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Why is Waulud's Bank empty? (Pre-History)
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Dan posed the question: Why is Wauluds Bank empty? and then proceeded to give us some illuminating insights, which gave rise to an on-going discussion.

From Dan:

Wauluds Bank is the unique neolithic ditch-and-bank enclosing the source of the River Lea [ most famous for conspicuously entering the Thames in the aerial view at the start of EastEnders, I suspect ], less than a mile from the Icknield Way. Not far away, the other side of Watling Street, is Maiden Bower, another neolithic enclosure. Ravenburgh Castle, Sharpenhoe Clappers and Ivinghoe Beacon, all Iron Age/Celtic hillforts apparently, are also a spit away.
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DPCrisp


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If the general principle is that people live where they have always lived, why are these villages/towns all empty now?

Answer 1: Only a few of the ancient enclosures are left: the ones that were abandoned; as opposed to unknown numbers that have been continuously occupied and erased.

Answer 2: [ Speculating ] the focus of activity shifted from Wauluds Bank to Leagrave, where the Icknield Way crosses the river, further villages sprang up along the river, one of which now gives it name to the others: Luton.

I suspect these are two parts of the same -- and correct -- answer. I gather there are several hundred, perhaps a thousand, habitaion earthworks now standing empty. I suppose this really is a small number considering Britain's large and long population history.

Question 1: Do we know of a pattern in the distribution of known, empty enclosures that suggests a reason for their abandonment? Are they all close to some other population-attracting feature? (There was a reason to build each one where it is. There had to be a better reason to walk away from it.)

Question 2: Is there a more general cultural explanation? Not wanting to build new ditches-and-banks is not at all the same as wanting to move out of existing ones. Would it make sense for them to be actively dis-favoured?

Question 3: Is it sufficient to suppose defensive earthworks were built during "troubled times"? If the conquest was successful, would the victors have either torched these villages or demanded they be abandoned (but not dismantled) as a gesture of submission?

Question 4: Do we know who the neolithic and Iron Age invaders would have been? Is there any evidence of violent times other than these apparently defensive structures?

Question 5: Is there a clear division between megaliths in the west and earthworks in the east?
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DPCrisp


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PS.
In a rerun of Time Team we saw them arguing about a possible cemetery close to the junction of the Fosse Way and Julian Way in Bath. Cemeteries at crossroads are a recurring theme, but the consensus was that the Romans would not have built a road uphill in this area: the line of least resistance was a couplahundred yards away along the foot of the hill.

It obviously didn't matter to them that a Roman road was nevertheless built there. And it never occurred to them that the line of least resistance is up the slope if that's where the road they're rebuilding already goes.
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DPCrisp


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One of these days, I'll scan the map from a book that shows the hillforts are concentrated in Wales and Cornwall and peter out towards the east... Got to get to grips with the timings, too... but I think the short answer to "Why is Waulud's Bank Empty?" is "for the same reason that the Roman villas were left empty: they're the high status sites and the people who lived in them left or were kicked out". (Villas were worth cannibalising and the wooden palisades may have been plundered from the hillforts, but there's no point in razing the earthworks flat.)

Waulud's Bank is much older than the run-of-the-mill Iron Age hillforts, so there's still an interesting story there... but it has its ditch on the outside, in the defensive fashion: around the same time, there are the henges to contend with, with their ditches on the inside.
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Komorikid


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Parker-Pearson in Time Team mentioned, in so many words, that the ditch on the inside of the henge bank is as if to keep something in rather than out and that there was therefore something very special about the place. But then he said they had found houses inside (albeit rather small ones), which seems rather mundane to me! And the idea of the "sacred grove", Stage One headstones or whatever they are (concentric rings of post holes) inside the sacred enclosure is knocked rather flat by the rings of post holes at Woodhenge just outside the enclosure. (i.e. the "sacred" and the "secular" are to be found both inside and outside the enclosure.)

