INTRODUCTION
1Mark Brennand and Maisie Taylor, ‘The Survey and Excavation of a Bronze Age Timber Circle at Holme-next-the-Sea, Norfolk, 1998-9’, Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society, Vol. 69, 2003, pp.1-84.
2Bede (ed. Bertram Colgrave and R.A.B. Mynors), Ecclesiastical History of the English People (Oxford Medieval Texts, Oxford University Press, 1969), pp.xviii-xix.
3For a blow-by-blow account of the controversy see Matthew Champion, Seahenge: A Contemporary Chronicle (Barnwell’s Timescape Publishing, Aylsham, Norfolk, 2000).
4For a first-rate general introduction to Dark Age Britain see Michael Wood, In Search of the Dark Ages (BBC Books, London, revised edition 2001).
5Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Random House, New York), Vol. 2, Chapter 38, pp.429-30.
6He also noted :’For all the expert analysis of sites and remains, and fascinating technical detail, the evidence to construct what Britons were really like is simply not there.’ This surely relegates archaeology to the endnotes of history. Quoted from a review of Francis Pryor, Britain bc: Life in Britain and Ireland Before the Romans (HarperCollins, London, 2003) by Peter Jones, ‘Founder of Friends of the Classics’, Sunday Telegraph, 5 October 2003.
7For an excellent textbook that covers all the archaeological periods discussed in this book see John Hunter and Ian Ralston (eds), The Archaeology of Britain: An Introduction from the Upper Palaeolithic to the Industrial Revolution (Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1999).
CHAPTER ONE - Origin Myths: Britons, Celts and Anglo-Saxons
1Roy Strong, The Spirit of Britain: A Narrative History of the Arts (Hutchinson/Pimlico, London, 1999), p.22.
2See Pryor, Britain bc, op. cit., pp.107-33.
3Nora Chadwick, The Celts (Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 1970).
4Timothy Darvill (ed.), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology (Oxford University Press, 2002).
5T.G.E. Powell, The Celts (Thames & Hudson, London, 1958), p.15.
6For a map of Celtic expansion as it was believed to have happened see ibid., p.99.
7For post-Roman Celts see Nora Chadwick, Celtic Britain (Thames & Hudson, London, 1963).
8For a well-illustrated account see Judith Herrin, ‘The Fall of Constantinople’, History Today, Vol. 53, June 2003, pp.12-17.
9For more on Iron Age Celtic art see Paul Jacobsthal, Early Celtic Art (2 vols, Oxford University Press, 1944); Sir Cyril Fox, Pattern and Purpose: A Survey of Early Celtic Art in Britain (National Museum of Wales, Cardiff, 1958); J.V.S. Megaw, Art of the European Iron Age: A Study of the Elusive Image (Adams & Dart, Bath, 1970); Morna MacGregor, Early Celtic Art in North Britain (2 vols, Leicester University Press, 1976).
10See Pryor, Britain bc, op. cit., pp.406-10.
11One of the best books of this sort is Anne Ross, Everyday Life of the Pagan Celts (Batsford Books, London, 1970), which still holds its own as a depiction of Iron Age life.
12Simon James, The Atlantic Celts: Ancient People or Modern Invention? (British Museum Press, London, 1999), p.136.
13Much of my discussion of ‘Celticness’ is based on James, ibid.
14Quoted in Stuart Piggott, The Druids (Thames & Hudson, London, 1968), p.164.
15From an excellent reference book on most matters to do with Arthur and Celticness: Bernhard Maier, Dictionary of Celtic Religion and Culture (Boydell Press, Woodbridge, 1997), p.104.
16Piggott, op. cit., p.167.
17James, op. cit., p.133.
18My account of Anglo-Saxon historiography relies heavily on Sam Lucy, The Anglo-Saxon Way of Death: Burial Rites in Ancient England (Sutton Publishing, Stroud, 2000).
19The two academic translations of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles are by G.N. Garmonsway (Dent, London, 1953), and Dorothy Whitelock (Eyre & Spottiswoode, London, 1961). My personal favourite is a selection, beautifully illustrated, by Anne Savage (Heinemann, London, 1982).
20This legend was ‘excavated’ by Geoffrey from the Historia Brittonum: N.J. Higham, King Arthur: Myth-Making and History (Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 2002), p.223.
21H.A. MacDougall, Racial Myth in English History: Trojans, Teutons and Anglo-Saxons (Harvest House, Montreal, 1982).
22Lucy, op. cit., p.159.
23Higham (2002), op. cit., p.22.
CHAPTER TWO - The Origins and Legacy of Arthur
1Geoffrey of Monmouth (trans. Lewis Thorpe), The History of the Kings of Britain (Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 1966), p.217.
2Higham (2002), op. cit., p.17.
3Leslie Alcock, Arthur’s Britain: History and Archaeology ad 367-634 (Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 1971), p.49.
4Higham (2002), op. cit., pp.270-1.
5Leslie Alcock, ‘Cadbury-Camelot: A Fifteen Year Perspective’, Proceedings of the British Academy, Vol. 68, 1982, pp.355-88.
6Leslie Alcock, ’By South Cadbury is that Camelot…’: Excavations at Cadbury Castle, Somerset 1966-1970 (Thames & Hudson, London, 1972).
7Geoffrey Ashe, King Arthur’s Avalon: The Story of Glastonbury (William Collins, London, 1957).
8Two of the best are Alcock (1971), op.cit., and Geoffrey Ashe (ed.), The Quest for Arthur’s Britain (Pall Mall Press, London, 1968).
9Higham (2002), op.cit., p.12.
10The Arthurian myth-world has a huge cast of characters, usefully disentangled but rarely sourced, in Mike Dixon-Kennedy, Arthurian Myth and Legend: An A-Z of People and Places (Brockhampton Press, London, 1998).
11For those wishing to journey into the world of Arthurian literature, I highly recommend Derek Pearsall, Arthurian Romance: A Short Introduction (Blackwell, Oxford, 2003). For medieval and earlier sources I rely mainly in this chapter on Higham (2002), op. cit. Dr Higham is unusual among scholars of medieval and earlier written sources for being an archaeologist too.
