Multivariate money : a statistical analysis of Roman Republican coin hoards with special reference to material from Romania

Abstract

The aim of this thesis is assess the usefulness of the statistical analysis of coin hoards for the \nexamination of aspects of ancient societies including coin use and exchange. Special attention was \npaid to various aspects of ‘formation processes.’ The thesis was divided into three parts. \nPart I — Background. This Part initially reviews the history of the project and then goes \non to examine the concept of money in the light of anthropological and economic work. A brief \ndiscussion of types of exchange (gift, barter, commodity exchange) in societies is offered. The Part \nis concluded with a review of previous statistical analyses of coin assemblages. \nPart II—Analysing Hoards A large database of Roman Republican coin hoards was collected \nfor this project. The problems with this type of data, its storage and retrieval are discussed. The \ndatabase is then analysed in great detail in order to answer a series of numismatic, archaeological \nand statistical questions. \nCorrespondence analysis was used on twenty-two subsets of the data to reveal patterning in \nthe data-set which is discussed. A new variant of cluster analysis was developed to subdivide \nthe data set whilst minimising the time series element. The results are compared to principal coordinates \nand detrended correspondence analyses. The analyses reveal aspects of the use and supply \nof Roman coinage over Europe and show clearly the unique nature of the Romanian data. \nAn attempt is made to estimate the speed of circulation of coin in Italy. It is shown that the \nnature of coin supply leads to variation between periods which is the result of simple probability \nand sampling theory, not changes in the speed of circulation of coin as has been suggested by other \nauthors. \nSimulation studies are used to examine the validity of estimates of coin production and annual \ncoin loss. \nThe results are summarised. The usefulness of the techniques used is discussed. In the light of \nthe formation processes examined, the patterns in coin hoard data are tentatively interpreted. \nPart III — Romania. It is argued that to attempt a detailed interpretation of the patterns \nrevealed above the material must be seen in its archaeological context. This case study is offered as \none such attempt. Romania was chosen for two reasons: 1) the exceptional quantity of hoards found \nin an area outside Roman control; 2) the unique evidence for the copying of coins. After reviewing \nvarious aspects of Romanian archaeology, a detailed analysis of the problem of copies is offered \nincluding the results of a large scale archaeometallurgical study conducted under the direction of \nthe author. Estimates of the quantities of coins copied are given. A brief review of the settlement \nevidence in the counties of Sibiu, Alba and Hunedoara, of special settlement and structure types, \nand of hoards of silverware is presented. The thesis concludes by discussing the nature of Dacian \nsociety and its use of coin in the light of the theoretical discussions in Part I, the evidence for coin \nsupply discussed in Part II and the results of the analyses in Part III in the context of the wider \narchaeological evidence.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 22 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.