There is another possibility. As I mentioned in another thread "Sacred means Secret". Could it be that what we have here is a Druid School, complete with lodgings, kitchen for the live-in students and teacher's aid in the form of wooden and stone circles for training in science and astronomy. The walls were to keep the prying eyes of the mundane out.
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Mick Harper
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Druid training school is good. Remember that we had the same idea for Skara Brae? Clearly the Stonehenge of the previous millenium.
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Mick Harper
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Wauluds Bank is the unique neolithic ditch-and-bank enclosing the source of the River Lea [ most famous for conspicuously entering the Thames in the aerial view at the start of EastEnders, I suspect ], less than a mile from the Icknield Way. Not far away, the other side of Watling Street, is Maiden Bower, another neolithic enclosure. Ravenburgh Castle, Sharpenhoe Clappers and Ivinghoe Beacon, all Iron Age/Celtic hillforts apparently, are also a spit away.

The term 'maiden' is becoming an increasingly mysterious term as orthodoxy finally rids itself of the various folkloric guesses that currently festoon place-name theory. They are almost but not quite at the stage of 'We don't know'. Is this one associated with trees as the name implies? I ask because most of the chalk-country stuff I am familiar with is notably tree-free.

If the general principle is that people live where they have always lived, why are these villages/towns all empty now?

I find this a puzzling question. I cannot imagine anyone in their right minds would ever live in an earthworks of any kind. It is true we don't know what they were for but 'for living in' strikes me as the least likely reason.

Answer 1: Only a few of the ancient enclosures are left: the ones that were abandoned; as opposed to unknown numbers that have been continuously occupied and erased.
Answer 2: [ Speculating ] the focus of activity shifted from Wauluds Bank to Leagrave, where the Icknield Way crosses the river, further villages sprang up along the river, one of which now gives it name to the others: Luton.
I suspect these are two parts of the same -- and correct -- answer. I gather there are several hundred, perhaps a thousand, habitation earthworks now standing empty. I suppose this really is a small number considering Britain's large and long population history.

Again, I find this weird. Britain pullulates with ancient enclosures, more than anywhere else on earth (though that might be because the Brits have more antiquarian countryside-trampers than anywhere else). But Dan's argument is like somebody a thousand years hence asking 'We have thousands of abandoned churches, where are the inhabitants?'

Question 1: Do we know of a pattern in the distribution of known, empty enclosures that suggests a reason for their abandonment? Are they all close to some other population-attracting feature? (There was a reason to build each one where it is. There had to be a better reason to walk away from it.)

Except, unlike churches, I see no reason why population patterns should mirror earth-work patterns. Does the Maginot Line follow settlement patterns? Does the M1 motorway? Do radio astronomy masts?

Question 2: Is there a more general cultural explanation? Not wanting to build new ditches-and-banks is not at all the same as wanting to move out of existing ones. Would it make sense for them to be actively dis-favoured?

One of the things about the earthworks is that we don't know when they were 'disfavoured'. It is certainly true that the Iron Age tribes used them for fighting the Romans but whether that makes them 'Iron Age forts' as opposed to "useful strategic bits of terrain used by Iron Age people trying to fight the Romans" is not clear.

On another front, most human monumental buildings tend to get pulled down and destroyed (or at any rate are ignored and get buried) by later peoples, whether native or incoming. But certain forms--pyramids, megaliths, earthworks--tend not to. There must be a suspicion that their longevity was intended by their builders. Mostly, in the monument-building business, flash is beautiful and who really cares if they don't last for ever. Earthworks are especially non-flashy.

Question 3: Is it sufficient to suppose defensive earthworks were built during "troubled times"? If the conquest was successful, would the victors have either torched these villages or demanded they be abandoned (but not dismantled) as a gesture of submission?

It is widely agreed that many of the hill forts are laughable as defensive structures. The most famous of all -- Maiden Castle in Dorset -- is so huge that it requires armies far larger than the local tribes could ever practically have assembled to defend it.

Question 4: Do we know who the neolithic and Iron Age invaders would have been? Is there any evidence of violent times other than these apparently defensive structures?

I may be wrong here but apart from a bit of Roman stuff I believe that evidence of actual conflict anywhere around earthworks is remarkably absent. Which is strange if they are military in nature because a) they are very well investigated and b) battle evidence is hard to miss.

Question 5: Is there a clear division between megaliths in the west and earthworks in the east?

