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Why is Waulud's Bank empty? (Pre-History)
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DPCrisp


In: Bedfordshire
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If you are not misquoting me...

Does not compute. I directly quoted your post to show where I got the impression that you were talking about a military-ish presence. If I misapprehended, please elucidate...

...you are inviting me to explain things in one syllable, whilst you for some reason, are allowed four.

...and I will gladly reciprocate.
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Rocky



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Ishmael wrote:
Rocky wrote:
You can only have the ideal model if you get rid of emergency medicine.

How do you figure that?


How would you make the 911 and emergency system profitable? I am assuming there would still be laws against denying people emergency care if they don't have the money to pay for it.

If you are allowed to deny people emergency care because they can't pay for it, then this is the system that currently exists in India.

Could one uphold India's health care model as the ideal?

Ishmael wrote:
Surgery is already cheap. It is so cheap that people indulge in it merely to decorate their bodies. But why is it only one kind of surgery that costs so little?


It's cheap if you're well-off. Demi Moore has spent more than $100,000 to de-cougarize herself.
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Ishmael


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Rocky wrote:
How would you make the 911 and emergency system profitable?


How the hell would I know? I'm not an entrepreneur. I don't even know how the Colonel makes fried chicken profitable.

Could one uphold India's health care model as the ideal?


There are no laws against denying bread to a starving man. Why don't we need such laws?

It's cheap if you're well-off. Demi Moore has spent more than $100,000 to de-cougarize herself.


Plastic surgery is cheap by any standard or measure! I lived in Atlanta Georgia. I forgot what real boobs looked like.
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Rocky



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Ishmael wrote:

There are no laws against denying bread to a starving man. Why don't we need such laws?


Because of The Church.

But back to American health care. How do you know that the current health care system is not stifling innovation? What if some guy has a great idea for a business but his wife forbids him from quitting his job to try to start the business because they would be without health insurance?
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Mick Harper
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In: London
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because they would be without health insurance?

Yes, although Ishmael will hit various rooves, this is now becoming the American equivalent of ye olde English Poor Law. You were looked after tolerably well if you stayed home and became destitute but if you went a-travelling and became destitute, you were "a sturdy beggar" and got your ears lopped or whatever.

It is fascinating watching a Free Enterprise culture clinging on for ideological dear life to a system that hinders free enterprise. If only we could persuade them that there is free-competition-in-ideas too and in practice it has been found (over and over again) that in rich societies it is better to socialise medicine. Nobody can do much about their own and their family's health so it is better to take as much of that off individual's shoulders as possible.
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Ishmael


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Mick Harper wrote:
It is fascinating watching a Free Enterprise culture clinging on for ideological dear life to a system that hinders free enterprise. If only we could persuade them that there is free-competition-in-ideas too and in practice it has been found (over and over again) that in rich societies it is better to socialise medicine. Nobody can do much about their own and their family's health so it is better to take as much of that off individual's shoulders as possible.


Mick. All you ever do on this issue is restate your position. You never bring any evidence to bear. It is tiresome.
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DPCrisp


In: Bedfordshire
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Back on page 4, I said:

Maiden Castles/Bowers in (southern?) England are supposed to have been so named because they were never taken, breached, defiled. But, of course, there is no point in time at which it's appropriate to take a retrospective and rename all the castles that were never taken...

...reworking of a neolithic causewayed enclosure: that is, a dotted line of ditches and banks with several 'entrances' was made into a continuous ditch-and-bank with just one entrance...

This now seems obvious: "maiden", meaning unpenetrated, unbroken (complete, as when it -- or she -- was first made), was to distinguish the new (apparently defensive) embankments from the earlier, broken (apparently non-defensive) causewayed enclosures that were known about, if not remodelled. "Maiden Bower" literally means "unbroken enclosure" {in English!}.
But this seems to have been misunderstood, being quickly followed by

Maidenhead on the Thames may be another instance of unbreached defences.

I don't much go for this flowery imagery. Do we have much evidence that the Ancient Brits had any kind of Virgin cult? And doesn't it rather invite hubris to actually call a fortress impenetrable...

I suspect the association is through the hymen... The "maden" is lost when the wall is breached.


