Appearence and tactics of early 5th century Saxons.

[Conal]

This is good

One of my bugbears has been the "numbers" thing as I have again and again read that Dark Age warefare was a "hobby" thing for elite warrior bands who might have numbered in the hundreds at the most and that implies a non free non warrior element who were expected not to fight. ( out of period but I recall that the Viking "Great Army" which spent a summer wreaking havoc in north England is said to have numered 800 at most )

I have alway found this a little concerning as just three tribes of Sioux managed to get 1500 warriors together to wipe out old long Hair! I know British kingdoms as we call them are only counties but their populations would have been far greater than the Sioux could muster from ?

When an ancient mentioned a keel of warriors is the only translation the amount of men from one ship ...could it not mean, as with a "lance " in medieval times ... a warrior and his retinue ...i.e his ship and any others he owned ?

As those of you who know me another bugbear is the sword ownership thing ( the Fearrai of the Dark Ages ..only for the elite etc etc etc ) as I have trouble believeing that a far larger proportion of warriors "could" technically have been armed with swords as technically it was possible. Only the denial by a ruling elite would have stopped that.

Anyway my ramblings have a point ..... if one is to assume a sizable defence force any sneaky influx of a small force would surely have been crushed before it could have rooted itself ?

A larger force with the aim of getting a foothold would have to be in the thousands ?

[Aryaman2]

Hi
I posted early in this thread that there was no "Germanic" haplogroup that can be traced, as that is a linguistic term. However I have been aware of an study in Human Biology (2201) in which Haplotype 5 has been identified as Berber. Together with other high resolution DNA studies (44 Y-chromosome biallelic polymorphisms) an study in The American Journal of Human Genetics (2001) claims to have identified moorish genetic flow to Spain, supposedly arriving after the Arab conquest, and it has been estimated to account for 7% of modern Iberian genetic pool. So it is possible that a "Germanic" haplotype could be eventually found as a useful marker, however the diferences in the genetic pool of Iberia and North Africa are much greater than those of Britain and Denmark.

[Chariovalda]

Well, I thought I'd join in. Being of impeccable Saxon and Frisian lineage (well, ignoring the vile rumours of Frankish and even Gallo-Roman ancestors somewhere in my lineage), I'd like to add my voice to that of that romanized Frankish Chamavian mongr... :wink: er, I mean, my dear friend Valerius/Robert. Well, add to...and counter as well...

so far, no massive waves of 5th-c. Germanic immigrants have been attested. Those who come into the island, seem to have done so at leisure, not in massive waves. The West Hestlerton case nicely shows that. Härke assumes, as so many did earlier, that the settlements were emptied by folks who took ship for Britain. But they did not leave notes about their whereabouts, did they? It’s a fact that no research was done about continuation of settlements nearby, maybe on higher ground.

Actually, this is pretty weak, generalising from one case (that looks rather peculiar, even exceptional - I mean with all those immigrants from beyond the Pennines - there must be some story behind that). As for coastal Germans moving to higher ground and there not being done any research there...we'd have to look into all those Danish, North German and Dutch archaeological reports to make sure about that (we don't have to rely on British historians and archaeologists there, I fear, they being usually rather monolingual... 8) ).
Anyway...

Okay Robert. You live in Holland. So please tell me what
'higher ground' you see out of your window right now. :lol:

Actually, there is a bit of that around further inland. Problem is, however, that in the Netherlands and northern Germany especially that's mostly rather poor land - it only gets more interesting in Frankish territory. The rising sea levels would have gotten up to perhaps several hundred thousand people, not to mention their cattle, into economic trouble. As climate change isn't that swift, I would imagine it working as a constant stimulant through growing economic hardship to move elsewhere - but the areas nearby would be 1) held by well-armed and not necessarily friendly Franks and 2) not as attractive as a nice little cottage in the better parts of Eastanglia, Yorkshire, Kent or the Isle of Wight. Or parts of Gaul, for that matter... :mrgreen:
And make no mistake: these people probably had a pretty good idea how those areas looked like through long-established links of trade, military service and some good 'ole-fashioned raidin' and pillagin'

Right. We have Frisians, Angles, Jutes, having their coastal farmland flooded by the sea. Up until the 450s, they are also feeling the push of refugees being forced West by Attila the Hun. Yet you are suggesting that they might have migrated South East, inland, into the teeth of the Huns and the flood of refugees trying to escape them. I doubt it.

