By the end of the second century, although a backwater of the Empire, Britain had become a Romanized province. However, the whole Empire had also begun to alter in character and in the following century change accelerated and became more evident to contemporaries. As these processes intensified they were perceived as a crisis: the hitherto stable world was transformed rapidly and unpredictably, as the Golden Age of the second century was replaced by the anarchy of the third. The character of much of the archaeological evidence also develops into the pattern characteristic of the later Empire, although it is far from clear precisely how these alterations relate to those referred to in the historical sources. In this chapter the historical processes are outlined first to provide the background. The archaeological evidence is then discussed in relation to the historical changes defined.

The civitates of Roman Britain developed at varying speeds and in different ways according to the impact of the Roman presence on their social systems. Despite these variations in the pattern of development there is a series of characteristics which typifies the British civitates to the early third century - through the period often seen as the Golden Age of the Empire. These characteristics define the nature of the whole province, but are most conveniently examined by taking separately the evidence of the towns, the countryside and the flows of goods between them.

Well over half a century ago, Francis Haverfield (1912) discussed Romanization and defined it both in terms of historical process and material changes in native culture. These alterations were shown to have been brought about by the Roman presence and resulted in native culture more closely resembling that of Rome. Here, in attempting to evaluate these processes again, I intend to build on the foundations laid by Haverfield, but with the considerable advantage of the larger data-base for the understanding of changes in the material culture in the Empire provided by recent archaeological research. In summary, Haverfield stated: ’First, Romanization in general extinguished the distinction between Roman and provincial ... Secondly, it did not everywhere and at once destroy all traces of tribal or national sentiments or fashions’. This conclusion parallels the idea, developed by Brendel (1979), that ’Roman’ culture was by definition a cosmopolitan fusion of influences from diverse origins rather than purely the native culture of Rome itself.

In this chapter, my aim is to characterize settlement patterns and social organization from the end of the second century BC to the middle of the first century AD in the areas of Britain which became the Roman Province of Britannia. The aim is not to provide a detailed account of the archaeology of the period, for it is already the subject of a considerable and growing specialist literature which deserves a fuller synthesis than space here allows. Instead the salient characteristics are discussed and themes introduced which are to be taken up in the remainder of this volume. These themes are particularly related to the development of the agricultural economy and its productive capacity; regional variations in the settlement pattern, and thus perhaps social formation; and the organization of social power. These aspects will be treated in more detail than has been customary in recent studies of Roman Britain, as to understand its Romanization we must first understand what pre-Roman Britain was like.

As I sit down to write this introduction it is difficult to appreciate that writing the original text of The Romanization of Britain (henceforth RoB) was completed (in my attic in Durham) a professional lifetime ago – the manuscript being completed in July 1988. In this introduction, I want to reflect on the context within which that book was written, then discuss some of the responses to it, before offering a few thoughts on the current state of studies of Roman Britain (and the provinces more broadly). I will not, however, enter into a prolonged discussion of current thinking about cultural change under Roman hegemony. Before embarking on this, I would like to digress with two observations. First, over the ensuing thirty-five years, I have occasionally been asked why I have not written a new edition of RoB in order to bring the text up to date. My answer has always been that the original book was very much a product of its time and was conceived of, as its subtitle proclaims, as ’an essay’. As such, although aspects of the evidence presented should indeed be updated, the essence of the book was conceived of as a connected narrative, so any updating or revision would carry the danger of blunting its argument. Further, it was a product of my thinking at a particular point in time, so it should remain as such and be read in that context.

This chapter works to historicize and materialize a family of ritualized practices (molk-style rites) related to the burnt offering of perinatal infants, their deposition in a sanctuary space (conventionally dubbed “tophets”), and the dedication of carved-stone monuments alongside the deposits. Instead of religious permanence or diffusion, it argues for four moments, each with distinctive dynamics, that led communities to embrace these rites. First, between the eighth and fourth centuries BCE, these rites were tied to Phoenician colonization; then, between the fourth and second centuries BCE, the adoption of molk-style rites was tied to migration from these colonial centers. But in the long first century BCE, the boom in molk-style rites was instead tied to the creation of a new, interconnected civic elite in the space between Numidian kingdoms and the Roman province of Africa. Finally, in the second and third centuries CE, migrations related to the Roman army drove the foundation of new sanctuaries to Saturn where stelae (and often molk-style offerings) were dedicated. Stele-sanctuaries were deeply entangled with the power dynamics and institutions of empire.

The concluding chapter reflects on how re-materializing worship and elevating a plurality of localized little pictures over the colonial big picture of Africa in antiquity can contribute to decolonizing North African studies. The chapter synthesizes evidence for how stelae participated in and shaped changing worship practices, and how these recursively reproduced imperial hegemony.