I meant Maiden Bower simply means continuous embankment. The contrast is not with walls that were breached, but with "walls" that were never continuous in the first place, in the earlier so-called causewayed enclosures. No de-flowery imagery involved.

Anyway, I bring this up again now only because a telly prog about maps featured Henry VIII's detailed coastal maps, dotted with forts denoted as "made", "half made" or "not made", which rang a little bell for me. That's all.
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Ishmael


In: Toronto
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Maiden is a variation of the universal Ma-Tsar root.

Other variations include:

Maison
Mansion
Mountain
Mother
Master (can't figure how that one works!)
Matron

The list is endless.

The base word form means Feminine (Ma) Zone (Tsar) or Feminine Division.

In my judgement you should keep in mind that a word like maiden may be a corruption of some other form of the basic root. That makes it very difficult to draw any conclusions.
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Ishmael


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On the same subject. I was reading an article about Afghanistan and came across this nugget...(emphasis added)

Many Afghan villages share names..... In the United States, if someone says they are from Ellijay, Georgia, the location can be quickly narrowed and pinpointed....But here, even in the limited 'Central Area' of 'Regional Command South' comprising part of southern Afghanistan, there are five listed villages called 'Padah' or 'Padeh' and there are 15 villages named Shin Ghar....A Pashtun man explained 'padah' is the word for the feature we call a 'saddle,' while shin ghar means 'blue mountain,' or maybe 'green mountain,' depending on who you ask.
-- Battle for Kandahar


Now, far be it from me to argue with an Afgan but the words Padah and Shin Ghar may possibly refer to specific feature types these days but the words clearly descend from the universal language archetypes I have identified. I take it as potentially meaningful that the definitions appear confused even for Afgans.

The second word, Shin Ghar, is especially significant for me, as I propose it to be a form of the word I have confidently predicted is the most-widely appearing village or town name in the world. That name I write as Zone-kin, or its reverse, Kin-zone. However, it appears on maps from region to region in infinite guises -- but always following the same essential form.

So it is interesting that in this objective, random sample of duplicate place names in Afghanistan -- a sample taken by a person utterly unfamiliar with my theories, -- the most oft-repeated place name does in fact appear to be a form of Zone-kin, just as I have predicted.

What does the word mean? Does it mean blue mountain? Does it mean green mountain?

It means neither.

It means simply, "The place where I and my relatives live." A division of similar things but exclusively from an insular perspective. For the people of a kin-zone, the world consists of the kin-zone and everything outside the kin-zone. It is other places that, in so far as they are known, have distinct names.

This is how every village becomes Shin Ghar.

Of course it must not have missed your notice that the name Kandahar is also a form of Kin-Zone (Kan-dahar).

So how does the same word eventually become multiple place names all uniquely spelled and pronounced, a unique spelling and pronunciation potentially identified with local geography?

When the kin-zone is encountered by outsiders, the outsiders ask for its name. The locals repeat the word kin-zone in their own local dialect, in which it is unrecognizable. The outsiders in turn write the word down, if they've a written language, using the literary conventions of their own received pronunciation.

Think this is fanciful?

This is precisely how Canada came to be named.

The story goes that the earliest explorers arrived in the country and asked the local natives the name for the land. The locals replied in their native Algonquin: "Cana-da". An obvious echo of Kin-zone.

The word Canada is said to mean "Village" but of course it doesn't mean that at all. It means THE village -- the only one. For from the perspective of scattered, dis-unified humanity, there is only one place where the tribe lives and then there is everything outside of that zone.

As for the other word, Padah, this word is a form of "father". Literally, it means "Masculine-zone". You might notice that the entire Pashtun people apply the word to their collective grouping.

Why?

Because they all share the same patriarchal ancestors: The same "father".

How did the word "masculine-zone" get associated with a mountainous geographical feature? Well, the word mountain means "feminine zone" (probably a reference to the pregnant belly) -- the space between mountains then assumes a masculine character.

Think this is nonsense?

Then prove me wrong.
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DPCrisp


In: Bedfordshire
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As you probably won't know because material on the Battle of Watling Street has not been transferred here from the other site, I claim the best fit for the location of Boudicca's Last Stand is where the Watling Street enters the Downs/Chilterns at Friar's Wash, below Flamstead.

