Britons and Anglo-Saxons: Lincolnshire AD 400–650 (Second Edition, 2020)

I'm pleased to announce that the second edition of my Britons and Anglo-Saxons: Lincolnshire AD 400–650 has now been published and is available to buy as both a paperback (401 pages, ISBN 978-0-902668-26-3) and a PDF ebook.

Britons and Anglo-Saxons was first issued in 2012 and represents the published version of my Oxford DPhil thesis. It offers an interdisciplinary approach to the history of the Lincoln region in the post-Roman period, drawing together a wide range of sources. In particular, it indicates that a British polity named *Lindēs was based at Lincoln into the sixth century, and that the seventh-century Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Lindsey (Lindissi) had an intimate connection to this British political unit. The picture that emerges is also of importance nationally, helping to answer key questions regarding the nature and extent of Anglian-British interaction and the origins of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms.

This new second edition of Britons and Anglo-Saxons includes a brand new, 52-page introduction discussing recent research into the late and post-Roman Lincoln region, consisting of sections on 'Romano-British pottery in the fifth- to sixth-century Lincoln region', 'Archaeology and the British ‘country of *Lindēs’', 'Place-names and history in early Anglo-Saxon Lincolnshire', and 'Territories, central clusters and persistent places in the pre-Viking Lincolnshire landscape'.

Britons and Anglo-Saxons is the third volume in the Studies in the History of Lincolnshire, a peer-reviewed academic project published by the History of Lincolnshire Committee (established 1966). Click here to buy the paperback from Lulu and here to buy the PDF ebook. Alternatively, the paperback of Britons and Anglo-Saxons can also be purchased from Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com.

A selection of reviews of Britons and Anglo-Saxons:

“Britons and Anglo-Saxons is an impressively interdisciplinary book that combines linguistic, historical, literary, and archaeological evidence into a coherent narrative for the post-Roman fate of Lincolnshire... [the] central contention that “the Britons based at Lincoln in the fifth and sixth centuries left a political, administrative, cultural, and even potentially a symbolic, legacy for succeeding centuries” (153) is amply borne out by [the] thorough interdisciplinary methodology, and [Green's] findings are sure to have an impact on the wider historiography of early-medieval British history... a major accomplishment by a promising young scholar...”  (Speculum: the Journal of the Medieval Academy of America, 2013)

“This book, based on the author’s doctoral thesis, explores the relationships between British and Anglo-Saxon populations in post-Roman Britain and the formation of kingdoms, using Lincolnshire as a case study... As an exploration of the aftermath of Roman Britain, the relationships between native populations and immigrant communities, and the mechanisms behind the development of subsequent administrative units, this book makes for a very thought-provoking read... It is a welcome addition to our understanding of the early centuries of post-Roman Britain.” (Medieval Archaeology, 2013)

“This book should recommend itself to the introductory reading lists of history and archaeology students but will also serve the general reader well... This study draws upon the combined application of history, archaeology, place-names, and early literature to reconstruct its narrative —approaches that one would wish to see duplicated across the country... This book not only provides a narrative for Lincolnshire but also reinforces the potential value of similar approaches elsewhere in Britain while at the same time offering a compelling introduction to the challenges of studying this period of Britain’s past.” (Midland History, 2013)

“[F]ully engaged with up-to-date scholarship and operating assuredly across all relevant disciplines... Not only does it offer a sophisticated study of Dark-Age Lincolnshire but it also makes an important contribution to wider debates about the ending of Roman Britain and the beginnings of Anglo-Saxon England... This inter-disciplinary exploration of *Lindes offers a new standard for regional work. It also provides a model capable of explaining how Roman Britain transmuted into Anglo-Saxon England... this book makes an important contribution to the central historical debates and will provide an important point of reference as to how we model the British/Anglo-Saxon interface for the next generation.” (N. J. Higham, Lincolnshire History & Archaeology, 2015)

Some evidence for people of 'East Asian' ancestry living in Roman London

The following brief note discusses a number of individuals buried in Roman London who have results indicative of an 'East Asian' ancestry. These people seem to have formed part of a diverse community living in the southern suburb of Londinium during the second to fourth centuries AD, with over 40% of the individuals studied having results consistent with an African or Asian ancestry and/or childhood residence.

A fifteenth-century map of the world based on the second-century AD Geography of Claudius Ptolemy, with the British Isles on the far left and China on the far right (Image: Wikimedia Commons).

The evidence in question consists of a sample of 22 burials from the southern burial area of Roman London which have been subjected to a recent isotopic and/or macromorphoscopic trait analysis in order to establish the ancestry and childhood residency of these individuals.(1) The results of this analysis offer a picture that is broadly in line with the situation at Roman York and other similar sites, as reported in a number of previous posts, namely that the evidence points towards a considerable degree of diversity in the Roman-era population of Britain. So, 41% of the 17 individuals buried at London and subjected to macromorphoscopic trait analysis (n=7) had results consistent with a non-European—African or Asian—ancestry, and 45% of the 20 individuals whose teeth were analysed (n=9) had oxygen isotope results of 19.2–21.0‰ δ¹⁸O_p, well outside the credible British range and most consistent with a childhood spent in North Africa or even further afield, as discussed elsewhere. Needless to say, whilst such results are perhaps in many ways unsurprising, it is nonetheless worth knowing that the conclusions regarding the diversity of the population of Roman Britain reached previously on the basis of evidence from York, Winchester and elsewhere hold good for London too. However, the importance of the London burial data goes beyond simply adding further weight to previous conclusions, as the data reported not only identifies a number of people of probable 'African descent' within the Roman-era urban population (four individuals or 24% of the sample investigated), but also two or three individuals who appear to be of 'East Asian' ancestry.

