CONCLUSION

We set out to determine the character of the Roman settlement at Wantage to inform our wider discussions about territories and boundaries.

We found:

• There is considerable archaeological evidence for a substantial Roman settlement on the west bank of the Letcombe Brook at Wantage. However, there is little to indicate a planned layout to the settlement or other urban characteristics such as industrial production. The finds and structures recorded suggest domestic and agricultural activity. Roman Wantage most likely grew as a local service centre in response to the needs of the surrounding agricultural community.
• It has long been suggested that the Roman settlement at Wantage developed alongside a road running southwards from Alchester via Oxford and Frilford. Our investigations show that the exact course of the northern section extending from Wantage to East Hanney needs to be re-examined.
• Our current knowledge of the landscape surrounding Wantage during this period is limited to records of individual sites. No systematic study of the area using air photographic interpretation, fieldwalking surveys, etc. was available to us for consultation. However there is an increasing amount of archaeological evidence from work elsewhere, to suggest that the small Roman town at Wantage would have been part of a busy agricultural landscape which included isolated farmsteads, rural villages of differing sizes, and villa estates.

We have focussed our investigation on developing an understanding of the settlement and surrounding agricultural landscape of the Wantage area during the Roman period. What can we say about boundaries in this context? We have very little to go on using existing records as there are slim references to the physical evidence for boundaries. Whilst most villas were set within well-defined enclosures delineated by a ditch, a wall, or both, structures relating to low-status rural sites are much less visible in the archaeology.

Four centuries of Roman rule in Britain saw an intensification of population growth, an increased density of settlement, an expansion of farming, and the introduction of planned towns and communications. However, for the majority of the late Iron Age rural population the immediate impact of the Imperial Conquest may have been slight. A political and administrative reorganisation took place whilst the economic and social frameworks of the late Iron Age continued. Initially, there was little change in the structure and organisation of the rural landscape where the majority of the population lived.