Unfortunately, that is precisely where Junction 9 of the M1 was built. Some enquiries directed me to the St. Albans Museum Service and I had some correspondence them a few years ago. I was fishing for info on any archaeological finds that were turned up there when they bult the motorway.

I finally got around to formatting the correspondence for posting here. I'm sharing it with you here as an example of dealing directly with the professionals that shows how quickly the conversation foundered on fundamental matters such as Agriculture First and the careful ignoral of "trains of misthought".

A St. Albans District Archaeologist named Simon wrote:
Thank you for your enquiry.

St Albans Museums Service undertook work at J9 prior to the junction being redesigned [1993, St Albans Museums Site Code D93]. This involved a series of trenches on the west side of the junction on either side of the A5 road as was, with a WB on the area of the compound.

Results.

Little in the way of stratified archaeology was uncovered, except for some medieval features in the area of the compound. Closer to the river, riverine silts did contain some medieval pottery and a quantity of Mesolithic flints.

The pottery was almost exclusively Greyware (1150-1325) indicating activity at this period.

The flints probably dated to the Mesolithic period (8000-4000BC) and are part of a typical scatter along the river valleys in the District.

Recently work on the other side of the junction produced similar prehistoric results with Neolthic/Mesolithic activity.


St Albans Museums Service undertook work at J9 prior to the junction being redesigned.

So, no notice was taken of any archaeology turned up in the process of building the motorway in the 1950s? Is that "as far as you know..." or "definitely, no notice was taken..."?

This involved a series of trenches on the west side of the junction on either side of the A5 road as was, with a WB on the area of the compound.

Would there have been any point in digging underneath either of the modern roads, or does it go without saying that the scale of these constructions will have obliterated anything that was there before?

Little in the way of stratified archaeology was uncovered, except for some medieval features in the area of the compound... The pottery was almost exclusively Greyware (1150-1325) indicating activity at this period.

That is, but for a small presence around the 1200s, there is hardly any sign of this stretch of Watling Street having been occupied at all, throughout its history. Correct?

That is no surprise, but as one of the country's major thoroughfares throughout recorded history, wouldn't you expect to find some sort of "continuous debris" from all that traffic?
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DPCrisp


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Little work was undertaken in the 1950's beyond noticing a building around or beneath Junction 8 vanishing, otherwise I know of little work from the 50's. We worked beneath the old A5 and found alluvial deposits surviving which I believe contained medieval pottery and Prehistoric struck flints, if my memory serves. Therefore it depends what you mean by modern, and deeper features may also survive, such as pits and ditches, unless there has been large scale earth moving/truncation.

Watling Street was certainly a focus, probably along its entire length. BUT where it further was associated with other sites, e.g. St Albans/Verulamium the focus for activity would have been much greater. For example all along the A5 there are medieval buildings either single or clustered in small settlements e.g. St Stephens village or Markyate.

There is some later association around Bow Bridge with the creation of a major, but short-lived Tudor manor house, and mills are also associated with the road and the river. I believe that there is the possibility for at least scattered occupation depending on topography and where other roads may intersect with Watling Street.

Also earlier landscapes survive along the line of later Watling Street (associated with the river valley within St Albans District), going back at least to the Mesolithic period, but as extant field boundaries from the Late Iron Age/Early Roman period.

Can I summarise the situation as:

  • When the M1 was built, no one took any notice of small finds in the area of Junction 9 (or anywhere else for that matter).
  • Finds from historical periods are associated with (or are interpreted as evidence of) settlement and little or no evidence is known to have accumulated from travellers even in the case of Watling Street, a major thoroughfare for 2000 years.
  • Even some permanent features may have been obliterated by large scale earth moving.
Building the Roman roads involved pretty large scale earth moving, didn't it, since a trench was dug to lay the road-metal in? This is one of the reasons I was asking about the finds.

(1) In the 2000 years since the Romans metalled Watling Street, virtually no archaeology has accumulated there. The process of building the road will have removed evidence of anything lying there before. Therefore, the absence of pre-Roman evidence is a very poor argument for the absence of a pre-Roman road.

I was given to understand that the Romans are now generally credited only (or mostly) with metalling roads and tracks that already existed in the Iron Age; straightening them out in places perhaps, but generally following pre-existing routes, joining up pre-existing destinations. But I have since been assured that this is NOT accepted by the professional archaeological community, which still argues for (essentially) the entire layout of roads and towns being of Roman design.

