Appearence and tactics of early 5th century Saxons.

[Chariovalda]

As you point out, there is still an enormous amount of political-agenda-
making being done with all the evidence in cases like this.

Actually, I wouldn’t call it “political agendaâ€

[Gaivs Antonivs Satvrninvs]

Sorry for my ignorance,all,but I don't know what all
this talk of "aparthied and DNA has to do with "appearence
and tactics of early Saxons." After the first 2 or 3 posts we
seem to have gotten severely off topic.
I just wanted to know what my kit should look like.

[Conal]

"I just wanted to know what my kit should look like"

Without any reference to ethnicity ??????

I think what all this Micro DNA stuff is telling us is that we dont actually know how many actual Saxons were in the lower reaches of Brittania so cant realy say if the kit is Saxon or British of origin.

[Gaivs Antonivs Satvrninvs]

Sorry,I guess my comment was too simplistic.
What I was trying to say was on RAT we talk about
Romans but I 've never seen a thread where we only discuss
ethnicity(dna)for seven + pages and never get to the point.
I keep returning to this thread periodically hoping for something
that mentions Appearence(clothing,weapons,etc) and tactics(has this been mentioned at all?).
Why don't we rename this one something more to the point?
Seems we talk about other cultures,too,with just as little evidence,
without getting microscopically involved.
How about "Ethno-genetic dissertation on Early Britain"(?)

p.s. I'll leave this one alone. It's obviously over my head. :oops:

[Chariovalda]

How about "The transformation of Roman Britain"? 8)

As for the original purpose of the thread, I commented on this earlier.
However, I do suggest that when "reviving" the thread's original purpose it might be an idea to put the question more precisely.

In other words, what kind of Saxons...

4th century, 5th century, 6th century...
Continental or "Anglo-Saxon"...
If continental, from the Danish/North German/Frisian "core areas" or from further away (western and central Scandinavia and the Frankish lands) as well?

In other words: from what area and what period would your "Saxon" be?

[ambrosius]

Thank you. It appears that your main objection is to the use of the term apartheid, rather than the gist of the article.

That's one of them, yes. :wink: If the authors choose to
use a word which has the opposite meaning to what they describe in
their article - an oxymoron, in fact - then what else can there be in it
to believe? :roll:

They describe a process whereby Anglo-Saxon males take priority
in mating-rites with native British females as a method for replacing
the native British Y-Chromosomes in the succeding generations. Fine.
And they call this 'Apartheid'. But if they'd looked at the dictionary
definition (had they any need to) they'd see that it is:

Noun. Especially in S. Africa. Official policy of racial segregation.

And you ain't gonna get many British females carrying Anglo-Saxon
children that way, now are you. :oops: No. What they describe in
the article sounds more like the practice of Slave-owners in the
Southern States taking priority in mating-rites with their female slaves
over their male slaves. That's how they produced lots of illegitimate
children, the males of which would have non-African Y-Chromosomes.

But 'Apartheid' reminds me of what we saw depicted in Chariovalda's
favourite movie: King Arthur :lol: Remember the scene where Cerdic
catches one of his men trying to rape a British woman? Cerdic drags
him off her, saying: "We don't mix with these people!" And if that
was really the case, then the only way you would end up with 50%
Gemanic Y-Chromosomes (assuming there were next-to-none before
the 5th c. and all other things being equal) is if you don't start-off
with only a minority elite to begin with, but a 'substantially large Anglo-
Saxon migration'. Which, as it happens, is what both Heinrich Harke
and Ken Dark believe (personal communication). And so do I. 8)

Ambrosius/Mike

[ambrosius]

"I just wanted to know what my kit should look like"

Without any reference to ethnicity ??????

:lol: I think you've nailed it, Conal. A laudes. :wink:

I think what all this Micro DNA stuff is telling us is that we dont actually know how many actual Saxons were in the lower reaches of Britannia so can't realy say if the kit is Saxon or British of origin.

