Small finds - the stuff of everyday life - offer archaeologists a fascinating glimpse into the material lives of the ancient Romans. These objects hold great promise for unravelling the ins and outs of daily life, especially for the social groups, activities, and regions for which few written sources exist. Focusing on amulets, brooches, socks, hobnails, figurines, needles, and other "mundane" artefacts, these 12 papers use small finds to reconstruct social lives and practices in the Roman Northwest provinces. Taking social life broadly, the various contributions offer insights into the everyday use of objects to express social identities, Roman religious practices in the provinces, and life in military communities. By integrating small finds from the Northwest provinces with material, iconographic, and textual evidence from the whole Roman empire, contributors seek to demystify Roman magic and Mithraic religion, discover the latest trends in ancient fashion (socks with sandals!), explore Roman interactions with Neolithic monuments, and explain unusual finds in unexpected places. Throughout, the authors strive to maintain a critical awareness of archaeological contexts and site formation processes to offer interpretations of past peoples and behaviours that most likely reflect the lived reality of the Romans. While the range of topics in this volume gives it wide appeal, scholars working with small finds, religion, dress, and life in the Northwest provinces will find it especially of interest. Small Finds and Ancient Social Practices grew out of a session at the 2014 Theoretical Roman Archaeology Conference.

About the Author
Stefanie Hoss has worked as a post-excavation small finds specialist in the Netherlands for more than ten years and has taught at the Free University Amsterdam and the University of Cologne. Her research interests include the Roman culture of bathing and Roman toilets, Roman and Byzantine metal and glass finds, Roman military finds, Roman food and dining habits, and the wondrous ways of Roman refuse. Alissa Whitmore is an independent archaeologist and anthropologist who also teaches at a community college in Iowa. Her primary interest is the intersection between small finds, identity, and spatial analysis, focused on artefacts recovered from bathhouses, especially from the drains and latrines, to reconstruct the social activities of bathers in Roman public and military bathhouses. She also has interests in ancient gender and sexuality.

Reviews
"Coherence can be an issue with edited volumes of this kind but the papers all share a genuine focus on practice. They illustrate the subtle variations in artefact use and behaviour across space and time and showcase the huge potential of portable material culture to enhance our understanding of the Roman world. The volume is well edited and well illustrated, and it is gratifying to see finds work from both the continent and Britain in the same volume." * Ancient West & East *
Many of the papers... offer considered discussion of artefacts and the contexts in which they were found. This approach teases out some intriguing patterns and peculariaties leading to discussion on topics ranging from what we should make of amulaets bearing the likelness of a gorgon appearing exclusively in graves in Roman Britain, to votive plaques from Bavaria that feature a figure with the head of Mars and a woman's bosom. * Current Archaeology *
This edited volume succeeds in demonstrating that critical analyses of artefacts can reveal unique information about life in the Roman period ...[and] combined with the relatively accessible price... it represents a great source of comparative material for anyone researching Roman portable material culture. * Britannia *



Book Information
ISBN 9781785702563
Author Stefanie Hoss
Format Paperback
Page Count 200
Imprint Oxbow Books
Publisher Oxbow Books