Well, the Hunnic threat has been overstated a bit, I think. If you were willing to cut a deal with Attila you could have a perfectly good career in his empire, then switch your allegiance once it started to fall apart - hey, you're a not pragmatic, intelligent barbarian for nothing, there's actually a functional brain behind all that hair... 8)
Seriously, the people running away from Attila were running into the Roman Empire - not towards those luvvely swamps and coastal lowlands subject to flooding we and our Low Saxon and Danish cousins love and cherish... :wink:

Can you not simply accept that perfectly respected Germanic
(for want of a better word) migration-period scholars like Heinrich Harke
and Michael Gebuhr have no problem with seeing the only logical route
of migration for Frisians, Angles & Jutes as being across the North Sea
and to Britain? As for the migrants arriving at their leisure, that's not
a problem. You know I think that there was an attenuated migration over
maybe 150-200 years. But that doesn't mean it wasn't hostile

Well...

The problem here is, I think, that too many people - archaeologists, historians, and lay enthusiasts - tend to approach this question not just on the basis of the usual (conscious and unconscious) prejudices and preconceptions, but far worse, get into an increasingly polarised debate and drift towards that side that is closest to their pre-existing views and personal preferences. The "middle voices" (and personally I count Härker and colleagues of his like Kristian Kristiansen among them, if towards that end of the middle in the direction of the "migrationists") are being either overshadowed or branded as migrationists. And yes, Vorty old buddy, I am looking somewhat in your direction as well. Typifying migrationist or middle-of-the-road ("continuity & accomodation as well as conflict and substantial migration") scholars with images of raidin', pillagin', murderin' and rapin' hairy Saxon hordes a la Cerdic and Cynric in the atrocious recent King Arthur movie is slightly unscholarly, now isn't it? :wink:

Not at all, but it is racist to assume that Britons could not possibly have wanted to prefer Anglo-Saxon culture over their own, which is what is implied by those who maintain that everywhere remains of that culture are found, an immigrant must be assumed.

Well...it's all about the degree of likelihood. Assuming a wide range of "Germanic" archaeological markers in a certain locality, and a relative absence of Romano-British or other remains during the same timespan, it's reasonable to assume that the culture of the local population was Germanic. A Germanic biological origin for same local population, or at least of a large portion of it, would be plausible but not strictly necessary.

The reverse, assuming that an apparently culturally Germanic population was actually overwhelmingly composed of culturally assimilated Romano-Britons, is I think possible certainly, but not necessarily just as or more plausible than a (substantially) Germanic origin.

It's certainly illogical to assume that when the first Anglo-Saxon weapons burials appear in Kent c. 450 that 400 years of Romano-British burial culture goes out the window and Romanized, Christianised Britons suddenly swap all their jewellery and clothing for Anglo-Saxon styles, and revert to pagan weapons burials...
As for any cultue, of whatever type, it would be a very strange thing
for them to prefer someone else's culture to their own so completely
and so immediately. The Britons took decades - if not centuries - to become Romanized (so people keep telling us). Why would they take to Anglo-Saxon culture so much more readily?

Not immediately, I grant you that. But while we don't exactly know to what degree the "human infrastructure" of Roman Britain melted away (soldiers, officials, aristocrats, artisans, traders, clergy), I suspect a lot of them hopped over to Gaul and Spain or other parts of Britain (a similar process occurred in the Balkans in the 7th century and much of Byzantine Asia Minor during the various stages of the Turkish conquest).
What would have been left - the peasants, basically - wouldn't have been more than very marginally Christianised and Romanised, while at the same time the old local Celtic culture would be, perhaps not dead but certainly impoverished and decapitated. For a while, it is conceivable that their cultural identity would be "fluid". Neither truly Christian (or pagan) Romans and no longer Celts, no real identity beyond one's family and immediate locality, they could have been perfect for incorporation into new group identities, organised around a newly arrived, pragmatic Germanic warlord, his followers and their dependents and later arriving kin from the mainland.

The genetic evidence is still a bit "thin" (as in: far too few samples to my liking), as far as the far south of England is concerned, but the general impression of a 25-50% Germanic male influx on the coastal lands from Kent to Dorset may suggest exactly that. The generally prevailing insecurity there may have led the local elites - those with the means and contacts to get out of Dodge and resettle elsewhere (or get themselves killed, or in some cases co-opted), leaving the local populations to fall under the political domination of Germanic warlords (whether uppity former mercenaries or new arrivals) who subsequently created new political and cultural entities around a Germanic core.

