The Romanization of Britain Through Garden Plants
While there have been significant strides in the scholarship surrounding Romanization and Roman gardens in the provinces, and the ways in which cultivated garden plants represent cultural ideologies and identity, there is a lack of research focusing on the use of local native plants in gardens alongside Roman imported and introduced plants in the empire. To explore this topic further, this thesis explores both native and non-native plants and their cultivation in the gardens of Roman Britain. This research aims to close this gap in the knowledge of native plants used in the gardens of Roman Britain through analyzing archaeobotanical, landscape, and material evidence to identify the Roman imported (non-native) and local (native) plants used in gardens, and analyze the data within broader contexts of Romanization and a unique Romano-British tradition of cultivating plants in gardens.