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Martin Pitts

University of Exeter, Classics and Ancient History, Faculty Member

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My research focuses on the archaeology of Iron Age to Roman northwest Europe. I am especially interested in how consumption and circulating objects (e.g. pottery) can inform our understandings of past globalisations.

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University of St Andrews

Sheilagh Ogilvie

University of Oxford

Sinclair W Bell

Northern Illinois University

Kansas State University

Stanford University

Armando Marques-Guedes

UNL - New University of Lisbon

Università di Bologna

University of Aberdeen

Field Museum

Francesco Camia

Università degli Studi "La Sapienza" di Roma

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Books by Martin Pitts

The Roman object revolution. Objectscapes and intra-cultural connectivity in northwest Europe

Archaeologists working in northwest Europe have long remarked on the sheer quantity and standardi... more Archaeologists working in northwest Europe have long remarked on the sheer quantity and standardisation of objects unearthed from the Roman period, especially compared with earlier eras. What was the historical significance of this boom in standardised objects? With a wide and ever-changing spectrum of innovative objects and styles to choose from, to what extent did the choices made by people in the past really matter? To answer these questions, this book sheds new light on the make-up of late Iron Age and early Roman ‘objectscapes’, through an examination of the circulation and selections of thousands of standardised pots, brooches, and other objects, with emphasis on funerary repertoires, c. 100 BC – AD 100. Breaking with the national frameworks that inform artefact research in much ‘provincial’ Roman archaeology, the book tests the idea that marked increases in the movement of people and objects fostered pan-regional culture(s) and transformed societies. Using a rich database of cemeteries and settlements spanning a swathe of northwest Europe, including southern Britannia, Gallia Belgica, and Germania Inferior, the study extensively applies multivariate statistics (such as Correspondence Analysis) to examine the roles of objects in an ever-changing and richly complex cultural milieu.

Materialising Roman Histories

by Martin Pitts, Astrid Van Oyen, Rob Collins, Greg Woolf, Hella Eckardt, and Jeroen Poblome

The Roman period witnessed massive changes in the human-material environment, from monumentalised... more The Roman period witnessed massive changes in the human-material environment, from monumentalised cityscapes to standardised low-value artefacts like pottery. This book explores new perspectives to understand this Roman ‘object boom’ and its impact on Roman history. In particular, the book’s international contributors question the traditional dominance of ‘representation’ in Roman archaeology, whereby objects have come to stand for social phenomena such as status, facets of group identity, or notions like Romanisation and economic growth. Drawing upon the recent material turn in anthropology and related disciplines, the essays in this volume examine what it means to materialise Roman history, focusing on the question of what objects do in history, rather than what they represent. In challenging the dominance of representation, and exploring themes such as the impact of standardisation and the role of material agency, Materialising Roman History is essential reading for anyone studying material culture from the Roman world (and beyond).

The Routledge Handbook of Archaeology and Globalization

by Tamar Hodos, Alexander Geurds, and Martin Pitts

This unique collection applies globalization concepts to the discipline of archaeology, using a w... more This unique collection applies globalization concepts to the discipline of archaeology, using a wide range of global case studies from a group of international specialists. The volume spans from as early as 10,000 cal. BP to the modern era, analysing the relationship between material culture, complex connectivities between communities and groups, and cultural change. Each contributor considers globalization ideas explicitly to explore the socio-cultural connectivities of the past. In considering social practices shared between different historic groups, and also the expression of their respective identities, the papers in this volume illustrate the potential of globalization thinking to bridge the local and global in material culture analysis.

The Routledge Handbook of Archaeology and Globalization is the first such volume to take a world archaeology approach, on a multi-period basis, in order to bring together the scope of evidence for the significance of material culture in the processes of globalization. This work thus also provides a means to understand how material culture can be used to assess the impact of global engagement in our contemporary world. As such, it will appeal to archaeologists and historians as well as social science researchers interested in the origins of globalization.