[Chariovalda]

Hi
I posted early in this thread that there was no "Germanic" haplogroup that can be traced, as that is a linguistic term. However I have been aware of an study in Human Biology (2201) in which Haplotype 5 has been identified as Berber. Together with other high resolution DNA studies (44 Y-chromosome biallelic polymorphisms) an study in The American Journal of Human Genetics (2001) claims to have identified moorish genetic flow to Spain, supposedly arriving after the Arab conquest, and it has been estimated to account for 7% of modern Iberian genetic pool. So it is possible that a "Germanic" haplotype could be eventually found as a useful marker, however the diferences in the genetic pool of Iberia and North Africa are much greater than those of Britain and Denmark.

Aryaman, the argument of the genetic studies by Goldstein, Weale and Capelli et al for a greater or lesser "Norwegian" and/or "Danish-North German-Netherlandish" male genetic impact on the populations of Britain was based not on a specific haplogroup - there is, indeed, no specific Germanic haplogroup, in fact almost none of the major European haplogroups can be identified with certainty with any of the historical European cultural-ethnic groups - but on the division of the haplogroups among the population. In terms of this division, the populations of northern, central and eastern England are more similar to that of southern Scandinavia and the northern parts of Germany and the Netherlands than to that of Wales and Ireland. The far south of England and the Scottish lowlands, however, are somewhat intermediate between the Anglo-Saxon "homelands" and the "Celtic fringe".

Anyway, there's a new genetic survey under way that will use a larger sample than the most recent investigation by Capelli, so that may give us a slightly more nuanced picture - even if it's still too small for my liking.

[Robert Vermaat]

To which, I answered with the above. I take it you don't
deny pointing-out elsewhere on this list that for 400 years of Roman
Britain, civilian ownership of weapons (and, as a consequence, weapons
burials) were illegal? :lol: So no, there was no continuity in 'grave-goods'
between Iron-Age Celtic and early Anglo-Saxon burials. How could there possibly be?

True enough, point taken, the continuity would have had to be outside Roman Britain. I was with my head on top of a tumulus, a form of burial monumnet that, like inhumation, tend to be overlooked as indeed continuous. But you're right about weapons.

[Robert Vermaat]

Okay Robert. You live in Holland. So please tell me what
'higher ground' you see out of your window right now. :lol:

Lots of it. it's just so you folks who are spoilt with hills and stuff don't recognise it over here. D

Right. We have Frisians, Angles, Jutes, having their coastal farmland
flooded by the sea. Up until the 450s, they are also feeling the push of
refugees being forced West by Attila the Hun. Yet you are suggesting
that they might have migrated South East, inland, into the teeth of the
Huns and the flood of refugees trying to escape them. I doubt it.

Well, some flooding, by no means all, and over more than a century.
And the Huns never made it that far north, either. As if they would. 8)

Can you not simply accept that perfectly respected Germanic
(for want of a better word) migration-period scholars like Heinrich Harke
and Michael Gebuhr have no problem with seeing the only logical route
of migration for Frisians, Angles & Jutes as being across the North Sea
and to Britain? As for the migrants arriving at their leisure, that's not
a problem.

Well, that my problem - why can it be the only logical explanation? As a scientists, I would have a problem with that - so many variables, uncertainties, possibilities, and that's the only logical solution? Why Britain? Why not Belgium, France, Spain, North Africa - lots of folks went there, did they not? If Härke and Gebuhr really thought that way (which I doubt), I'd call that tunnel-vision (no, I don't think they saw mass-migration to britain throough the Channel Tunnel!! :evil: ).

You know I think that there was an attenuated migration over
maybe 150-200 years. But that doesn't mean it wasn't hostile

Sure, that could've been the case. And yes, a slower and smaller migration might still be hostile. Why not - pirates/traders were a normal sign of the time, and raiders and petty chiefs might be hostile to their neighbours, sure. I never claimed all had to be peaceful. I'm just againt the mass-migration (over a short time) and a massive displacement of the natives - I still see no signs of the native farmers being forced away in large numbers, leaving the land just for immigrants to start anew.

It's certainly illogical to assume that when the first Anglo-
Saxon weapons burials appear in Kent c. 450 that 400 years of Romano-
British burial culture goes out the window and Romanized, Christianised
Britons suddenly swap all their jewellery and clothing for Anglo-Saxon
styles, and revert to pagan weapons burials. You are always exhorting
people to use Occam's Razor. Well, please try it yourself, now. What's
the simplest and most logical explanation for these weapons burials
suddenly appearing? That they are Anglo-Saxon imigrants, or that they
are Romanized Britons pretending to be Anglo-Saxons, just to fool us?

