Assessing the Contribution of Commercial Archaeology to the Study of the Roman Period in England, 1990–2004

This paper identifies the ways in which the enormous upsurge in the volume of commercial archaeology in England since the introduction of PPG 16 in 1990 has affected our knowledge and understanding of Roman Britain. The difficulties in establishing a comprehensive database of interventions are discussed, but overall it is estimated that around 6,600 separate interventions sampled Roman deposits between 1990 and 2004. While many important excavations have been published in conventional formats, a considerable amount of information resides only in grey literature. Commercial work has generated major advances in our understanding of non-villa rural settlement and its associated land use, while analyses of material culture and, to a lesser extent, biological remains have considerable potential for wider synthesis and inter-site comparison. Improvements in collection methodology and reporting standards are suggested, and the need to integrate the results of commercial investigations with data derived from other sources is stressed.