Can you give me your view on this?

(2) The reason for my interest in Junction 9 in particular is that I heard of Dunstable's Manshead Archaeology Society's theory that the Battle of Watling Street where Boudicca met her demise was fought between Kensworth and Caddington. On reading Tacitus, I concluded that

they were out by a few miles and 90 degrees; that the most likely spot was where the road enters the Downs at Friar's Wash.

How well the topography fits the description is hard to determine from ground level now and I was hoping there might be some suggestive finds (possibly hitherto unrecognised as such), but from what you tell me, the motorway pretty well guarantees we will never find any clear evidence of a battle there. On the other hand, as far as I know, no clear evidence has been found anywhere farther along the road to suggest a battle site.

Can you give me your view on this?
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DPCrisp


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The M1 was built in the mid-1950's and archaeology was much less sophisticated then. The major known loss was around J8 (Hemel) when a Roman building was seen. Not really sure where, latest evidence from recent widening work, suggests an R-B focus on the slope immediately to the south of the junction, although I have always assumed it was in area of the actual passover, but based on no actual evidence. I believe some material may have been collected at the time but again on anecdotal evidence as I have not researched it.

Watling Street also has Late medieval/early post-medieval inns/public houses scattered along it. Other than that the main nodal points become village/towns probably starting in the Late Saxon period when there is a agglomeration of farmsteads into single sites. I suggest one of the reasons was taxation.

This is really theoretical. Evidence from work at J9 (Friars Wash) suggest that deep features/deposits can survive the early road building as I believe techniques (particularly machinery) were not as destructive as today and there was less major earthmoving. But overall, on the line of the road, loss would be high, but it would not be impossible that features/deposits may survive either beneath of adjacent to the road line, depends on construction. Construction can also be raised as far as I understand it, certainly levelling down may be a factor but cambering may required levelling up above the height of the surrounding surface, again depends on location (valleys may be crossed over rather than into), site, techniques used etc. Therefore deeper features/deposits may survive.

The date of roads is interesting. Assuming continuity of nodal points or major long distance access routes, many prehistoric Neolithic and later tracks appear to have remained in use to today, so presumably were always used to a greater or less extent. However, the Roman created new centres (London), and/or 'Romanised' old ones (Verulamium, Silchester) and therefore required new routes which is where new roads came in. I believe it was a mixture of the two.

The Battle site - one of the Holy Grails. First, there is very little topographic description of the battle site. However common sense suggests that the site, unless the Roman had days to create defensive structures, had limited if any below ground remains therefore we should be looking for scatters of artefacts (problem here with the full declaration of MD finds). The motorway (relatively narrow corridor) could never destroy a battle site totally it would be vast (100,000 + as a conservative estimate), but the actual battle site would be hard to detect (see above and site of battle in Teutoberg Forest recently discovered as a series of artefact scatters in a liner arrangement

with small areas of more finds, i.e. where minor battles within a major harassed retreat took place - This is an excellent model for Boudicca's fight). Secondly, I believe such an important battle, at least at the time, the site would be commemorated, so we need to perhaps look for a temple/shrine small settlement etc which is what is at J9, however, it may also be the site of the aqueduct for Verulamium and the temples may be associated with this too. I would not necessarily see the battle as occurring outside of the 'territorium' of Verulamium, my problem with J9 specifically is there is no mention of a river, although I believe a defile is. This creates such a vague location as to be almost useless. I believe the site may be found but based on a temple, location of military and civilian artefacts lost during and after the battle, and perhaps a series of temporary defences such as a marching camp close, and perhaps defensive features such as shallow ditches or pits.

There has been a Time Team programme (which I still haven't seen) since this correspondence took place where they finally found the Roman temple they've always been banging on about. Actually, there's a cluster of 4 (?)... second biggest temple complex known in Britain or summat... at Friar's Wash.
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DPCrisp


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the main nodal points become village/towns probably starting in the Late Saxon period when there is a agglomeration of farmsteads into single sites.

Can you outline for me how we know this happened at this time?

As I understand the evidence for settlement in England:

The vast majority of villages and towns listed in the Domesday Book still exist. Some are known to have disappeared; some modern villages/towns were founded since; some villages/towns are known to have been founded and then abandoned in historical times; but on the whole, people still live in the just the places that they did 1000 years ago.

