New Vindolanda Discoveries Rewrite Life on Hadrian’s Wall: A Bustling, Multicultural Frontier

Two millennia after Rome reached the limits of its power in Britain, new finds at Vindolanda and other sites along Hadrian’s Wall are transforming our view of life on the empire’s northern frontier. Far from a lonely, all-male military outpost, the archaeological record reveals a dynamic, multicultural community of soldiers, families, merchants, enslaved people and worshippers from across the Roman world.

Vindolanda: A Window Into Everyday Frontier Life

Vindolanda, a fort in today’s Northumberland that was demolished and rebuilt nine times, has produced exceptionally rich evidence. Archaeologists have recovered about 1,700 ink-written wooden tablets dating to around A.D. 100, roughly 5,000 leather shoe fragments from Vindolanda and the nearby fort Magna, and a range of household objects, inscriptions and building remains that illuminate daily routines and social life.

Around 5,000 shoe parts have been unearthed at Vindolanda and nearby Magna. A large percentage of shoes at Magna are extra-large — up to U.S. size 15. | Credit: The Vindolanda Trust

What the Tablets and Shoes Tell Us

The Vindolanda tablets provide intimate snapshots — from supply orders and financial notes to personal letters. One famous letter from Claudia Severa invites Sulpicia Lepidina to a birthday celebration and represents the earliest known female handwriting in Latin. Thousands of shoe fragments identify men, women and children living at or near the fort and even suggest how people coped with cold weather.

Families, Civilians and Social Complexity

Early scholars imagined isolated garrisons of unmarried soldiers. Excavations have overturned that view. Evidence shows auxiliaries commonly lived among families and civilians: extramural settlements (civilian neighborhoods outside the fort) existed alongside life inside the walls. Officers’ families — and in many cases lower-ranking soldiers’ families — contributed to an open, interwoven community.

A birthday invitation written on a thin wood tablet and found at Vindolanda. | Credit: The Print Collector / Alamy Stock Photo

Slavery, Commerce and Cultural Exchange

Recent work has also increased evidence for enslaved people on the frontier. A newly deciphered tablet records a deed of sale for an enslaved person, and inscriptions such as the Regina Tombstone from Arbeia commemorate enslaved individuals. Merchants and local entrepreneurs clustered around forts, supplying food, clothing and services; the Vindolanda tablets show money exchanges, contracts and routine provisioning.

Diversity of Origins and Beliefs

Auxiliaries were recruited from across the Roman Empire — places corresponding to modern Netherlands, Belgium, Spain and Syria — bringing varied customs and religious practices. Vindolanda shows religious syncretism: dedications to Roman gods such as Jupiter Optimus Maximus and Victory sit alongside local and hybrid deities, including a stone to Dea Gallia and a unique goddess named Ahvardua.

Vindolanda's military fort and extramural settlement right alongside it. This site has yielded a treasure trove of clues about life in the Roman Empire. | Credit: makasana photo via Alamy

Violence, Health and Daily Drudgery

The frontier was not uniformly peaceful. Episodes like the brief occupation and abandonment of the Antonine Wall and the bloody campaign of Septimius Severus (A.D. 208) underscore periods of heavy violence. Yet most evidence points to everyday concerns — preparing for storms, gardening, sending socks to a comrade — alongside less pleasant realities: parasite infections revealed in latrines and widespread bedbug infestations.

Diet, Trade and Long-Term Legacy

Scientific analyses suggest a meat-heavy military diet, particularly beef, supplemented by imported foods such as wine and fish sauces. Trade networks and provisioning arrangements likely connected local producers (including in Highland Scotland) with Roman garrisons, creating economic opportunities amid coercion. Although Rome formally withdrew around A.D. 410, Vindolanda continued to be occupied by Christian communities — possibly descendants of former soldiers — into the ninth century.

Bottom line: Hadrian’s Wall was not only a military barrier but also a vibrant, interconnected frontier society that mirrored the diversity and complexity of the Roman Empire.