Very good. That is the point. Though we can be pretty sure
what kit the genuine Anglo-Saxons were wearing, as the 5th c. ones
were buried in it, as that was their pagan custom. Unfortunately, we
have a real problem knowing what kit most of the native Brits would
-have been wearing because, being (and I don't mean to start another
argument, but the best evidence we have is that they were) Christians,
the only things a 5th c. Romano-British soldier would be allowed to be
buried in would be his military-belt, his crossbow brooch (if he had one)
and his hobnailed boots, in most cases. So there's still a huge mystey
as to how well armed and armoured the Brits would be (as in the rest
of the Empire/Former Provinces etc). Were they still as well equipped
as troops around the Empire? Any equipment they had would (wisely,
if you ask me) have been retained by his unit and reissued to his
replacement, till it wore-out. But if you want to portray late/post-Roman,
then the Osprey books give an excellent range of options, which
(as Robert will be only too delighted to point-out) are barely distinguish
-able from the Anglo-Saxon kit, in some cases. Another problem.

Cheers,

Ambrosius/Mike
[/quote]

[ambrosius]

As you point out, there is still an enormous amount of political-agenda-making being done with all the evidence in cases like this.

Actually, I wouldn’t call it “political agenda”. Rather, that some people (in fact, to a greater and lesser degree everybody) brings with him or her a certain “bias”.

You must have been reading some of my other posts. 8)
I recently quoted Guy de la Bedoyere on bias: "Without it, we would
all be the same, and there would be nothing to say." So you can see
that there's nothing wrong with bias. What's wrong is when people
let their bias over-rule the evidence in front of them.

8) , or just one kind of evidence.

Or even when they blatantly contradict themselves.

The worst, though, as I pointed out before, is Powlesland shamelessly claiming that the demographics of the findings (four Anglo-Saxon women out of a sample of 24 graves) doesn't constitute an invasion.

Well, it does not of course, not by itself. But neither does it disprove it. Nice example of bias shining through, though. :wink:

Not on my part, there isn't. 8) But there is on Powlesland's.
As I pointed out in connection with the above sentence in my previous
post, Powlesland blatantly contradicted his own previous pronouncements
about the nature of the female Anglo-Saxons in his cemetary. That was
the point I was making: He... contradict... own... evidence. He had said
previously that some weapons burials in his cemetary were female.
Then he goes on to claim that four bona-fide Anglo-Saxon females in
his cemetary cannot be evidence of an invasion (presumably because
they cannot have been warriors). You do the maths, we do the pizzas.

Mike, calm down. We’re all friends in here (or at least, cordial enemies in some cases…).

Okeydokey. I'll settle for that last one. :roll:

It’s no use attacking Lucy and Pryor “ad hominem”, even if you suspect them of being strongly biased against a large-scale Anglo-Saxon immigration. You should deal with the arguments, not the people.

:lol: And it's no use you levelling false accusations of
'ad hominem' arguments against me, just because you sympathise
with Lucy and Pryor. 8) I hear that kind of bullshit all the time on
Arthurnet, believe me. The Celticists refuse to be shown any evidence
for Romanization of Britain in the 5th c. (because, they only want 5th c.
Britain to have been Celtic, and damn the evidence that doesn't support
their political agenda). The last Celticist on that list to accuse me of
attacking him 'ad hominem' has been banned from the list for 6 months.
If you look back at what I have actually said, you will see that I have
not attacked Pryor or Lucy personally, but their standard of scholarship.
And I do not suspect them of anything, Andreas. They freely admit
what their positions are. Pryor is on record as disliking anything Roman
(a fact that should send him opprobrium from this entire list, for a start) :wink: And Lucy is an Anglo-Saxonist. If they both continue to
ignore evidence that is inconvenient to them and slant the results of
research in their own favour, then they deserve everything that is
said about them for the standard of their professionalism. It's got
nothing to do with being personal. Period. :wink:

What's the percentage of weapons burials among
the earliest graves. Does anybody know? And don't forget to include the women, will you... :lol:

I do remember reading somewhere recently that, on average, 5% of Germanic burials in the Anglo-Saxon homelands had weapons, while this is 15% in the "Anglo-Saxon" burials in England (based on research by Härke, I think). I'll try and find the reference.

I was actually asking about West Heslerton, and if
these four bona-fide Anglo-Saxon gals were some of those from this
cemetary buried with weapons. But something else Harke says is this:
44% of Germanic inhumations in Britain during the 5th/6th c. were
accompanied by at least one spear. And this: 26% of Germanic
inhumations were accompanied by a shield (and that's all the
Anglo-Saxon burials, including women). Reference: 'English Heritage
Book of Anglo-Saxon England', M. Welch, 1992.

