The Secret History of the Roman Roads of Britain. By M.C. Bishop. Pen Sword, Barnsley, 2015. Pp. xiii 210, illus, maps, plans. Price: PS19.99.isbn 978 1 848846 15 9.
Bishop attempts in his Secret History an unapologetic eulogy of roads well beyond the chronological or spatial framework suggested in the book's title. The volume chapters follow a chronological order but allow numerous digressions into other periods and areas, rendering their structure at times confusing. B.'s easy prose, however, effortlessly compensates for this, resulting in an enjoyable read. The first chapter takes the reader through the pre Roman evidence and makes a convincing case for the integration of Iron Age routes in the development of Roman roads. B. describes the types of roads, tracks and routes detected in Britain, using a few well selected examples and, through the relationship between monuments and pre Roman roads, proposes a Neolithic origin for some of them. The second chapter discusses the need for, and the practicalities of, road construction during the Roman period. B. proposes a rather logical reuse of previous roads, if subjected to necessary improvements to facilitate troop movement, followed by new road construction once the territory was pacified. He argues that it is precisely because of this adaptation of previous routes that Roman roads were made out of straight stretches with angular joints but did not form single straight lines. Next, an account of the development of the Roman road network is offered, which is linked to the advance of the Roman forces. B. argues that the next stage of route development occurred outside the military sphere, linked to the civilian use of the roads for trade and social interactions, while the last phase corresponds to the natural evolution of road networks whereby some roads would have been built to cover new needs while others would have fallen into disuse. B. provides a schematic account of road use and maintenance, making special mention of the cursus publicus. He then goes on to suggest that Roman forts had a logistical rather than strategic role, aimed to secure army supplies. Ch. 4 discusses the data for the continuing use of part of the Roman road system during the medieval period, correlating medieval battle sites, property parish boundaries and Roman roads. B. convincingly argues for the important influence that Roman roads had on the development of the medieval landscape. The 'Rediscovery' chapter presents and evaluates the set of techniques currently used for the detection of Roman roads, and advocates an integrative approach as the best practice. The methods suggested cover all the basic techniques but, perhaps, some more experimental methods for the detection of roads, such as the use of multispectral imagery, for example by M. Altaweel 'The use of ASTER satellite imagery in archaeological contexts' Archaeological Prospection 12 (2005) 151 66) and geostatistics for the correlation of roads and associated features as employed for example by J.W.M. Peterson 'Kolmogorov Smirnov statistics in the context of centuriation' in A. Traviglia (ed. Across Space and Time: Papers from the 41st Conference on Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology (2015) 298 302) could have been mentioned. A series of appendices complete the information provided in the text. These include a list of Margary's roads, a correlation between medieval battle sites and Roman roads, and an attempt by the author following his own methodological indications to identify ten new road stretches in North East England and South East Scotland. An exhaustive bibliography on the subject concludes the volume. The book is well illustrated with many black and white maps of roads, which allow the reader to follow the pertinent discussion in the text, while providing an important source of reference for those studying Roman roads. Another important resource offered is the freely distributed Google Earth file, available at the book's webpage (http:/romanroadsinbritain.info/data.html) The file includes a digitalisation of the roads proposed by Codrington, Margary and other scholars, and related important information, such as the location of Britannia 47 (2016) 417 433
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