Globalisation and the Roman world: World history, connectivity and material culture

by Martin Pitts and Miguel John Versluys

Alien cities. Consumption and the origins of urbanism in Roman Britain

2 Roman and Medieval Staines: the development of the town Phil Jones with Rob Poulton ISBN 978-0-... more 2 Roman and Medieval Staines: the development of the town Phil Jones with Rob Poulton ISBN 978-0-9558846-1-0 3 Excavations at Oatlands Palace Rob Poulton with Alan Cook and Simon urley ISBN 978-0-9558846-2-7 4 Settlement sites and sacred o erings: prehistoric and later archaeology in the ames Valley, near Chertsey

Big Data on the Roman Table: new approaches to tablewares in the Roman world

Read full Open Access Volume here: http://intarch.ac.uk/journal/issue50/index.html

Papers by Martin Pitts

Objectscapes: A manifesto for investigating the impacts of object flows on past societies

Antiquity, 2021

World history is often framed in terms of flows of people: humans coming ‘out of Africa’, the spr... more World history is often framed in terms of flows of people: humans coming ‘out of Africa’, the spread of farmers in the Holocene, the disruptions of the ‘Sea Peoples’, or ‘colonisation’ by Phoenicians, Greeks and Romans. In this article, the authors argue that world history is also about the flows of objects. To illuminate the impacts of objects on past societies, they introduce the concept of ‘objectscapes’ as a means of writing new kinds of histories of human-thing entanglements, in which objects in motion have roles to play—beyond representation—over both the short and long term. To illustrate, they present examples from two regions at the end of the first millennium BC: southern Germany and northern Syria.

York’s ‘African-style’ Severan Pottery Reconsidered

Britannia, 2021

This article examines the phenomenon of so-called North African-style pottery made in early third... more This article examines the phenomenon of so-called North African-style pottery made in early third-century York. The pottery, which was produced in significant quantities in late Ebor ware, is strikingly different from vessels in circulation in Roman Britain and the north-west provinces – so much so that the late Vivien Swan argued that it was ‘made by Africans for the use of Africans’. The present study reassesses the evidence of ceramic genealogical influences, production waste, fabric supply, consumption patterns and contextual finds associations. The results shed new light on the manufacture and use of late Ebor ware by York’s military community, qualifying claims made about the repertoire’s links with novel culinary practices, cultural diversity and the unique historical circumstances of Severan York.

Towards Romanization 2.0. High-Definition Narratives in the Roman North-West

Journal of Urban Archaeology, 2021

This article explores the implications of studying Romanization 2.0, a concept that entails putti... more This article explores the implications of studying Romanization 2.0, a concept that entails putting connectivity and human-object entangle-ments at the centre of new high-definition narratives. While this perspective brings important pay-offs, decentring Rome in historical narratives and moving beyond the methodological nationalism that has often dogged studies of Roman imperialism , it also presents archaeologists with an array of methodological challenges. How can the Big Data of multiple localities connected by flows of objects and people be appropriately visualized and analysed? To address this question, I present some results from a project concerning the selection of standardized objects in funerary contexts and their impacts on local communities in Britannia, Gallia Belgica, and Germania Inferior, c. 100 bc-ad 100, drawing on a database of over three thousand grave assemblages.

Pitts, M., 2020. Premodern Globalisations. Cultural connectivity and objects-in-motion in ancient worlds, in Louvre Abu Dhabi and École du Louvre (eds.), Worlds in a Museum. Exploring a Contemporary Museology. Leuven: Leuven University Press.

Worlds in a Museum. Exploring a Contemporary Museology, 2020

Deep histories of globalization and Europe. Beyond Eurocentrism

From T. Hodos et al (eds.) 2017. The Routledge Handbook of Archaeology and Globalization.

Gallo-Belgic wares. Objects in motion in the early Roman northwest

Globalization and china. Materiality and civilité in post-medieval Europe

The Routledge Handbook of Archaeology and Globalization, 2017

Rural transformation in the urbanised landscape

The Oxford Handbook of Roman Britain, 2016

Globalisation, circulation and mass consumption in the Roman world

Globalisation and the Roman world: World history, connectivity and material culture, 2015

Globalisation and the Roman world: perspectives and opportunities

by Martin Pitts and Miguel John Versluys

Globalisation and the Roman world: World history, connectivity and material culture, 2015