Only a tiny proportion of these continuously-occupied sites has ever been excavated (because they are presently occupied): enough to say the current model of settlement is corroborated; but not enough to say we have *direct* evidence of exactly where people have been living.

Settlements in between the villages, where the majority of excavations must take place (because they are *not* presently occupied), are typically either far too sparse or far too dense to represent the general population. Again, there is enough evidence to be consistent with the model, but not enough to be *direct* evidence of exactly where people were living.

You didn't say how many mesolithic flints were found, but it only takes one arrow to be lost by a hunter at Friar's Wash every couple of centuries to leave a dozen or so arrowheads for you to recover from the river silt. If people settled and resettled randomly across the landscape, mostly *between*, only occasionally *on* what are now the sites of villages, over the next 5000 years, shouldn't there be a scattering of evidence *everywhere*? Contrariwise, fieldwalking can identify potential settlement sites because the finds are actually concentrated into small areas.

Given the general lack of evidence, the impossibility of looking under the presently occupied sites and "sites in England have not been continuously occupied for longer than about 1500 years" being a premise for most archaeological investigations, I find it hard to understand how it is argued (or why it is necessary to argue) that villages as we know them were invented in the Late Saxon period.

These villages have proved to be immortal. If their economic sustainability comes from a long period of "settling into the landscape", then this process must have started well before records began. If randomly sited settlements are likely to be sustainable regardless, then why weren't settlements before the Saxons immortal? Why didn't Roman taxation produce a 'good' system? Why didn't the Normans re-organise the countryside to suit their purposes?


Therefore deeper features/deposits may survive.

Quite so. But if the chances are small that the road overlaid any deep features in the first place, the chances of them being uncovered again are vanishingly small. So again, the *absence* of evidence is compatible both with Roman roads randomly intersecting previous artefacts; and with the Romans (for the most part) simply building up existing routes.

Assuming continuity of nodal points or major long distance access routes, many prehistoric Neolithic and later tracks appear to have remained in use to today, so presumably were always used to a greater or less extent... I believe it was a mixture of the two.

I'm glad to hear it. Your opinion appears to be rare in your profession.

But the balance between new routes and old routes built-up by the Romans is very important. No one in their right mind would dispute that things come and go that require new routes to be trodden and old ones to become disused (look at the hillforts whose 'access roads' are no longer in evidence), so it is unlikely that the Romans will not have had to have done some de novo route planning themselves. But by the same common-sense token, the British people had work to do and places to go before the Romans arrived. The places the Romans needed to go when they invaded, in order to take control of the people-and-thereby-the-territory, were the places people already lived and they had to get there along the same routes. Is there any evidence that the Romans decided on new locations for towns (which have, of course, proved to be immortal), joined them up with roads and then set about having them populated?

Copper and tin were big business long before the Romans and they are reckoned to have been transported by boat, but it is interesting that a significant example of such a boat was found at Dover, the other end of the Watling Street from the copper mines in north-west Wales; and that the Humber is cited as a centre for such boat production, the opposite end of the Fosse Way from the Cornish tin mines.

Nevertheless, I understand the archaeological community to estimate the need for such routes to be negligible before the Romans; and to put the split between brand new and old routes for Roman roads to be more like 90:10 than 10:90.


However, the Roman created new centres (London)

Again, I am interested to know how we know that London was founded by the Romans. As the lowest point at which the Thames can be crossed, the Britons would surely have to have been insane for it not to be a pivotal location already.

The oldest *evidence* being Roman would appear to be a separate issue. Middle Eastern tells can reach 50 metres in height, but English villages have attained *zero* height in at least the last 1500 years. Well-ordered stratification does not seem to result from living in the English countryside; that is, until the advent of monumental building in durable materials, which started with the Romans.


The motorway (relatively narrow corridor) could never destroy a battle site totally

It's infuriating that Junction 9 was built on my candidate site. On the other hand, it's position is as surely dictated by the lie of the land as the battle site was (if it really was there).

it would be vast

Surely the Roman victory depended on it being compact, between the narrow defile and the wagon train?

we need to perhaps look for a temple/shrine, small settlement etc which is what is at J9

Tantalising. I don't suppose there is any record of how the site was cleared or commemorated. (Come to that, the records of when the roads were built[-up] are scant-to-non-existent, aren't they?)