The individuals in question are two men, aged 18–25 and 26–35, who were buried in the second and fourth centuries AD, respectively, and who are both identified as being of probable 'Asian' ancestry on the basis of a macromorphoscopic trait analysis (that is to say, their macromorphoscopic trait results are comparable to those of the modern populations of China and Japan), along with a woman aged over 18 who was buried in the second century AD and whose results are possibly indicative of Asian ancestry.(2) None of these three people had oxygen isotope results consistent with an early life spent in the London area, although pinning down their childhood residency beyond this is difficult. Drinking water that would produce tooth enamel oxygen isotope values similar to those of the man and woman from the second-century AD is found across a broad swathe of the globe from western Britain and southern Europe across to China. Equally, although the oxygen isotope result of the man buried in the fourth-century AD is outside both the British and European ranges, it would still be consistent with a childhood spent in, for example, large areas of North Africa, the Near East, India, Central Asia or the western parts of Han China, making identifying where he spent his early life problematic. Finally, as to question of whether these people were resident in London or simply passing through, it is worth noting that the dietary isotope ranges of the two individuals who were tested for this are within the local ranges encountered in other Romano-British cemeteries, suggesting that these people, whatever their childhood origins and ancestry, may well have spent the last decade of their lives in Britain, something that is in itself notable.

Needless to say, the probable presence of people of 'East Asian' ancestry in Roman London is a matter of considerable interest. As to the circumstances of their apparent residency within the western Roman Empire, it needs to be emphasised that these inhabitants of second- to fourth-century AD Londinium are not wholly alone nor without context. Most notably, a recent isotopic and mitochondrial DNA study of burials on the Imperial estate at Vagnari, southern Italy, has indicated that one of the adults buried there in the first or second century AD was likewise a migrant of 'East Asian' ancestry, given that 'all modern mtDNA matches to her available haplotype sequence are from Japan'.(3) Similarly, it should be emphasised that there is a small quantity of written evidence which mentions embassies and travellers between China and the Roman Empire in this era and after; that the Roman appetite for silk is well documented; and that at least some Roman coins have been found in China and Vietnam, along with Roman beads in Japan. In the past, such contacts and trade have been considered to be extremely infrequent and largely indirect, but the evidence from Vagnari and now London suggest that this judgement perhaps ought to be partially revisited and that a greater degree of contact and movement between the eastern and western extremes of Eurasia may now need to be allowed for.

Map of the Roman-era Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, showing maritime trading routes between the Roman Empire and Asia; click for a larger version of the image (image: Wikimedia Commons).

A first- to fourth-century AD Roman glass bead found in a fifth-century AD grave in Japan (image via strangehistory.net).

A bronze coin of the Roman emperor Constantius II (337–61), found in Karghalik, Xinjiang Autonomous Region, China (image: Wikimedia Commons).

Notes

1.     R. C. Redfern et al, 'Going south of the river: a multidisciplinary analysis of ancestry, mobility and diet in a population from Roman Southwark, London', Journal of Archaeological Science, 74 (October 2016), 11–22, online at http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305440316301030.
2. The two burials considered to be those of ‘probable Asians’ are BL3 and BL29; the individual considered to be a ‘possible Asian’ is BL5. For the methodology used, see R. Redfern et al, 'Going south of the river: a multidisciplinary analysis of ancestry, mobility and diet in a population from Roman Southwark, London', Journal of Archaeological Science, 74 (October 2016), 11–22, where it is outlined in detail. It should be noted that a recent online magazine piece by Kristina Killgrove expresses scepticism over the conclusion that there were 'Chinese'/'East Asian' people in Roman London as publicised in press reports on this research, but the critique there is arguably a tad hyper-critical and ought to be in turn treated with a degree of circumspection. So, for example, Kristina Killgrove suggests that 'news outlets would do well to read thoroughly the articles they’re covering and not exaggerate their headlines'; however, the press coverage is, in fact, largely in accord with the main thrust of the published article, which states that it represents 'the first identification of people with African and Asian ancestry in Roman London' and describes two of the people as 'probable Asians' and 'likely to have had… Asian ancestry', a confidence confirmed by the radio interviews given by the team on the 23 September 2016 (see, for example, Rebecca Redfern on The World at One, BBC Radio 4, 23 September 2016, available online at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p048t3c5). Similarly, Killgrove states first of all that one shortcoming of the study’s methodology is that 'many of the samples… had only two traits to score… [which] can affect classification accuracies'. However, what is not made clear in this magazine piece is that such concerns as this don’t actually apply to the identification of the two 'probable Asians' (BL29 and BL3) under consideration here. Rather, their identification and classification as 'probable Asians' is based on fifteen and seven traits, respectively, not two or fewer, although no mention of this is made in the magazine article (incidentally, it is also worth noting that the authors of the study clearly state that '[w]hen insufficient data are available, ancestry estimations remain "indeterminate"' and mark them as such). Finally, Killgrove’s magazine article criticises the authors for not using DNA evidence and relying instead on forensic anthropology techniques and stable isotope analysis. Whilst DNA work would certainly be interesting to read and would be both valuable and welcome, as Kristina Killgrove says, it has to be asked whether its absence really is as fatal as she suggests and if such an absence really means that the forensic ancestry assessment in the paper ought to be largely dismissed out of hand? In this context, it is worth pointing out that a similar combination of forensic anthropology techniques and stable isotopes—likewise without DNA—was successfully used as part of the recent, well-respected 'A Long Way from Home: Diaspora Communities in Roman Britain' project dealing with multiple Roman-era burials at York (see S. Leach et al, 'Migration and diversity in Roman Britain: a multidisciplinary approach to the identification of immigrants in Roman York, England', American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 140 (2009), 546–61; S. Leach et al, 'A Lady of York: migration, ethnicity and identity in Roman Britain', Antiquity, 84 (2010), 131–45; and the Archaeology Data Service's 2012 project website at http://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archives/view/diaspora_ahrc_2011/), and it has also been used to identify, for example, the medieval ‘Ipswich Man’ and the Roman-era ‘Beachy Head Lady’ as of African descent too. Needless to say, if we are happy with the use of forensic anthropology techniques and stable isotope analysis without DNA in these cases and generally accept their conclusions with regard to ancestry, then there seems little reason why the new study of Roman Londinium deserves to be treated any differently! In sum, therefore, I'd suggest: (a) that the press coverage didn't, so far I can tell, materially misrepresent the research and that the authors of the 2016 Journal of Archaeological Science study are, in fact, clear that they've identified 'probable Asians' in the burial record of Roman London, as demonstrated by the published work and their subsequent interviews; (b) that the two 'probable Asians' in this cemetery were identified on the basis of significantly more than two traits, something that is perhaps less than clear in the online critique; and (c) that similar or related methodologies have been successfully used in the past, most notably by the 'Diaspora Communities in Roman Britain' project relating to Roman York, and there seems little obvious reason to treat this new study of the London evidence any differently than we do those.
3.     T. L. Prowse et al, 'Stable isotope and mitochondrial DNA evidence for geographic origins on a Roman estate at Vagnari (Italy)', in H. Eckardt (ed.), Roman Diasporas: Arachaeological Approaches to Mobility and Diversity in the Roman Empire (Portsmouth RI, 2010), pp. 175–97 at pp. 186, 189, 191, quotation at pp. 189–91; T. L. Prowse, 'Isotopes and mobility in the ancient Roman world', in L. de Ligt & L. E. Tacoma (eds.), Migration and Mobility in the Early Roman Empire (Leiden, 2016), pp. 205–34 at p. 194.