Reconsidering Britain's first urban communities

Journal of Roman Archaeology, 2014

Questions about the foundation and cultural make-up of Britain's first towns have been long debat... more Questions about the foundation and cultural make-up of Britain's first towns have been long debated. The creation of new cities was a crucial element in the economic and cultural assimilation of a new province, having ramifications for the trajectories of later generations as well as the immediate situation following the conquest. A dominant feature of the debate about urban origins in Britain is the interpretation of evidence relating to buildings and urban morphology, whereas the contribution of the evidence from finds has arguably been minimal. My intent here is to review the historical scenario of the foundation of Britain's first towns in light of artefactual evidence. I will focus on the evidence of Claudio-Neronian brooches and imported finewares (and their predecessors), which have already contributed to the debate as chronological indicators but perhaps offer more potential for new insights into cultural connectivity and social practice. 11 Creighton 2006, 130-35. 12 Creighton 2006, 94 and 125; cf. Millett 1994, 433. 13 Perring 2011, 250-51. The basis for Perring's theory is the discovery of an enclosure of c.24.5 ha defined by V-shaped double-ditches, rapidly constructed and dismantled in the late Claudian period, as well as dendrochronological dates for bridge structures on the Cornhill site of no later than A.D. 48, where a rectangular street grid was established before the revolt of A.D. 60/61. 14 Wallace 2013 presents a detailed counter-argument. 15 Aldhouse-Green 2007, 381; cf. Burnham et al. 2001, 71. 16 Goldsworthy and Haynes 1999.

Pots and comparative history: the case of imported Roman fine wares and Chinese porcelain in NW Europe

Seeing Red. New economic and social perspectives on Gallo-Roman terra sigillata, 2013

Exploring health and social well-being in Late Roman Britain: an intercemetery approach

This article outlines a new method for comparing proxy data for the health and well-being of Late... more This article outlines a new method for comparing proxy data for the health and well-being of Late Roman populations through the statistical analysis of skeletal remains and material culture. A multistage statistical approach is applied to a sample of published Late Romano-British cemeteries. A battery of health indicators are compared using multidimensional scaling, and patterns in the provision of grave inclusions are analyzed using the Gini coefficient of inequality. The results of these analyses yield two principal findings. First, patterns are often strongly conditioned by settlement type, with individuals in cemeteries from urban locations exhibiting better health than their nonurban counterparts, contrary to historical models stressing the disadvantages of urban environments. Second, urban cemeteries feature both higher levels of grave furnishings and greater equality in their intracemetery distributions than nonurban cemeteries. Such findings suggest entrenched differences in the quality of living conditions and social relations between urban and rural communities in Late Roman Britain, potentially mirroring the observed modern relationship between high levels of social inequality and poor health.* * We are indebted to Christopher Knüsel

Inequality at Late Roman Baldock, UK. The impact of social factors upon health and diet

Journal of Anthropological Research, 2011

This study explores the impact of social inequality through a study of health and diet involving ... more This study explores the impact of social inequality through a study of health and diet involving the analysis of skeletal remains and grave furnishings from the Roman period cemetery of Baldock, UK. Analysis revealed correlations between the presence of different types of grave furnishing with aspects of childhood health, and consistent differences in diet between individuals with different quantities and types of furnishings. These findings suggest that inequality may have had a considerable impact upon both health and diet at Baldock. The further observation of patterns in diet by sex and in grave furnishings by sex and age-atdeath suggests that these factors may have played an important role in determining access to resources within the community at Baldock.

The Roman object revolution. Objectscapes and intra-cultural connectivity in northwest Europe

Archaeologists working in northwest Europe have long remarked on the sheer quantity and standardi... more Archaeologists working in northwest Europe have long remarked on the sheer quantity and standardisation of objects unearthed from the Roman period, especially compared with earlier eras. What was the historical significance of this boom in standardised objects? With a wide and ever-changing spectrum of innovative objects and styles to choose from, to what extent did the choices made by people in the past really matter? To answer these questions, this book sheds new light on the make-up of late Iron Age and early Roman ‘objectscapes’, through an examination of the circulation and selections of thousands of standardised pots, brooches, and other objects, with emphasis on funerary repertoires, c. 100 BC – AD 100. Breaking with the national frameworks that inform artefact research in much ‘provincial’ Roman archaeology, the book tests the idea that marked increases in the movement of people and objects fostered pan-regional culture(s) and transformed societies. Using a rich database of cemeteries and settlements spanning a swathe of northwest Europe, including southern Britannia, Gallia Belgica, and Germania Inferior, the study extensively applies multivariate statistics (such as Correspondence Analysis) to examine the roles of objects in an ever-changing and richly complex cultural milieu.