I would not necessarily see the battle as occurring outside of the 'territorium' of Verulamium

It's vaguely accepted as happening somewhere in the Midlands, isn't it? But it reads to me like Suetonius was closely pursued from London; when he reaches the Downs, he realises it's a good place to turn and fight; too late for Verulamium, which is mentioned incidentally. If Boudicca had reached the Icknield Way without meeting the Romans, she surely would have headed home to claim a victory. It's hard to imagine the rabble keeping up the chase for many more tens of miles as they say.

my problem with J9 specifically is there is no mention of a river

A good point. I *think* Friar's Wash is the best match for the wide-plain-and-narrow-defile, but perhaps Markyate instead... It's very hard to tell from down here.

NB. There's bound to be a river about somewhere: that's where "narrow defiles" come from. {I've seen a website about Mancetter as a probable location, where there was a river: cutting right across in front of the Roman position!} If you look at the OS map around Flamstead/Friar's Wash, you'll see that the Ver sticks close to the foot of the hill and veers south, leaving the flattish area to the north and east of the entrance to the defile unobstructed.
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DPCrisp


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The Mesolithic is easier as a number of flints including an anvil were found, probably of the Late Mesolithic/Early Neo.

The evidence for Late Saxon agglomeration is more theoretical based on the emergence of villages, which must have come from somewhere, which generally speaking are larger than the average Middle Saxon farmstead which goes out of use.

When one looks at a Late Iron Age/early Roman model I suggest 3 LIA sites become one villa estate, the majority of displacement being taken up by a new form of land-use, i.e. the villa, or by growing urban environment. I think the dispersed nature of 'medieval farms' relates to Roman villa estates rather than more frequent IA farmsteads. I believe that post Roman development was the same, rural sites became larger farmsteads and the urban grew from these. At present, for this area I think the model fits the evidence, although theoretical as Early/Middle Saxon are missing. There is a 'sudden' Late Saxon growth in village/towns which do not appear to have been there earlier but must have come from somewhere, so almost why not farms which were taken over by larger landowners. Secondly I believe that the State wanted a controllable population which is easier if it is in one place (see Domesday) and not spread out, all about taxation in my opinion. So development away from small uncontrolled farms was 'encouraged'.


The evidence for Late Saxon agglomeration is more theoretical based on the emergence of villages, which must have come from somewhere, which generally speaking are larger than the average Middle Saxon farmstead which goes out of use.

But what is the direct evidence that villages emerged in the Late Saxon period? Is there just the INdirect evidence of Middle Saxon farmsteads seen to fall into disuse? Hillforts fall into disuse. Villas fall into disuse. Norman castles fall into disuse...

IF the villages had already been there and the Middle Saxon farmsteads scattered between them had been the EXCEPTION rather than the rule, i.e. they represented only the Anglo-Saxon military/ruling elite (in power or in retirement) rather than the general peasant population; and they were ultimately abandoned as their families moved into the villages and towns; then the evidence would be just the same as we have now, since we do not have *direct* evidence that the villages did *not* exist in the Early and Middle Saxon periods. Is that not so?


I believe that post Roman development was the same, rural sites became larger farmsteads and the urban grew from these.

That is very interesting. It seems much of archaeological and historical reasoning is based on the premise that people farming for themselves eventually formed villages... some of which grew into towns... some of which grew into cities. However, Jane Jacobs showed comprehensively in 1969's 'The Economy of Cities' that this "Agriculture First" paradigm is completely backwards.

There is a 'sudden' Late Saxon growth in village/towns which do not appear to have been there earlier

How can we tell that when such a tiny fraction of villages has ever been excavated and the vast majority of excavated sites were ABANDONED sites? If it is thought nowhere in Britain has been continuously occupied for much more than 1000 years, how can we know what to expect several thousand years of occupation to look like?

To put it another way: how do we know that the sites we can study are REPRESENTATIVE of the population at large? What if they are systematically UNrepresentative because the vast majority always lived where they do now, where we can not dig?

Does it go something like this?: When we *do* get to dig inside villages, we don't find the roundhouses and storage pits that we find on the outskirts, therefore we have the evidence that people were living on one spot and not another?

