Excavations at Mucking, Essex, between 1965 and 1978, revealed extensive evidence for a multi-phase rural Romano-British settlement, perhaps an estate centre, and five associated cemetery areas (170 burials) with different burial areas reserved for different groups within the settlement. The settlement demonstrated clear continuity from the preceding Iron Age occupation with unbroken sequences of artefacts and enclosures through the first century AD, followed by rapid and extensive remodelling, which included the laying out a Central Enclosure and an organised water supply with wells, accompanied by the start of large-scale pottery production. After the mid-second century AD the Central Enclosure was largely abandoned and settlement shifted its focus more to the Southern Enclosure system with a gradual decline though the 3rd and 4th centuries although continued burial, pottery and artefactual deposition indicate that a form of settlement continued, possibly with some low-level pottery production. Some of the latest Roman pottery was strongly associated with the earliest Anglo-Saxon style pottery suggesting the existence of a terminal Roman settlement phasethat essentially involved an ‘Anglo-Saxon’ community. Given recent revisions of the chronology for the early Anglo-Saxon period, this casts an intriguing light on the transition, with radical implications for understandings of this period. Each of the cemetery areas was in use for a considerable length of time. Taken as a whole, Mucking was very much a componented place/complex; it was its respective parts that fostered its many cemeteries, whose diverse rites reflect the variability and roles of the settlement’s evidently varied inhabitants.

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Summary
• Résumé
• Zusammenfassung
• CHAPTER ONE: ROMAN MUCKING – MANY THINGS
  • Backgrounding and Prehistoric Sequence
  • Situation, Excavation Context and Methods
  • Base-line Sources
  • Site Phasing and Analysis
  • Volume Structure
• CHAPTER TWO: SETTLEMENT SEQUENCE
  • Conquest Period Components – A Sketch
  • Phase 1 – Later First/Early Second Century AD
    • The Central Enclosure
    • The Western Enclosures
    • The Southern Enclosures
  • Phase 2 – Early Second to Mid Third Century AD
    • The Central Enclosure
    • The Southern Enclosures
  • Phase 3 – Mid Third to Fourth Centuries AD
  • Discussion – Settlement Sequence, Pits and Building Parallels
    • Pits
    • Structures
    • Site Sequence
• CHAPTER THREE: SETTLEMENT FINDS
  • Metalwork
    • Roman Coinage Richard Reece
    • Base Silver Finger-ring Martin Henig
    • Roman Brooches Colin Haselgrove
    • Other Copper Alloy Artefacts Grahame Appleby
    • Lead Artefacts Quita Mould
    • Iron Artefacts Quita Mould
  • Other Finds
    • Quern Stones David Buckley and Hilary Major
    • Jet Artefacts Chris Going and Sam Lucy
    • Glass Dorothy Charlesworth and Donald Harden
  • Pottery
    • Samian Wares Joanna Bird and Brenda Dickinson
    • Mortaria Kay Hartley
    • Amphorae David Williams
    • Romano-British Pottery Rosemary Jefferies and Sam Lucy
    • Graffiti Chris Going
    • Pottery Petrology David Williams
  • Other Ceramic Finds
    • Clay Figurines Catherine Johns and Frank Jenkins
    • Ceramic Building Material Margaret Jones
      • Animal Foot Prints on Roman Tiles (Leslie Cram)
    • Fired Clay and Daub Paul Barford
    • Textile Impressions Elizabeth Crowfoot
  • Economic Data
    • Animal Bone Krish Seetah and Geraldine Done
    • Mollusca from Pit 373N×407E J. Cooper
    • Carbonised Grain from Corn-drier 3 Marijke van der Veen
  • Discussion – Distributions and Depositions
    • Distributions
    • Depositional Case-studies
• CHAPTER FOUR: THE CEMETERIES
  • Cemetery I
    • Grave Catalogue
    • Overview
  • Cemetery II
    • Grave Catalogue
    • Overview – Cremation Burials
    • Overview – Inhumation Burials
  • Cemetery III
    • Grave Catalogue
    • Overview – Cremation Burials
    • Overview – Inhumation Burials
  • Cemetery IV
    • Grave Catalogue
    • Overview – Cremation Burials
    • The Stone Coffin Burial
  • Cemetery V
    • Grave Catalogue
    • Overview
  • Smaller Cemetery Groups
    • The Southern Group
    • The Northern Group
  • Discussion – Rites and Practices
    • Nailed Footwear – Overview (Quita Mould)
    • Pottery Use and Deposition (Rosemary Jefferies)
    • Personal Ornaments
    • Contexts of Burial
• CHAPTER FIVE: INTEGRATING PARTS – SETTLEMENT AND CEMETERIES
  • Transitions (I) – Iron Age/Roman
  • The Pottery Industry
    • Iron Age/Roman
    • First and Second–Third Century
    • Mucking Kiln Products on the Northern Frontiers (Ruth Leary)
  • Distinguishing Functional Difference
    • Pottery Analysis
    • Well 4 (Redux)
    • Metalwork and Other Category Distributions
    • Sets for the Living (and Dead)
  • Economic Basis
  • Ritual Components
  • Interrelating Cemeteries and Settlement
  • Explaining and Naming Roman Mucking – An Estate Centre (+ Village)
  • Transitions (II) – Roman/Anglo-Saxon (Phase 4)
• Bibliography
• Appendices
  • Appendix 1: Pottery imports from southeast England to Hadrian’s Wall