The Distribution of South-East Dorset Black Burnished Category I Pottery in South-West Britain

The good survival of ceramics in the archaeological record has ensured that pottery has played a major role in the study of ancient industry and trade. How far Roman pottery can be used as a proxy for understanding the organisation of other industries is not a debate we wish to enter here, but it is clear that there remain important areas to be researched before the usefulness of pottery is exhausted. There have been significant advances in understanding over the last twenty-five years, with research concentrating more on characterisation, and the nature and scale of distributions, than on typology and chronology. The benefits of adopting a quantitative approach have been well rehearsed, although not always accepted. In this way, such research has made a major contribution to the ongoing debate about the extent to which pottery production and supply, and hence the economy as a whole, were controlled by market as opposed to institutional interests such as the state and, in particular, the Roman army.