A newly published monograph on rural settlement seeks to redress the balance and illuminate the experiences of the majority of the population – as Chris Catling reports. It was a revealing moment, and some of the lessons learned from Richard’s research were subsequently adopted by Mike Fulford (University of Reading) and Neil Holbrook (Cotswold Archaeology) and applied to Roman Britain. At the core of the first report is the classification of rural settlement into three main types – farmsteads, villas, and nucleated settlements. Peopling the pastPeak population density has been variously estimated in the past as between 1 million and 10 million for Roman Britain. Further readingAlexander Smith, Martyn Allen, Tom Brindle, and Michael Fulford (eds), The Rural Settlement of Roman Britain, Britannia Monograph 29, Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies, £40, ISBN 978-0907764434.