A conference on the ’Small Towns’ of Roman Britain was held in Oxford, 3-5 January 1975, organised jointly by the Oxford University Department for Externa! Studies and the Institute of Archaeology. Its purpose was two-fold: first, ’small towns’ had never previously been the subject of a conference such as that held on the Civitas Capitals of Roman Britain (Leicester 1963),or on Rural Settlement in Roman Britain (Oxford 1965), and it was felt that an Extended discussion of the sites and problems involved was long overdue; secondly, a great deal of excavation has taken place in recent years, shedding much new light on minar settlements and, since the majority of this work is not yet published in full, it was hoped that a conference would provide a usefulforum for discussion amongst excavators.
