Downloadable bibliography files: in refer and bibtex format.

A wealth of information can be gleaned from the humble pot sherd. It can be used to date sites, assess economic activity and help in an understanding of patterns of trade and manufacture, especially within the Roman Empire.

• Part I outlines, the development of Roman pottery studies in Britain, the role of ceramic studies in Romano-British archaeology and the history of Roman pottery in Britain
• Part II presents an Atlas of almost 100 classes of pottery - both local and imported - which were used in the province. Each entry describes, fabric, technology, form, potters’ stamps, dating, source and distribution and is accompanied by a computer-generated map of the British and/or continental distribution, comparative drawings of the pottery forms and a bibliography.

• The book was published by B.T.Batsford in September 1996. Their archaeology titles were subsequently acquired by Routledge, who reprinted the book in 1999 and 2003, the latter being a digital printing (which means that the reproduction of the images, particularly the photographs, is not as good in the first two printings).

• The book is now (November 2005) out of print. A new edition is in development which will expand and update Part II of the book - the Atlas - and will also include a CDROM holding a searchable interface to the distribution data and searchable and hyperlinked versions of the Atlas pages.
• Copies of the first edition are occasionally available through on-line bookshops such as those listed by Abebooks (try this link), or on eBay.

• A section of the text of this book on the subject of Roman amphoras in Britain is available in the journal Internet Archaeology - see the following entry for details.
• A list of errata and corrigenda (not incorporated in the reprints) and a supplementary index (references to sites outside Great Britain) are available.
• Concordances between the Atlas entries and the fabric descriptions in the National Roman Fabric Reference Collection (NRFRC) are available.
• The Atlas pages in Roman Pottery in Britain form the starting point for an Atlas of Roman Pottery which is currently under construction.

• British Archaeology November 1997, p.12.
  The full text appears online on the CBA web site.
• Current Archaeology 156, pp.462-3.
• Britannia xxix (1998) pp. 447-50.

• The Channel 4 Time Team FAQ:
  ‘pots are classified to such an extent that it is like reading an Ikea catalogue!’

The chapters describing the principal types of Roman amphoras recovered from sites in Britain from the book, Roman Pottery in Britain, are here converted into a series of web pages. These types are described:

• Dressel 20 amphoras and allied types
• Dressel 1 amphoras
• Dressel 2-4 amphoras
• Mid-Roman Campanian amphoras
• Pascual 1 amphoras
• Rhodian (Camulodunum 184) amphoras
• Gauloise flat-based amphoras
• Gauloise 12 amphoras
• Haltern 70 amphoras
• London 555 amphoras
• Dressel 7-11 ‘salazon’ amphoras
• Richborough 527 amphoras
• Camulodunum 189 (‘carrot’) amphoras
• Kapitän II (‘Hollow foot’) amphoras
• British B4 amphoras (‘micaceous jars’)
• North African cylindrical amphoras

Each entry describes the form, fabric, date, distribution and bibliographic details of the type, and is accompanied by a distribution map of the British and/or European distribution which is searchable via a clickable interface. The paper also includes a searchable timelines, maps of sources of Roman amphoras and a bibliography.

This paper is published in the on-line archaeological journal, Internet Archaeology, and can be accessed directly from here.

The study of pottery in archaeology has become increasingly important over the last century, providing the archaeologist with information on many aspects of the past, including chronology, trade and technology. As well as detailing the routine, but essential, tasks of handling pottery, the book examines the most recent research into the quantitative study and comparison of ceramic assemblages.

• Part I: History and potential
• Part II: Practicalities: A guide to pottery processing and recording
• Part III: Themes in ceramic studies

Catalogue details of this title can be found by using the search facilities on the CUP web pages (Full catalogue entry).

A Spanish language version of this text is available as La Cerámica en Arqueología, Crítica, Barcelona, 1997. ISBN:  84-7423-745-9