Materialising Roman Histories

by Martin Pitts, Astrid Van Oyen, Rob Collins, Greg Woolf, Hella Eckardt, and Jeroen Poblome

The Roman period witnessed massive changes in the human-material environment, from monumentalised... more The Roman period witnessed massive changes in the human-material environment, from monumentalised cityscapes to standardised low-value artefacts like pottery. This book explores new perspectives to understand this Roman ‘object boom’ and its impact on Roman history. In particular, the book’s international contributors question the traditional dominance of ‘representation’ in Roman archaeology, whereby objects have come to stand for social phenomena such as status, facets of group identity, or notions like Romanisation and economic growth. Drawing upon the recent material turn in anthropology and related disciplines, the essays in this volume examine what it means to materialise Roman history, focusing on the question of what objects do in history, rather than what they represent. In challenging the dominance of representation, and exploring themes such as the impact of standardisation and the role of material agency, Materialising Roman History is essential reading for anyone studying material culture from the Roman world (and beyond).

The Routledge Handbook of Archaeology and Globalization

by Tamar Hodos, Alexander Geurds, and Martin Pitts

This unique collection applies globalization concepts to the discipline of archaeology, using a w... more This unique collection applies globalization concepts to the discipline of archaeology, using a wide range of global case studies from a group of international specialists. The volume spans from as early as 10,000 cal. BP to the modern era, analysing the relationship between material culture, complex connectivities between communities and groups, and cultural change. Each contributor considers globalization ideas explicitly to explore the socio-cultural connectivities of the past. In considering social practices shared between different historic groups, and also the expression of their respective identities, the papers in this volume illustrate the potential of globalization thinking to bridge the local and global in material culture analysis.

The Routledge Handbook of Archaeology and Globalization is the first such volume to take a world archaeology approach, on a multi-period basis, in order to bring together the scope of evidence for the significance of material culture in the processes of globalization. This work thus also provides a means to understand how material culture can be used to assess the impact of global engagement in our contemporary world. As such, it will appeal to archaeologists and historians as well as social science researchers interested in the origins of globalization.

Globalisation and the Roman world: World history, connectivity and material culture

by Martin Pitts and Miguel John Versluys

Alien cities. Consumption and the origins of urbanism in Roman Britain

2 Roman and Medieval Staines: the development of the town Phil Jones with Rob Poulton ISBN 978-0-... more 2 Roman and Medieval Staines: the development of the town Phil Jones with Rob Poulton ISBN 978-0-9558846-1-0 3 Excavations at Oatlands Palace Rob Poulton with Alan Cook and Simon urley ISBN 978-0-9558846-2-7 4 Settlement sites and sacred o erings: prehistoric and later archaeology in the ames Valley, near Chertsey

Big Data on the Roman Table: new approaches to tablewares in the Roman world

Read full Open Access Volume here: http://intarch.ac.uk/journal/issue50/index.html

Objectscapes: A manifesto for investigating the impacts of object flows on past societies

Antiquity, 2021

World history is often framed in terms of flows of people: humans coming ‘out of Africa’, the spr... more World history is often framed in terms of flows of people: humans coming ‘out of Africa’, the spread of farmers in the Holocene, the disruptions of the ‘Sea Peoples’, or ‘colonisation’ by Phoenicians, Greeks and Romans. In this article, the authors argue that world history is also about the flows of objects. To illuminate the impacts of objects on past societies, they introduce the concept of ‘objectscapes’ as a means of writing new kinds of histories of human-thing entanglements, in which objects in motion have roles to play—beyond representation—over both the short and long term. To illustrate, they present examples from two regions at the end of the first millennium BC: southern Germany and northern Syria.

