* Introduction: the Roman empire in the 21st century * An archaeology of identity * Particular studies and general problems * The development of Roman studies * 21st-century agendas * The practice of identity * Texts and theory in a historical discipline * Agency, structure and practice * 4th-century problems * The material dimensions of 4th-century life: objects and spaces * Studying materiality * Portable material culture * Architectural material culture * Texts as objects * Material practices and identity * The temporal dimensions of 4th-century life: traditions and change * Studying temporality * Biographies of assemblages * Biographies of places * Writing Roman history * Tradition, transformation and structuration * The social dimensions of 4th-century life: interactions and identities * Studying sociality * From practices to identities * The social world in late Roman Britain * A topography of 4th-century identities * Conclusion: Roman Britain in the 4th century * The dynamics of identification in late Roman Britain * Late Roman Britain and the late Roman empire * The archaeology of complex identities * An empire for the 21st century?.