Exeter: A Place in Time

在过去两千年的大部分时间里，城市和乡村之间的关系在塑造英国社会方面发挥了重要作用。英国融入罗马世界导致了作为行政、贸易、工业和服务提供中心的城镇网络的建立，尽管罗马不列颠的衰落导致了大多数地区城市生活的消失。只有在10世纪左右，真正的城镇才再次出现，从那以后，它们一直是英国人生活中不可或缺的一部分。这个项目将考察英格兰西南部最重要的城镇埃克塞特的起伏不定的命运，以及它如何与当地、地区和国际腹地互动。埃克塞特始建于征服时期(公元55年)，最初是一个罗马军团要塞，公元75年被废弃后，它被改造成一个为杜姆诺尼亚地区服务的城镇(奇维塔斯首府)。与许多其他低地地区不同，邓诺尼亚很慢地接受了罗马生活的方方面面，在乡下很少有别墅和其他形式的罗马影响。因此，这个项目将使用埃克塞特作为一个例子，说明罗马化英国边缘地区的城市化发展。虽然小镇的大部分似乎在中世纪早期就被遗弃了，但大教堂附近的放射性碳年代测定的墓葬表明了一种连续性。埃克塞特的城市生活在10世纪左右恢复，该镇在整个中世纪期间继续繁荣，当时它与大西洋欧洲建立了广泛的贸易联系，再次展示了一种不同于面向西北部欧洲的东方权力中心的城市化模式。埃克塞特的考古重要性有两重：首先，它代表了远离伦敦政治、社会和经济中心的英国西部的都市主义；其次，有过特别广泛的发掘，其结果只有部分发表。因此，“埃克塞特：时间中的一个地方”项目旨在对埃克塞特的考古进行首次综合，并进行一系列主题研究，这些研究基于对之前出土的化石(动物骨骼、陶器和冶金碎片)的科学分析，揭示了这座城市是如何发展的，以及如何与其腹地互动的。该项目将具有很强的协作性，涉及：1.埃克塞特大学(已经在对大教堂墓地进行挖掘后分析)和Reading2。3.负责该市历史环境记录和皇家阿尔伯特纪念博物馆的埃克塞特市议会与英国遗产和科茨沃尔德考古学合作，将能够研究选定的未公布的发掘工作，以及放射性碳和树状年代学测定和冶金分析方案。AHRC基金将利用现有的挖掘材料，通过对动物骨骼和陶器的进一步分析，探索埃克塞特与其腹地的关系。特别是，科学分析将被用来描述动物在被带到埃克塞特之前在哪里吃草，以及在夏天牲畜从肥沃的低地转移到高地的程度。对陶器的一项新分析将探索埃克塞特在英国西南部和欧洲大陆的贸易网络。该项目的主要成果将包括两本书和一次学术会议，介绍从罗马时期到16世纪埃克塞特的发展及其与腹地的关系，针对专业考古学家的会议，强调这种创新的伙伴关系方法，为公众举办为期一天的研讨会，以及对博物馆创造历史画廊、在线时间轨迹和历史环境记录的增强。

The relationship between town and country has played an important role in shaping British society for much of the past two millennia. Britain's assimilation into the Roman world led to the creation of a network of towns as centres of administration, trade, industry and service provision although the decline of Roman Britain led to the disappearance of urban life in most areas. It was only from around the 10th century that true towns once again re-emerged, and they have been integral to British life ever since. This project will examine the fluctuating fortunes of the most important town in SW England - Exeter - and how it interacted with its local, regional and international hinterland. Exeter began in the Conquest period (c.AD55) as a Roman legionary fortress, and following its abandonment (c.AD75) it was transformed into a town (civitas capital) serving the local region of Dumnonia. Unlike many other lowland areas, Dumnonia was slow to adopt aspects of Roman life, there being very few villas and other forms of Roman influence in the countryside. As such, this project will use Exeter as an example of the development of urbanism at the fringes of Romanised Britain. Although large parts of the town appear to have been abandoned in the early medieval period, a thread of continuity is indicated by radiocarbon-dated burials from the Cathedral Close. Urban life in Exeter resumed around the 10th century, and the town continued to flourish throughout the medieval period when it established extensive trading connections with Atlantic Europe, once again demonstrating a model of urbanism that was different from the centres of power to the east that looked towards NW Europe. Exeter's archaeological importance is two-fold: firstly, it is representative of urbanism in western Britain, well away from the political, social and economic centre of London; and secondly, there have been particularly extensive excavations the results of which have only partly been published. The 'Exeter: A Place in Time' project therefore aims to produce the first ever synthesis of the archaeology of Exeter and undertake a series of themed research strands, based upon scientific analyses of previously excavated assemblages (animal bones, pottery, and metallurgical debris) that shed light on how the city developed and interacted with its hinterland. The project will be strongly collaborative and involve: 1. the Universities of Exeter (already undertaking the post-excavation analysis of the Cathedral Close cemetery) and Reading2. English Heritage (through their Centre for Archaeology, and funding for Cotswold Archaeology to write up key unpublished excavations)3. Exeter City Council who run the City's Historic Environment Record and Royal Albert Memorial Museum A partnership with English Heritage and Cotswold Archaeology will enable selected unpublished excavations to be studied, along with a programme of radiocarbon and dendrochronological dating and metallurgical analysis. AHRC funding will use existing excavated material to explore Exeter's relationship to its hinterland through further analysis of animal bones and pottery. In particular scientific analysis will be used to characterise where animals were grazing before they were brought to Exeter, and the extent to which livestock were moved from the fertile lowlands onto the uplands during the summer. A new analysis of the pottery will explore Exeter's trading networks both within the SW of Britain and continental Europe. Key outputs of the project will include two books and an academic conference presenting an analysis of Exeter's development and its relationship with its hinterland from the Roman period through to the 16th century, a conference session aimed at professional archaeologists that highlights this innovative partnership approach, a one-day workshop for the public, and enhancements to the Museum's Making History gallery, online Time Trail, and Historic Environment Record.