12Higham (2002), op. cit., p.272, offers a considered response to that question.
13Pearsall, op. cit., p.6.
14Gildas (ed. and trans. Michael Winterbottom), The Ruin of Britain and Other Documents (Phillimore, Chichester, 2002).
15Alcock (1971), op. cit., p.21.
16Higham (2002), op. cit, p.6.
17Ibid., p.9; for more on the Historia Brittonum see also pp.119-24.
18I am grateful to Nick Higham for pointing this out to me.
19Leslie Alcock dismissed their attribution to Nennius outright; he also chose to refer to the collection of papers that included the Welsh Annals and the Historia by a name of his own, the British Historical Miscellany. Alcock (1971), op. cit., p.44.
20The standard text, with Latin alongside English translation, is edited by Colgrave and Mynors, op. cit.
21Alcock (1971), op. cit., pp.45-72. The collection of papers, copied in an Anglo-Norman hand c.1100, that includes both the Annales Cambriae and the Historia Brittonum is British Museum Harley MS 3859.
22Monmouth (trans. Thorpe), op. cit.
23For example, Steve Blake and Scott Lloyd, The Keys to Avalon: The True Location of Arthur’s Kingdom Revealed (Element Books, Shaftesbury, 2000).
24Higham (2002), op.cit., p.223.
25Ibid., p.271.
26Pearsall, op. cit., p.13.
27Ibid., p.16.
28Ibid., p.17.
29Ibid., p.25.
30Sir Thomas Malory (ed. Janet Cowen), Le Morte d’Arthur (Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 1969).
31From the Introduction to my favourite edition of Malory: John Matthews (ed.), Le Morte d’Arthur (Cassell, London, 2000), p.xiv.
32This account of Malory’s life is based on ibid., pp.xxiii-xxvii.
33Pearsall, op. cit., p.43.
34Richard Barber, ‘Looking for the Holy Grail’, History Today, Vol. 54, March 2004, pp.13-19. The article was based on Barber’s book The Holy Grail: Imagination and Belief (Allen Lane, London, 2004).
35Pearsall, op. cit., p.84.
36The Winchester manuscript is not Malory’s original, although it is much closer to it than Caxton’s published version. See Pearsall, op. cit., p.88. For the Winchester manuscript see Eugene Vinaver (ed.), The Works of Sir Thomas Malory (Oxford University Press, 1990).
37For an excellent account of the use of the cult of Arthur in public life see Higham (2002), op. cit., pp.226-66.
38Ibid., pp.229-30.
39Ibid., p 234.
40For Arthur and the Tudors see J.J. Scarisbrick, Henry VIII (Pelican Books, Harmondsworth, 1971), p.355.
41Martin Biddle (ed.), King Arthur’s Round Table: An Archaeological Investigation (Boydell Press, Woodbridge, 2000).
42A.C. Barefoot, ‘Tree-Ring Dating the Round Table’, in ibid., pp.149-94.
43For the carpentry of the Round Table see Martin Biddle and Cecil Hewett, ‘Carpentry, Condition and Sequence’, in ibid., pp.105-48. The standard work on English medieval carpentry is Cecil Hewett, English Historic Carpentry (Phillimore, Chichester, 1980). For two excellent reviews of timber buildings see Margaret Wood, The English Medieval House (Random House, London, 1994), and R.W. Brunskill, Timber Buildings in Britain (Victor Glance, London, 1985).
44Simon Jervis, ‘The Round Table as Furniture’, in Biddle, op. cit., p.31.
45Pamela Tudor-Craig, ‘Iconography of the Painting’, in ibid., pp.285-333.
46Ibid., p.333.
47Higham (2002), op. cit., p.239.
48For more on the Arthurising of Alfred see Barbara Yorke, ‘The Most Perfect Man in History?’, History Today, Vol. 49, October 1999, pp.8-14.
CHAPTER THREE - Ancient Britons
1Barry Cunliffe, Iron Age Communities in Britain (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 3rd edn London, 1991), p.547.
2Mike Parker Pearson, ‘Food, Sex and Death: Cosmologies in the British Iron Age with Particular Reference to East Yorkshire’, Cambridge Archaeological Journal, Vol. 9, 1999, pp.43-69.
3The fullest account of the Druids is still Piggott, op. cit. For a briefer version without the modern trappings see Cunliffe, Iron Age Communities in Britain, op. cit., pp.518-20. See also Graham Webster, Boudica: The British Revolt Against Rome ad 60 (Batsford Books, London, 1978), pp.63-83.
4Webster, op. cit., pp.131-2.
5The earliest monuments where a variety of rituals took place were the so-called causewayed enclosures. For a good summary account of them see A. Oswald, C. Dyer and M. Barber, The Creation of Monuments: Neolithic Causewayed Enclosures in the British Isles (Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England, English Heritage, Swindon, 2001).
6Cunliffe, Iron Age Communities in Britain, op. cit., p.519.
7Richard Bradley, The Passage of Arms: An Archaeological Analysis of Prehistoric Hoards and Votive Deposits (Cambridge University Press, 1990).
8See Francis Pryor, Seahenge: A Quest for Life and Death in Bronze Age Britain (HarperCollins, London, 2001), and Britain bc, op. cit.
9In Britain bc, op. cit., p.414, I opt, perhaps rather conservatively, for 1.5 million.
10Cunliffe, Iron Age Communities in Britain, op. cit., pp.543-6.
11R.D. Van Arsdell, Celtic Coinage of Britain (Spink, London, 1989).
12Kay Ainsworth and Jeffrey May, ‘An Iron Age Coin Die from Near Alton, Hampshire’, Current Archaeology, No. 188, 2003, p.326.
13J.D. Hill, ‘The End of One Kind of Body and the Beginning of Another Kind of Body? Toilet Instruments and “Romanisation” in Southern England During the First Century ad’, in Adam Gwilt and Colin Haselgrove (eds), Reconstructing Iron Age Societies: New Approaches to the British Iron Age (Oxbow Monograph 71, Oxford, 1997), pp.96-107.
