Beer and salt among Roman 'mega-industries'

[Judi Lynn]

7 hours ago

Katy Prickett
BBC News

. . .

From invasion to industrialisation

It took the Romans about 45 years to take over most of England and Wales after they invaded in AD 43, arriving in a disunited land dominated by tribal leaders.

The need to supply their army was the "key driver", according to archaeologist Edward Biddulph, as well the urban centres they created. This led to the rapid industrial development.

The Oxford Archaeology senior project manager said pottery, building materials, metalwork and glass were all being produced across the country, but from the 3rd and 4th Centuries "we start to see mega industries".

"We know industrial activity was undertaken at a very large scale at a number of sites in Roman Britain and we have some very large sites that are helping us to really fill in the gaps in our knowledge, the missing pieces that we've long been struggling with," he said. "One of the classic areas is malting and brewing, if you look at Roman Britain you see next to nothing about this, yet people must have been drinking beer."

More:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce9zz5pje04o

[Warpy]

1. Not surprising

Salt was absolutely essential to life in northern latitudes, it was the only way to preserve things like cabbage so that people didn't develop scurvy over the long winters It also preserved meats and fish.

While there were domestic wines in Britain, the harvests were chancy, at best. Beer and ale were the preferred ways of sterilizing water so that it could be drunk safely. It was cheaper to make beer than it was to import wine.

I think Rome wanted a monopoly on the former and simply wanted to keep its army alive with the latter.

(Why yes, I've done deep dives into that region's history, Bronze Age through Mediaeval, that stuff is fascinating.