Creating Rural Communities Imperialism, Processualism and Ontogenesis in Southern Roman Britain

In the last 20 years, commercial archaeology in Britain has rapidly increased the amount of data, narratives and evidence that has been discovered and produced. In relation to Roman Archaeology, this has meant that a wealth of data has emerged for the rural activities of communities during the Roman period, helping to decentre older narratives focused on elite consumption, villas and urban structures and instead refocusing attention on the lives of the rural majority.

This thesis aims to continue this trend by using the results of the Roman Rural Settlement Project (RRSP) which collated all the grey literature and commercial excavation of Roman rural settlements to understand the emergence of communities in Southern Roman Britain during the period of Roman rule.

The thesis will develop an original theory of communities, with inspiration drawn from a variety of different theories including postcolonialism, complexity theory and Marxism before exploring the nature of rural communities by considering three major themes; Processualism, Imperialism and Community Rituals by comparing two regions of Roman Britain: Kent and Hampshire. The aim will be to understand the relationship between the socio-material and the cosmological beliefs of these systems, with the aim of elucidating how new cosmologies emerged in the imperial period, a concept I call ontogenesis. By demonstrating that cosmologies can be developed through rigorous analysis of the social, material, and political economy of communities, the thesis will demonstrate that how communities conceptualised their world and their place in it is of vital importance to any archaeological project.