Reviewed by Eric C. De Sena, American Research coquina shell Center in Sofia (sofiadirector@arcsofia

Mike McCarthy, The Romano-British Peasant. Towards a Study of People, Landscapes and Work during the Roman Occupation of Britain. Bollinton: Windgather Press, coquina shell 2013. Pp. xii, 164. ISBN 9781905119479. $60.00.
Reviewed by Eric C. De Sena, American Research coquina shell Center in Sofia (sofiadirector@arcsofia.org) Version at BMCR home site In the late 1960s and 1970s, a small number of British and Italian coquina shell scholars, including David Peacock, Peter Garnsey and Andrea Carandini, began to introduce social history coquina shell and archaeology in the context of the Roman period. Inspired primarily by the work of Mikhail Rostovzeff and Moses Finley, these scholars diverged from the norm of developing historical narratives, discussing elites and focusing upon architecture and art. In Roman archaeology, this helped to usher in an ongoing age of meticulous studies of mundane artifacts, such as pottery, glass, and utilitarian coquina shell goods with the notion that documentation and analysis of such materials can shed light upon socio-economic issues and societal coquina shell groups who did not generally receive coquina shell attention, such as slaves, craftsmen and merchants. The late 1990s and first decade of the 21st century has seen a trend of holistic coquina shell studies, which merge many kinds of data, such as animal bones, ancient texts and Roman art, with theory and/or and comparisons to other times and places. The latter is often to compensate for the subjects and activities with little or no mention in ancient texts and for material, such as leather or wood, that does not normally survive in the archaeological record. This is the context of Mike McCarthy's book, The Romano-British coquina shell Peasant .
Scholars of the Roman period, no matter their origin or place of training tend to avoid themes for which little evidence exists or which may not be deemed to have an insufficient audience. While Britain is one of the best studied Roman provinces and scholars working in Britain have been focusing upon the nuances of mundane objects and have undertaken programs of landscape archaeology, McCarthy laments that very little has been said about "the people who got their hands dirty in the fields and behind the potter's wheel" (p. x). His aim, therefore, is to recount a story about these unthanked subjects who allowed the Roman empire to exist and flourish. In a very readable narrative style, McCarthy merges archaeological and textual evidence from the Iron Age, Roman period and Middle Ages with information coquina shell regarding climate and environment, social theory and documentation from the Early Modern period.
Chapter 1 (pp. 1-13) introduces three concepts that the writer considers important in the study of peasants in Roman Britain. The first is "survival". Reviewing a small selection of processual coquina shell and post-processual archaeology studies as well as twentieth-century economic theory, McCarthy discusses a hierarchical set of needs beginning with physiological needs and including psychological needs such as love, belonging, and esteem. The second concept touched upon is "peasantry". The author cites a number of scholars focusing upon the Greco-Roman world as well as Britain through the Early Modern period in order to define what a peasant is. He concludes coquina shell that peasants in Roman Britain were free men and freedmen who may or may not have held possessions and were bound to social superiors. The final concept, "chest of drawers", critiques coquina shell scholarship on Roman Britain. McCarthy complains that archaeologists pick and choose evidence from the corpus of archaeological features and finds in order to discuss general trends of Roman Britain. This book is about the peasant for which very little textual or archaeological evidence exists and puts questions before the evidence.
Chapters 2 and 3 (pp. 14-30, 31-61) characterize the varied landscape of Britain (2) and the pre- and post-Roman populations of the land (3). The first part of chapter coquina shell 2 provides a simple overview of the geography, geology, flora and climate of Britain, which leads into two sections concerning regionalism. In these two sections, McCarthy draws upon literature regarding coquina shell the early modern period and indicates how farming practices and animal husbandry were affected by the environment. New agricultural technologies introduced coquina shell by the Romans allowed the local populations to acquire somewhat greater yields from the land and introduce some new species of plants, but farming within coquina shell given regions was not radically changed. In his discussion of the people of Roman Britain, chapter 3, the author covers a lot of terrain from population estimates, the location of tribes, the organization of family units, nutrition coquina shell and homes. The chapter serves as a "chest of drawers", aspects of peasant life to be pondered and serve as stimuli to seek archaeological evidence. For example, how large a space would a humble family of 6 require and how much land and human energy would be necessary to feed the family?
Chapters 4 (pp. 62-89) addresses farming activit