14James, op. cit., p.40.
15For a useful summary account of the Druids see Cunliffe, Iron Age Communities in Britain, op. cit., pp.518-20.
16For more on garum or liquamen see Jane Grigson, Fish Cookery (Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 1975), p.369.
17For British overseas contacts in general see Barry Cunliffe, Facing the Ocean: The Atlantic and its Peoples (Oxford University Press, 2001).
18Barry Cunliffe, Mount Batten Plymouth: A Prehistoric and Roman Port (Oxford University Committee for Archaeology, Monograph 26, 1988); Barry Cunliffe, Hengistbury Head, Dorset. Vol. 1: The Prehistoric and Roman Settlement 3500bc-ad 500 (Oxford University Committee for Archaeology, Monograph 13, 1987).
19Ibid., p.341.
20Barry Cunliffe, ‘Britain, the Veneti and Beyond’, Oxford Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 1, 1982, pp.39-68.
21For a summary of the British wine trade see Peter Salway, A History of Roman Britain (Oxford University Press, 1993), pp.475-7.
22R.E.M. Wheeler, Maiden Castle, Dorset (Report of the Research Committee of the Society of Antiquaries of London, No. 12, London, 1943). For recent work see N.M. Sharples, Maiden Castle: Excavations and Field Survey, 1985-6 (English Heritage Archaeological Report No. 19, London, 1991).
23An excellent popular account of Danebury is Barry Cunliffe, Danebury: The Anatomy of an Iron Age Hillfort (Batsford, London, 1983). Three of the key academic publications are: Barry Cunliffe, Danebury: An Iron Age Hillfort in Hampshire, Vol. 6: A Hillfort Community in Perspective (Council for British Archaeology Research Report No. 102, York, 1995); Barry Cunliffe, The Danebury Environs Programme, the Prehistory of a Wessex Landscape, Vol. 1: Introduction (English Heritage and Oxford University Committee for Archaeology Monograph No. 48, Institute of Archaeology, Oxford, 2000); Rog Palmer, Danebury, an Iron Age Hillfort in Hampshire: An Aerial Photographic Interpretation of its Environs (Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), Supplementary Series No. 6, London, 1984).
24For Maiden Castle see note 22, above. We will see that South Cadbury is famous/infamous for being a possible post-Roman ‘Camelot’. Archaeologically it is more important as a Late Bronze Age and Iron Age centre, and is the subject of a major recent publication: John C. Barrett, P.W.M. Freeman and Ann Woodward, Cadbury Castle Somerset: The Later Prehistoric and Early Historic Archaeology (English Heritage Archaeological Report No. 20, London, 2000).
25For a particularly well-excavated example see P.J. Fasham, The Prehistoric Settlement at Winnall Down, Winchester (Hampshire Field Club Monograph No. 2, 1985).
26S.R. Bryant and R. Niblett, ‘The Late Iron Age in Hertfordshire and the North Chilterns’, in Gwilt and Haselgrove, op. cit., pp.270-81.
27The work of Philip Crummy and the Colchester Archaeological Trust is, however, a notable exception to this.
28Iron Age Silchester is the only British town which shows evidence for a gridiron arrangement. M.G. Fulford, ‘Silchester: The Early Development of a Civitas Capital’, in S.J. Greep (ed.), Roman Towns: The Wheeler Inheritance (Council for British Archaeology Research Report No. 93, York, 1993), pp.16-33.
29There is a huge literature on Roman and Iron Age St Albans. For a modern account with an excellent overview, see I.M. Stead and V. Rigby, Verulamium: The King Harry Lane Site (English Heritage Archaeological Report No. 12, London, 1989).
30I.M. Stead and Valery Rigby, Baldock: The Excavation of a Roman and Pre-Roman Settlement, 1968-72 (Britannia Monograph No. 7, London, 1986); David S. Neal, Angela Wardle and Jonathan Hunn, Excavation of the Iron Age, Roman and Medieval Settlement at Gorhambury, St Albans (English Heritage Archaeological Report No. 14, London, 1990); Clive Partridge, Skeleton Green: A Late Iron Age and Romano-British Site (Britannia Monograph No. 2, London, 1981).
31Baldock, Durobrivae and the Castor praetorium are featured in A.E. Brown (ed.), Roman Small Towns in Eastern England and Beyond (Oxbow Monograph No. 52, Oxford, 1995).
32For a general overview see John Collis, Oppida: Earliest Towns North of the Alps (Department of Prehistory and Archaeology, University of Sheffield, 1984).
33Ibid., pp.137-67.
34Colin Haselgrove and Martin Millett, ‘Verlamion Reconsidered’, in Gwilt and Haselgrove, op. cit., pp.282-96.
CHAPTER FOUR - My Roman Britain
1I have borrowed the title of this chapter from an old friend, colleague and highly distinguished scholar, Dr Richard Reece of University College London. His book of the same name has been a wonderful and witty inspiration to me. It also taught me the advantages of taking a personal approach to the complexities of Romano-British archaeology: Richard Reece, My Roman Britain (Cotswold Studies, Cirencester, 1988). It would be ludicrous to attempt a description of life and politics in Roman Britain in a single chapter. Fortunately there are some excellent general books for those who would like to learn more about the period. I can recommend two very readable textbooks. The first, Sheppard Frere, Britannia: A History of Roman Britain (Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 3rd edn 1987), guided me through my student days and is still in print; the second, Peter Salway, A History of Roman Britain, op. cit., is more modern and more accessible, but it is also comprehensive and authoritative. For a less concentrated, and very fully illustrated, introduction you could not do better than T.W. Potter and Catherine Johns, Roman Britain (British Museum Press, London, 1992). Finally, the fourth century is crucially important to our story, and Guy de la Bédoyère has just devoted a fine book to it: The Golden Age of Roman Britain (Tempus Books, Stroud, 1999).
