ABSTRACT
Christaller's central place theory combines the above features of service provision and effort minimization with simple lattice packing theory, to suggest an idealized pattern of settlement. The applicability of the model was further investigated by examining the possibility of non-randomness in the distribution of walled towns. Kolb and Brunner, on the other hand, have suggested that the size of the tributary area to which one range of goods is provided will vary with the size of the service centre. It is only in upland Britain that continuously troublesome tribes and a difficult terrain resulted in the imposition by Rome of an artificial pattern based on military and strategic considerations. A tentative hypothesis might therefore be that the minor unwalled settlements do exist as a separate hierarchical level, as provisionally suggested on the O. S. Map of Roman Britain. The Romano-British pattern of site distribution has been used as a basis for distinguishing procedural stages in the application of locational models.
