Romano British - Is there really such a thing?

[moreno]

As a term Romano-British can be useful for describing an event of socio-cultural interaction, so I would tend to agree with others in the thread. It can be useful for describing a process of structural (in this case social/cultural) reorganization over time, and in the broadest sense defining a form which has a measurable difference. Using the term in this manner provides a reference for discussing the topic. When it comes to reducing the category to specifics, such as attempting to differentiate specific moments of transition, the term may no longer be so useful.

Regarding BP, it is the preferred method for notating 14c dates, particularly when discussing prehistory of greater antiquity where for obvious reasons calendar dates are not particularly useful. OxCal and Beta Analytic usually report their results in calibrated years BP. There was an issue with using BP interchangeably for calibrated and uncalibrated 14c dates which did lead to confusion. More recent citations follow the convention of using Calibrated BP for calibrated dates.

The issue raised in the thread regarding the usefulness of the term Romano-British can be applied to the Near Eastern and Levantine archaeology. The same sort of issues crop up with the same sort of discussions.