2P.V. Addyman and K.R. Fennell, ‘A Dark-Age Settlement at Maxey, Northants’, Medieval Archaeology, Vol. 7, 1964, pp.20-73; Francis Pryor, Charles French, David Crowther, David Gurney, Gavin Simpson and Maisie Taylor, The Fenland Project, No. 1:Archaeology and Environment in the Lower Welland Valley (2 vols, East Anglian Archaeology Report No. 27, Cambridge, 1985); Francis Pryor, Etton: Excavations at a Neolithic Causewayed Enclosure Near Maxey, Cambridgeshire, 1982-7 (English Heritage Archaeological Report No. 18, London, 1998).
3I discuss the reasons for this south-east orientation in Britain bc, op. cit., pp.328-31.
4Richard Reece, ‘Comment on the Coins’, in Pryor et al., The Fenland Project, No. 1, op. cit., Vol. 1, p.164.
5A Matter of Time: An Archaeological Survey of the River Gravels of England (Royal Commission on Historical Monuments [England], London, 1960).
6Francis Pryor, Farmers in Prehistoric Britain (Tempus Books, Stroud, 1998), pp.109-23.
7W.G. Simpson, ‘Romano-British Settlement on the Welland Gravels’, in C. Thomas (ed.), Rural Settlement in Roman Britain (Council for British Archaeology Research Report No. 7, London, 1966), pp.15-25.
8E. Pollard, M.D. Hooper and N.W. Moore, Hedges (William Collins, Glasgow, 1974).
9W.G. Simpson, D.A. Gurney, J. Neve and F.M.M. Pryor, The Fenland Project, No. 7: Excavations in Peterborough and the Lower Welland Valley 1960-1969 (East Anglian Archaeology Report No. 61, Peterborough, 1993).
10Addyman and Fennell, op. cit.
11See A Matter of Time, op. cit., p.58.
12Addyman and Fennell, op. cit., p.37.
13His suggestion is the site shown in A Matter of Time, op. cit., Fig. 6, No. 17.
14W.G. Simpson, ‘Aspects of Land-use and Landscape Development in the Lower Welland Valley and the Surrounding Region’, in Simpson et al., The Fenland Project, No. 7, pp.142-3.
15C.C. Taylor and P.J. Fowler, ‘Roman Fields into Medieval Furlongs?’, in H.C. Bowen and P.J. Fowler (eds), Early Land Allotment (British Archaeological Report No. 48, Oxford, 1978), pp.159-62.
16C.C. Taylor, Fields in the English Landscape (Dent, London, 1975), p.66.
17His fold-out phase plans in the published report are superb: D.F. Mackreth, Orton Hall Farm: A Roman and Early Anglo-Saxon Farmstead (East Anglian Archaeology Report No. 76, Peterborough, 1996).
18Ibid., p.xiv.
19J.P. Wild, ‘Roman Settlement in the Lower Nene Valley’, Archaeological Journal, Vol. 131, 1974, pp.140-70.
20Mackreth (1996), op. cit., p.88.
21Donald Mackreth, ‘Orton Hall Farm: The Saxon Connection’, Durobrivae, Vol. 5, 1977, pp.20-1.
22J.R. Perrin, ‘Phasing and Dating Method’, in Mackreth (1996), op. cit., p.xv.
23Mackreth (1996), op. cit., p.27.
24Gary Taylor, ‘An Early to Middle Saxon Settlement at Quarrington, Lincolnshire’, Antiquaries Journal, Vol. 83, 2003, p.276.
25Both quotations are from Martin Millett, The Romanization of Britain (Cambridge University Press, 1990), p.6.
26J.N.L. Myres, A Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Pottery of the Pagan Period (2 vols, Cambridge University Press, 1977), Vol. 1, pp.125-6; see also his ‘Index of Potters and Workshops’, ibid., pp.68-83.
27A broadly similar picture can be seen, for example, at West Heslerton, Yorkshire (Chapter 8), and West Stow, in Suffolk: Stanley West, West Stow, The Anglo-Saxon Village (2 vols, East Anglian Archaeology Report No. 24, Ipswich, 1985).
CHAPTER FIVE - Late- and Post-Roman Britain: The Situation in the South and East
1F.M. Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford University Press, 3rd edn 1971), p.1.
2Salway, op. cit., p.294.
3Based on ibid., pp.573-4.
4For an excellent review of the Roman army of occupation see Guy de la Bédoye`re, Eagles Over Britannia: The Roman Army in Britain (Tempus Publications, Stroud, 2001).
5I am indebted to Guy de la Bédoyère for this suggestion.
6As well as Guy de la Bédoyère’s fine book on fourth-century Britain, I also recommend two earlier, and rather different, treatments of the subject: A.S. Esmonde Cleary, The Ending of Roman Britain (Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1989); Stephen Johnson,Later Roman Britain (Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1980).
7De la Bédoyère (2001), op. cit., p.50.
8M.D. Howe, J.R. Perrin and D.F. Mackreth, Roman Pottery from the Nene Valley: A Guide (Peterborough City Museum Occasional Paper No. 2, Peterborough, 1980).
9Salway, op. cit., p.256.
10The outline of later Roman history both here and later in this chapter draws heavily on ibid., pp.256-331.
11Frere, op. cit., p.217.
12For a good overview of the changes made to the late Roman army see Pat Southern and Karen R. Dixon, The Late Roman Army (Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1996).
13Salway, op. cit., p.264.
14Ordnance Survey Map of Roman Britain (Ordnance Survey, Southampton, 5th edn March 2001).
15Andrew Sargent, ‘The North-South Divide Revisited: Thoughts on the Character of Roman Britain’, Britannia, Vol. 33, 2002, p.226.
16The Gospel According to St John, 1.1-5.
17Dominic Perring, “‘Gnosticism” in Fourth-Century Britain: The Frampton Mosaics Reconsidered’, Britannia, Vol. 34, 2003, pp.97-128.
18Ibid., p.112.
19Ibid., p.121.
20C. Guy, ‘The Lead Tank from Ashton’, Durobrivae, Vol. 5, 1977, pp.10-11.
21S.E. West and J. Plouviez, ‘The Romano-British Site at Icklingham’, East Anglian Archaeology, No. 3 (Ipswich, 1976), pp.63-126.
