Roman Roadside Settlement and Multi-Period Ritual Complex at Nettleton and Rothwell, Lincolnshire

The unremarkable arable landscape around Mount Pleasant today belies the importance of the area in the past; at the highest point of the Lincolnshire Wolds and at the head of three radial valleys, this was a highly significant locality in earlier times, with Iron Age coins and contemporary miniatures suggesting the location of a shrine. Enclosures and trackways, revealed by geophysical survey, and stone-founded buildings suggested that the site was a nodal point in the landscape. A continuing religious focus at the site is demonstrated by the presence of an inscribed lead tablet of the late Roman period with a list of named Roman citizens, presumably two households of this site or locality. Whilst the more striking finds point to votive activity, evidence for economic and cultural activity and prolific pottery finds from the Early Roman era, suggest a settled community was established by this period. Studies of faunal and environmental samples provide an insight into diet, crop production, local ecology and land use. Together with the specialist analysis of the artefactual evidence, this volume reveals a complex picture of the life and times of the site until occupation came to a rather abrupt end in the first half of the fourth century in an apparently widespread re-organization of settlement in the region.