The newest research on a major Anglo-Saxon site paints a vivid picture of the beginnings of England. [Edited by Martin Carver] For decades scholars have puzzled over the true story of settlement in Britain between the fifth and eight centuries. Did the Romans leave? Did the Anglo-Saxons invade? What happened to the British? Newlight on these questions comes unexpectedly from Wasperton, a small village on the Warwickshire Avon, where archaeologists had the good fortune to excavate a complete cemetery and its prehistoric setting. The community reused an old Romano-British agricultural enclosure, and built burial mounds beside it. There was a score of cremations in Anglo-Saxon pots; but there were also unfurnished graves lined with stones and planks in the manner of western Britain. In a pioneering analysis, including radiocarbon and stable isotopes, the authors of this book have put this variety of burial practice into a credible sequence, and built up a picture of life at the time. Here there were people who were culturally Roman, British and Anglo-Saxon, pagan and Christian in continuous use of the same graveyard and drawing on a common inheritance. Here we can see the beginnings of England and the people who made it happen- not the kings, warriors and preachers, but the ordinary folk obliged to make their own choices: choices about what nation to build and which religion to follow. MARTIN CARVER is Professor Emeritus of Archaeology at the University of York; Dr CATHERINE HILLS is Senior Lecturer in Anglo-Saxon Archaeology at the University of Cambridge; Dr JONATHAN SCHESCHKEWITZ is Officer with the Ancient Monuments authority of Stuttgart.
Reviews
Essential reading for every archaeologist and historian of late Roman and early medieval Europe. * EARLY MEDIEVAL EUROPE *
Has much to offer students of late-Roman and post-Roman Britain. [...] As a reference for historians of early medieval Britain, this volume has much to recommend it. * COMITATUS: A JOURNAL OF MEDIEVAL AND RENAISSANCE STUDIES *
Including newly-commissioned scientific and specialist analyses, it provides a comprehensive and welcome statement in English which offers new readings of the cemetery's sequence and significance. [...] This study offers a strong, acute and stimulating narrative that recognises the local and immediate in the long and broad perspectives. * ANTIQUITY *
Features an up-to-date account of scholarly views on ethnicity and migration theory in Anglo-Saxon studies. * MEDIEVAL ARCHAEOLGY *
The authors weave a convincing story of migration and acculturation, asking how indigenous Britons become Romanised and Saxonised and what degree of choice versus compulsion they experienced. [...] Martin Carver's final chapter discussing these issues ('Wasperton in Context') is a masterpiece that every archaeology student needs to read, no matter what their period of study, as an example of archaeological analysis and argument at its very best. * SALON *
This is not just an Anglo-Saxon cemetery report; it could be one of the most interesting and important yet published. [...] Careful arguments result in the beautifully written story of a community going through massive cultural changes. This is groundbreaking stuff: a new way to study the physical remains of these small communities should change the way we look at the end of Roman Britain and the start of the medieval world. * BRITISH ARCHAEOLOGY *



Book Information
ISBN 9781843834274
Author Martin Carver
Format Hardback
Page Count 384
Imprint The Boydell Press
Publisher Boydell & Brewer Ltd
Weight(grams) 2g