The content of this post and page, including any original illustrations, is Copyright © Caitlin R. Green, 2016, All Rights Reserved, and should not be used without permission.

A note on the evidence for African migrants in Britain from the Bronze Age to the medieval period

The degree to which pre-modern Britain included people of African origin within its population continues to be a topic of considerable interest and some controversy. Previous posts on this site have discussed a variety of textual, linguistic, archaeological and isotopic evidence for people from the Mediterranean and/or Africa in the British Isles from the Late Bronze Age through to the eleventh century AD. However, the focus in these posts has been on individual sites, events or periods, rather than the question of the potential proportion of people from Africa present in pre-modern Britain per se and how this may have varied over time. The aim of the following post is thus to briefly ponder whether an overview of the increasingly substantial British corpus of oxygen isotope evidence drawn from pre-modern archaeological human teeth has anything interesting to tell us with regard to this question.

Map of the British Isles, showing drinking-water oxygen isotope values and the 16 British archaeological sites (including three in York) with evidence for pre-modern people whose results are consistent with an early life spent in North Africa (image: C. R. Green, using a base-map image © BGS/NERC, reproduced under their non-commercial licence, as detailed on the BGS website).

Proportion of investigated sites from each period with at least one oxygen isotope result consistent with an origin in North Africa (image: C. R. Green).

The rationale for using oxygen isotope evidence as a tool for identifying people from Africa in pre-modern Britain was set out at some length in a previous post—essentially, tooth enamel oxygen isotope values reflect those of the water that was drunk by an individual in childhood, with drinking-water values varying markedly with climate and related factors. As such, it should be possible to identify first-generation migrants to Britain in the archaeological record by measuring their tooth enamel oxygen isotope levels, so long as they grew up in a region with significantly different drinking-water values to those found in Britain, a criteria North Africa fits comfortably, with many parts of it possessing levels notably higher than those found anywhere in Britain or, indeed, Europe.

In order to make a first pass at trying to assess whether isotopic data can help answer the question of the potential number of African people in medieval and earlier Britain and the variations in this number over time, I pulled together a rough corpus of 909 oxygen isotopes results taken from individuals buried at 79 Bronze Age–Medieval sites across Britain published up to the start of 2016, and then sorted these into four broad chronological periods: Bronze Age–Iron Age (22 sites), Roman (15 sites), Early Medieval (29 sites) and Medieval (14 sites), with one site in use across two of the periods.(1) I then went through this material to identify individuals whose results are sufficiently elevated so as to be both clearly indicative of a non-local origin and most consistent with a childhood spent in North Africa, rather than anywhere in Britain or Europe.(2) Needless to say, taking such an overview of the entire period from the Bronze Age to the Medieval era via a single dataset produces some interesting results, as well as some pitfalls. The former can be summarized as follows:

• 20.3% of the 79 surveyed Bronze Age–Medieval sites contained at least one person who has results consistent with a childhood spent in Africa (n=16). As can be seen from the map included above, these sites are spread across Britain, with the majority coming from what is now England, although not exclusively so. Note, some of the 'gaps' in the resultant distribution may well be more apparent than real, stemming from a lack of published sites in some areas, such as north-western England and Norfolk. 
• Sites possessing isotopic evidence consistent with the presence of first-generation immigrants from North Africa are found in all periods looked at, although there is a clear peak in the Roman era. The Roman era—the mid-first to early fifth centuries AD—has the greatest number of sites with such evidence, namely seven, these being Winchester (Lankhills), Gloucester, York (three sites: Trentholme Drive, The Railway & Driffield Terrace), Scorton near Catterick, and Wasperton. Furthermore, nearly 47% of all Roman sites where isotopic analysis has occurred have produced evidence suggestive of the presence of people who grew up in North Africa, a significantly higher proportion than is found for any other era. The next highest raw totals of sites with such isotopic evidence belong jointly to the 'Early Medieval' and 'Medieval' eras (four sites each), although it is important to note that the Early Medieval total results from over twice as many sites being isotopically investigated than is the case for the Medieval era—as such, whilst 28.6% of the Medieval-era sites in the corpus have isotopic evidence consistent with the presence of North African migrants, only 13.8% of the Early Medieval sites do. Finally, the Bronze Age–Iron Age is represented by only a single qualifying site on the Isle of Thanet, Kent, equivalent to 4.5% of all Bronze Age–Iron Age sites where isotopic analysis has taken place, although this Late Bronze Age–Middle Iron Age cemetery has multiple people with such results buried within it.
• In total, 3.7% of the 909 Bronze Age–Medieval individuals surveyed from these 79 sites have results consistent with a childhood spent in Africa (n=34). This percentage reflects the fact that the majority of the sites looked at here only contain one or two individuals with values high enough for inclusion in the present study.
• A small number of results are elevated to such a degree that they strongly indicate a childhood spent in the Nile Valley or Delta. Around 11.8% of the individual oxygen isotope results that were highlighted here were exceptionally elevated to above 21.0‰ δ¹⁸O_p (n=4), a level that is probably indicative of a childhood spent in or around the Nile Valley, where equivalent values have been recorded from the ancient burial site at Mendes in the Nile Delta, Egypt, and other sites up to the third Nile cataract at Tombos. Interestingly, these results come from individuals spread across the chronological range: one from a Late Bronze Age burial at Thanet, Kent (ninth century BC); one from a Middle Iron Age grave at the same site (fourth century BC); one from Roman York (the Driffield Terrace site); and one from the medieval cemetery at Whithorn, Scotland (late twelfth to thirteenth century AD).