I have no doubt that such reasoning lies behind the current thought - stuff's Anglo-Saxon, so the owners must be Anglo-Saxons. But isn't that a trap that archaeologists contantly warn about? That the fibula can't tell you anything about the ethnicity of the owner? [color=red]Isn't that, too, not the reasoning behing the Germanic belt-sets etc. found in Britain - whose owners 'can't be Germanics' because those very same experts say they can't? So who's fooling who? If the one Germanic style must be worn by a germanic person and the other Germanic style can't be worn by a Germanic person around the very same time, then I don't know what to argue anymore. But if Germanic buckles could be buried with british soldiers, than Germanic swords and jewellery could also be buries with British persons, surely?

As for any cultue, of whatever type, it would be a very strange thing
for them to prefer someone else's culture to their own so completely
and so immediately. The Britons took decades - if not centuries - to become Romanized (so people keep telling us). Why would they take to Anglo-Saxon culture so much more readily?

Not completely and not suddenly. Britons took centuries to be Romanised, but not all - some earlier, some later. And so it is with the acculturisation to Germanic stuff. Some went ahead (like I keep saying, fashions already started to change all over the Empire, from the 3rd c. onwards), some came behind. Kent was of course among the earliest, due to the closest contacts with germanic influences and no doubt (due to the distance to the continent), the heaviest traffic. And I kinda like Pryor's speculation (nothing more than that) that those parts of the island that took to Roman styles the earliest and the most thorough, the Southeast, also may have been easier to influence by the new Germanic styles. Not a matter of superiority, but of availability. And of course, some parts of Britain never took to Germanic styles at all.

[Robert Vermaat]

Obviously because, to them, it wasn't superior. Perhaps,
(dare I say it) because they had a racist disdain for Romanized Britons.
But I think we could drop the term racist, as applied to either our fellow
listmembers, native Britons or Anglo-Saxons, don't you?

Who applied that term to our fellow listmembers? Not I. :x

Well no Saxon forced the Roman Army in Gaul to start
wearing chip-carved buckles, I'll grant you that.
[/quote]
Thank you!

And probably no Saxon
forced British women to drop their native clothing (okay, actually, they
may well have doen that :oops: ) and start wearing the latest Saxon
fashions to come off the Paris catwalk, either.

Kinky!

The simplest explanation
is that if it walks like a Saxon and quacks like a Saxon, then it's a Saxon.

So if it wears a Germanic buckle and carries a Germanic sword it's a Germanic soldier? :twisted:

[color=blue] But graves containing exclusively Anglo-Saxon grave-goods
do appear suddenly c. 450 onwards in Kent

You keep saying that, and so they might, but when Coca-Cola bottles suddenly start appearing in Europe, does that mean we were invaded by Americans and driven from our homes, too? Or did a new style appear with new immigrants that suddenly became the total hot fashion, taken up by the natives who continued to be buried amongst the newcomers, but incresingly indistinguishable?

Now to be honest, I thought, at the time, that you were
contradicting yourself, rather. But I didn't like to point it out to you,
in case you called me racist, or something :lol: So my question, above,
about customs control of importation of Germanic weapons in the century
before 400 still stands. Unless you wish to revise what you said. :wink:

Mike, it's not even nice to use that word in jest now is it?
About the customs, I did not realise you referring to that quote. But sure, why not.
Paul was questioning me about Germanic-style weapons being different from British weapons, not when they appeared. I was at the time under the impression that we were discussing Anglo-Saxon swords from later times. But maybe I was misaten - to answer your previous question about customs - of course traders could sell to Romans who were allowed to carry arms. So soldiers could of course buy weapons from foreign traders - why not? I said the Roman state had a monopoly of arms manufacture, and you of course know that arms exports were forbidden, but that did not means that arms imports were off limits too.

Absolutely. so why did you suggest, in the post I replied to,
that Britons might have been tempted to convert to Anglo-Saxon paganism a century earlier, c. 450? 8)

Oh, I don't know - to get away from the clutches of a church that managed to send guys like Germanus to areas where he had no business, but with an apparent mandate to haul back Pelagian heretics in chains to Rome?
I'm jesting a bit....

He's mentioned as visiting the monastery at
Glastonbury, which, it would follow, had been raided by Anglo-Saxons.
That's in the South West, and would be on the frontline between the
Britons and the Anglo-Saxons, if he was writing near to the mid 6th c.
which was when the A/S penetrated to the Bristol Channel.

Mentioned where? Not by any contemporary source, I think!
If Gildas was writing around 550, which he did not in my opinion!, there would hardly have been anything like an 'Anglo-Saxon frontline' in that area.. In my opinion Wessex (which I think you refer to as 'penetrating to the Bristol Channel') was at that time still as British as the next kingdom. Even the kings had British names. Not even Kenneth Jackson drew his (in)famous occupation frontier that far West for 550AD (Jackson, Kenneth H. (1953): Language and History in Early Britain, (Edinburgh), pp. 208-9).

