Appearence and tactics of early 5th century Saxons.

[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