A Composite Coastal Cordon on Exmoor? Exploring Local Influence on First-Century a.d. Fortlet Use. (16th November 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Symonds, Matthew
• Is Part Of: Britannia. Volume 49(2018)
• Page Start: 53
• Page End: 77
• Publication Date: 2018-11-16
• Subjects: Roman military, -- fortlet, -- Exmoor, -- Dumnonii, -- hybridisation, -- coastal control, -- Old Burrow, -- Martinhoe; Great Britain -- History -- Roman period, 55 B.C.-449 A.D -- Periodicals; Great Britain -- Antiquities, Roman -- Periodicals; Romans -- Great Britain -- Periodicals; 936.10305
• DOI: 10.1017/S0068113X18000120
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0068-113X

Abstract

Abstract: Exceptional aspects of the design and location of a pair of first-century fortlets on the Exmoor coast are explicable as a product of local influence. Previous explanations for the remote setting of these small posts and the distinctive defences securing them have focused on a signalling role, with the fortlets serving as a means to transmit messages to naval vessels patrolling the Bristol Channel. Instead, both the landscape setting and articulation with local settlement patterns imply that these installations strengthened pre-existing measures to counter coastal raiding. Parallels between this variant fortlet design and settlement morphology in the South-West peninsula suggest that the army co-opted an indigenous architectural style. The two fortlets could act as components of what was effectively a composite coastal cordon, built on collaboration between the Roman military and the local population.