The knife from Damscheid presented here cannot be dated with any degree of certainty to the Roman period owing to the lack of parallels and associated finds. On the contrary, whereas the handle was produced following the appearance of Roman short swords, the blade and sheath do not correspond to the spectrum of Roman types and shapes. Also, the fact that the knife from Damscheid is almost entirely sticking in the sheath distinguishes the knife from the known parallels of the Roman period. Since the knife is utterly functional, one can discount a use as a votive weapon, too. The design of the sheath and the small size indicate that it was a specialised tool. Because only two parallels are known hitherto, we could be dealing with specialised and individual knives which were produced in small numbers. The material employed, the workmanship and the execution might suggest a dating in the Late Middle Ages or the Early Modern period.

The Altburg near Stein-Wingert, Rhineland-Palatinate, is an extensive Iron Age hillfort with numerous, hitherto undated, defensive phases. The new finds recorded following surveying, such as coins, weapons and horse-gear, date to the periods La Tene C and numerically highest to La Tene D2. Based upon the finds published here for the first time, the supraregional, cultural network of the Altburg with other contemporary settlements in the areas east of the Rhine, as well as the eastern area of the Treveri, becomes apparent.

Excavations on the "Bloskopf" near Bad Ems on the River Lahn yielded a Roman military installation of about 0.1 ha in size of the Claudio-Neronian period. In the inner V-shaped ditch pointed timbers in the style of an obstacle of approach were proven for the first time in situ and in an excellent state of preservation. In analogy to the pila muralia, these are called "pila fossata", a term hitherto not recorded. The military installation formed part of a linear ditch-and-rampart system and probably served as a barrier in the terrain. An area of mine shafts and finds of slag from Roman contexts indicate a connection with mining activities. The proof of a Roman date for these mine shafts is still lacking.

During a metal detector survey in the vicinity of the village of Deesen on the German side of the Upper Germanic-Rhaetian Limes a hoard of 62 denarii (69-175) was discovered. This find was made in an area with no previous evidence for Roman or Germanic activity which would explain the presence of this hoard. The distribution of the coins suggests that wild animals had dragged around the corpse along with its clothes and purse, before eating it. This must have caused the coins to fall out of the purse. A link to an historic event can be ruled out. Instead the 62 denarii give testimony to an individual fate. The composition of this hoard is typical for such finds within the Roman Empire but not for the area beyond its frontier (Barbaricum).

The sculptural fragments of Middle Principate funerary monuments used as spoliae in the late Roman castle of Neumagen, have been critically re-assessed. This assessment shows that they do not come from the necropoles of Trier as hitherto assumed, but from the cemeteries of the vicus Noviomagus and/or of the villas in the direct and further surroundings. This thesis, suggested already in 1926 by W. von Massow, is now confirmed by numerous new finds of funerary monuments and sculptural fragments in the Trier Land and by the scarcity of attested positions of funerary monuments in the Trier necropoles.

The use of metal detectors during archaeological excavations in recent years has caused many modern objects to be found and wrongly identified as antique. This is the case for some scales of bronze that are connected with the army of Late Antiquity because they do not fit in the typology of regular Roman examples. The low number of only two holes and the two or more bows at one of the narrow sides show that these scales are part of so-called Schuppenketten, that are elements of helmets (for example of the German spike helmet) and cuirasses of the 19th and the early 20th centuries.