And of course, by far not all Britons changed their faith - not all were Christian (at least more than nominally)

As spock would say: 'Fascinating'. Do you have any
evidence for that? 8)
Sure, ask Martin Henig about those fascinating pagan details in Late Roman mosaics in Britain: http://www.asprom.org/resources/Lulling ... Henig.html

and as Ken Dark advocated, many Christians were still to be found in ‘Anglo-Saxon lands’ before 597.

Well of course they were. Judging from the placename and
archaeological evidence, there were British enclaves from Walton Castle
on the East coast to London, Silchester, Chichester etc till c.500. There
is no evidence that any of these British enclaves had converted to
paganism, nor that any Anglo-Saxons had converted to Christianity.

Well, there you go then.

[Aryaman2]

Hi
I posted early in this thread that there was no "Germanic" haplogroup that can be traced, as that is a linguistic term. However I have been aware of an study in Human Biology (2201) in which Haplotype 5 has been identified as Berber. Together with other high resolution DNA studies (44 Y-chromosome biallelic polymorphisms) an study in The American Journal of Human Genetics (2001) claims to have identified moorish genetic flow to Spain, supposedly arriving after the Arab conquest, and it has been estimated to account for 7% of modern Iberian genetic pool. So it is possible that a "Germanic" haplotype could be eventually found as a useful marker, however the diferences in the genetic pool of Iberia and North Africa are much greater than those of Britain and Denmark.

Aryaman, the argument of the genetic studies by Goldstein, Weale and Capelli et al for a greater or lesser "Norwegian" and/or "Danish-North German-Netherlandish" male genetic impact on the populations of Britain was based not on a specific haplogroup - there is, indeed, no specific Germanic haplogroup, in fact almost none of the major European haplogroups can be identified with certainty with any of the historical European cultural-ethnic groups - but on the division of the haplogroups among the population. In terms of this division, the populations of northern, central and eastern England are more similar to that of southern Scandinavia and the northern parts of Germany and the Netherlands than to that of Wales and Ireland. The far south of England and the Scottish lowlands, however, are somewhat intermediate between the Anglo-Saxon "homelands" and the "Celtic fringe".

Anyway, there's a new genetic survey under way that will use a larger sample than the most recent investigation by Capelli, so that may give us a slightly more nuanced picture - even if it's still too small for my liking.

Hi Chariovalda
Yes I know that, the reasoning behind is that we have to consider not the percentage of individual haplogroups/haplotypes in a population, but the overall composition, so that a change in composition could mark a change in population, even if the larger haplogroup remain the same.
In the case of Britain, Haplogroup R1b is the larger one, but with a decreasing grade from West to East. Haplogroup subclade I1a is present also in Britain, even in Western Ireland, but with an opposing decreasing grade from East to West. That different composition in the genetic pool could mean a different population origin, even if the basic haplogroup remains R1b
The genetic composition of East England population very much resembles that of the Low Countries, Western Germany and Denmark. However it also resembles that of Northern France, and I1a marker is found in larger percentages in some regions of France, like Normandy or, more tellingly, in similar percentages in Southern France (Rootsi et al, AJHM 2004). To sum up, if we consider the I1a marker as a Saxon, or Germanic marker, we have to admit that the Germanic influence in East England is similar to that of Northern France, or even lower, that would support the idea of a limited migration, not that of a mass replacement of population, unless we think of such massive Frankish migration in Northern France.
However, there is another marker probably more important, Haplogroup J is present in almost all Europe, with a clear geographic distribution, with maximum in the Southern Balkans and decreasing to the West. It is widely regarded as a Neolithic population spreading from the Near East through the Danube basin. However haplogroup J is virtually absent in all Britain, that means not only that there was no Neolithic colonization from that group, that also means that, as Haplogroup J is present in relevant percentages (around 10%) both in Western Germany and France, and even in Norway in smaller quantities, no mass migration from those populations arrived to England in postneolithic times. It means that the basic genetic composition of Britain should be of paleolithic period.
So the reconstruction would be as follows.
There could be migrations from Celtic Iron Age populations and Saxon medieval, but they found already a population that was genetically similar to their own, except for the presence of that Haplogroup J.
All this, of course, is pending of further research in which the size of samples are increased.

[Robert Vermaat]

All this, of course, is pending of further research in which the size of samples are increased.