Now I can excuse the 44%, as a spear might conceivably be used for
hunting (animals, that is, not Humans). But as you well know, Andreas,
the most significant of these two statistics is the one about shields.
Since nobody - and I mean nobody - ever takes a shield with them
while hunting deer or boar. They are a distinctively military piece of
kit, and nobody but a warrior is going to own one - never mind be
buried with it. 8) :lol:

Before certain people start jumping and say "yippee! Evidence of a military-based migration", it's apparently impossible to call them exactly warrior graves, since some women, children and obviously disabled men were buried with them. It has been suggested weapons are more of a status or cultural marker.

Well this time I know you are including me among the
certain people And as you can see, I don't need your figures,
as my own ones are far more convincing. And why is it impossible
to call them all warrior graves? Are you sexist, ageist or what?
Just because a warrior may have become 'disabled' in old-age - or even,
dare I say it, from battle - then why can't he still be classed as
a warrior at some point in his life? As for the kids; do you think that
when mummy and daddy bury their first-born son at six years old
(died from typhoid/cholera etc) with the spear which they hoped he
would have grown-up to use in battle, and which they consider that he
still needs when meeting Woden in the afterlife, that we shouldn't be
considering him as another prematurely demised warrior? 8)

Ambrosius/Mike

[ambrosius]

Now that's the point, here, isn't it. Because Robert's 'current belief' hasn't , indeed, been 'current' since the seventies, when the 'current' crop of neo-Marxist British and American archaeology graduates started to reject the Anglo-Saxon migration model. To them, all Empires are evil, and so, as long as the Roman one was ending, they don't care what replaces it. And to them, hoardes of invading Anglo-Saxons are an improvement (just, don't call it an 'invasion', as we don't want to contemplate anything umpleasant, now do we...)

I doubt all of them are, or were, neo-Marxists. It is also a bit of an overstatement.

Well indeed it is a bit of an overstatement of you, Andreas,
since I never said modern archaeology graduates were all neo-Marxists. Please read carefully what I said. It's not the same thing.
You're always trying to tell me and others to read statements carefully,
now you should do the same. I said there was a current crop of
neo-Marxists among present archaeology graduates. Obviously
many of them aren't. I even know quite a few. 8)

Invasions were a standard explanation for many, if not all cases where relatively rapid cultural changes occurred, or where culturally alien artefacts suddenly propped up, even if there were no historical records available to either prove or disprove an invasion.

Such a pity, then, that we have so many lines of evidence showing invasion in 5th c. Britain. Archaeological, documentary, linguistic, place-name... it just goes on. :wink:

Unfortunately, this by itself healthy correction led to a situation where all too often even the possibility of invasion or migration is denied when it comes to prehistory... Compare this to the literature about the medieval German “Ostsiedlung” or the colonization of the Americas and Australia, where these events are not contested, because the evidence of the historical records is simply overwhelming. :mrgreen:

Evidence about 5th c. Britain will clearly never be over-whelming enough for some... No, I'm not looking at anyone. :lol:

Anyway, there are now several academic battlefields concerning, for instance, the transformation of Roman Britain.

Yes. It's interesting, isn't it, that academics can battle with
each other in print and verbally on T.V. but they fail to draw the obvious
connection with the conflicts of the past which they apparently deny. :lol:

Anyway, returning to the Anglo-Saxons, I also blame
the media.

Well it's an interesting hypothesis... but I doubt we can blame
200 years of endemic, Dark-Age bloodshed on the BBC... :lol:

Of course, Pryor’s views may have received a bit of extra attention thanks to the BBC...

[color-blue]Actually, Britain AD and the various Time Team episodes
that Pryor crops-up-on are on Channel 4. So far (fingers crossed :lol: )
he hasn't been invited onto the BBC. Maybe they know something. 8)
[/color]

...but hey, in two years Timewatch or Horizon might just as well devote an episode to genetic evidence of ethnic cleansing in central England, add a few warrior graves, some archaeological evidence indicative of violent destruction, an ominous voice quoting Gildas, and selected soundbites featuring Weale, Härke and others. Presto! A newsworthy item on the Beeb. And then there will be, once again, copious posts in the Internet fora…

Well if that state-of-affairs ever transpires, I think I shall
be able to take a well-earned rest from stating the obvious. :lol:

That's rubbish - if you are referring to me, that is. In fact, I challenge you to find anything in Harke's article that disagrees with what I've been saying. I shan't even bother to pick any points out. If you think I differ from him, them please explain why. As a matter of fact, what Harke says, above, implies a 50% replacement of adult males in the 5th/6th c. And that's entirely consistent with the Y-Chromosome studies by Weale, Capelli, Goldstein and West Heslerton.