I'd like to know the answer to this too. A theory that the Celtic-speakers in the west are "megalith-builders" and the English-speakers in the east are "earthwork-builders" would be rather neat.

In a rerun of Time Team yesterday we saw them arguing about a possible cemetery close to the junction of the Fosse Way and Julian Way in Bath. Cemeteries at crossroads are a recurring theme, but the consensus was that the Romans would not have built a road uphill in this area: the line of least resistance was a couplahundred yards away along the foot of the hill.

It obviously didn't matter to them that a Roman road was nevertheless built there. And it never occurred to them that the line of least resistance is up the slope if that's where the road they're rebuilding already goes.

I can't bear to watch anything about ancient roads anymore. Archaeology only makes progress when civil engineers (like old Alexander Thom) take an interest. One of the structural tragedies of academia in general is that because everyone has to specialise at age eighteen it is absolutely guaranteed that every archaeologist in Britain will know nothing about anything except archaeology.
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DPCrisp


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'Ere, if Julius Caesar...
...landed in Kent some where... went straight to Canterbury... then to London... then St. Albans... and finally to Ravensburgh Castle, maybe Wheathampstead [ Why isn't Sharpenhoe Clappers in the frame? Much more impressive as a chieftain's fort. ]... then he clearly followed the route of the (straight) London-Canterbury road [ Dunno it's ancient name. ], Watling Street and probably Icknield Way... which proves the roads were there before the Roman invasion.

Notice that the Canterbury road and Watling Street converge precisely in Westminster. So much for London being founded by the Romans. (A new town, razed by Boudicca and back up to 30,000 inhabitants within about 50 years!? Pull the other one.)

How could London not have existed earlier, precisely where it is: at the first crossing of the biggest river in southeast England? How can they keep a straight face when they say this stuff?

Kent was rendered Cantwara by the Romans, wasn't it? I wondered whether wara = wer (as in werewolf) = man. i.e Cantwara = Kent men, in English.

Who knows the rules for Latin plurals and case endings and all that jazz, so we can stand a chance of extracting the original tribal and individual names from the Latin references?
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DPCrisp


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Mick asked:
Is [Maidenbower] associated with trees as the name implies? I ask because most of the chalk-country stuff I am familiar with is notably tree-free.

No. The whole area has been cultivated for... ever. Hedges and hawthorns round about, not wooded there. But does bower imply trees or do trees imply bowery?

I cannot imagine anyone in their right minds would ever live in an earthworks of any kind. It is true we don't know what they were for but 'for living in' strikes me as the least likely reason...

...I believe that evidence of actual conflict anywhere around earthworks is remarkably absent
.

Well, it speaks volumes about Applied Epistemology and the wisdom received in the High Street that I understood the enclosures to have been living spaces and assumed that there was plenty of domestic evidence to back that up.

Of Maidenbower, a cupla websites say:

"The original inhabitants didn't have much luck either - excavations found a lot of skeletons and sling shots, remains of a nasty skirmish."

"This small, roughly-circular fort was defended by a single bank and v-shaped ditch which encloses an area of about 11 acres (C.4.5ha). The only entrance was on the south-east, and the discovery of several skeletons and a large number of sling-stones in this area suggest a devastating attack on the inhabitants sometime during the Iron Age. The interior of the fort is currently under the plough, and aerial photographs have revealed an extensive Celtic field system surrounding the site, including several outlying round-houses."

If the forts were just that... or churches... or both... or the designated fighting arenas... or whatever... then the questions change. Are there enough forts? If some were erased, why? How are they distributed? Do they bear any relationship to the ancient roads? When and why were they abandoned as defensive structures?

Caesar said something about fortifying the woods with an embankment and calling it a town...

Tell us everything you know about hedgebanks, Mick, and why they can't be ancient earthworks.
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Mick Harper
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Well, it speaks volumes about Applied Epistemology and the wisdom received in the High Street that I understood the enclosures to have been living spaces and assumed that there was plenty of domestic evidence to back that up.

You may be right. It's one of the principles of Applied Epistemology to go out on a wing (and a prayer). But I (and I'm sure you have too, Dan) have watched endless excavations of these things (and, remember, we have not nailed down quite what things we are talking about) and I have yet to see one where they chirrup "Oh look, a street". In other words they seem definitely not to be walled living areas with individual dwellings in them. It is my impression that "dwellings" are never present, but "high status buildings" very occasionally are.

