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How do we know this stuff anyway?

4 hours ago
4 min read
As you walk Hadrian's Wall, your guide or a book or a helpful interpretive sign is going to tell you a bunch of 'facts' about the place. But wait a second, how do we know? It's not like an old Roman general passed on his folksy wisdom that 'a century had 80 soldiers, and cohort had 6 centuries'. In fact, by only the 500s AD, people had forgotten it was the Romans who built the Wall! The source of our knowledge today is a couple of hundred years of academic research in two complimentary but very different fields: History and Archaeology
As you walk Hadrian's Wall, your guide or a book or a helpful interpretive sign is going to tell you a bunch of 'facts' about the place. But wait a second, how do we know? It's not like an old Roman general passed on his folksy wisdom that 'a century had 80 soldiers, and cohort had 6 centuries'. In fact, by only the 500s AD, people had forgotten it was the Romans who built the Wall! The source of our knowledge today is a couple of hundred years of academic research in two complimentary but very different fields: History and Archaeology
We usually think of 'history' as the story of whatever happened in the past, but that's not quite right. History is the study of what was WRITTEN DOWN about the past. The very concept was invented by the Greeks ('istoria') as a genre of literature. Modern Roman historians mostly study the ancient texts that survive as copies of copies of copies made by Arabic scribes and European monks. So these are the 'facts'? Not so fast. Every author has an agenda and we shouldn't trust Cicero more than any other lawyer. Worse yet, when making their copies, scribes invariably made mistakes and sometimes purposeful changes. Most of all they made decisions about what was saved and what faded away. All of this requires careful interpretation. Occasionally, the words of the Romans come to us directly, as inscriptions in stone or the famous Vindolanda tablets (basically the post swept off someone's desk). These have their own challenges for understanding, however.
We usually think of 'history' as the story of whatever happened in the past, but that's not quite right. History is the study of what was WRITTEN DOWN about the past. The very concept was invented by the Greeks ('istoria') as a genre of literature. Modern Roman historians mostly study the ancient texts that survive as copies of copies of copies made by Arabic scribes and European monks. So these are the 'facts'? Not so fast. Every author has an agenda and we shouldn't trust Cicero more than any other lawyer. Worse yet, when making their copies, scribes invariably made mistakes and sometimes purposeful changes. Most of all they made decisions about what was saved and what faded away. All of this requires careful interpretation. Occasionally, the words of the Romans come to us directly, as inscriptions in stone or the famous Vindolanda tablets (basically the post swept off someone's desk). These have their own challenges for understanding, however.
Archaeology takes an entirely different approach to learning about the past. Instead of studying the great words of 'great men' (and it is almost always men), we study the everyday objects left behind by everyday people. If someone made, used, broke, or moved something (and we find it) it can provide clues to what humans did, and even thought about, in the past. The object's position in relation to other objects and layers of soil is critical to interpretation. So archaeology is part scavenger hunt, part scientific study, and part detective work to figure out what happened, when. And the answers don't always agree with what the historians tell us. (P.S. That handsome fellow in the silly hat is a younger me, having recently found the pot above. It was probably a ritual (animal) sacrifice at a temple outside Maryport Roman Fort.)
Archaeology takes an entirely different approach to learning about the past. Instead of studying the great words of 'great men' (and it is almost always men), we study the everyday objects left behind by everyday people. If someone made, used, broke, or moved something (and we find it) it can provide clues to what humans did, and even thought about, in the past. The object's position in relation to other objects and layers of soil is critical to interpretation. So archaeology is part scavenger hunt, part scientific study, and part detective work to figure out what happened, when. And the answers don't always agree with what the historians tell us. (P.S. That handsome fellow in the silly hat is a younger me, having recently found the pot above. It was probably a ritual (animal) sacrifice at a temple outside Maryport Roman Fort.)