No need to feel addressed, Mike, I wasn’t referring to you :|

Oh, well that's alright, then. Only it's just that you made your
comment about certain people immediately before quoting another
one of my comments, straight after it. :wink:

And if you read the article carefully, you would have seen that Härke specifically referred to two types of mixed community in southern England, as well as British enclaves.

Well there you go again, you see, accusing other people
- that is, me - of not reading articles properly. When what I said was that
what Harke said agreed with the Weale study, which only looked at the
East-West tranche across the Midlands. And they do agree, where
Harke refers to the Midlands. As you know, it was the Goldstein study
that covered the whole island, looking at the South & North as well.
As for British enclaves, did you know that the Chilterns (North-West of
London, between St. Albans and Silchester) were largely free of
Anglo-Saxon archaeological evidence until the 7th c.? Even after they'd been bypassed by the West Saxons. That's more circumstantial evidence
for the British enclaves at St. Albans and Silchester, of course.

There are apparently plenty of historically attested examples, and only recently it was proven (or at least plausibly suggested) that a large percentage of the central Asian population was descended from Genghis Khan and his immediate family. To paraphrase Mel Brooks, at one time it could said that "It's good to be the Khan!".

Khan was killed by Kirk in Star Trek II. But also remember:
we're all descended from Adam... 8)

Personally, I think that, assuming Weale’s interpretation was more or less correct, the high percentage in the central, eastern and northern regions isn’t primarily caused through reproductive advantage. A cursory look at the map of the North Sea regions and the Danelaw is enough: More “Germanic” genes ended up further north because these areas were closer to the migrants’ homeland.

You see... we do agree sometimes. 8)


Ambrosius/Mike

[ambrosius]

What would be more interesting would be to find out if the percentages (by and large) do indeed remain very high towards the Welsh border, or whether it's more gradual. If they remain high, and assuming we are indeed dealing with the genetic legacy of the Anglo-Saxons, an interesting question arises: Are we dealing with a gradual genetic “homogenization” over the centuries between the population of the various central/eastern/northern English regions (within the framework of a linguistically, culturally and politically united nation-state), or, more sinister, a later process of “ethnic cleansing” by an Anglo-Saxon population of mixed origin during the later phases of the Conquest?

That's the problem. You've had a certain amount of
movement across the Welsh border in both direction over 1,500 years
(although it's been a lot more rapid in the last 200). One theory of mine
is that we're actually reading a lot higher 'British/Breton' signature in
Southern Britain than we might have (after the Anglo-Saxon immigration)
due to the 'reconquest' of Saxon England in 1066. You see, a third of
the 'Norman' army were Breton. And these knights received some of the
biggest and richest grants of land. And who were the Bretons nominally
descended from - the British refugees from the 5th c. onwards. It's all
so poetic, really. What goes around - comes around. :lol:

Before people start protesting, I forward this thought: the early Anglo-Saxons quite possibly entered as politically and ethnically fragmented groups into a province that was falling apart politically and economically, and was very much in flux. When the conquest recommences in the 6th century, we may see two groups of politically organised communities that could very well have developed a tradition of mutual political and cultural hostility. See this not so much as my idea of what happened, but rather, as a scenario that might be worth considering in the light of the currently available and possible future evidence, as well as possible parallels garnered from history and cultural anthropology.

Sounds good to me.

Actually, there were probably two problems with that: 1) it's pretty hard (though not impossible) to get usable DNA samples from bones; 2) sample is rather small statistically (same reason why one should be cautious generalising from isotope evidence) and 3) on the mitochondria level, the populations of the British isles and northern Europe are already very similar (though more detailed and refined research might now make it possible to reach certain conclusions, as was done in the case of estimating male and female Norwegian gene flow into the populations of Shetland, Orkney, the Hebrides and Iceland).

