10-06-2013, 06:19 PM
Quote:I'm just reading Robin Birley's book 'Vindolanda' and in it he describes the contents found in an entire barrack block, room by room (circa 105 AD to 122 AD). Its an auxiliary barrack block, and includes the infamous womens and childrens shoes. If anyone is interested in what was found dropped by soldiers going about their everyday business, I will type the results up and post them here.Sadly that's not how archaeological deposition works. What you find in forts is no more a snapshot of everyday life than what was dug up in Pompeii is 'everyday life in a seaside town'. It certainly contains things that were used in everyday life, but they are charged with an unknown number of unknown variables, thrashed with a large, blind randomiser, and then sifted through a Sod's Law filter. That's what you get when you dig up a site, if you're lucky... usually, it's way more complex than that ;-)
Mike Bishop