Introduction: The evolution of territorial identities in the English landscape

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Rippon
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Short Paper ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
The North ◽  
Long Time ◽  
The North Sea ◽  
Administrative Units

This is a study of the territorial structures within which past communities managed their landscapes. Today, we live our lives within a complex hierarchy of administrative units that includes parishes, districts, counties, and nations, and while some of these are recent in origin, others are deeply rooted in the past: most parts of England, for example, still have counties that are direct successors to the shires recorded in Domesday and which still form the basis for our local government. These territorial entities are an important part of our history, giving communities a sense of place and identity, and this book will explore where this aspect of our landscape has come from: might county names such as Essex— meaning the ‘East Saxons’—suggest that they originated as early Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, and if so, what was the relationship between these kingdoms and the Romano-British civitates and Iron Age kingdoms that preceded them? The idea that the landscape all around us has a long and complex history is a familiar one. For a long time, however, continuity stretching back to the Roman period and beyond was thought to be rare. Archaeologists and historians have argued that once Britain ceased to be part of the Roman Empire, its economy collapsed, and it was not long before hordes of Angles and Saxons sailed across the North Sea and dispossessed the Britons of their land. This was thought to have marked the onset of the ‘dark ages’ before the flowering of a new era of civilization—the ‘Middle Ages’—a few centuries later. Although this was the view when Hoskins (1955) wrote his Making of the English Landscape, it is noteworthy that in the same year Finberg (1955) published a short paper speculating that there may have been considerable continuitywithin the landscape at Withington in Gloucestershire. Overall, however, while some Romanists saw a degree of overlap and continuity during the Anglo-Saxon colonization, most saw the fifth century as one of dramatic change reflected in the apparent desertion of most towns and villas, the collapse of market-based trade and manufacturing, and the introduction of entirely new forms of architecture, burial practice and material culture (see Esmonde Cleary 2014, 3 for a historiography).

Settlement and economy in a changing prehistoric lowland landscape: an East Yorkshire (UK) case study

2005 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 225-259 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Halkon ◽  
Jim Innes
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Factors ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Field Survey ◽  
Stone Tools ◽  
The Past ◽  
The North ◽  
The North Sea ◽  
Northern Shore

This article assesses the major changes in landscape and coastline, which took place in an area adjacent to the northern shore of the inner estuary of the river Humber, in East Yorkshire, UK, from the beginning of the Holocene to the Iron Age. It considers the effect of these changes on material culture as represented by artefact distributions, including flint assemblages and polished stone tools located during field survey. The conclusions presented here derive from a continuing programme of research in this study area and they are placed in the context of the wider Humber region and the North Sea Basin. This article advocates a restoration of balance with regard to geographical determinism – a new pragmatism – accepting that environmental factors have a great importance in determining the nature and location of certain activities in the past, though cannot be used to explain them all.

From Texts and Iconography to Use-Wear Analysis of Ceramic Vessels

2021 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-210
Author(s):  
Bartłomiej Lis ◽  
Trevor Van Damme
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Wear Analysis ◽  
Use Wear ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Ceramic Vessels ◽  
Repeated Use ◽  
Funerary Rites

While handwashing is attested in the Bronze Age cultures of the eastern Mediterranean and appears in both Linear B records and Homeric epics, the custom has not been discussed with regard to the material culture of Mycenaean Greece. On analogy with Egyptian handwashing equipment, we explore the possibility that a conical bowl made of bronze and copied in clay was introduced in Greece early in the Late Bronze Age for this specific use. We integrate epigraphic, iconographic and formal analyses to support this claim, but in order to interrogate the quotidian function of ceramic lekanes, we present the results of use-wear analysis performed on 130 examples. As use-wear develops from repeated use over a long time, it is a good indicator of normative behaviour, particularly when large datasets are amassed and contrasted with other shapes. While not conclusive, our results allow us to rule out a function as tableware for food consumption, and in combination with all other analyses support the interpretation of lekanes as handwashing basins. We then trace the development of this custom from its initial adoption by elite groups to its spread among new social classes and venues after the collapse of the palace system: at home, as part of communal feasting and sacrifice or as an element of funerary rites. The widespread distribution of handwashing equipment after 1200 bc closely mirrors the situation in our earliest surviving Greek Iron Age texts and joins a growing body of evidence pointing to strong continuity in social practices between the Postpalatial period and the early Iron Age in Greece.