Ahem. I suppose now would be a good time to tell you that baiting Anglo-Saxons on RAT is just a hobby for me, and that I am, in fact, a Biochemist (Robert didn't tell you?) 8) And since the only 'overt' Anglo-Saxons at West Heslerton appear to be females then -as I've been at pains to point out - such a study might raise a few eyebrows, might it not... :lol:

Well, then I think you might want to write a letter to Wolfgang Haak and his collaborators, because they actually succeeded in extracting mitochondrial DNA from the bones of Neolithic farmers. hock:

Aw shucks! Just as I thought we were friends, again,
you go and get nasty with me. :x Actually, I don't think I need to write
any letter to Haak, thanks very much, as I said: "I know you can't get
Mito-DNA from those bones", meaning the state of preservation.
Which I notice you have very conveniently corroborated, below:

Unfortunately, the skeletons at West Heslerton are in an “appalling” state, as one of the researchers noted, making it probably very hard to get any from them…

Which, I believe, supports what I said before. :roll:

By the way, if you think the Neolithic is impressive, try Neanderthals...

And just out of interest, they didn't go completely extinct, as we have
fossil skeletons of cross-breeds between Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons.
So you see, we probably still carry some of their genes today. 8)

Ambrosius/Mike [/quote]

[Robert Vermaat]

They describe a process whereby Anglo-Saxon males take priority
in mating-rites with native British females as a method for replacing
the native British Y-Chromosomes in the succeding generations. Fine.
And they call this 'Apartheid'. But if they'd looked at the dictionary
definition (had they any need to) they'd see that it is:
Noun. Especially in S. Africa. Official policy of racial segregation.
And you ain't gonna get many British females carrying Anglo-Saxon
children that way, now are you. :oops: No. What they describe in
the article sounds more like the practice of Slave-owners in the
Southern States taking priority in mating-rites with their female slaves
over their male slaves. That's how they produced lots of illegitimate
children, the males of which would have non-African Y-Chromosomes.

Mike, we totally agree here. Which is a bit surprising, for not so long ago you wrote this:

For the Franks to treat the Gallo-Romans as
differently in law as the Laws of Ine treated the Welsh, then this most
definitely is treating Gallo-Romans differently to Franks and it
does amount to a form of apartheid, in everything but name.
It doesn't matter if the Franks call Gallo-Romans 'foreigners', 'Romans',
or 'Pilsbury doughboys'. If it's true, as you imply, that they are classified
in law as being of lesser value than Franks, then that would indeed be
apartheid and racist. Period.

I'm glad you altered your opinion somewhat. [/quote]

[ambrosius]

They (in the 'apartheid' article) describe a process whereby Anglo-Saxon males take priority in mating-rites with native British females as a method for replacing the native British Y-Chromosomes in the succeding generations. Fine. And they call this 'Apartheid'. But if they'd looked at the dictionary definition (had they any need to) they'd see that it is:
Noun. Especially in S. Africa. Official policy of racial segregation.
And you ain't gonna get many British females carrying Anglo-Saxon
children that way, now are you. :oops: No. What they describe in
the article sounds more like the practice of Slave-owners in the
Southern States taking priority in mating-rites with their female slaves
over their male slaves. That's how they produced lots of illegitimate
children, the males of which would have non-African Y-Chromosomes.

Mike, we totally agree here. Which is a bit surprising...

It's always a surprise when you and I agree on this
subject, ArVee. And a pleasant one at that. Why I'm hoping to convert
you to a loyal late-Roman, and forget your ties to the Franks :lol:

...for not so long ago you wrote this:

For the Franks to treat the Gallo-Romans as
differently in law as the Laws of Ine treated the Welsh, then this most
definitely is treating Gallo-Romans differently to Franks and it
does amount to a form of apartheid, in everything but name.
It doesn't matter if the Franks call Gallo-Romans 'foreigners', 'Romans',
or 'Pilsbury doughboys'. If it's true, as you imply, that they are classified
in law as being of lesser value than Franks, then that would indeed be
apartheid and racist. Period.

I'm glad you altered your opinion somewhat.

