09-08-2013, 10:37 AM
Quote:we are not talking about 100 years of Romano/British occupation on this site. We are talking about a community that stayed in situ for over 2000 years...........i'm no scholar but I find that ...Amazing.to say the least.. WHY?
Answers on a postcard to Kevin so I can make some money please....lol
Ta muchly.
Surely a lot of sites, like this one at Ipplepen, were labelled "Roman" because nobody had dug deep enough to find the evidence of the previous inhabitants (until now). I'm not surprised they have now found evidence of the Bronze and Iron age predecessors. The Romans weren't fools, or idly wandering around the British countryside. They had very deliberately taken control of mines and metal refining, and the trading in metals, and the related trade routes.
I agree that exporting by ship is more likely that lugging high volumes overland. There is evidence of a Roman port at (what is now) Mount Batten in Plymouth, and Phoenician goods have been found. But that would probably have not been the local port for exporting from the Ipplepen area. My bet is that there was more ports, probably near Totnes (up the River Dart) and Newton Abbot (up the River Teign).
Julius Caesar's account of the Punic Wars has given us a very good record of the type of ships they would have won from the Veneti at the Battle of Morbihan Bay. But perhaps that should gon in another thread on Roman Ships?