Before you even begin to digest the content of this book, two things strike you immediately: the high production values of a paperback volume and the very reasonable price of a technical volume. This MOLA publication is one of two volumes on the results of the Crossrail project, close to Liverpool Street station, and more pertinently exploring successive phases of Roman roadside activity close to a former tributary of the Walbrook stream, including burials, road and water management, dumping activity and land reclamation.
The first two chapters set out the context of the archaeological investigations, the natural topography and prehistoric evidence, but are wisely not indulgent and progress swiftly to the Roman body of the site (acknowledging that much prehistoric evidence was truncated and re-deposited by the Romans). The first half of the volume sets out the Roman stratigraphic sequence with evidence for dating, consumption and environment in a manner that retains a clear and accessible narrative, supported by detailed but succinct information or artefacts and ecofacts that highlight the pertinent and signpost where the specialist may wish to delve further. This approach succeeds in being eminently readable and include details of the early Roman landscape (pre-AD120) and how early post-built structures were eclipsed by road and water management a short distance outside the expanding Roman London. This was succeeded by roadside cemetery activity including a charnel pit and decapitated burials. A particular highlight comprises well-preserved, waterlogged timber gates that were re-used to construct a platform. Subsequently, the site returns to marshland before new roadside ditches are established.
Maps, plans and illustrations supplement this narrative; zooming the reader in-and-out from the landscape of the site, through the site plan and to selected artefacts. The site photos are first-class, as are the photos of various finds, in particular the coins and pottery, though including illustrated profiles of the latter alongside the photo may have been beneficial. Once the Roman sequence (Chapter 3) is set out, subsequent chapters explore thematic details of the site: The Walbrook Stream (Chapter 4) including valley formation and dynamics with very insightful topographic figures; The Roman Road (Chapter 5) including construction, brushwood layers, wheel ruts, pottery, plant remains, transport equipment and a Roman medallion from the road side ditches. Chapter 6 and 7 explore the cemetery and human bone, with informative but succinct insights into burial rites, demography, health, cranial evidence (common on site) and radiocarbon dating. Chapter 8 details rather briefly marshland formation outside Roman, but includes a very unusual (if not unique) mortarium from Soller (lower Rhine Valley) that may have warranted a larger photo.
That said, the first half of the book is more admirable because it allows for the inclusion in the publication of a second half of specialist appendices (Chapter 9), spanning geoarchaeology, Roman pottery, coins, animal bone, insects and isotope analysis. I shall refrain from digging deeper into the specialist reports for this review, but suffice to say the level of detail is excellent and the forethought and design that appears to have gone into the construction of a volume that is not afraid to include such specialist material shines through. This MOLA publication is to be saluted and recommended as a valuable contribution not only to the understanding of Roman London and its immediate surroundings, but also as an ideal publication-narrative that blends stratigraphy and specialist reports, thus enabling a broad archaeological readership while retaining the complexity and detail enabled by exceptional levels of preservation.