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Lookup NU author(s): Professor James GerrardORCiD
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This chapter argues that access to water is a key means of understanding social inequality in the past. Traditionally Romano-British wells have been studied primarily as infrastructure and artefact traps. Neither of these approaches is wrong, but the use-lives of wells – in contrast to their phases of construction and disuse – are under-studied. By drawing on a wide-range of ethno-historic analogies and experiential analysis the toil of drawing water from well can be understood as socially situated labour with implications for understanding gender, status and inequality in late Roman Britain. A number of case studies demonstrate the material evidence that underpins these claims and allows a new interpretation of unusual deposits in the fills of these features to be advanced. This in turn enables the implications of these deposits for understanding the socio-economic process that accompanied the decline of Roman power in Britain during the early fifth century to be better understood.
Author(s): Gerrard J
Editor(s): Bonnie, R; Klingborg, P
Publication type: Book Chapter
Publication status: Published
Book Title: Water in Ancient Mediterranean Households
Year: 2024
Pages: 172-195
Print publication date: 30/11/2023
Online publication date: 30/11/2023
Acceptance date: 21/08/2023
Publisher: Routledge
Place Published: London
URL: https://www.routledge.com/Water-in-Ancient-Mediterranean-Households/Bonnie-Klingborg/p/book/9781032213972
Library holdings: Search Newcastle University Library for this item
ISBN: 9781032213972
