What happened when the Romans Arrived in Britain?

All you need to know about Julia Farley (Curator of British and European Iron Age Collections) is that she is comfortably in the top ten people on the planet. Recording interviews with her is not only easy, you forget you are recording an interview. Talking about the last few years of the Iron Age becomes more natural that talking to your best friend about boys and to your mother about failure. 

Other than Asterix, we don't tend to imagine what the Roman Invasion was like on the local people. The small amount of immigration these days has changed our culture, food and daily life so much that trying to imagine what an entirely new power taking over would be like becomes overwhelming. New towns being set up, industry change (exporting slaves anyone?), new clothes, weapons, food and even a written language where none had existed before.

Fish and Chips (a Jewish delicacy we ruined by frying in lard) and Chicken Tikka Masala (a Pakistani dish adapted because the British like gravy) might seem like they have been here forever, but it is almost inconceivable to imagine Britain without any literacy. Where the entire country ran on nothing but woad and gossip.

Here is me and Julia recording a piece for BBC Radio 4's Making History

But of course the influence was more than one way: the local people influenced the Romans too. So much so that some of the objects we've found, thousands of years later are impossible to discern whether they were Roman or British. It is those objects that Julia get proper nerdy about. 
 

Julia has also appeared on The Z List Dead List - Click the image to listen!