The northern Black Sea and North Caucasus

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valenina Mordvinceva ◽  
Sabine Reinhold
Keyword(s):  
Black Sea ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
The Black Sea ◽  
North Caucasus ◽  
The North ◽  
Long Time ◽  
History Of ◽  
Northern Shore ◽  
Greek Colonization

This chapter surveys the Iron Age in the region extending from the western Black Sea to the North Caucasus. As in many parts of Europe, this was the first period in which written sources named peoples, places, and historical events. The Black Sea saw Greek colonization from the seventh century BC and its northern shore later became the homeland of the important Bosporan kingdom. For a long time, researchers sought to identify tribes named by authors such as Herodotus by archaeological means, but this ethno-deterministic perspective has come under critique. Publication of important new data from across the region now permits us to draw a more coherent picture of successive cultures and of interactions between different parts of this vast area, shedding new light both on local histories and on the role ‘The East’ played in the history of Iron Age Europe.

The Britons in Southern Scotland

Antiquity ◽  
1955 ◽  
Vol 29 (114) ◽  
pp. 77-88 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth Jackson
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Roman Period ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Medieval Period ◽  
The West ◽  
Early Medieval Period ◽  
The North ◽  
Dark Ages ◽  
The People ◽  
Northern Portion

The archaeological background of the people of what is now Scotland south of the Forth and Clyde in the Roman period was a La Téne one, and specifically chiefly Iron Age B. This links them intimately with the Britons of southern Britain in the conglomeration of Celtic tribes who called themselves Brittones and spoke what we call the Brittonic or Ancient British form of Celtic, from which are descended the three modern languages of Welsh, Cornish and Breton. To the north of the Forth was a different people, the Picts. They too were Celts or partly Celts; probably not Brittones however, but a different branch of the Celtic race, though more closely related to the Brittones than to the Goidels of Ireland and (in later times) of the west of Scotland. Not being Brittonic, the Picts may be ignored here. Our southern Scottish Brittones are nothing but the northern portion of a common Brittonic population, from the southern portion of which come the people of Wales and Cornwall. Some historians speak of the northern Brittones as Welsh, following good Anglo-Saxon precedent, but this is apt to lead to confusion. The best term for them, in the Dark Ages and early Medieval period, as long as they survived, is ‘Cumbrians’, and for their language, ‘Cumbric’. They called themselves in Latin Cumbri and Cumbrenses, which is a Latinization of the native word Cymry, meaning ‘fellow-countrymen’, which both they and the Welsh used of themselves in common, and is still the Welsh name for the Welsh to the present day. The centre of their power was Strathclyde, the Clyde valley, with their capital at Dumbarton.

Ethnic Identity and the Archaeology of the aduentus Saxonum

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
James M. Harland
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Identity ◽  
North Sea ◽  
Social Constructionism ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Early Medieval ◽  
Migration Patterns ◽  
Roman World ◽  
The North ◽  
The North Sea ◽  
Alternative Understanding

For centuries, archaeologists have excavated the soils of Britain to uncover finds from the early medieval past. These finds have been used to reconstruct the alleged communities, migration patterns, and expressions of identity of coherent groups who can be regarded as ethnic 'Anglo-Saxons'. Even in the modern day, when social constructionism has been largely accepted by scholars, this paradigm still persists. <br><br>This book challenges the ethnic paradigm. As the first historiographical study of approaches to ethnic identity in modern 'Anglo-Saxon' archaeology, it reveals these approaches to be incompatible with current scholarly understandings of ethnicity. Drawing upon post-structuralist approaches to self and community, it highlights the empirical difficulties the archaeology of ethnicity in early medieval Britain faces, and proposes steps toward an alternative understanding of the role played by the communities of lowland Britain - both migrants from across the North Sea and those already present - in transforming the Roman world.