22M. Fulford, ‘Links With the Past: Pervasive “Ritual” Behaviour in Roman Britain’, Britannia, Vol. 32, 2001, pp.199-218.
23See Pryor, Britain bc, op. cit., pp.429-39.
24Martin Henig, The Heirs of King Verica: Culture and Politics in Roman Britain (Tempus Books, Stroud, 2002), p.36.
25Ibid., p.38.
26Barry Cunliffe, ‘Roman Danebury’, Current Archaeology, No. 188, 2003, pp.345-51.
27Ibid., p.351.
28W.H.C. Frend, ‘Pagans, Christians, and the “Barbarian Conspiracy” of ad 367 in Roman Britain’, Britannia, Vol. 23, 1992, pp.121-32.
29Perring, op. cit. p.124.
30Millett, op. cit., pp.227-30.
31The Roman ruins in Trier are extraordinarily well preserved. See Edith Mary Wightman, Roman Trier and the Treveri (Rupert Hart-Davis, London, 1970).
32Salway, op. cit., p.320.
CHAPTER SIX - The ‘Anglo-Saxon’ Origins of England
1D.M. Wilson, The Anglo-Saxons (Thames & Hudson, London, 1960), p.29.
2Two recent reviews of the Anglo-Saxons, one early, the other late: Samantha Glasswell, The Earliest English: Living and Dying in Early Anglo-Saxon England (Tempus Books, Stroud, 2002); and Andrew Reynolds, Later Anglo-Saxon England: Life and Landscape (Tempus Books, Stroud, 1999).
3Gildas (ed. Winterbottom), op. cit., p.26.
4For a useful summary of recent approaches to traditional views see David Brown, ‘Problems of Continuity’, in Trevor Rowley (ed.), Anglo-Saxon Settlement and Landscape (British Archaeological Report No. 6, Oxford, 1974), pp.16-19.
5For a balanced account of the origins of the English language see Catherine Hills, Origins of the English (Duckworth, London, 2003), pp.41-55.
6Heinrich Härke, ‘Kings and Warriors: Population and Landscape from Post-Roman to Norman Britain’, in Paul Slack and Ryk Ward (eds), The Peopling of Britain: The Shaping of a Human Landscape. The Linacre Lectures (Oxford University Press, 2002), p.147.
7Ibid., p.150.
8N.J. Higham, Rome, Britain and the Anglo-Saxons (Seaby, London, 1992).
9E.G. Bowen, Britain and the Western Seaways (Thames & Hudson, London, 1972).
10Cunliffe, Facing the Ocean, op. cit.
11There is a vast literature on connections across the Channel and the North Sea in prehistory. A few of the more important references are: J.J. Butler, ‘Bronze Age Connections Across the North Sea’, Palaeohistoria, Vol. 9 (entire issue), 1963; Brendan O’Connor,Cross-Channel Relations in the Later Bronze Age (2 vols, British Archaeological Reports International Series, No. S91, Oxford, 1980); L.P. Louwe-Kooijmans, ‘A View of the Fens from the Low Countries’, Antiquity, Vol. 62, 1988, pp.377-82.
12Cyril Fox, The Personality of Britain: Its Influence on Inhabitant and Invader in Prehistoric and Early Historic Times (National Museum of Wales, Cardiff, 1932).
13See Esmonde Cleary, op. cit., pp.188-205.
14Salway, op. cit., p.332.
15J.N.L. Myres, Anglo-Saxon Pottery and the Settlement of England (Oxford University Press, 1969).
16Ibid., p.100.
17Ibid., pp.63-4.
18Myres (1977), op. cit., p.114.
19He wrote a vast amount on the subject, but the classic summary is to be found in: C.F.C. Hawkes, ‘The ABC of the British Iron Age’, Antiquity, Vol. 33, 1959, pp.170-82.
20Salway, op. cit., p.288.
21Stephen Johnson, Later Roman Britain (Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1980), pp.76-7.
22Ibid., p.82.
23Modern opinion on Saxon shore forts has been greatly influenced by Stephen Johnson’s The Roman Forts of the Saxon Shore (London, 1976).
24See also Esmonde Cleary, op. cit., pp.52-3.
25Johnson (1980), op. cit., p.76.
26Salway, op. cit., pp.189-92.
27A.F. Pearson, The Roman Shore Forts: Coastal Defences of Southern Britain (Tempus Books, Stroud, 2002). For a more detailed academic study see A.F. Pearson, The Construction of the ‘Saxon Shore’ Forts (British Archaeological Report No. 349, Oxford, 2003).
28In addition to the two books by Andrew Pearson cited above, I also make use of an as yet unpublished paper by him: ‘Barbarian Piracy and the Saxon Shore: A Reappraisal’.
29B.W. Cunliffe, Excavations at Portchester Castle. I: Roman (Society of Antiquaries Research Report No. 32, London, 1975).
30See also J.R.L. Allen and M.G. Fulford, ‘Fort Building and Military Supply Along Britain’s Eastern Channel and North Sea Coasts: The Later Second and Third Centuries’, Britannia, Vol. 30, 1999, pp.63-84.
31See also J.R.L. Allen, E.J. Rose and M.G. Fulford, ‘Re-Use of Roman Stone in the Reedham Area of East Norfolk: Intimations of a Possible “Lost” Roman Fort’, Britannia, Vol. 34, 2003, pp.129-42.
32Pearson, ‘Barbarian Piracy and the Saxon Shore’, op. cit., p.11.
33For a useful summary of Pelagianism see Frere, op. cit., p.359.
34Perring, op. cit., p.124fn.
35Ibid.
36For an archaeological essay on tradition and conservatism within ritual and religion see Richard Bradley, ‘Monuments and Places’, in P. Garwood, D. Jennings, R. Skeates and J. Toms (eds), Sacred and Profane (Oxford University Committee for Archaeology, Oxford, 1991), pp.135-40.
37Myres (1969), op. cit., p.86.