But what if there *were* villagers and they didn't use roundhouses and storage pits?

It's not hollow scepticism; it is LIKELY that people lived where they do now; that the rulers were foreigners; that the transient sites fringe the permanent ones...


I believe that the State wanted a controllable population which is easier if it is in one place (see Domesday) and not spread out, all about taxation in my opinion.

Sounds fair. But did the Anglo-Saxons invent taxation? Could they possibly have dictated where the villages should be sited? Were the Romans happy with everyone being spread around? Are we not desperately short of evidence of a population in the millions spread all over the place?
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DPCrisp


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We know that early/mid Saxon villages exist but these are smaller and or less defined than later sites. Also I believe that the main structures within a village such as a church and later manor house become stone and better define a site. In timber they are far easier to move/rebuild.

As far as I know this development is also related to the Christianisation of Britain and again I would suggest taxation which could only happen when national identity developed as opposed to the seven kingdoms of earlier times, later three (Mercia, Wessex and Northumbria). I also look at the evidence for present villages which rarely if ever have an earlier foundation than the Late Saxon period, at least in this area, as reflected in Domesday. I equate Domesday villages with Late Saxon foundations, but that is my interpretation.

When one looks at later DMVs etc, there are often two periods of development an organic core and a later regular development which equate to Late Saxon irregular foundation with an organised post-Conquest(?) regularisation/organisation to do with political changes and as I believe ease of taxation.

With regards to development some sites are founded earlier, Hamwic being an example, but this is not agricultural but an entrepot (Bradley?). I also do not think that 'people' cause agglomeration but it is outside organisation such as a head man, Church, Crown etc. This may be for ease of control of the population, taxation, goods in kind services, specialisation etc. Possibly a process that has happed several times (Prehistoric, Late IA?RB, Saxo-Norman) as culture and society have broken down and the wheel needs re-inventing. This explains the continued foundations of sites, these can go out of use for a variety of reasons, but one has to be chronological with a change in culture.

I agree only a small proportion have been excavated, but fieldwalking/sampling/topographic analysis appears to show only late foundations. Also burials in Churchyards rarely exceed a Late Saxon period foundation (Charcoal burials, pillow burials, burnt coffin burials etc), although this is another argument as church = centralisation of burial and therefore earlier ones could be present but elsewhere, and indeed are in pagan cemeteries. Some of these are large and possibly represent more than one burial source, but again often, as far as we can tell go out of use (Christianisation?)

In my opinion agriculture is first as it is a pre-requisite for survival. Once this has been achieved growth leads to specialisation, warfare and a need to congregate for all sorts of reasons (market, breeding, safety, culture, biological imperative of humans to interact etc). This ultimately leads to living close together often controlled by the power in society albeit a single man, family, king, nation, culture etc. Although agriculture may not directly lead to villages, towns etc without it these could not exist so it is the egg.

In Britain we have no tells because society had not developed to this extent until the and later Roman periods i.e. not for 5,000 years plus. But also the countryside allows for a greater choice of site, we have water and wood and other resources scattered so villages could move easily. This leads to a dispersed pattern of sites rurally, and not centralised sites until areas become walled and defined. Once this happens we do have tells but not ones that necessarily stick up in the landscape. For example, Roman only deposits in Ver are 2 m thick, in London deposits of all periods to the early post-medieval are up to 8 m thick. This would be an impressive mound! I also think particular circumstances such as mud brick etc leads to thicker deposits rather than flint/brick which is often reused, but this is an uninformed opinion.

Continuous occupation is probably not more than 1,200 years or so, but sites (London, Chester, St Albans, towns and villages etc) have been intermittently occupied to a greater or lesser extent for 2,000 years. Some of these probably had predecessors but from different places. As I indicated villages moved and came together. Churches are an interesting indicator where 'mother churches' catered for more than one parish etc, illustrating religious centralisation.

I do not think that there is evidence for deliberate centralisation, difficult to distinguish archaeologically, but I think that practically the controlling power would prefer it and pressure would be applied! I believe this can be seen in the 'villarisation' of the landscape in the Roman period and the centralisation of power into towns. I also think it is seen (but how?) in the later use of Basilicas which are put over to metalworking (Silchester/Wroxeter) and the source of power moves elsewhere.
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