One of the problems about archaeology is that the "systems approach" is never adopted (it's too dangerous to existing paradigms and there's too much math for the poor little things to master) so we are left with "impressions".

Of Maidenbower, a cupla websites say:

"The original inhabitants didn't have much luck either - excavations found a lot of skeletons and sling shots, remains of a nasty skirmish."

This seems pretty definitive. I may have to re-think.

"This small, roughly-circular fort was defended by a single bank and v-shaped ditch which encloses an area of about 11 acres (C.4.5ha)."

On the other hand, have you any idea how many people it takes to defend an eleven-acre site that has only a single bank and a v-shaped ditch to keep the hordes out? Tens of thousands minimum.

The only entrance was on the south-east, and the discovery of several skeletons and a large number of sling-stones in this area suggest a devastating attack on the inhabitants sometime during the Iron Age.

But again, this might suggest that later people used these places as convenient battle-sites. After all, would you not occupy a handy hill-top with a ready-made rampart? But I agree this is a bit thin.

The interior of the fort is currently under the plough, and aerial photographs have revealed an extensive Celtic field system surrounding the site, including several outlying round-houses."

This is interesting. As you know, my own view is that ye olde Britain was occupied by people living in ordinary villages (in fact today's villages) and using the open-field system. So either this is a blow for me or evidence that the Celtic-speakers of Western Britain really did rule over the English-speakers of Eastern Britain and surrounded their "forts" with their familiar way of life. The Modern Brits used to do exactly the same thing in India.

If the forts were just that... or churches... or both... or the designated fighting arenas... or whatever... then the questions change. Are there enough forts? If some were erased, why? How are they distributed? Do they bear any relationship to the ancient roads? When and why were they abandoned as defensive structures?

What about the idea that the earthworks are essentially animal enclosures? This would explain both their size and why the defences are so nugatory (just enough to keep predators and rustlers out and the beasts in). This would also explain why the roads (presumably drovers' roads and Green Lanes) tend to go from earthwork to earthwork. And it would solve the erasure problem too since nobody would bother much to keep them up...nor knock them down.

Tell us everything you know about hedgebanks, Mick, and why they can't be ancient earthworks.

All I can say about hedgebanks is the more you investigate them the less you know about them. They're something that archaeologists tend to lob into the conversation and leave it at that. The literature really seems threadbare. Either because hedgebanks don't much exist or they very much exist but contradict a ruling paradigm.
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DPCrisp


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East is East... and West is Not
This little peregrination touches on the Roman road theme, so this is as good a place as any to cache it.

(1)
The Time team Special from Ightam Mote mentioned the garderobe, i.e. the toilet, which was smelly enough to keep the moths away. Hence, clothes were kept in the corridor outside; and hence the name: guard-robe.

Ward-robe means the same thing, of course. Ward and guard mean protect. But I realised the connection is closer than that: if G = Y and Y = U, then GU = UU = W. GUARD = WARD: they don't have the same meaning: they are the same word.

I tried a few more GU = W substitutions and noticed:

GUARANTEE = WARRANTY

GUERDON (a reward) = (RE)WARD(EN)

GUERRE/GUERRA (as in guerrilla) = WAR

GUILE = WILE

GUISE = manner = WISE

GULL, as in gullible = WOOL, as in pull the wool over one's eyes?


At least some of these, it turns out, are recognised in the standard etymologies, which include GALLOP = WALLOP and GAGE = WAGE. But also notice:

GAIN = straight, direct = WAIN, or 'way-en', like a straight road.

GUIDE = GUY = 'wy' = WAY

GUY = man = WIGHT = GUIDE


(2)
GU = W is recognised in this little snippet I googled up on Watling Street:

"A road extending east and west across South Britain. Beginning at Dover, it ran through Canterbury to London, and thence to Cardigan. The word is a corruption of Vitellina strata, the paved road of Vitellius, called by the Britons Guethalin. Poetically the 'Milky Way' has been called the Watling Street of the sky."