Re- visiting the Roman Iron Age Hoby chieftain burial after 100 years of its discovery - adding the strontium isotopic perspective

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karin Margarita Frei ◽  
Susanne Klingenberg
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Environmental Samples ◽  
Human Remains ◽  
Strontium Isotope ◽  
Northern Europe ◽  
The North ◽  
Isotope Analyses ◽  
Shed Light

In 1920 on the island of Lolland, in southern Denmark the remains of one of northern Europe’s richest graves came to light, the Hoby chieftain burial. It revealed a large number of luxurious Roman goods, including two silver drinking cups decorated with Greek-inspired scenes from Homer’s Iliad. The burial dates to the beginning of the Roman Iron Age (1CE -200CE), and represents a key point in time when the Roman Empire failed to expand towards the north and changed its strategy towards a more political and diplomatic type of relationship with northern Europe. Hence, the Hoby burial is considered to be a key example of this type of relationship. We revisited the burial and present the first strontium isotope analyses of the human remains of the Hoby individual from three of his teeth and 10 additional environmental samples to shed light on his provenance. We discussed these results in light of the new insights provided by recent excavations of a contemporary nearby settlement. Our results indicate that the Hoby individual was most probably of local origin, corroborating previous interpretations. Furthermore, the associated settlement seems to confirm the central role of Hoby in the Early Roman Iron Age society.

Rural Communities in Early Medieval Europe: Archaeological Approaches and Frameworks

2002 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helena Hamerow
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Rural Communities ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Rural Settlements ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Melting Pot ◽  
Local Diversity ◽  
Northwest Germany ◽  
Structure Of Communities ◽  
Northwest Europe

The primary aim of this book is to provide an overview of the evidence for the settlements and everyday life of rural communities in northwest Europe from c. ad 400 to 900, broadly the period from the collapse of the western Roman Empire to the rise of early states in its former provinces and Scandinavia. Its secondary purpose is to relate this evidence, which comes mainly from archaeological excavations, to Anglo-Saxon England and to consider its implications for our understanding of settlements here. Each chapter concludes, therefore, with a brief discussion of the comparable evidence from England, even though detailed comparisons cannot always be drawn due to differences in the quantity and nature of the data available. The evidence is examined under five broad topics: buildings and what the ‘built environment’ tells us about the household and its activities; the layout of farmsteads and settlements and how these may reflect the social structure of communities; the formation of territories and demographic developments; farming strategies; and, finally, the role of non-agrarian production and exchange in the economies of rural settlements. Working with evidence spanning such a broad chronological and geographical range is naturally beset with methodological difficulties. One obvious complication is introduced by the different traditions of periodization and terminology used by scholars working in different countries. Thus, a settlement dating to the sixth century might be described as ‘Germanic Iron Age’, ‘Migration period’, ‘early Anglo-Saxon’, or ‘Merovingian’, depending on its location. The chapters which follow draw primarily on evidence from a large region, stretching from southern Scandinavia, through northwest Germany to the Netherlands. This brings with it the danger of adopting a ‘melting pot’ approach, however unintentionally (Halsall 1995a, 1–3). Yet, an appreciation of regional, indeed local, diversity and of the potential for rapid social change in this period is essential. This North Sea zone has been chosen, furthermore, not out of a misguided belief in a ‘homogeneous Germanic culture’ (ibid.), but because it was in close cultural and economic contact with England and includes the regions from which the Anglo-Saxons believed their forebears to have originated.

scholarly journals IV.—On the Series of Wall Paintings in the Church of St. Mary, Guildford

Archaeologia ◽  
1885 ◽  
Vol 49 (01) ◽  
pp. 199-212
Author(s):  
John Green Waller
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Religious Art ◽  
Wall Paintings ◽  
The North ◽  
Long Time ◽  
The Church ◽  
Old Friends ◽  
New Discovery ◽  
The Middle Ages

