sentences:  In the 1530s, the English antiquary John Leland successfully identified Roman bricks (albeit under the misleading designation of "Briton brykes") at several geographically dispersed sites, distinguishing them by size and shape from their medieval and modern counterparts.This has been described as one of the earliest exercises in archaeological typology.After the Western Roman Empire fell in the 5th century many of the commercial stone quarries in Europe were abandoned.