With regard to explanations for such a potential presence of people who grew up in North Africa in Britain from the Late Bronze Age through to the medieval period, several possibilities can be identified. For example, the peak in sites with isotopic evidence consistent with the presence of such people in the Roman era is perhaps unsurprising, given the significant epigraphic, textual and archaeological evidence for people from Africa and/or of African descent in Britain at that time, and a major research project has, in fact, recently been completed on the topic of diaspora communities in Roman Britain. Indeed, at York around 11–12% of the individuals buried in two of the large Roman-era cemeteries there are considered to be very likely of 'African descent' on the basis of anthroposcopic/craniometric analysis, whilst yet more are thought to have potential 'mixed' or 'black' ancestry, up to a possible maximum of 51% of the population in the higher-status 'The Railway' cemetery. Similarly, there is documentary and archaeological evidence for contacts between the Byzantine Empire, North Africa and post-Roman western Britain and England in the early medieval period which may well offer a potential explanation for some of the results retrieved—significant quantities of fifth- to sixth-century Byzantine imported pottery have, for example, been found along the west coast of Britain, including some produced in the Carthage region, and Middle Saxon England included churchmen such as Hadrian, the later seventh and early eighth-century Abbot of St Augustine's, Canterbury, who was 'a man of African race' (Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica, IV.1) and is thought to have grown up in Libya Cyrenaica before moving to Italy following the mid-seventh-century Arab conquest of North Africa. For the Medieval period, the Crusades and the evidence for trade and contacts between England and the Mediterranean/Spain have been suggested as obvious potential reasons for the presence of people from Africa here then, whilst the Late Bronze Age to Middle Iron Age evidence from Thanet can perhaps be seen in the context of both the well-evidenced Bronze Age trading along the Atlantic coast between the Mediterranean, Iberia, Britain and Scandinavia, and the increasing body of linguistic, numismatic and archaeological evidence for Mediterranean/Punic contacts with Britain during the Iron Age.

Of course, whilst the above isotopic evidence is certainly intriguing, there are undoubtedly pitfalls to be aware of. On the one hand, we need to be wary of overestimating the proportion of any North African migrants in pre-modern Britain using isotopic evidence. For example, sites are sometimes chosen for isotopic analysis because they look potentially 'interesting', as was arguably the case with the cemeteries at York, Winchester and Thanet, and such a situation might well lead to a greater proportion of positive 'hits' in any corpus aiming to look for potential evidence of long-distance migration. Similarly, it is not totally impossible that a few of the people with the more marginal results discussed here could just have had their origins in a small area of southernmost Iberia rather than North Africa, although the bar for inclusion in the present corpus was set at such a level as to hopefully significantly reduce the possibility of this, and a substantial proportion of the results included here are, moreover, well above any plausible southern Iberian range.(3) On the other hand, the corpus could well underestimate both the number of individuals who may have had their origins in North Africa and their chronological spread. So, for example, whilst over 900 results were surveyed here, we still end up with a situation whereby none of the individuals with elevated values date from the Late Saxon/Anglo-Scandinavian period (later ninth to eleventh centuries). Taking this as a reflection of a lack of people from Africa in Britain at that time would, however, be a mistake: not only do we have good textual evidence for the presence of such people in the British Isles, but there are three burials of people of African descent known from tenth- and eleventh-century Gloucestershire and East Anglia—the problem is simply that none of them have been subjected to isotopic analysis and so they haven't been included here. Likewise, there are at least four burials of people who appear to be of African descent in the medieval cemetery at Ipswich, but only one has been isotopically tested (interestingly, five of the post-medieval/sixteenth-century burials there also appear to be those of people of African descent). Finally, by adopting a fairly high bar to inclusion in the corpus so as to avoid—as much as possible—the risk of 'false positives', we actually end up excluding a significant number of individuals who are generally accepted as being of African origin. So, only three members of a group of thirteen burials from Lankhills (Winchester) have results high enough to be included in the current corpus, despite the fact that all thirteen are considered to form a sub-group that is probably of African origin within the cemetery. All told, therefore, it might well be wondered whether the above tendencies to both overestimate and underestimate don't, in fact, cancel each other out.

North African unguentaria found in a grave from the Late Roman cemetery at Lankhills, Winchester, that is part of the sub-group with elevated oxygen isotope results mentioned above, but which has values just a little below the cut-off for inclusion in the corpus used in this post (image: Oxford Archaeology, reused under their CC BY-SA 3.0 license).

