The Urban Poor: Finding the Marginalised

Why are archaeologists ‘missing’ the poor in Late Roman towns? This paper suggest that we are looking in the wrong place, and need to concentrate on areas of the townscape beyond its monumental centre; that we are looking in the wrong way, and need to develop more sophisticated methodologies in both gathering and analysing data; and that we are seeing our evidence through inappropriate interpretative frameworks. To remedy this last state of affairs, we must develop Marxist approaches defining different modes of production, and then apply them to the analysis of townscapes and landscapes, and to artefact and ecofact assemblages.