[/quote]

Hmmm. You think so, huh. Well there's nothing contradictory
in the above two comments. After all, neither you nor anyone else
has suggested that Franks interbred with Gallo-Romans, now have you.
So until you do, the description of any 'Ine-like' laws passed by Franks
over Gallo-Romans is still definitely both racist and 'Apartheid'. After all,
I pointed-out, some time ago, that the only way to make the Law of Ine
actually work (that is, to be able to define who is - and who isn't - either
British or Anglo-Saxon) is to maintain a system of 'Apartheid' between
the ethnic groups. Otherwise, how you gonna tell - for the purposes of
the Law of Ine - who is, or ain't, British. So I would guess that some
form of 'Apartheid would be a pre-requisite to make the Law of Ine work.
And slavery in the Southern US States was - of course - also racist,
but not - necessarily - 'Apartheid'. Hence what many slave-owners did with their female slaves. But then, unlike with Britons and Anglo-Saxons
(as I also pointed-out before) it is easy to tell who is the product of an
American slave-owner and a first-generation African slave. Thus you
aren't compromising your racist laws by allowing the races to fraternise.
You can still discriminate against (and retain in slavery) anyone who is
the result of contact between the ethnic groups. But in Britain, you would
most likely have to have some system of 'apartheid' to make the
Law of Ine workable. Otherwise - let's face it - you could have the
product of a liason between an Anglo-Saxon warrior and a female Briton
who tries passing himself-off as a genuine Anglo-Saxon. hock: :lol:


So no, I haven't altered my opinion at all. It's not even an opinion to
begin with, but a statement of the facts as far as we know them. But as
I said to Andreas, if you see any apparent contradiction anywhere, then please feel free to explain. 8)

Ambrosius/Mike

[/quote]

[Felix]

...
Now I can excuse the 44%, as a spear might conceivably be used for
hunting (animals, that is, not Humans). But as you well know, Andreas,
the most significant of these two statistics is the one about shields.
Since nobody - and I mean nobody - ever takes a shield with them
while hunting deer or boar. They are a distinctively military piece of
kit, and nobody but a warrior is going to own one - never mind be
buried with it. 8) :lol: [/color]

Ambrosius/Mike[/color]

Agreed, that a shield is not typical deer-hunting equipment. However, shields do show up occasionally in hunting gear. I don't have any bonafide Saxon hunting images with shields, but there is this: http://www.galenfrysinger.com/hunting_s ... sicily.htm and it is well known that the Masai in Africa did use shields when hunting lions. For wolves or bears, it might have been useful to have a shield (?).

[JRSCline]

All:
Whatever preexisting grudges may exist, old scores WILL be checked at the door... or in our case, at the login screen. Emoticons don't excuse provocative remarks or labels.

Personal aspersions on bias and agendas are uncalled-for. The selective quote-sniping is also not productive. It's beginning to look like some of Dan Peterson's salad days in here. :?

Let's save this thread and return to the original poster's intent. If the tone of the thread does not become more civil in very short order, any moderator is given permission to close it.

[authun]

I'm new to this forum and have only quickly read this particular thread. However, I notice West Heslerton has been mentioned many times, in particular Dr Paul Budd's paper which was published in Antiquity. The interpretations were subsequently revised to some degree.

The problems encountered were twofold, with calibration and with the expected oxygen values for the 'locals'.

The initial Levinson calibration which gave 4 out of 24 non locals was too inaccurate but the later Luz calibration, which gave 1 out of 24 was also unsatisfactory causing 'considerable uncertainty in calculating drinking water values'. However, there was neither time nor budget for a complete recalibration.

The expected oxygen value range for locals too is uncertain. For example, if the expected local value is say, -6, is -7 still within the range of 'locals' or is it outside the range and therefore represents a non-local? This is important because some of the range for West Heslerton probably overlaps with parts of North Germany and Jutland. Only very different results, say -10 could be said to be outside of the 'local range'.

A more recent multi-disciplinary study by Janet Montgomery using strontium values is very informative, though still not conclusive. It didn't receive the same amount of media attention but is well worth a read if only for the grave dating, grave distribution and grave artefact analysis. The title is:

Continuity or colonization in Anglo-Saxon England? Isotope evidence for mobility, subsistence practice, and status at West Heslerton.

It was originally subscription only but a search on montgomery heslerton isotope may bring up some freebie copies.

cheers


Harry Amphlett