Life from death: multi-species fertility rituals within a Romano‐British ritual shaft in Southern England

Green, E. (2025) Life from death: multi-species fertility rituals within a Romano‐British ritual shaft in Southern England. Oxford Journal of Archaeology, 44 (1). pp. 101-118. ISSN 1468-0092 doi: 10.1111/ojoa.12317

Abstract/Summary

Romano-British shaft deposits are an important part of the ritual make-up of the province. However, understanding the meaning of these features is often difficult due to the lack of textual sources. This paper discusses a first century AD shaft from Surrey, England, using a multi-proxy approach to investigate potential ritual significance. Its unique assemblage, containing one of the largest deposits of human and animal remains ever excavated from a single Romano-British feature along with the first recorded instance of Romano-British use of red ochre on bone (a dog baculum, or penis bone), allowed for a series of cosmological connections to fertility be identified.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/122105
Identification Number/DOI	10.1111/ojoa.12317
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Science > School of Archaeology, Geography and Environmental Science > Department of Archaeology
Publisher	Wiley
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