Other sites say several streets were named Watling, which makes sense if they're all named after the Emperor (and former curator of public works): especially the major thoroughfare from the gateway port clean across to the other side of the country. Certainly, the majority view that Watling is a Saxon name can go right out the window.

(Remembering that V = U = W, the Roman name Vitellina Strata Via - the internet renders various versions of this - is literally Watling Street (or Straight) Way.)

(3)
If GU = W then GUEST = WEST. Does that make any sense?

Consider: we had a discussion (somewhere around here: can't find it now - also on GHMB) on the tangle of meanings connecting EAST with birds, eggs, bones, openings, outpourings, host/hostel, hospital/hospitality...: all things life- and health-giving, naturally connected with the rising Sun.

Notice that a GUEST receives hospitality just as the WEST receives the Sun.

Is "a place of west" or "west in peace" too much of a stretch?
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DPCrisp


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I wrote:
Kent was rendered Cantwara by the Romans, wasn't it? I wondered whether wara = wer (as in werewolf) = man. i.e Cantwara = Kent men, in English.

Well, no. They were the Cantiaci to the Romans. Cantwara is recorded later, does mean Kent men and is, no doubt, regarded as Anglo-Saxon.

I'd still like a good reference on the rules for Latin plurals and case endings and all that jazz...
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Hatty
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Cantwara is recorded later, does mean Kent men and is, no doubt, regarded as Anglo-Saxon.

Kent is the "Garden of England", maybe 'cant' is connected to ward/guard?

Etymonline says
Kent
L. Canticum (51 B.C.E.), an ancient Celtic name often explained as "coastal district," but possibly "land of the hosts or armies."

The obvious association of "cant" with song (cantar, chanter, etc.) may have arisen from cock/coq, meaning 'a bird who sings at sunrise', another connection with the east.
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DPCrisp


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More on the meanings of north / south / east / west (or septentrionalis / meridiones / oriens / occidens). East = Host, the provider, the rising Sun. West = Guest, the receiver (of) the setting Sun.

Wikipedia says
The etymology of "east" is from an old Proto-Indo-European language word for dawn. Cf. Latin aurora and Greek eōs. Eostre, a Germanic goddess of dawn, might have been a personification of both dawn and the cardinal point.

Yes that's what we said. Good.

The English word "west" is cognate to the Old High German word westar, which may derive from an Indo-European root from which the Latin word vesper, meaning "evening", derives.

Yes, yes, very enlightening.

The etymology of South can be traced back to the Old English word suth, related to the Old High German word sund, and perhaps sunne in Old English with sense of "the region of the sun."

Why only as far back as Old English/Old High German when the others are (Proto-)Indo-European, I wonder? Never mind: they are surely right, as far as they go. Sund, as in sunder, asunder, sundry means separated, set apart, divided off: which is just what Moon (mono) and Sol (solo) mean. "South" refers to the singularity of the Sun (or the Sun gives us the notion of sun-gularity).

I found this the most interesting bit:

The word north is traced to the Old High German nord, and the Proto-Indo-European unit ner-, meaning "left" (or "under"). (Presumably a natural primitive description of its concept is "to the left of the rising sun".)

They glance off the parentheses rather than hitting the nail on the head: the north is where the Sun is below the horizon. (North = nether.)

Oriented to the rising Sun, the left side is the weak, recessive hand, where the Sun is down... and on the strong, dominant, right-hand side, the Sun is up, upright, erect.
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Ishmael


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DPCrisp wrote:
Discussed the meanings of north / south / east / west (or septentrionalis / meridiones / oriens / occidens) a bit before. East = Host, the provider, the rising Sun. West = Guest, the receiver (of) the setting Sun.

Of course!!! AMAZING!!! You got it!!

This is a puzzle that's long eluded me! It always seemed both words were somehow the same word. Now I see one is the guest and the other is the host. Amazing! Wow.

They glance off the parentheses rather than hitting the nail on the head: the north is where the Sun is below the horizon. (North = nether.)

Dan. You are truly brilliant!!!

You have so much material. If only you would organize it somehow and write a book. But what could possibly provide the organizing principle? The Secret Lives of Words? The Secret History of Words?
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