Notes

1     This corpus is based primarily upon J. A. Evans, C. A. Chenery & J. Montgomery, 'A summary of strontium and oxygen isotope variation in archaeological human tooth enamel excavated from Britain', Journal of Analytical Atomic Spectrometry, 27 (2012), 754–64 and 'Supplementary Material I' (14 pp.), to which have been added studies published after that paper or missing from it, using a Google Scholar search to catch any publications that weren't already known. Note, the periods assigned to the results taken from Evans et al, 'Supplementary Material I', have been checked and revised by me for this corpus, as they were occasionally idiosyncratic: 'Roman' is here used as a catch-all term for results from the first to early fifth centuries AD, 'Early Medieval' for those results from the period between the early fifth and late eleventh centuries AD, and 'Medieval' for those from the twelfth through to the fifteenth centuries. The additional studies used in creating this corpus are as follows, arranged by date of publication: S. Lucy et al, 'The burial of a princess? The later seventh-­century cemetery at Westfield Farm, Ely', Antiquity, 89 (2009), 81–141; J. Montgomery, 'Isotope analysis of bone collagen and tooth enamel', in C. Lowe (ed.), The P.R. Ritchie Excavations at Whithorn Priory, 1957–67: Medieval Bishops' Graves and Other Discoveries (Edinburgh, 2010), pp. 65–82; A. M. Pollard et al, '"Sprouting like cockle amongst the wheat": The St Brice's Day Massacre and the isotopic analysis of human bones from St John's College, Oxford', Oxford Journal of Archaeology, 31 (2012), 83–102; S. E. Groves et al, 'Mobility histories of 7th–9th century AD people buried at early medieval Bamburgh, Northumberland, England', American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 151 (2013), 462–76; K. A. Hemer et al, 'Evidence of early medieval trade and migration between Wales and the Mediterranean Sea region', Journal of Archaeological Science, 40 (2013), 2352–59; M. Jay et al, 'British Iron Age burials of the Arras culture: a multi-isotope approach to investigating mobility levels and subsistence practices', World Archaeology, 45 (2013), 473–91; E. Kendall et al, 'Mobility, mortality, and the middle ages: identification of migrant individuals in a 14th century black death cemetery population', American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 150 (2013), 210–22; C. A. Roberts et al, 'Isotopic tracing of the impact of mobility on infectious disease: the origin of people with treponematosis buried in Hull, England, in the Late Medieval period', American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 150 (2013), 273–85; K. A. Hemer et al, 'No Man is an island: evidence of pre-Viking Age migration to the Isle of Man'. Journal of Archaeological Science, 52 (2014), 242–9; J. I. McKinley et al, Cliffs End Farm, Isle of Thanet, Kent. A Mortuary and Ritual Site of the Bronze Age, Iron Age and Anglo-Saxon Period with Evidence for Long-Distance Maritime Mobility (Salisbury, 2014); J. Montgomery et al, 'Finding Vikings with isotope analysis: the view from wet and windy islands', Journal of the North Atlantic, Special Volume 7 (2014), 54–70; H. Eckardt et al, 'The Late Roman field army in northern Britain? Mobility, material culture and multi-isotope analysis at Scorton (N. Yorks)', Britannia, 46 (2015), 191–223; S. A. Inskip et al, 'Osteological, biomolecular and geochemical examination of an early Anglo-Saxon case of lepromatous leprosy', PLoS ONE, 10.5 (2015), pp. 1–22, online at http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0124282; R. Martiniano et al, 'Genomic signals of migration and continuity in Britain before the Anglo-Saxons', Nature Communications, 7 (2016), article 10326, 8 pp., online at http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2016/160119/ncomms10326/full/ncomms10326.html, and Supplementary Materials, 54 pp. (Table 3 and discussion in Supplementary Note 2). I also include 'Ipswich Man' in the corpus, a man of African descent who was buried in the thirteenth century in Ipswich, as he was isotopically investigated and consequently determined to probably have his origins in North Africa, although the results are still as yet unpublished: BBC, History Cold Case: Series 1, Episode 1—Ipswich Man (broadcast 27 July 2010); 'Medieval African found buried in England', Discovery News, 11 February 2013, online at http://news.discovery.com/history/medieval-african-england.htm; K. Wade, Ipswich Archive Summaries: Franciscan Way, IAS 5003 (2014), online at http://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archives/view/ipswich_5003_2015/downloads.cfm; and Xanthé Mallett, pers. comm..
2     The following footnote outlines the methodology adopted here. The conventional upper cut-off for phosphate oxygen isotope values for people who grew up in the British Isles is 18.6‰ δ¹⁸O_p, although it has been suggested that people brought up on the far western margins of Britain and Ireland—where drinking-water oxygen isotope values are at their highest, between -5.0‰ and -4.5‰ δ¹⁸O_dw (see map)—could theoretically have values up to 19.2‰ δ¹⁸O_p (see K. A. Hemer et al, 'Evidence of early medieval trade and migration between Wales and the Mediterranean Sea region', Journal of Archaeological Science, 40 (2013), 2352–59; C. Chenery et al, 'Strontium and stable isotope evidence for diet and mobility in Roman Gloucester, UK', Journal of Archaeological Science, 37 (2010), 150–63; and especially J. A. Evans et al, 'A summary of strontium and oxygen isotope variation in archaeological human tooth enamel excavated from Britain', Journal of Analytical Atomic Spectrometry, 27 (2012), 754–64). As such, and in order to avoid as much doubt as possible, I decided only to look at people with tooth enamel phosphate oxygen isotope results of 19.2‰+ for this post. This reflects, across the entire resulting corpus, the childhood consumption of drinking-water with values from -3.5‰ δ¹⁸O_dw up to +2.0‰ δ¹⁸O_dw on the 2010 revised Levinson equation or -4.0‰ δ¹⁸O_dw to +0.3‰ δ¹⁸O_dw on the 2008 Daux et al equation—needless to say, whichever equation is used, these values are notably higher than the maximum British drinking-water value of c. -4.5‰ δ¹⁸O_dw (found only in a few spots in the far west of the Outer Hebrides and Cornwall), but in line with results from North Africa, whilst the highest of the recorded results in the corpus can only be matched in the Nile Valley, as was discussed in a previous post. Indeed, over 50% of the individuals studied in this post have results of at least 19.5‰ δ¹⁸O_p, equivalent to a drinking-water value of -2.8‰ δ¹⁸O_dw (-3.5‰ δ¹⁸O_dw) or more, significantly above any credible British range and only really paralleled in some areas of North Africa. Moreover, it is worth noting from the map attached to this post that none of the individuals who are included in the study corpus were actually found in the areas with the highest drinking-water values in Britain, removing any lingering potential doubt as to their non-local origin. In fact, only a single individual of the 34 discussed here was found in an area with a local drinking-water value above -6.0‰ δ¹⁸O_dw, whilst the vast majority (79%) come from areas where drinking water values are between -7.0‰ and -8.5‰. As such, not only do they largely come from areas where the theoretical maximum for tooth enamel phosphate oxygen isotope values is closer to c. 18.5‰, according to Evans et al (2012, p. 759), not 19.2‰, but their results actually reflect the childhood consumption of water with values at least 3.0‰ higher than the local level right up to potentially as much as 10.2‰ higher (at the Driffield Terrace, York, site)—in all cases, this is significantly above any plausible variations around the local range and is massively so in the case of many results. Finally, it is worth noting that the adoption of this relatively conservative approach may mean that the number of individuals of in Britain who grew up in North Africa is underestimated, rather than overestimated. For example, even a small drop of the bar to include all those with results of 19.0‰ δ¹⁸O_p or above more more than doubles the number to be taken into the current corpus from our main source (the 2012 Evans et al corpus), and it is worth noting that many of the people with results at this level are indeed usually accepted as being probable migrants from North Africa, as are a significant number of people with slightly lower results too (see, for example, Evans et al, 'A summary of strontium and oxygen isotope variation', pp. 760–2; K. A. Hemer et al, 'Evidence of early medieval trade and migration between Wales and the Mediterranean Sea region'; and the discussion in a previous post, 'Some oxygen isotope evidence for long-distance migration to Britain from North Africa & southern Iberia, c.1100 BC–AD 800', 24 October 2015, blog post, online at http://www.caitlingreen.org/2015/10/oxygen-isotope-evidence.html). Nonetheless, it was felt worthwhile to set the bar higher in the present study in order to minimize as fully as possible the risk of false positives, and also to avoid as much as possible increasing the chance of some of the people studied here could have their origins in the one other area of Europe with very high drinking-water oxygen isotope values, southernmost Iberia, see note 3.
3     The map included in Evans et al, 'A summary of strontium and oxygen isotope variation', p. 761, indicates that the only part of Europe other than Britain with water oxygen isotope values above -5.0‰ is a small area of the south-eastern Iberian peninsula. L. J. Araguas-Araguas & M. F. Diaz Teijeiro, 'Isotope composition of precipitation and water vapour in the Iberian Peninsula', in IAEA, Isotopic composition of precipitation in the Mediterranean Basin in relation to air circulation patterns and climate (Vienna, 2005), pp. 173–90 at p. 178, state that values in this area range down to -4.3‰ δ¹⁸O, which is slightly enriched over the upper end of the British range (c. -4.5‰ δ¹⁸O); they also indicate that similar values above -5.0‰ δ¹⁸O are found in limited areas of the south-western coast of Iberia too, contrary to Evans et al, with groundwater results of c. 4.0‰ or even slightly higher reported from a very small zone around Cádiz (Araguas-Araguas & Diaz Teijeiro, fig. 3 at p. 180). In consequence, the bar for consideration in the present post was set relatively high to reduce the chance of including people from southernmost Iberia in the corpus—as was mentioned in note 2, above, only people with tooth enamel phosphate oxygen isotope results of 19.2‰+ were considered here, which on the 2010 revised Levinson equation (as used in K. A. Hemer et al, 'Evidence of early medieval trade and migration between Wales and the Mediterranean Sea region', Journal of Archaeological Science, 40 (2013), 2352–59, and other recent studies) equates to the consumption of drinking-water with values of -3.5‰ δ¹⁸O or above, with the majority of the results included here moreover reflecting the consumption of drinking-water with even higher values than this, ranging from -2.8‰ δ¹⁸O right up to +2.0‰ δ¹⁸O, well above the southern Iberian range.

