Wasperton

A Roman, British and Anglo-Saxon Community in Central England
Erscheinungsjahr 2009
ISBN: 978-1-84383-427-4
Verlag: Boydell & Brewer

Buch, Englisch, Band 11, 384 Seiten, Print PDF, Format (B × H): 222 mm x 287 mm, Gewicht: 1684 g

Reihe: Anglo-Saxon Studies

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.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Carver, Martin

Hills, Catherine

Scheschkewitz, Jonathan

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Europäische Länder
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Europäische Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Alte Geschichte & Archäologie Mittelalterliche, neuzeitliche Archäologie (Europa)

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Summary
The Wasperton Sequence
Description of the investigation
Setting and character of the cemetery
Assemblages: provenance and date
Arguments for the sequence
Wasperton in context
Catalogue
Bibliography