordshire, where a similar coaxial landscape has recently been presented by Tom Williamson. Careful study of this landscape shows that it too has the clear features of Roman land planning. Indeed, some of them are the predicted features of the Eastern 'A' cadastre, which was first defined (like that of South Norfolk) in 1987.
638 K bytes Virtual reality adds information to data calculated using a spreadsheet to suggest how the Arminghall Henge is related to its environment and to a significant astronomical event.
406 K bytes A study of the dimensions of early first century square funerary enclosures near the Roman town of Venta Icenorum leads to the conclusion that the Iceni gradually made them more Roman. The location of the monuments near the axes of a Roman cadastre and the apparent definition of the cadastral survey by the centre and axis of a Bronze Age Henge monument suggest that the agrimensores also wished to integrate the Prehistoric and Roman ritual landscape.
309 K bytes A centuriation is proposed, hypothetically originating at Canterbury. Roman roads in East Kent at 45 degrees seem to have been planned from it. There are modern landscape features over a wide area that may be surviving traces of its axes. These include boundaries at Ripe in East Sussex, approximately 80km from Canterbury. Ivan Margary suggested in 1940 that there was a relic of centuriation in this neighbourhood, and (despite a slight discrepancy in the perceived orientation) his hypothesis fits well into the proposed wider framework.
Small field systems may exist within a larger cadastre - often parallel to Roman roads. Two possible examples are identified in South Norfolk.
477 K bytes A statistical analysis of the distribution of Iron Age and Roman sites in Limburg (Netherlands) supports the proposal that a Roman land survey (centuriation) existed in the area.
524 K bytes Measurement of the association of Roman forts in South Wales with the quintarii of a limitatio centered at Cirencester indicate that they were deliberately positioned using its forma. The clearest association occurs with those forts probably established during Sextus Julius Frontinus' campaign. Given that he is almost certainly the same Frontinus responsible for a major surveying text, this is not surprising.
803 K bytes A Roman centuriated cadastre may include other Roman linear features - such as roads - which are oblique to the square grid, and appear to ignore it. But initial impressions are deceptive; there are several cases which reveal clear trigonometrical links. These relationships are unlikely to have occurred by chance and, supported by evidence from contemporary documentation, they indicate that the links were planned. If this is generally so, the presence of these trigonometrical relationships can suggest that a centuriated cadastre existed even if its grid is not immediately apparent.
Calculation of the position of intersection points of the Orange B cadastre allows it to be projected to the Cèze valley. A theoretical axis corresponds to a functioning road/drain.
In the last 90 years at least seven independent observers have seen areas of regularly arranged landscape, with a common orientation, in the area north and east of London. Some have taken this to be evidence of centuriation. Others have rejected the idea. A large proportion of these landscape elements fit a single computer-modelled hypothetical centuriation grid. Some Roman roads also fit the grid, obliquely. This evidence tends to confirm the hypothesis. Further confirmation could come from the investigation of straight features that fit the grid in the same way, but are not currently known to be Roman.
A numerical model of a centuriation is presented. If it is real, it covers the countryside between Venta Icenorum (near Norwich) and the southern border of Norfolk, and is partially visible in modern boundaries. Support for the idea comes from the configuration of Roman roads and existing road junctions.