The content of this post and page, including any original illustrations, is Copyright © Caitlin R. Green, 2016, All Rights Reserved, and should not be used without permission.

An early Anglo-Saxon pot from the Greetwell villa-palace

A previous entry on this blog included a discussion of the villa-palace at Greetwell Fields, located just to the east of Lincoln, thought to have potentially been the residence of the Late Roman provincial governor of Britannia Secunda. As was mentioned in that entry, it has been suggested that the villa-palace's estate may actually have been preserved intact throughout the whole of the Anglo-Saxon period, and it is in this light that the following interesting note from the 1940s is reproduced below.

The early Anglo-Saxon pot from the Greetwell villa-palace (image: C. R. Green)

The note in question was published in 1946 by the doyen of Anglo-Saxon pottery studies, J. N. L. Myres, and takes the form of a discussion of an early Anglo-Saxon pot found at the Greetwell villa-palace. Having made it clear that he considers that the pot is not a cremation urn (contrary to the suggestion of some recent authors who have made passing reference to it), Myres goes on to discuss the item in the following manner:

It is a little hand-made jar in a rough hard grey ware, with a wide flaring lip, a sharply biconical profile with a marked carination, and a well-defined flat base (fig. I, 3). The biconical form and the lip are distinctly Anglo-Saxon, but both the fabric and the base are much better formed than is normal with Anglo-Saxon vessels of this type. It gives the impression of having been made by someone familiar with Romano-British wheel-turned wares.
     Now this pot, which is in the Lincoln Museum, was found in the Roman villa at Greetwell, two miles east of Lincoln along the Roman road from the Eastgate. There is no doubt of its association with the villa, for there is a drawing of it in the Lincoln Museum in a manuscript volume of sketches of the villa and its contents prepared by the architect in charge when the building was excavated. It thus belongs to a category excessively rare in this country, that of objects of Anglo-Saxon character found in Roman villas.
     This is not the place to speculate on the significance of such an association two miles from Roman Lincoln. It is, however, a reasonable guess from the hybrid character of the pot that its presence in the villa is not wholly fortuitous. It does not look like a casual dropping of a passing raider, or even the trace of a sixth-century Anglian picnic. It suggests rather that somebody was still living in the Greetwell villa who had a use for strongly fashioned, almost stylish, hand-made pottery at a time when it was usual to make pots of Anglo-Saxon design. In the second quarter of the seventh century, Paulinus converted to Christianity at Lincoln an Anglian noble whom Bede (Hist. Eccles. ii. 16) calls the Praefectus civitatis. Had he a predecessor, Angle or British, in the second half of the fifth century?

     (J. N. L. Myres, 'Lincoln in the Fifth Century A.D.', The Archaeological Journal, 103 (1946), 85–8 at pp. 87–8)

The above discussion contains much of potential interest, of course, not least the suggested 'hybrid character' of the pot and the points made with regard to the pot as a possible indicator of post-Roman domestic activity at the villa site. The latter topic was, in fact, returned to by Myres in the 1980s, when in the context of a discussion of the 'unusual degree of Romano-British survival' in and around Lincoln he reinforced his earlier position, stating that 'the presence of a very early Anglo-Saxon pot in the Roman villa at Greetwell, east of Lincoln... is suggestive, in this connection, of possible continuity of occupation there' (J. N. L. Myres, The English Settlements (Oxford, 1986), p. 182). Needless to say, given recent interpretations of both the Greetwell villa-palace and the situation in the post-Roman Lincoln region, Myres' observations on the Greetwell pot and its implications are intriguing and worth at least noting, hence the present post.