38For Beakers see D.L. Clarke, Beaker Pottery of Great Britain and Ireland (2 vols, Cambridge University Press, 1970); for Anglo-Saxon pottery see Myres (1977), op. cit.; for traditional knitting patterns see Rae Compton, The Complete Book of Traditional Knitting (Batsford Books, London, 1983).
39Pryor, Britain bc, op. cit., p.xx.
40Darvill, op. cit.
41Peter Harbison and Lloyd R. Laing, Some Iron Age Mediterranean Imports in England (British Archaeological Report No. 5, Oxford, 1974).
42M.U. Jones, V.I. Evison and J.N.L. Myres, ‘Crop-Mark Sites at Mucking, Essex’, Antiquaries Journal, Vol. 48, 1968, p.227.
43M.U. and W.T. Jones, ‘An Early Saxon Landscape at Mucking, Essex’, in Trevor Rowley (ed.), Anglo-Saxon Settlement and Landscape (British Archaeological Report No. 6, Oxford, 1974), p.22.
44Ann Clark, Excavations at Mucking, Vol. 1: The Site Atlas (English Heritage, London 1993), p.21.
45Quoted from the dust jacket of Lucy, op. cit.
46Ibid., p.161.
47Ibid., p.175. The break from the ‘culture-historical’ approach in Britain was made by David L. Clarke, Analytical Archaeology (Methuen, London, 2nd edn 1978). Clarke died in 1976. The 2nd edition was revised by Bob Chapman, and is better than the 1st edition of 1968, which was very heavy going.
48There are exceptions, however: John Pearce, ‘Death and Time: The Structure of Late Iron Age Mortuary Ritual’, in Gwilt and Haselgrove, op. cit., pp.174-80.
49For a good general discussion see Rowan Whimster, Burial Practices in Iron Age Britain: A Discussion and Gazetteer of the Evidence c.700 bc-ad 43 (2 vols., British Archaeological Report No. 90, Oxford, 1981).
50For a useful collection of essays on mass migration and archaeology see J. Chapman and H. Hamerow (eds), Migrations and Invasions in Archaeological Explanation (British Archaeological Reports, International Series No. 664, Oxford, 1997).
51Lucy, op. cit., pp.186-7.
52M.A. Smith, ‘Some Somerset Hoards and Their Place in the Bronze Age of Southern Britain’, Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society, Vol. 25, 1959, pp.144-87.
53The Sutton Hoo finds in the British Museum are worth a long journey to see. They are comprehensively written up by R.L.S. Bruce-Mitford in three large volumes (British Museum Publications, London, 1975, 1978 and 1983). The museum sells shorter, more accessible accounts of the finds and the 1938 excavations. For later work at Sutton Hoo and its landscape see Martin Carver (ed.), The Age of Sutton Hoo (Boydell Press, Woodbridge, 1992).
CHAPTER SEVEN - Arthurian Britain: The Situation in the West and South-West
1In fact Durobrivae was the largest and perhaps most successful of the Romano-British ‘small towns’. See D.F. Mackreth, ‘Durobrivae, Chesterton, Cambridgeshire’, in A.E. Brown (ed.), Roman Small Towns in Eastern England and Beyond (Oxbow Monograph No. 52, Oxford, 1995), pp.147-56.
2Esmonde Cleary, op. cit.
3De la Bédoyère (2001), op.cit. p.64.
4Richard Reece, ‘Town and Country: The End of Roman Britain’, World Archaeology, Vol. 12, 1980, pp.77-92. The quotation is from the Note on pp.90-1.
5My thoughts on Romano-British towns rely heavily on those of Richard Reece in ibid. and in My Roman Britain, op. cit.
6Reece, My Roman Britain, op. cit., p.140.
7Helena Hamerow, ‘Hamwic’, British Archaeology, No. 66, August 2002, pp.20-4.
8The best popular book on Wroxeter is by Roger White and Philip Barker, Wroxeter: Life and Death of a Roman City (Tempus Books, Stroud, revised edn 2002). Three major academic reports have been published by English Heritage, in 1997, 2000 and 2002.
9For more on the Swiss Lakes see Bryony and John Coles, People of the Wetlands: Bogs, Bodies and Lake-Dwellers (Thames & Hudson, London, 1989).
10White and Barker, op. cit., p.19.
11For a description of his excavation methods see Philip Barker, Techniques of Archaeological Excavation (Batsford Books, London, 1977).
12There is a danger that the extent and scale of the post-Roman occupation at Wroxeter may have been overestimated; some supposedly later work could actually have taken place in Roman times. For a detailed critique of the various Wroxeter reports see a review by Professor Mike Fulford in the Journal of Roman Archaeology, Vol. 15, 2002, pp.639-45.
13White and Barker, op. cit., p.121.
14Ibid., pp.125-6.
15See Peter Rowsome’s beautifully illustrated and well-written book, Heart of the City: Roman, Medieval and Modern London Revealed by Archaeology at 1 Poultry (Museum of London Archaeology Service, London, 2000), pp.46-7.
16Philip Crummy, Aspects of Anglo-Saxon and Norman Colchester (Colchester Archaeological Trust Report No. 1, Colchester, 1981), pp.1-4.
17I am particularly grateful to Richard Morris for his comments and advice regarding the early Church. For an archaeological perspective on these issues see R.K. Morris, The Church in British Archaeology (Council for British Archaeology Research Report No. 47, London, 1983).
18This oral tradition is based on Bede, who was using an earlier source for the story. See Bede (ed. Colgrave and Mynors), op. cit., pp.133-5.
19Ken Dark, Britain and the End of the Roman Empire (Tempus Books, Stroud, 2000).
20I discuss the restrictive nature of movement and migration throughout Britain bc, op. cit.
21Ken Dark, op. cit., p.15.
22Anthea Harris, Byzantium, Britain and the West: The Archaeology of Cultural Identity ad 400-650 (Tempus Books, Stroud, 2003), pp.64-72.
23Ken Dark, op. cit., p.124.
24Charles Thomas, Tintagel: Arthur and Archaeology (Batsford Books, London, 1993).
25A.D. Mills, A Dictionary of English Place-Names (Oxford University Press, 1991).
