The fields of Britannia Continuity and Discontinuity in the pays and regions of Roman Britain

The transition from Roman Britain to medieval England and Wales clearlysaw profound changes in society and landscape, with the large-scaleabandonment of the settlements most closely associated with Romanitas –villas and towns – and the emergence of new architectural styles, burial rites,and other material culture of Germanic character. These changes in thearchaeological record suggest profound social dislocation for the higherechelons of society, but have deflected attention away from what may havebeen a very different story for the majority of the rural population. This articleoffers a preliminary description of the results of the Fields of BritanniaProject, which is examining the potential for continuity and discontinuity inagricultural landscapes across the different regions of Roman Britain. Threestrands are explored: the palaeoenvironmental sequences that record howpatterns of land use changed over time, the relationship between excavatedRomano-British field systems and those of the medieval period, and the waysin which settlement patterns evolved. All three point to considerablepotential continuity and a lack of evidence for large-scale post-Romanabandonment of the rural countryside in lowland areas