Finally, before leaving the Greetwell villa-palace in the post-Roman period, one other supposed Anglo-Saxon find from this site needs mentioning. This is the 'Saxon spear' that is sometimes claimed to have also come from here, as on Historic England's Pastscape database and in T. Bell, The Religious Reuse of Roman Structures in Early Medieval England, BAR British Series 390 (Oxford, 2005), pp. 47, 171. With regard to this item, it is perhaps worth emphasising that it is illusory and such claims are based on an outline report of a find from 1952. Consultation of the full record in the Lincolnshire HER (PRN 52828) and B. Eagles, The Anglo-Saxon Settlement of Humberside, BAR British Series 68 (Oxford, 1979), vol. 2, p. 378, indicates that a spearhead was indeed found then, but that it is Late Saxon in date, not early Anglo-Saxon, and that it was furthermore discovered a mile to the east of the villa site.

The content of this post and page, including any original illustrations, is Copyright © Caitlin R. Green, 2015, All Rights Reserved, and should not be used without permission.

Some Roman slave shackles and figurines recorded from Britain by the PAS

The following post shares a handful of interesting recent finds relating to slavery in Roman Britain that have been recorded by the Portable Antiquities Scheme, along with two updated distribution maps of the artefact types in question.

The distribution of Roman-era iron slave shackles in Britain and western Gaul, based primarily on Henning, 2008, and data from the Portable Antiquities Scheme (drawn by C. R. Green)

A Roman iron slave shackle, discovered near to Winchester, Hampshire (image: PAS)

The first two finds are Roman-era slave shackles, found by metal-detectorists in Norfolk and Hampshire. Such items are found predominantly on rural sites both in Britain and on the continent and are thought to be indicative of at least a proportion of the rural workforce having been shackled during the Roman period. Certainly, there appears to be plentiful written evidence indicating that shackles and chains were regularly used as a punishment for slaves in the Roman era, with it being said that a slave lived in fear of offending his master 'lest he order him to be whipped, to be put in shackles, to be imprisoned', and also that a slave might be identified by the black marks on his ankles. The distribution map of such finds that is included here shows that while a few shackles have been found in the north and west of Britain, the vast majority come from lowland Britain, where they were presumably associated with a villa economy making use of physically coerced labour. 

With regard to the practical functioning of these items, a pair of shackles linked by a padlock bar is exhibited in Norwich Castle Museum (see the image below) and F. H. Thompson has the following to say on the matter:

in use, the shackles were placed round the captive’s ankles, the bent loops passed through their counterparts, and the protruding ends of the former then slipped over the padlock bar. It was evidently a device intended to give greater security in that it prevented the forcing apart of shackle terminals.

A pair of slave shackles linked by a padlock bar, on display in Norwich Castle Museum (image: Murdilka)

The other finds noted here consist of a number of small figurines of 'bound captives', usually dated to the second or third century AD. A survey of these items by Ralph Jackson in 2005 recorded sixteen examples, all from Britain and the Rhine/Danube frontier region, and further recording by Emma Durham and the Portable Antiquities Scheme has raised the number known from Britain to twelve (the PAS's examples come from Hampshire, North Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Lincolnshire, and Lincolnshire again). As to their imagery and use, it has been argued that these figurines are very likely to depict and represent slaves, and that they may consequently have some connection with the Roman slave trade in Britain. In this regard, it can be observed that the figurines were clearly meant to be mounted through their perforations, though whether this would have been via iron fittings or cords remains unclear. It is also interesting to note that these Roman symbols of slavery and/or the slave trade have a less concentrated distribution in Britain than do the Roman slave shackles, suggesting that these two artefact types may perhaps reflect different aspects of Roman slavery and the slave-trade.

The distribution of Roman 'bound captive' figurines in Britain, after data recorded by Durham, 2012, and the Portable Antiquities Scheme (drawn by C. R. Green)

A Roman figurine of a bound captive, with a flat back and a vertical & horizontal piercing for mounting; found in Broxholme, Lincolnshire (image: PAS)

A Roman figurine of a bound captive, with a flat back and a vertical & horizontal piercing for mounting; found near Andover, Hampshire (image: PAS)

The content of this post and page, including any original illustrations, is Copyright © Caitlin R. Green, 2015, All Rights Reserved. Non-original images used here are sourced from the PAS and Murdilka's Livejournal (the Norwich Castle shackles); if there are any objections to me using these pictures in this post, please contact me and I will remove them.

Roman mosaics from the Greetwell villa-palace and other sites in Lincolnshire

The following post collects together a number of the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century illustrations of Roman mosaics found in Lincolnshire, starting with the mosaics found at a major complex discovered during mining at Greetwell Fields, Lincoln. 

Plan of Greetwell villa-palace, drawn in the late nineteenth century; click image for a larger view (from Green, 2012, fig. 3)

Detail of the bath suite and the western end of the main east–west corridor at the Greetwell villa-palace (from Green, 2012, fig. 3)

One of the corridor mosaics from the Greetwell villa-palace; click image for a larger view (image: The Collection: Art and Archaeology)

The Greetwell mosaics were found in approximately the area of the current Lincoln hospital during ironstone mining from 1883–94, with their discovery commemorated by the modern street-name 'Roman Pavement'. The mosaics discovered here have been described as being of 'palatial scale and quality' and were part of the decorative scheme of an exceptionally large Roman villa-palace, which occupied a magnificent position on the hilltop overlooking the Witham valley, probably originally in the form of a very large courtyard surrounded by four immense corridors, off which were located the main accommodation, baths suite and the like. It has been argued that this villa-palace is likely to have been the official residence of the governor of the Late Roman province of Britannia Secunda, the capital of which was Lincoln, with the villa-palace appearing to have been occupied right up until the end of the coin sequence in the early fifth century and maintained to a high standard. 

Needless to say, the last points above are of considerable interest in light of the hints of possible post-Roman provincial continuity discussed previously, and in this light it is also important to note the recent suggestion that the villa-palace's estate was actually preserved intact throughout the whole of the Anglo-Saxon period and into the medieval period, with its reconstructed boundaries matching those of the later Monks Leys estate almost exactly (the latter is first recorded just after the Norman Conquest, but has been considered to potentially have its origins in a pre-Viking minster estate). A case has also been made for the early medieval and later tenurial arrangements of a large region to the north of the Witham and east of Lincoln and Ermine Street to have had their origins in two large territories dependent upon the Greetwell villa-palace and a more modest, but still significant, villa at Scupholme.

