Roman Towns: the Wheeler Inheritance. A Review of 50 Years' Research

The papers which form this volume were presented to a conference between 17th-19th November 1989. The conference, chaired by Professor Martin Biddle, represented the culmination of a series of events to mark the 50th anniversary of the Verulamium Museum, St. Albans. The conference was attended by over 150 delegates, many of whom expressed a desire to see the papers published. This led to approaches to the Council for British Archaeology, who agreed to produce the present work. The conference (and this volume) was split into two halves. Following the keynote paper of Professor Todd, papers were delivered on the history of research over the last 50 (or so) years on a variety of Roman towns and on a selected series of groups of material culture. The choice of subjects was somewhat random, depending upon availability of speakers, time and degrees of research. The editor has attempted to preserve the spirit of the conference in not enforcing a rigid unity of approach on the authors, but allowing a fairly liberal interpretation of the original brief. The authors were given the opportunity to update their papers in 1992. That the volume has taken four years to come to print has inevitably meant that the papers presented here have lost a little of their immediacy, though not, it is hoped, their importance. With one exception (Canterbury) all the papers presented at the conference are included. In addition a summary of work at Carmarthen has been added, since although not presented at the conference (Heather James was a delegate) it seemed an ideal opportunity to offer a much needed synthesis. Philip Crummy's contribution has been split, at his request, into two separate papers.