Could someone explain to me how this research, which for all I know is done on living persons and not on ancient bone fragments, can really tell us something about peoples moving about in the past? I mean, if this is about very big groups, sure, I can guess that some statistics apply. But how on earth could we really tell if an influence took place in 300 BC or 1000 AD? Or am I right in thinking that these conclusions are reached with a book about migrations in the other hand?

[Chariovalda]

I1a marker is found in larger percentages in some regions of France, like Normandy or, more tellingly, in similar percentages in Southern France (Rootsi et al, AJHM 2004)

That is why I - and others - would be reluctant to accept this single haplogroup as evidence for or against for immigration from either a more northerly (North Germany / Low Countries / Southern Scandinavia) or a more southerly (Southern France) location. The sheer fact of a substantial presence of I1a isn't very informative by itself.

To sum up, if we consider the I1a marker as a Saxon, or Germanic marker, we have to admit that the Germanic influence in East England is similar to that of Northern France, or even lower, that would support the idea of a limited migration, not that of a mass replacement of population, unless we think of such massive Frankish migration in Northern France.

Rootsi & co think that I1a originated in France, and "migrated" north after the last Ice Age. That leads to the interesting conclusion that a man with I1a in France might either be descended from a true "native" - or a Frankish immigrant whose distant ancestor emigrated from the same region. That makes the whole genetic history thing in Europe so interesting and confused - migrations, back migrations, back-back migrations )

However, there is another marker probably more important, Haplogroup J is present in almost all Europe, with a clear geographic distribution, with maximum in the Southern Balkans and decreasing to the West. It is widely regarded as a Neolithic population spreading from the Near East through the Danube basin. However haplogroup J is virtually absent in all Britain, that means not only that there was no Neolithic colonization from that group, that also means that, as Haplogroup J is present in relevant percentages (around 10%) both in Western Germany and France, and even in Norway in smaller quantities, no mass migration from those populations arrived to England in postneolithic times.

Do you perhaps have some links? I was aware of J being identified as a possible "Middle Eastern Neolithic Farmer" marker, but two sources I found, [url:vewdobp4]http://hpgl.stanford.edu/publications/AJHG_2004_v74_p1023-1034.pdf[/url] and [url:vewdobp4]http://www.familytreedna.com/pdf/HaploJ.pdf[/url] find respectively 0% J in the Dutch sample and 5% in a (sadly not regionally differentiated) UK sample.
I know J is present in both Dutch, Scandinavian and British populations, but in all cases in relatively low percentages, meaning that, depending on the size (and thus representativity) of the sample, the actual percentage can easily be under- or over-represented. And never mind regional differences...

[size=75:vewdobp4]Edited the links [/size]

[Aryaman2]

Andreas
Unfortunately those links don´t work for me
Yes, J is present in low percentages in Western Europe. The problem with the "Saxon invasion" question is that it is apparently very biased. Some researchers seem to be obsessed with I1a, probably because it has a nice looking Germanic distribution, as shown in Rootsi et Al maps. But I1a is only a marker, it is not the dominant hapogroup not even in Scandinavia, so if you consider it as showing Germanic lineage you have to admit it is minoritary even in Scandinavia, let aside England, but if you use as a marker, you have to use in combination with other markers, you can´t have both. IMO the research of other markers, including J, R1a and E3b would be more meaningful.

[ambrosius]

Hello Robert,

Pryor insisted that the end of Roman administration in the 5th c. would have had all the British farmers shouting 'Whoopee! - No more taxes!' To which Harke replied: "Hmmm... very much a farmer's view, I think."

So what is your point? Is Härke disagreeing with Pryor? I seems not, from what I read there.

:lol: Well of course Harke is disagreeing with Pryor. He's
pointing-out that it is a classic 'knee-jerk' reaction of any landowner
to shout 'Whoopee!' at the thought of paying less taxes. But he wasn't
given time to explain whay that is such a short-sighted reaction in this
particular context, as the interview ended at that point, and Pryor came
in with a voice-over which laughed-off all that Harke had said, and then
proceded to give us the patented 'Merrie-Englande' version of history.
But since Harke wasn't allowed to elaborate on why it is a short-sighted reaction, the best I can do is repeat what I said in my last post:

The point being, of course, Pryor has no conception of the context of
what he is saying. Since the late 2nd c. Anglo-Saxon pirates had been
a threat to British farmers and grain shipments to the continent. We
know this because the earliest Saxon Shore Forts (Reculver, Caistor,
Brancaster) have been dated to before 200 AD in initial construction.
The taxes of British farmers of course paid for the construction and
garrisoning of these forts, in order to protect these same British farmers.
Therefore, come the end of 'Official' Roman administration in the 5thc.
the British farmers would certainly have wanted that taxation system
to have continued, so as to fund the continuing protection of their land
from Anglo-Saxon pirates. The very last thing any British farmer
in the 5th c. would be shouting was 'whoopee!' at the thought of that
taxation/military protection system being removed. 8)

