Posted on 02/17/2014 1:08:17 PM PST by Renfield
Human remains dug up from an ancient grave in Oxfordshire add to a growing body of evidence that Britain's fifth-century transition from Roman to Anglo-Saxon was cultural rather than bloody.
The traditional historical narrative is one of brutal conquest, with invaders from the North wiping out and replacing the pre-existing population.
But a new study, published in the Journal of Archaeological Science, hints at a more peaceful process. Dr Andrew Millard, from Durham University, is one of the study's authors.
'The main controversy over the years has centred on how many Anglo-Saxons came across the North Sea,' he says.
'Was it a mass invasion, where the existing population was wiped out completely or forced back into Wales, or was it a small band of elites whose ways were then adopted very quickly?'...
(Excerpt) Read more at phys.org ...
They probably just started out doing the jobs the Romans wouldn’t do....
A great deal of that was done in boarding schools in the late 1800s. The children were not permitted to speak their native tongues.
When I visited the Custer battlefield (Little Bighorn) some years ago I overheard a conversation about how the Crow Indians were told they had to speak English. I think that was by church leaders. The Crow were allies of the Seventh Cavalry in the war against the Sioux in 1876.
I think you are right about the origin of Welsh. It is supposed to be related to Walloon (the French-speaking Belgians), Wallachia (as in Romania), and Vlach (Balkan shepherds whose language is similar to Romanian). In each case they are the people who lived under Roman rule, from the standpoint of the Germans. I think the Polish word for “Italy”/”Italian” is related.
Whoever delivered the message, the Government set the policy.
According to a lot of the old Welsh history, I think that was Vortigern who offered Hengist the security contract for his kingdom, with land as a major perq. Over less than a century, Hengist and his descendants brought over pretty much half of the Saxon population, and secured Vortigern’s place in British history as everything but the antichrist. I’ve read about it in British history books since my teens, and I still can’t understand his motivation, other than the fact that he wasn’t well liked for whatever reason, so no one in Britain would help him.
The author is drawing unwarranted conclusions. The author seems to think if the Saxons let the native Celts live on in numbers that the invasion would have been "peaceful." I suppose in this kum-by-ya age academics think it would be reasonable for the Celts without a fight just to invite the Saxons to take their best land, take over the government and make themselves wealthy by the standards of the day.
This may have been more widespread—trying to make all the Crow speak English, not just making the children in school use English. Presumably the children would be able to resume speaking their native language when they went back home.
The Saxon burials that have been found have been sumptious, and the obvious conclusion to draw is the wealth interred with the dead came from plunder. Like the Vikings not long after them, the Saxons sacked monasteries. It’s ironic that the British Isles turned to Christianity first in areas never ruled by the Romans; that said, there were also Christians in the Roman areas, before and after the Roman withdrawal, but they for the most part got hacked to pieces by the Saxon invaders.
Sorry, but the surviving earthworks consist of two basic types — the oppida or hillforts, which are clearly pre-Roman, as Roman roads make course changes to skirt them, and these earthen walls, which cross and bury (here and there) Roman remains such as abandoned settlements and roadways. I liked some of the historical fiction (like “Eagle of the Ninth” and the related novels by that same author), but relying on them to relay reliable history doesn’t work.
The Roman historian Eutropius in his book, Historiae Romanae Breviarium, written around 369, mentions the Wall of Severus, a structure built by Septimius Severus who was Roman Emperor between 193 and 211:Novissimum bellum in Britannia habuit, utque receptas provincias omni securitate muniret, vallum per CXXXIII passuum milia a mari ad mare deduxit. Decessit Eboraci admodum senex, imperii anno sexto decimo, mense tertio. Historiae Romanae Breviarium, viii 19.1This source is conventionally thought to be referring, in error, to either Hadrian's Wall (73 miles (117 km)) or the Antonine Wall (37 miles (60 km)), which were both much shorter and built in the 2nd century. Recently, some writers have suggested that Eutropius may have been referring to the earthwork later called Offa's Dyke. Most archaeologists reject this theory.
He had his most recent war in Britain, and to fortify the conquered provinces with all security, he built a wall for 133 miles from sea to sea. He died at York, a reasonably old man, in the sixteenth year and third month of his reign.
Recent evidence has been found that strengthens the theory of an earlier date for the wall's construction. In December 1999 Shropshire County Council archaeologists uncovered the remains of a hearth or fire on the original ground surface beneath the raised bank of the ancient Wat's Dyke near Oswestry, England. Carbon dating analysis of the burnt charcoal and burnt clay in situ showed it was covered by earth on or around AD 446. Archaeologists concluded that this part of Wat's Dyke, so long thought of as Anglo-Saxon and a mid-8th century contemporary of Offa's Dyke, must have been built 300 years earlier in the post-Roman period in Britain.
[Offa's Dyke: Alternative theories]
Interesting. I’ll be brushing up my history a bit.
Thanks.
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