As mentioned previously, a large assemblage of coins from South Cheshire was put onto the database recently which added hugely to our data for this county. I have converted these coins into Reece periods to analyse them. The Roman period is split into Reece periods for coins(see https://finds.org.uk/romancoins/reece.php for more information). Using these periods and the formula Richard Reece devised, allows us to compare coin data from different sites and areas. This is the type of work Philippa Walton is doing for the whole of England for her Phd which is showing very interesting results already.
Reece looked at many sites across England and worked out an average site coin loss pattern. This is what he would expect from a Roman site in England. Because of the way the formula works you can compare sites with different numbers of coins as it is the percentage of each period which is the important thing. The Reece period data for the area in South Cheshire seems to pretty well match Richard Reece’s British mean.
This was not expected as David Shotter has done a lot of work on the Roman coins in the North West of England and the sites here do not match Reece’s norm. Sam Moorhead has suggested that the South Cheshire coins could have a different pattern as the economy in that area was different to other parts of the North West. It is quite close to Shropshire which has the sites of Wroxeter and Whitchurch (Roman Mediolanum) which have coin loss patterns more similar to Reece’s British mean. it could mean therefore that people in this area were linked more to this area rather than Chester and other Cheshire sites. This is very interesting as it shows that even within one county (Cheshire) there is variation in periods of activity. It is a reminder that the boundaries we work with today are often meaningless when looking at past activity.
Below are the graphs which show the pattern of coin loss by Reece period, first from the South Cheshire data and second, Reece’s British mean. The patterns can be compared and the similarities in the rise/fall of periods can be seen.