26Devon Archaeological Society Newsletter (Exeter), No. 79, May 2001.
27Richard Tabor (ed.), South Cadbury Environs Project Interim Fieldwork Report, 1998-2001 (Bristol University Centre for the Historic Environment, Bristol, 2002).
28J.M. Coles, P. Leach, S.C. Minnitt, R. Tabor and A.S. Wilson, ‘A Later Bronze Age Shield from South Cadbury, Somerset, England’, Antiquity, Vol. 73, 1999, pp.33-48.
29John C. Barrett, P.W.M. Freeman and Ann Woodward, Cadbury Castle Somerset: The Later Prehistoric and Early Historic Archaeology (English Heritage Archaeological Report No. 20, London, 2000), p.323.
30For a discussion of such places see Richard Bradley, An Archaeology of Natural Places (Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 2000). The discovery of a greenstone axe in Philip Rhatz’s excavations suggests the Tor was important in Neolithic times; complete polished axes are often found at special sites, such as barrows and causewayed enclosures.
31Bradley (1990), op. cit. For an excellent and accessible review of Glastonbury archaeology see Philip Rhatz and Lorna Watts, Glastonbury: Myth and Archaeology (Tempus Books, Stroud, 2003).
32Woad is best grown in or near fens and marshes. For the name see Mills, op. cit.
33David Howlett, ‘Literate Culture of “Dark Age” Britain’, British Archaeology, No. 33, 1998, pp.10-11.
34Charles Thomas, Christian Celts: Messages and Images (Tempus Books, Stroud, 1998).
35By no means all of the word-games and encoded messages apparently concealed within these inscriptions have been accepted by scholars. See the review of the book by Charles Thomas quoted in the previous note, in Britannia, Vol. 31, 2000, pp.463-4.
36Alcock (1971), op. cit., pp.246-7.
CHAPTER EIGHT - The Making of the English Landscape
1W.G. Hoskins, The Making of the English Landscape (Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1955).
2Ibid., p.55.
3I am grateful to Richard Morris for this idea.
4There is a vast amount of literature on this topic. See, for example, P.J. Fowler, The Farming of Prehistoric Britain (Cambridge University Press, 1983); Ian Simmons and Michael Tooley (eds), The Environment in British Prehistory (Duckworth, London, 1981).
5For the extent of woodland in Anglo-Saxon times see Brian K. Roberts and Stuart Wrathmell, An Atlas of Rural Settlement in England (English Heritage, London, 2000), p.32.
6Oliver Rackham is the leading authority on historical forest management. I highly recommend his fascinating and most readable book The Last Forest: The Story of Hatfield Forest (Dent, London, 1989).
7Frederic Seebohm, The English Village Community ( Longmans, Green & Co., London, 1883).
8Mills, op. cit., p.xviii.
9Mills tells us (ibid., p.382) that ingas is the Old English for ‘people of, family or followers of, or dwellers at’. Birmingham means ‘the homestead of the family or followers of a man called Beorma’.
10David Hall, ‘Medieval Fields in Their Many Forms’, British Archaeology, No. 33, April 1998, pp.6-7.
11Higham (2002), op. cit., p.23.
12Wilson, op. cit., p.110.
13Peter Murphy, ‘The Anglo-Saxon Landscape and Rural Economy: Some Results From Sites in East Anglia and Essex’, in J. Rackham (ed.), Environment and Economy in Anglo-Saxon England (Council for British Archaeology Research Report No. 89, York, 1994), pp.23-39.
14Ibid., p.24.
15O. Rackham, The History of the Countryside (Dent, London, 1986), pp.75-85.
16Murphy, op. cit., p.38.
17Rabbits were spread through Europe by the Romans, but they did not reach Britain until Norman times. See Juliet Clutton-Brock, A Natural History of Domesticated Animals (Cambridge University/British Museum Press, London, 1987), p.146.
18Petra Dark, The Environment of Britain in the First Millennium ad (Duckworth, London, 2000).
19As a guide to the Wall I highly recommend Guy de la Bédoyère, Hadrian’s Wall: History and Guide (Tempus Books, Stroud, 1998). It is well-illustrated, concise, and tells you about those little points of interest that the glossy guidebooks to the large forts tend to ignore, such as the strange tumble of unfinished Roman stonework at Limestone Corner.
20Tim Gates, ‘Hadrian’s Wall Amid Fields of Corn’, British Archaeology, No. 49, November 1999, p.6.
21Tony Wilmott published his excavations with remarkable promptness. The fully detailed report is Tony Wilmott, Birdoswald: Excavations of a Roman Fort on Hadrian’s Wall and its Successor Settlements, 1987-92 (English Heritage Archaeology Report No. 14, London, 1996). He has also produced a fine popular summary: Tony Wilmott, Birdoswald Roman Fort: 1800 Years on Hadrian’s Wall (Tempus Books, Stroud, 2001).
22Tony Wilmott, ‘Roman Commanders, Dark Age Kings’, British Archaeology, No. 63, February 2002, p.11.
23D.J. Powlesland, ‘West Heslerton’, Current Archaeology, Vol. 76, 1981, pp.142-4; D.J. Powlesland, C.A. Haughton and J.H. Hanson, ‘Excavations at Heslerton, North Yorkshire 1978-82’, Archaeological Journal, Vol. 143, 1986, pp.53-173.
24Discussed in Pryor, Britain bc, op. cit., pp.79-90.
25Christine Haughton and Dominic Powlesland, West Heslerton: The Anglian Cemetery (The Landscape Research Centre, Yedingham, Yorkshire, 1999), Vol. 1, p.9.
26Ibid., p.94.
27Brian Hope-Taylor, Yeavering: An Anglo-British Centre of Early Northumbria (Department of the Environment Archaeological Report No. 7, HMSO, London, 1977).
28For cursus monuments see Pryor, Britain bc, op. cit., pp.183-9. For Rudston see D.N. Riley, ‘Air Survey of Neolithic Sites in the Yorkshire Wolds’, in T.G. Manby (ed.), Archaeology in Eastern Yorkshire (Department of Archaeology and Prehistory, University of Sheffield, 1988), pp.89-93.