Ok, hold up. Let's be clear that archaeologists aren't digging for dinosaur bones, that's palaeontology (the study of 'old bones'). Archaeologists deal with bones, sure, but only if humans made, used, or moved them. We aren't hunting for buried treasure either. Yes, occasionally someone uncovers some priceless silver hoard or a cache or coins but it isn't the precious metal we value. Instead, we want to know what it tells us about trade and exchange and coins can often provide a date for the other stuff we find nearby. No, for archaeologists the real treasure is the literal junk people abandoned that can tell us who they were and what they got up to. After all, one man's trash...
Ok, hold up. Let's be clear that archaeologists aren't digging for dinosaur bones, that's palaeontology (the study of 'old bones'). Archaeologists deal with bones, sure, but only if humans made, used, or moved them. We aren't hunting for buried treasure either. Yes, occasionally someone uncovers some priceless silver hoard or a cache or coins but it isn't the precious metal we value. Instead, we want to know what it tells us about trade and exchange and coins can often provide a date for the other stuff we find nearby. No, for archaeologists the real treasure is the literal junk people abandoned that can tell us who they were and what they got up to. After all, one man's trash...
Archaeology isn't just digging either. In fact, digging is something of a 'last resort'. Excavation is not just expensive and time consuming, it is destructive. After all, you can only dig a site once. (Well, sort of. See below.) Survey work can be as simple as fieldwalking (systematically collecting what's on the surface) or involve 'remote sensing' with lasers or radar. Early methods relied on aerial survey during droughts to photograph 'crop marks' like those in the fort of Beckfoot taken in the 1950s (upper right, note the 'playing card' corner of the outer ditch and wall, and the central HQ building). Modern magnetic survey (lower left) of fields south of Beckfoot shows the village outside the walls (note the straight road, with buildings as stripes on either side). To the right you can see me doing electrical resistance survey in the field previously left blank (note there is nothing to see on the surface). The upper left image is a LiDAR (laser) survey of Vindolanda Roman Fort showing the topography there in extreme detail.
Archaeology isn't just digging either. In fact, digging is something of a 'last resort'. Excavation is not just expensive and time consuming, it is destructive. After all, you can only dig a site once. (Well, sort of. See below.) Survey work can be as simple as fieldwalking (systematically collecting what's on the surface) or involve 'remote sensing' with lasers or radar. Early methods relied on aerial survey during droughts to photograph 'crop marks' like those in the fort of Beckfoot taken in the 1950s (upper right, note the 'playing card' corner of the outer ditch and wall, and the central HQ building). Modern magnetic survey (lower left) of fields south of Beckfoot shows the village outside the walls (note the straight road, with buildings as stripes on either side). To the right you can see me doing electrical resistance survey in the field previously left blank (note there is nothing to see on the surface). The upper left image is a LiDAR (laser) survey of Vindolanda Roman Fort showing the topography there in extreme detail.

Still, excavation (and recording!) is central to the discipline of archaeology. Early archaeologists were primarily interested in finding inscriptions and uncovering the outline of buildings, paying little attention to much of the rubbish (see small finds below) or changes in the soil (indicating the stratigraphy, but that's for another post). Modern techniques have improved greatly and our reports provide vastly more information and detail. They also take a lot more time and money, too. This picture show's Robinson's 1880 excavation of rectangular and circular temples outside Maryport Roman Fort. Ian Haynes and Tony Wilmott re-examined them in the 2010s and learned a great deal about Roman religion on the far frontier (remember that pot I found, for example). The bottom image shows a visual interpretation of what we uncovered. We know the height of the classical temple because of the fallen wall (see Robinson's drawing, and I had to draw it too) but much remains conjecture. We know something heavy and square was put on the cobbled parade ground, but was it really a tall column for the God Jupiter? Sadly, we can never know.
Still, excavation (and recording!) is central to the discipline of archaeology. Early archaeologists were primarily interested in finding inscriptions and uncovering the outline of buildings, paying little attention to much of the rubbish (see small finds below) or changes in the soil (indicating the stratigraphy, but that's for another post). Modern techniques have improved greatly and our reports provide vastly more information and detail. They also take a lot more time and money, too. This picture show's Robinson's 1880 excavation of rectangular and circular temples outside Maryport Roman Fort. Ian Haynes and Tony Wilmott re-examined them in the 2010s and learned a great deal about Roman religion on the far frontier (remember that pot I found, for example). The bottom image shows a visual interpretation of what we uncovered. We know the height of the classical temple because of the fallen wall (see Robinson's drawing, and I had to draw it too) but much remains conjecture. We know something heavy and square was put on the cobbled parade ground, but was it really a tall column for the God Jupiter? Sadly, we can never know.
So, what about all those little broken bits the old antiquarians couldn't be bothered with? Well, now we don't just keep them, we record them (and their location), sort them, categorise them, photograph them, draw them, analyse them, publish them, and then stuff them in little boxes in vaults somewhere because in another hundred years, people might have even better ways to investigate them than we do. Small finds can provide dates for when they were deposited (because styles change over time, e.g. I bet you can ID blue jeans from the 1970s). They also tell us about the people who left them. Soldiers preferred to wear different cloak brooches than civilians. Small leather shoes tell us women and children were in the barracks. Residue in a jar might tells us someone imported expensive wine from Rome. It is from these tiny fragments we get clues to who the people of Hadrian's Wall really were, and perhaps a hint of what they thought about themselves.
So, what about all those little broken bits the old antiquarians couldn't be bothered with? Well, now we don't just keep them, we record them (and their location), sort them, categorise them, photograph them, draw them, analyse them, publish them, and then stuff them in little boxes in vaults somewhere because in another hundred years, people might have even better ways to investigate them than we do. Small finds can provide dates for when they were deposited (because styles change over time, e.g. I bet you can ID blue jeans from the 1970s). They also tell us about the people who left them. Soldiers preferred to wear different cloak brooches than civilians. Small leather shoes tell us women and children were in the barracks. Residue in a jar might tells us someone imported expensive wine from Rome. It is from these tiny fragments we get clues to who the people of Hadrian's Wall really were, and perhaps a hint of what they thought about themselves.

 
 
 

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