Dear folks,
I can see that you were obviously taken by Kamm. And yes, I can see the literary attraction. But should a book on Roman Scotland at least to be uptodate, even if it was meant as an introduction?

The abandonment of Flavian scotland stands and has stood since the 1980s at 96AD, perhaps early 97AD, not 90AD as Kamm writes. And would it actually have been so hard to tell the beginer about the problems with Tacitus' account.
E.g. the stuff that was discussed again in the early 1990s by Bill Hanson and long before that by Ronald Syme. Why should a beginner/reader of an introduction be given out of date material?

Another point that really annoyed me is the fact that his account of the Antonine Wall takes next to no account of the change of the archaeological dating that has been current within Scottish Archaeology since 1995. Which is that most of the Antonine Wall was probably abandoned a good while before 169 AD (for those with more interest in details: the entire Antonine II phase appears to be pretty much for the bin). On the other hand all the material from Inveresk, which shows large amount of civilian activity outside the fort (much more than at Cramond - despite the lioness)and which might have gone on for much longer is ignored.

WHY? Ok, I come clean I probably know more about this than the average interested person, but why should it be so hard to find a book that I could give to my friends and/or parents to show them what has changed in the last 10 years and why Roman Scotland is so exiting at the moment. Kamm is full of the same old history and frequently not very accurate, there is so much new stuff, all the data on the environment, the large amount of material of contact with the local population etc. Isn't or at least shouldn't that also be part of a book on Roman Scotland and its frontiers?