York’s ‘African-style’ Severan Pottery Reconsidered

Britannia, 2021

This article examines the phenomenon of so-called North African-style pottery made in early third... more This article examines the phenomenon of so-called North African-style pottery made in early third-century York. The pottery, which was produced in significant quantities in late Ebor ware, is strikingly different from vessels in circulation in Roman Britain and the north-west provinces – so much so that the late Vivien Swan argued that it was ‘made by Africans for the use of Africans’. The present study reassesses the evidence of ceramic genealogical influences, production waste, fabric supply, consumption patterns and contextual finds associations. The results shed new light on the manufacture and use of late Ebor ware by York’s military community, qualifying claims made about the repertoire’s links with novel culinary practices, cultural diversity and the unique historical circumstances of Severan York.

Towards Romanization 2.0. High-Definition Narratives in the Roman North-West

Journal of Urban Archaeology, 2021

This article explores the implications of studying Romanization 2.0, a concept that entails putti... more This article explores the implications of studying Romanization 2.0, a concept that entails putting connectivity and human-object entangle-ments at the centre of new high-definition narratives. While this perspective brings important pay-offs, decentring Rome in historical narratives and moving beyond the methodological nationalism that has often dogged studies of Roman imperialism , it also presents archaeologists with an array of methodological challenges. How can the Big Data of multiple localities connected by flows of objects and people be appropriately visualized and analysed? To address this question, I present some results from a project concerning the selection of standardized objects in funerary contexts and their impacts on local communities in Britannia, Gallia Belgica, and Germania Inferior, c. 100 bc-ad 100, drawing on a database of over three thousand grave assemblages.

Pitts, M., 2020. Premodern Globalisations. Cultural connectivity and objects-in-motion in ancient worlds, in Louvre Abu Dhabi and École du Louvre (eds.), Worlds in a Museum. Exploring a Contemporary Museology. Leuven: Leuven University Press.

Worlds in a Museum. Exploring a Contemporary Museology, 2020

Deep histories of globalization and Europe. Beyond Eurocentrism

From T. Hodos et al (eds.) 2017. The Routledge Handbook of Archaeology and Globalization.

Gallo-Belgic wares. Objects in motion in the early Roman northwest

Globalization and china. Materiality and civilité in post-medieval Europe

The Routledge Handbook of Archaeology and Globalization, 2017

Rural transformation in the urbanised landscape

The Oxford Handbook of Roman Britain, 2016

Globalisation, circulation and mass consumption in the Roman world

Globalisation and the Roman world: World history, connectivity and material culture, 2015

Globalisation and the Roman world: perspectives and opportunities

by Martin Pitts and Miguel John Versluys

Globalisation and the Roman world: World history, connectivity and material culture, 2015

Reconsidering Britain's first urban communities

Journal of Roman Archaeology, 2014

Questions about the foundation and cultural make-up of Britain's first towns have been long debat... more Questions about the foundation and cultural make-up of Britain's first towns have been long debated. The creation of new cities was a crucial element in the economic and cultural assimilation of a new province, having ramifications for the trajectories of later generations as well as the immediate situation following the conquest. A dominant feature of the debate about urban origins in Britain is the interpretation of evidence relating to buildings and urban morphology, whereas the contribution of the evidence from finds has arguably been minimal. My intent here is to review the historical scenario of the foundation of Britain's first towns in light of artefactual evidence. I will focus on the evidence of Claudio-Neronian brooches and imported finewares (and their predecessors), which have already contributed to the debate as chronological indicators but perhaps offer more potential for new insights into cultural connectivity and social practice. 11 Creighton 2006, 130-35. 12 Creighton 2006, 94 and 125; cf. Millett 1994, 433. 13 Perring 2011, 250-51. The basis for Perring's theory is the discovery of an enclosure of c.24.5 ha defined by V-shaped double-ditches, rapidly constructed and dismantled in the late Claudian period, as well as dendrochronological dates for bridge structures on the Cornhill site of no later than A.D. 48, where a rectangular street grid was established before the revolt of A.D. 60/61. 14 Wallace 2013 presents a detailed counter-argument. 15 Aldhouse-Green 2007, 381; cf. Burnham et al. 2001, 71. 16 Goldsworthy and Haynes 1999.

