The English and the Celts - no genocide?

[ambrosius]

We know that the Saxons had advanced up the Thames as far as Dorchester on Thames before 500 AD, bypassing St. Albans & Silchester, which apparently continued as Romano-British enclaves 'amidst a sea of Anglo-Saxonism' - if you like. So yes, they were 'scattered statelets'. Each surviving British city became like the old Greek city states. Not out of choice, but out of circumstance.

We don't know such a thing, it's a hypothesis amongst many.

But Robert, you're always telling us that the Saxons had settled as far
up the Thames as Dorchester before 500. 8) And if you read 'Britons
and Saxons - The Chiltern region 400-700', you'll see the archaeological
evidence for how the Saxons occupied the Thames valley floor (with
all its heavy clay, unsuitable for agriculture) whilst British occupation
continued at St. Albans and Silchester, either side of them to North &
South. Had there not been British power-bases at these two cities, then
there would not have been a bar to prevent the Saxons from occupying
the more fertile land which these cities commanded. Yet the Chiltern
region is conspicuously devoid of Saxon archaeological material until
the late 6th c.

We also don't know how many Anglo-Saxons lived amongst how many British, that's what the folks at the universities are arguing about.
But even so, if you take the end of occupation layers of some eastern towns as proof that these places were overwhelmed by a wave of Anglo-saxon settlers, I say you cannot claim that cities that do continue are 'islands' that were bypassed.

Why not? If their latest occupation levels are later than the cities
furthest East, then clearly, (British) occupation continued there later.
And if Saxon settlement bypassed these later-surviving cities (as it
did in the Thames region) with East angles forming the nascent kingdom
Mercia to the North and South Saxons and West Saxons to the South,
then St. Albans and Silchester sound like they're becoming surrounded
to me. Hence, British cities in a sea of Anglo-Saxon archaeology.

Also, no one can actually tell how large or how small the British kingdoms actually were. I'd say that could depend on a lot of factors, since no such kingdom will have had fixed borders.

But we don't really need to concern ourselves with size. The fact that
they existed at all is enough to prove the point. Look at the archaeology
of Saxon settlement around St. Albans and Silchester. The same goes
for Chichester, on the south coast. Saxon archaeology before 500,
which accords with the ASC description of Aelle's landing 477 and
capturing Pevensey Saxon Shore Fort c. 490. But you won't find any
evidence for Saxon settlement for miles around Chichester, as it was
another large walled-town, probably too well defended.

Ambrosius / Mike