29For the technique: P. Budd, J. Montgomery, J. Evans and P. Chenery, ‘Combined Pb-, Sr- and O-Isotope Analysis of Human Dental Tissue for the Reconstruction of Archaeological Residential Mobility’, in J.G. Holland and S.D. Tanner (eds), Plasma Source Mass Spectrometry: The New Millennium (Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, 2003), pp.195-208. For its archaeological implications: Paul Budd, Andrew Millard, Carolyn Chenery, Sam Lucy and Charlotte Roberts, ‘Isotopic Evidence for Archaeological Immigration and Residential Mobility in the UK’, manuscript submitted to Antiquity, 2003; I am most grateful to Paul Budd for allowing me to see a draft of this paper prior to publication.
30A.P. Fitzpatrick, “‘The Amesbury Archer”: A Well-Furnished Early Bronze Age Burial in Southern England’, Antiquity, Vol. 76, 2002, pp.629-30.
31The stone is in Reading Museum. See Silchester Roman Town Project 2000, The Silchester Ogham Stone (Reading, 2000).
32See, for example, E.T. Leeds, ‘Anglo-Saxon Remains’, in Victoria County History: Oxfordshire, Vol. 1 (1939), pp.346-72.
33Information kindly provided by Paul Budd.
34For an excellent recent collection of essays on the archaeology of the Witham Valley see Steve Catney and David Start (eds), Time and Tide: The Archaeology of the Witham Valley (Witham Valley Archaeological Research Committee, Lincoln, 2003).
35See Pryor, Britain bc, op. cit., pp.283-7.
36Ibid., p.285.
37Paul Everson and David Stocker, “‘Coming from Bardney…”: The Landscape Context of the Causeways and Finds Groups of the Witham Valley’, in Catney and Start, op. cit., p.10.
38For the Thames and the Thames Valley see David Thomas Yates, ‘Bronze Age Field Systems in the Thames Valley’, Oxford Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 18, 1999, pp.157-70; D.T. Yates, ‘Bronze Age Agricultural Intensification in the Thames Valley and Estuary’, in Joanna Brück, Bronze Age Landscapes: Tradition and Transformation (Oxbow Books, Oxford, 2001), pp.65-82.
CHAPTER NINE - Continuity and Change
1For an excellent discussion of what is rapidly becoming a sub-discipline in its own right see Hills, op. cit., Chapter 4, ‘Bones, Genes and People’, pp.57-71.
2By M.E. Weale, D.A. Weiss, R.F. Jager, N. Bradman and M.G. Thomas, in Molecular Biological Evolution, Vol. 19, No. 7, 2002, pp.1008-21.
3Britain bc, op. cit., p.xxvi.
4C. Capelli et al., ‘A Y Chromosome Census of the British Isles’, Current Biology, Vol. 13, 2003, pp.979-84.
5Quoted in Hannah Hoag, ‘Y Chromosomes Rewrite British History: Anglo-Saxons’ Genetic Stamp Weaker than Historians Suspected’, Science Update, 19 June 2003, www.nature.com.
6C.J. Arnold, ‘Stress as a Stimulus for Socio-Economic Change: Anglo-Saxon England in the Seventh Century’, in Colin Renfrew and Stephen Shennan (eds), Ranking, Resource and Exchange (Cambridge University Press, 1982), pp.124-31.
7I am referring here to the rich ‘Wessex Culture’ barrows that surround and just post-date Stonehenge. See Britain bc, op. cit., pp.229-69.
8Colin Renfrew was the first person to explain how barrows could have operated within the landscape. Ideas have moved on since he wrote, but his paper remains a classic: ‘Monuments, Mobilisation and Social Organisation in Neolithic Wessex’, in Colin Renfrew (ed.), The Explanation of Culture Change: Models in Prehistory (Duckworth, London, 1973), pp.539-58.
9Arnold, op. cit., p.127.
10J. Foster, The Lexden Tumulus: A Reappraisal of an Iron Age Burial from Colchester, Essex (British Archaeological Report No. 156, Oxford, 1986).
11Philip Crummy, City of Victory (Colchester Archaeological Trust, Colchester, 1997).
12Foster, op. cit. p.79; for dating see Period 5 in S.P. Needham, ‘Chronology and Periodisation in the British Bronze Age’, Acta Archaeologica, Vol. 67, 1996, pp.121-40.
13Neil Faulkner, ‘Prittlewell: Treasures of a King of Essex’, Current Archaeology, No. 190, February 2004, pp.430-6.
14See I.D. Margary, Roman Roads in Britain (John Baker, London, 3rd edn 1973), p.201.
15Britain bc, op. cit., pp.344-53.
16J.R. Mortimer, Forty Years Researches in British and Saxon Burial Mounds of East Yorkshire (Brown & Sons, London, 1905).
17I.M. Stead, ‘A Distinctive Form of La Te`ne Barrow in Eastern Yorkshire and on the Continent’, Antiquaries Journal, Vol. 61, 1961, pp.44-62.
18F. and H.W. Elgee, The Archaeology of Yorkshire (Methuen, London, 1933), p.112.
19I.M. Stead, The Arras Culture (Yorkshire Philosophical Society, York, 1979). See also I.M. Stead, Iron Age Cemeteries in East Yorkshire (English Heritage Archaeological Report No. 22, London, 1991).
CONCLUSION - So Where Does that Leave Us?
1The nonconformist churches of eastern England have left us with a wonderful collection of buildings. See Christopher Stell, An Inventory of Nonconformist Chapels and Meeting-Houses in Eastern England (English Heritage, Swindon, 2002).
2Caroline Sharples, ‘Kindertransport: Terror, Trauma and Triumph’, History Today, Vol. 54, March 2004, pp.23-9.
3G.H.S. Bushnell, The First Americans: The Pre-Columbian Civilizations (Thames & Hudson, London, 1968), p.135.
4Hills, op. cit., pp.10-11.
5I am indebted to David Howlett for this.