The Series of Paintings on the vault of the apse to the north aisle of St. Mary's Church, Guildford, unlike so many which have exercised our attention for a long time past, are of no new discovery, but were disclosed as far back as 1825. In 1838, they were described, and a solution proposed by my old friends, Edward John Carlos and John Gough Nichols, in theArchaeologia, vol. XXVII. p. 413. There are no two names which recall to me more reverent associations than those of the friends I have mentioned. Mr. Carlos was my master in archaeology, and Mr. Nichols's services are well known to this Society. But at the time they wrote little or nothing was known of the popular religious art of the Middle Ages. Didron had but begun his researches, and Maury had not written at all; whilst, in this country, whitewash still covered most of the walls of our churches. Therefore it is not a matter of surprise that their attempted solution is inaccurate, nor have those who have followed them been more fortunate. Guesses have been vaguely made, always an unsure process, for there is nothing more likely to deceive than attempts to find out the meaning of a subject without any principle to go upon: it is like a voyage upon an unknown sea, without rudder or compass. In fact, the subjects I am about to explain, are exceedingly obscure until the clue is obtained; and, at one time, I feared I must have confessed my ignorance, though not admitting the accuracy of the solution given by my friends. They are unique to my experience, and especially curious in the manner in which they are associated together.

Gallo-British Colonies the Aisled Round-House Culture in the North

1948 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
pp. 46-125 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lindsay Scott
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Working Population ◽  
The North ◽  
Real Nature ◽  
South West ◽  
First Time ◽  
British Colonies ◽  
Point Of Departure

In a former paper, ‘The Problem of the Brochs,’ the writer sought to review the culture which appeared in the Western and Northern Islands and on the Northern Mainland in the 1st century B.C. and to clear away some preconceptions which seemed to hinder a realistic understanding of it. It was there suggested that a clue to the real nature of the culture might be found in a study of the ‘wheelhouse,’ a building which had not accumulated round itself those more romantic conceptions of 19th century archaeology, which made of every house a castle and of every mound a tomb; but was accepted for what it was, a dwelling of a working population. In the present paper this clue is followed with the aim of answering some of the questions which the former paper merely posed. A firm point of departure is sought in a farmstead excavated by the writer in Uist, and thence the inquiry is followed through the abundant, if unequally valuable, reports of earlier excavators to a survey of the culture as a whole.The survey will be seen to owe much to the earlier one published by Professor Childe in his ‘Prehistory of Scotland’ in 1935, where, for the first time, elements in the material culture were distinguished which were plainly of South-west British origin and the result of immigration thence. To Dr Alex. Curle it owes a debt which will be apparent without reference to footnotes. It is due to Dr Curle's wide ranging excavations in the wheelhouses, the wags, the brochs and the hut circles of the culture, and to his earthfast judgment in regard to them, that we know more of the Iron Age dwellings in the North, and of the life lived in them, than we know of the habitations of any other part of Britain.

France, Prussia, or Germany? The Napoleonic Wars and Shifting Allegiances in the Rhineland

2006 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 611-640
Author(s):  
Michael Rowe
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Holy Roman Empire ◽  
Low Countries ◽  
The North ◽  
Late Middle Ages ◽  
First Republic ◽  
German Speaking ◽  
City States

The following article focuses on the Rhineland, and more specifically, the region on the left (or west) bank of the Rhine bounded in the north and west by the Low Countries and France. This German-speaking region was occupied by the armies of revolutionary France after 1792. De jure annexation followed the Treaty of Lunéville (1801), and French rule lasted until 1814. Most of the Rhineland was awarded in 1815 to Prussia and remained a constituent part until after the Second World War. The Rhineland experienced Napoleonic rule first hand. Its four departments—the Roër, Rhin-et-Moselle, Sarre, and Mont-Tonnerre—were treated like the others in metropolitan France, and it is this status that makes the region distinct in German-speaking Europe. This had consequences both in the Napoleonic period and in the century that followed the departure of the last French soldier. This alone would constitute sufficient reason for studying the region. More broadly, however, the Rhenish experience in the French period sheds light on the much broader phenomena of state formation and nation building. Before 1792, the Rhenish political order appeared in many respects a throwback to the late Middle Ages. Extreme territorial fragmentation, city states, church states, and mini states distinguished its landscape. These survived the early-modern period thanks in part to Great Power rivalry and the protective mantle provided by the Holy Roman Empire. Then, suddenly, came rule by France which, in the form of the First Republic and Napoleon's First Empire, represented the most demanding state the world had seen up to that point. This state imposed itself on a region unused to big government. It might be thought that bitter confrontation would have resulted. Yet, and here is a paradox this article wishes to address, many aspects of French rule gained acceptance in the region, and defense of the Napoleonic legacy formed a component of the “Rhenish” identity that came into being in the nineteenth century.

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