An Archaeology of the East Midlands. Class 3, Beeston, Winter 2015

An Archaeology of the
East Midlands
Class 3: Iron Age to Dark Age, Cultural
Transitions in the Archaeological Record.
Tutor: Keith Challis
east-midlands-archaeology.blogspot.co.ukBeeston, Winter 2015

Recap: Last Week
• The early prehistory of the Midlands
• How far back can we go in the Midlands?
• The Bytham River and the colonisation of England
• The end of the last glaciation
• Doggerland and the changing face of the land
• The Late Upper Palaeolithic of the Midlands
• The Neolithic and Early Bronze Age (transitions)
• Settlement
• Death and Burial
• Ceremonial and Ritual Monuments
• Techniques of Archaeological Research: Finding things from the air
.

Class Summary
• Later Prehistory, Iron Age Landscape and
Society
• The Roman Interlude
• Dark Age or Iron Age – A Return
• Coffee Break
• Techniques of Archaeological Research: Seeing
Beneath the Soil

Learning Outcomes
• Appreciate some of the aspects of late prehistoric
society in the Midlands
• Think about the impact of Romanisation and the decline
of Rome on the Midlands
• Appreciate the origins of Anglo-Saxon society in England
• Give thought to the cultural, material and social
similarities between late prehistoric and dark age Britain
• Have a broad appreciation of the types and uses of
geophysical survey in British archaeology

Section 1: Later Prehistory,
Iron Age Landscape and
Society

Iron Age Landscape and Society
• When
• In Britain c.800BC to AD43
• Late IA from 100BC
• Adoption of Iron as a
predominant metal, new
techniques, smithing not casting
• More complex settlement
• Defended sites
• Complex social groups (tribes)
• Coinage
• Urbanism
• Druidism
• More European contacts

• Landscape and Environment
east-midlands-archaeology.blogspot.co.uk
• Generally continuity from earlier settlements
• Landscape “filled in” suggests growing
population and competition for resources
• EG. extensive co-axial field systems of Trent
Valley known from cropmarks
• Common settlement form is farmstead within
enclosure
• Mixed farming economy, variation in
dominance of arable and pastoral depending
on location
• Some larger aggregated settlements, eg
Naveby, Lincs Gamston, Notts
Beeston, Winter 2015

• Large Defended Sites
• Large defended sites
include hillforts, marsh forts
and lowland defended
enclosures
• Hillforts some record of
reuse
• High status finds at Burrow
Hill – rare chariot remains

• The End…
• Generally continuity of settlement from LIA to Roman
• Roman reorganisation of landscape
• New rural settlement forms (Villa estates)
• Intensification of agriculture
• LIA culture was sophisticated
– Included use of money
– Some urbanisation
– Complex social organisation (adopted by Roman
administration)
– Advanced metal working and other technologies
• But a tribal society lacking central organisation

Section 2. The Roman
Interlude

The Roman Interlude
• The Beginning…
• Roman military activity in Midlands
relatively brief (1st
century only)
• In general not a contested zone, but
marks boundary between civilianised
south and militarised north (Trent / Fosse
Way boundary)
• Largely within the Civitas Corieltauvorum
• Extensive and abundant archaeological
record in East Midlands
• Extensive rural settlement hierarchy
building on LIA roots
• Systematic organisation of agricultural
landscape evident (Brickwork Plan field
System in North Notts/South Yorks)

The Roman Interlude
• Towns and Romanisation
• Two major urban centres Lindum
Colonia (Lincoln) founded c AD96
and Ratae Corieltauvorum
(Leicester) set up as Civitas capital
c AD 96 on IA precursor
• Hierarchy of smaller towns and
roadside settlements
• Religious centres eg Red Hill,
Ratcliffe on Soar

The Roman Interlude
• Another end…
• Roman withdrawal in AD410 isolated Britain from a
centralise European network
• Social and economic collapse, but not invasion or
military conquest
• Wroxeter Baths Basilica – continuity of occupation,
but on a different social and economic scale
• Anglo-Saxon settlers occupy vacuum of Roman
absence?
• Problematic areas
– Hiatus in rural settlement
– Technological decline
– Population
– Gross changes in material culture and social
organisation
• Dark Age or second Iron Age?

Section 3. Dark Age or Iron
Age?

Dark Age or Iron Age
Origins
• Post Roman
settlement from
Denmark and
north Germany
• Co-existence
with native
Romanised
British
populations
• Complex social
and racial mixing
Migration period
settlement routes

• Discussion – Anglo Saxon Midlands

Material Culture
• Highly distinctive
material culture,
largely evidenced in
grave goods
• Architectural
innovation
• Language

Death and Burial
• Large cremation
cemeteries imply
substantial immigrant
population
• How much is a
processes of
acculturation of
collapsing Romanised
British population?

Death and Burial
•Predominance of
inhumation with
grave goods
•Some cultural
distinction between
Saxon and Angle?

Settlements
• Not villages!
• Small clusters of simple
dwellings (Hall
House/Grubenhaus)
• Local clearance or
adoption of existing
agricultural lands
• Revealed by later 20th
century archaeology
(West Stow, Mucking,
etc)

Architecture
•Post-built hall houses
•Probable continuation of
Romano-British vernacular
tradition

Architecture
•Sunken feature buildings
(grubenhaus)
•Continental parallels
•Pit provides cellar space
with suspended floor or
damp working space for craft
activities – often associated
with loom weights

Settlements are complex, multi-period

West Stow, Suffolk, Phasing

Mucking

Catholme
• A large settlement of Grubenhauser and
wall-post buildings was occupied from at
least the seventh to the ninth centuries.
• The settlement was set in a framework of
enclosures and trackways defined by
shallow ditches
• Evidence from excavation, cropmarks and
fieldwalking suggests that the excavated
features may represent the final phase of a
single settlement, located at the Tame/Trent
confluence in the mid-Romano-British
period, and migrating along the river terrace
through the early Saxon period, and into the
middle/late Anglo-Saxon period
• The population of Catholme may have been
substantially, even wholly, native

Middle Saxon England
• By mid 7th
century
emergence of larger
polities
• Kingdoms documented
in Tribal Hidage
• Increasing social
complexity
• Towns and trade

Christianity and the
State
• Promotion of ideal of
kingship
• Innovation in land
holding (and
influence on
organisation of land?)
• Role in cementing
emerging polities

Mercia
• The predominant kingdom
of the early Heptarchy.
• Centred on the Trent with
Tamworth, fortified by
Creoda in 584, as capital.
• Peada converted to
Christianity in 656, first
bishopric at Repton, later
Lichfield.
• Mercia dominated England
between AD 600 and 900,
achieving its height of power
under Offa (757-796).

Further Study
Assignment
•Viking impact on the East Midlands
•Read Biddle’s account of his seminal excavations
at Repton in Antiquity
•What does his excavation tell us about the Vikings
in our region and how generally applicable is any
insight from this excavation?

An Archaeology of the East Midlands. Class 3, Beeston, Winter 2015

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