Cheers,

Ambrosius/Mike

[ambrosius]

Hello Robert,

What sources tell us... there was a threat bad enough to warrant a scheme of fort-building on such a scale? A scheme, however, that never seems to have existed at all.
The Saxon Shore forts were not an answer to a threat from the sea. We know this because they are built over a 200-year period, and when the last were built some of the oldest had already been abandoned. Whilst their impressive walls certainly point to impressive defensive measurements, none actually have a harbour or any other shipping/naval facilities that would prove they were built as an answer to such a sea-borne threat.

Well, I've been busy since Tuesday, but I think I answered,
then, about the building programe only being 100 years, not 200. In fact,
if, due to limited resources, only one fort could be completed at a time,
and each one took maybe 5-10 years to build, then it is perfectly
reasonable for a continuous scheme to have resulted in the construction
of as many as 14 forts (some no longer exist) over 100 years. And any
temporary halt in the scheme's progress would be understandable as
the result of shortage of money, the eponymous 'pirate-raids' they were
being built to counter, and the political upheaval of the 3rd c.

So, onto the next point: I take it, then, that if I can prove to you that
any of the Saxon Shore Forts "actually have a harbour or any other
shipping/naval facilities", then you would accept that " they were
built to answer such a sea-borne threat", to use your words? 8)
Okeydokey. I'll try: :wink:

Portchester is situated at the top of the largest natural harbour in
Southern Britain, which is, today - coincidentally - the home-base of
the Royal Navy. It sits on the water-front, although it may have been
slightly further back in Roman times (maybe ~ 50-100 m.)

Pevensey is now a mile inland, but in Roman times, it sat on a spur
of gravel in the middle of a tidal lagoon (an ideal landing-place for
an enemy fleet, and the reason why William the Conqueror chose to
land at Pevensey Bay and make his headquarters inside the
empty Saxon Shore Fort before the Battle of Hastings). You will be
familiar with the fleet originally based at Pevensey: the Classis
Anderitianorum (that is later transfered to the Seine).

Lemanis is likewise built on a slope guarding a tidal lagoon, where,
it's thought, the patrol-ships were hauled-up on the slope when not
in use, ready to be 'launched' down the slipway like modern lifeboats
or 'coastguard' vessels when pirates were spotted.

Dover is the deep-water harbour guarding the Dover straights, the
main cross-Channel trade-route. It was initially the home of the British
Fleet, the Classis Britannica. Although sometime in the 3rd c. this was
disbanded - as some theorize, to be split into individual flotillas to
equip the newly built Saxon Shore Forts. When the Classis Britannica
fort was demolished in the 3rd c. it was replaced by a larger Saxon
Shore Fort slightly nearer to the water-front.

Richborough and Reculver guard opposite mouths of the Wantsum
Channel, the trade-route which carried shipping from Dover up to
London and the East coast.

Bradwell guarded the entrance to Blackwater estuary.

Walton Castle guarded the entrance to the Orwell & Deben rivers.

Burgh Castle & Caistor guarded opposite banks of the 'Great Estuary',
which was a mile wide in Roman times, and gave access to the East
Anglian hinterland via the Norfolk Broads.

Brancaster guarded the Wash.

'Chichester' guarded Chichester Harbour.

'Rochester' guarded the Medway river.

'Carisbrooke' guarded the Isle of Wight (Vectis).

I'm sure you'll point out any I missed :wink: 8)

Cheers,

Ambrosius/Mike

[ambrosius]

The Saxon Shore forts were not an answer to a threat from the sea...... In fact, were it not for their (temporary?) listing in one command in the Notitia Dignitatum, one could doubt that there should be a reason for them to belong to one concept.

What, you mean like the (temporary?) listing of the forts on Hadrian's
Wall in one command in the Notitia Dignitatum...? 8)

Besides, excavation has shown that some completely lack evidence of barracks, while on the other hand remain of civilian occupation have been found. There is a school of thought that sees in them not defensive forts but strengthened ware-houses for the gathering of taxes. I would not know how to prove this, but it seems not totally illogical.

