Originally Posted by
Magister Militum Flavius Aetius
To be quite frank, Phil Barker is pretty terribly outdated.
We have Late Roman Ovoid shields that survived from Dura Europos, I believe 7 of them (might be wrong on that). The examples that are predominately intact are dished/lenticular, but I do believe a flat ovoid one survived. All of them are of planked construction except the Rectangular Scutum which is made of overlapping strips of wood (like plywood kind of). All of them also have a handle grip on the inside of the shield boss, not an elbow band and handle grip like the old Hoplon/Aspis/Pelta shields or some medieval shields.
The handle grip was entirely dominant in this period. We have some metal ones that survive (I can think of... about 3 Frankish examples from 5th century Gaul, the 3rd century one from Nydam, a 4th Century Roman one from Gaul, and I think Sutton Hoo yielded one too), although most were wood.