Pots and comparative history: the case of imported Roman fine wares and Chinese porcelain in NW Europe

Seeing Red. New economic and social perspectives on Gallo-Roman terra sigillata, 2013

Exploring health and social well-being in Late Roman Britain: an intercemetery approach

This article outlines a new method for comparing proxy data for the health and well-being of Late... more This article outlines a new method for comparing proxy data for the health and well-being of Late Roman populations through the statistical analysis of skeletal remains and material culture. A multistage statistical approach is applied to a sample of published Late Romano-British cemeteries. A battery of health indicators are compared using multidimensional scaling, and patterns in the provision of grave inclusions are analyzed using the Gini coefficient of inequality. The results of these analyses yield two principal findings. First, patterns are often strongly conditioned by settlement type, with individuals in cemeteries from urban locations exhibiting better health than their nonurban counterparts, contrary to historical models stressing the disadvantages of urban environments. Second, urban cemeteries feature both higher levels of grave furnishings and greater equality in their intracemetery distributions than nonurban cemeteries. Such findings suggest entrenched differences in the quality of living conditions and social relations between urban and rural communities in Late Roman Britain, potentially mirroring the observed modern relationship between high levels of social inequality and poor health.* * We are indebted to Christopher Knüsel

Inequality at Late Roman Baldock, UK. The impact of social factors upon health and diet

Journal of Anthropological Research, 2011

This study explores the impact of social inequality through a study of health and diet involving ... more This study explores the impact of social inequality through a study of health and diet involving the analysis of skeletal remains and grave furnishings from the Roman period cemetery of Baldock, UK. Analysis revealed correlations between the presence of different types of grave furnishing with aspects of childhood health, and consistent differences in diet between individuals with different quantities and types of furnishings. These findings suggest that inequality may have had a considerable impact upon both health and diet at Baldock. The further observation of patterns in diet by sex and in grave furnishings by sex and age-atdeath suggests that these factors may have played an important role in determining access to resources within the community at Baldock.

Artefact suites and social practice: an integrated approach to Roman provincial finds assemblages

Facta. A Journal of Roman Material Culture Studies, 2010

Giovanni Fragalà * «Facta» is an International Peer-Reviewed Journal. The eContent is Archived wi... more

Re-Thinking the Southern British Oppida: Networks, Kingdoms and Material Culture

European Journal of Archaeology, 2010

This article examines the role of a range of large settlements in late Iron Age and early Roman s... more This article examines the role of a range of large settlements in late Iron Age and early Roman southern Britain (c.100 BC-AD 70) conventionally described as oppida. After reviewing current perspectives on the function and chronology of British oppida, new insights are provided through the statistical analysis of assemblages of brooches and imported ceramics at a broad sample of sites. Analysis of material culture reveals distinct similarities and differences between several groups of sites, often transcending regional traditions and supposed tribal boundaries. This patterning is primarily explained by the emergence of new forms of political organization prior to Roman annexation, particularly the creation of the Southern and Eastern Kingdoms.

Globalizing the local in Roman Britain: An anthropological approach to social change

Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 2008

This article considers the incorporation of part of Britain into the Roman empire in the context ... more This article considers the incorporation of part of Britain into the Roman empire in the context of globalization theory and world-systems history. Emphasis is placed on the local effects of the expansion of global systems and their impact on the social practices of eating and drinking at a range of settlements in the southeast of Britain in the Iron Age to Roman transition, c. 50 BC-AD 200. Through the analysis of consumption practices via quantitative pottery assemblage data, it is argued that globalization offers a more sophisticated framework to describe change than current archaeological approaches to Romanization and identity. The results show that while much of the populace was subject to a progressively homogenizing supply of food-related pottery vessels, the use of such technologies was negotiated within social practices drawing on the integration of both local and global cultural elements. Such findings highlight the potential of critical applications of globalization theory to conceptualize economic, social, and cultural changes in Roman provincial societies.

The emperor's new clothes? The utility of identity in Roman archaeology

American Journal of Archaeology, 2007

The following are excluded from review and should not be sent: offprints; reeditions, except thos... more

Consumption, deposition and social practice: a ceramic approach to intra-site analysis in late Iron Age to Roman Britain

Internet Archaeology, 2007

'Celtic' food: perspectives from Britain

A Companion to Food in the Ancient World (edited by John Wilkins and Robin Nadeau), 2015

Globalisation vs the state. Macro- and micro- perspectives on Roman economies

Antiquity, 2018