:lol: 8) You don't say! Well Bradwell and Walton Castle
completely lack evidence of barracks. Mind you, both are now under
the North Sea. But perhaps you could give us details of any others...
I can tell you that the 4th c. civilian occupation at Portchester was most
definitely accompanied by barracks. But then, why should that surprise
us? We know that late-Roman garrisons were allowed to bring their
families inside forts for safety. It's the same point that wretched Dr.
Pryor tried vainly belabouring on last year's Time Team Big Roman Dig.
He wheeled Dr. Esmonde Cleary out to reveal the bracelets and shoes
of women and (shock, horror) children from the 4th c. levels at
Portchester, claiming that this was evidence against a garrison
being in residence. Despite the spear-head and balista-bolt he had just
been shown from the same level! I mean, come on! What is all this?
Portchester actually has TWO sets of barracks in its Eastern half,
suggesting a twinned or brigaded garrison, perhaps one of infantry
and one of marines. There's plenty of room in the Western half for all
these families to live in and drop their artifacts. Or perhaps Dr. Pryor
is convinced that Romano-British garrisons should have left their families
outside the fort walls and 'fed them to the wolves'. :evil:

As for these forts being strengthened warehouses for protecting the
grain harvest before shipping-out to the Rhine army, or for storing the
Anonna for feeding the troops based at the forts, themselves - or even
for keeping the harvest safe from marauding pirates throughout the
Winter, so that farmers can come and buy it back as they need it,
instead of having to house it in their barns, where it would be at the
mercy of every Saxon longboat that sails by - of COURSE they
could also be that. But the fatal mistake Andrew Pearson makes,
in the Tempus book in which you read that theory, is that he blindly
insists that that is the only thing they could have been! My God!
What is the problem with them being garrison forts AND warehouses
AT THE SAME TIME? :evil: :evil: :evil: Honestly, some people
are just obsessed with this Merrie Englande version of history.

Cheers,

Ambrosius/Mike

[ambrosius]

Hello Robert,

Exactly, exactly, exactly! :lol: Why, oh why, do people always assume
that incoming invaders would not need to eat :?: :!: :?: Were they
Martians or something :?:

Well, women are from Venus…

:lol: :lol: :lol: But that's the point, isn't it. We know from
that (extremely limited) survey at West Heslerton that it was actually
Anglo-Saxon WOMEN who were coming here. AND we know
that several of the women from that cemetary were being buried with
WEAPONS. So, in this instance, it is the Anglo-Saxon WOMEN
who are from Mars. :wink: 8)

Eat, sure, but so far, no-one has shown that the dangerous raping and plundering pirates stepped off the boat and immediately began to farm. And not only that, they immediately took over the British farms, apparently chased away the owner (or shunned them to death according to Härke) but still continued to farm there as if nothing had happened.

[color=blue] Erm... Robert; surely the agricultural continuity at West
Heslerton and elsewhere is the proof that the incoming Anglo-Saxons
began farming immediately? At least, that is as valid an interpretation
as assuming (as Powlesland does) that there WAS no large-scale
immigration/invasion on the back of this continuity. [/quote]

Sorry guys, by you may frown on Pryor’s farming experience if you want, but I still think his arguments hold water: if a farm continues to be run year after year, with no change, you can’t tell me that somewhere the British owner was ousted and an Anglo-Saxon took over. Without any change in the pattern on the ground.

[color=blue] Well if, as Paul points out, Pryor is a sheep farmer, rather
than an arable farmer, that has a bearing on his judgement. You can
farm sheep almost anywhere (actually, marshland like Pryor's in East
Anglia or here, on Romney Marsh in Kent is ideal). In fact, you can raise
10 sheep to the acre on Romney Marsh, as it's some of the most fertile
land in the World, whereas, in the Australian outback, you need 10 acres
per sheep. But the point is, the sheep keep themselves, and also prevent
any regrowth of scrubland, keeping pasture as pasture. The Anglo-Saxons
could (and indeed, famously did, in later centuries) make Britain the
sheep-farming capital of Europe. But even if we're talking about arable
farming, you know as well as I do that most campaigns take place in
late-Summer and Autumn, once the harvest has been taken-in. So that
both the invaders leaving their homeland and the defenders who are the
target can devote their undivided attention to each other. 8)

But seriously, the A/S are leaving their flooded coastal farmland, they
wait till the Britons have safely got their grain harvest in (let's say,
August/September) and then they swan across the Channel, conduct
a bit of brief mayhem, push inland to form a bridgehead, and then
invite the in-laws over to start sharing-out the harvest, while the
vanguard keep any native counter-attack at bay. And they steadily
push inland by a mile or so each year, inviting progressively more of
the in-laws over to occupy the land behind them. Simple, isn't it. :wink:

Cheers,
Ambrosius/Mike
[/quote]