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Abstract

The paper considers the latest stage of the research of Romano-British urbanism. A new stage began when John Wacher’s ‘‘The Towns of Roman Britain’’ was published. That book became a stepping stone for the further research of Romano-British towns and urbanization of the island. Contemporary scholarship is closely connected with the number of large-scale and long-time fi eldwork projects in Silchester, Colchester, St. Albans and the development of the commercial archaeology which is specifi cally important in London. Theoretical rethinking of Romano-British urbanism started with Martin Millett’s ‘‘Romanization of Britain’’. M. Millett emphasized regional diversity in the origins and development of Romano-British towns and pointed at the impact of local, ‘‘British’’ factor in the urbanization. Some of these ideas were developed by John Creighton who tried to understand the role of local elites in the growth of Romano-British towns. Another research framework is demonstrated in papers by Martin Pitts and Dominic Perring who studied the urbanization of Britain in regional context. In their opinion provincial towns were ‘‘alien’’ to the British cultural landscape. Some problems (urban identities, relations between towns and waterscapes, a decline of townlife) are studied by D. Mattingly, L. Revell, A. Rogers and other scholars. These papers and books along with the growing body of archaeological and epigraphic data create conditions for the further progress of the research of Romano-British urbanism.

Keywords

Roman Britain, towns, historiography, Romanization

Anton E. Baryshnikov Kaluga State University named after K.E. Tsiolkovsky, Russia, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

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