Two fragments of painted wall plaster from the Greetwell villa-palace, on display in The Collection, Lincoln (photo: C. R. Green)

Unfortunately, the remains of Greetwell villa-palace and its mosaics were completely destroyed by the mining operations of the late nineteenth century, with the result that all that survives of this important site are a few finds, some fragments of painted wall plaster, a plan of the site made by the manager of the ironstone mine (pictured above), and some contemporary reports. The following excerpts are from one of these reports, published in Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XXXII, No. 821, in 1891, which describes the site, its destruction, and the making of the surviving plan:

For some weeks past, remains of a Roman villa have been exposed to view by Mr. Ramsden's miners in Greetwell Fields. From, the extent of the tesselated pavements laid bare there is hardly any doubt that in the Greetwell Fields, in centuries long gone by, there stood a Roman mansion, which for magnitude was perhaps unrivaled in England... What a pity it is that the inhabitants of Lincoln have not made an effort to preserve these precious relics of the grandeur of the Roman occupation, an occupation to which England owes so much...

Although these relics of a remote age are being dug up and are being destroyed, it is not the fault of Mr. Ramsden, for he not only preserved them as long as he conveniently could, but he also had the soil removed from over them, and had them thoroughly washed, in order that people might have an opportunity of seeing their extent and beauty... Mr. Ramsden, the manager of the Ironstone Works, is keeping a plan of the whole of the pavement, which he is coloring in exact imitation of the original work. This, when completed, will be most interesting, and he will be quite willing to show it to any one desirous of inspecting the same.

A contemporary plan showing the location of the Greetwell villa-palace (image: The Collection: Art and Archaeology)

Although the Greetwell villa-palace is almost certainly the most important villa in the Lincoln region, it was by no means the only one, and the second half of this post brings together and shares a number of antiquarian illustrations of mosaics found at some of these other villas, all of which were drawn and/or published by William Fowler of Winterton (1761–1832).

The first set of images consists of the mosaics that were discovered at the well-known Winterton Roman Villa in North Lincolnshire, including its famous mid-fourth-century Orpheus mosaic, along with a plan of the site in c. AD 350:

An illustration of mosaics found at the Winterton Roman villa, published 1798; click image for a larger view (PD image via the BL/SPL King George III Collection)

Detail of the mid- to late fourth-century Orpheus mosaic at Winterton Roman villa; click image for a larger view (PD image via Wikimedia Commons)

Plan of Winterton Roman villa in c.AD 350; red squares indicate rooms with mosaics (image: Wikimedia Commons)

The second set of images are of the mosaics that belonged to the Roman villa at Horkstow, North Lincolnshire. The plan of this villa is now unrecoverable due to the disturbance the site has suffered over the years, but the mosaics survive and are currently housed in Hull Museum; they again include a (fragmentary) mid-fourth-century Orpheus mosaic, as well as the well-known 'chariot race' mosaic:

An illustration of mosaics found at the Horkstow Roman villa, published c.1800; click image for a larger view (PD image via the BL/SPL King George III Collection)

Detail of the fragmentary, fourth-century Orpheus mosaic from Horkstow Roman villa; click image for a larger view (PD image via the BL/SPL King George III Collection)

Detail of the chariot race mosaic from Horkstow Roman villa; click image for a larger view (PD image via The Collection)

The third set of images consists of the plan of the important Roman villa at Scampton, Lincolnshire, and its mosaic; this site was excavated in 1795 and described in the following manner in a publication of 1808 (reissued 1810):

In the year 1795, some workmen, digging for stone in a field south-east of the village, and north of Tilbridge-lane, were observed to turn up several red tiles, which, on inspection, Mr Illingworth conceived to be Roman.  This induced him to survey the general appearance of the surrounding spot; and being struck with obvious traces of foundations, he directed the men to dig towards them, when they came to a wall two feet beneath the surface, and shortly after to a Roman pavement.  The result was, that the foundations of nearly a whole Roman villa were traced and accurately examined; and the situation of the place, the nature of the walls, the dimensions of some apartments, the number and beauty of the tessellated pavements, and the regular plan of the whole, leave little doubt of its having been a villa of considerable distinction and elegance.

An illustration of mosaics found at the Scampton villa, published 1800; click image for a larger view (PD image via the BL/SPL King George III Collection)

Plan of Scampton Roman villa, published in 1808; click image for a larger view (PD image via The Collection, also available on Google Books)

The fourth and final set of images are of the Roman villa at Denton, near Grantham, Lincolnshire, which saw the main focus of its occupation occurring in and after the late fourth century. The results of the Ministry of Works excavation here in the 1940s demonstrated that Denton villa was rebuilt in stone sometime after c. AD 370 into a basilican-type structure of at least seven rooms with mosaics (plus a separate bath-house to the south), based on the fact that this rebuilding clearly overlaid a coin of Valentinian I, 364–75, and another of Gratian, 367–83. Furthermore, the excavator suggested that the Denton villa may well then have continued to be maintained perhaps as late as the sixth century, given that: 

1. there was a subsequent phase of rebuilding in stone and occupation after the one that occurred post-c. 370, with the excavator dating this building phase to probably the fifth century; 
2. two graves were discovered inside the villa, one of which was associated with a sixth-century 'Anglo-Saxon' pot; and
3. that these graves were located in central locations within two rooms and their fill contained no roof tile, slate or similar evidence of villa destruction, only tesserae, implying that the villa still stood and had not fallen into complete disrepair even by that late date.

A late fourth-century mosaic from Denton Roman villa, published in 1800; click image for a larger view (PD image via the BL/SPL King George III Collection)

Plan of Denton Roman villa, showing Phase II in white, constructed c.370 or after, and the rebuilding of Phase III (black), dated to probably the fifth century. Click the image above for a larger version of this plan, which is Smith, 1964, fig. 3.

Photograph from the 1948 and 1949 excavation of Denton Roman villa, showing a mosaic pavement on the south side (image: Smith, 1964, plate 7)

The content of this post and page, including any original illustrations, is Copyright © Caitlin R. Green, 2015, All Rights Reserved, and should not be used without permission.