Why does pottery become scarce during the Saxon/Anglian period...

[kevin wooldridge]

My understanding from the systems of the eastern empire was that initially the ceramics trade was controlled directly by the Roman military and latterly was franchised out. Could the drop in the quantity of ceramics have something to do with a withdrawal of the army and/or its franchisees? As I said previously I am not convinced that the occurrence of ceramics in post-Roman England was any greater or any less than late Iron Age societies elsewhere in northern Europe. Surely we should be comparing the frequency against Ireland, Scotland, Netherlands, Denmark, Norway etc etc for the true picture.....

Afterthought: It occurred to me that the Roman withdrawal at the beginning of the 5th century has a potential parallel with those who are pressing for the UK to leave the EU after the next general election. Could archaeology provide a valuable parallel for what happens when a country is economically separated from a trading market it has come to rely on in its recent past? Welcome to the Dark Ages!

[P Prentice]

i dont think it has anything to do with transport or franchising. some areas of post roman britain do not have pottery and dont start using it again for several centuries. in the southwest they import fancy pots by sea, on the east coast they make it and transport it within their region. most everybody else clearly dont think it is necessary and can do without it for hundreds of years. these same people for the most part trade in metal and jewelry but they dont build houses we can recognise. they are living differently and they had different prioritise.

[Marc Berger]

the occurrence of ceramics in post-Roman England was any greater or any less than late Iron Age societies elsewhere in northern Europe

thing is that "late iron age" terminology in britain and any of the roman provinces is pre roman and to a certain extent saying " late iron age of northern Europe" also suggest that that culture replaced a vaccum left by the romans when applied in roman britain areas.
Whats dinos might be getting at is that the vacuum might not be along the roads and I am seeing that as a filter that had started before the romans left.

For prentice there is late roman in the 5th [SIZE=3]http://www.ncl.ac.uk/historical/assets/documents/Roman%20Pottery%20Conference%20Programme.pdf[/SIZE] where do they do without pot for hundreds of years

and also what i think could be important for my area is cultures like the terps or torps or thorps of the frieziens which if anything are abandonded and open to a sense of the "migration" period by the 5th and the great formation of old english. Still trying to get round to getting details out of records such as these [SIZE=3]http://www.jalc.nl/cgi/t/text/text-idxae2c.html?c=jalc;sid=095741f1231d8f86c4f63866855fbf08;idno=m0402a03;view=text;rgn=div1;cc=jalc;node=m0402a03%3A4[/SIZE]

and [SIZE=3]http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/antiq_0770-2817_1948_num_17_1_2856[/SIZE]

[Marc Berger]

hosty since the site has gone blue I am getting a lot of judder when trying to write edit also sometimes the firth entry on a thread appears doinated by a bajr banner an or advrt and the enty is sqezzed own one side of th pge I asif ihad drunk moe than my nomal three bottles ofred

[Dinosaur]

Marc - on this one you aren't mad, have been having all those problems, although the ones relating to typing/editing stuff (other than my cr*p typing skills) seem to have got better since I changed whatever it was I changed in my profile settings to get the smileys back

'Dark Age' people certainly had access to exotic pot if they wanted/could afford it, anywhere in Britain - Piercebridge in Co Durham is hardly near the sea, and it's a long way up the River Tees, but they were still happily shipping in fancy Mediterranean wines in amphorae then drinking it out of handmade Anglian pottery while re-digging the fort ditch in the late 5th/6th. You get occasional AS pots that are clearly copying RB pots, I've had an amazing one where they'd gone for a pedestal-vase design, for instance. There's a big grey area where RB becomes AS. Seem to recall that in Dorset the BB industry just carries on after the last trireme sailed away, and even introduces new forms in the 'post-Roman' period?

The issue around here is that AS pot just isn't, by and large, getting put in features other than graves. When it does turn up in any quantity it's usually in large features that were probably open for a long time, such as abandoned grub huts, fort/town ditches etc, hardly ever smaller short-duration holes like postholes, cesspits and the like (except for the occasional sherd) - one has to suspect that they'd discovered the above-ground midden? - and of course the pot isn't all that robust in the face of the elements and ploughing

[BAJR]

hosty since the site has gone blue I am getting a lot of judder when trying to write edit also sometimes the firth entry on a thread appears doinated by a bajr banner an or advrt and the enty is sqezzed own one side of th pge I asif ihad drunk moe than my nomal three bottles ofred

I may try other colours

the adverts on the first post are to get people aware of the other sections to the site... and the one at the bottom is to remind people that archaeology tools don't sell themselves


This by the way is a brilliant thread... like a site hut discussion .. and I for one am learning loads.

[P Prentice]

yep plenty of 5th-6th and possibly 7th pot despite the collapse of the economy but have you got any 8th--9th century pot?

[Dinosaur]

Dunno, that would require digging up the villages, which annoyingly by that date tend to be under current villages, rather than next to the (avoided) Roman road which seems to be one's staple fare around here. Could do with a village-wide fire somewhere? }

[Marc Berger]

Prentice what ever century what ever potty ain't there, you will always be up against absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

If a pots are anything it is a container, one of the roads to go down is that an absence of pot represents an absence of containers and you end up arguing against humaning and containers dint go back to the middle palaeolthic.

Yes dino it's about the end of roads and the beginning Of dung rubbish muck middens.....and then you end talking abut iron age middens which is probably the real bench mark that we are looking for cultural development in northern Europe . The dung hill at the end of the road.

If you aint got a midden you aint got a site.

hosty try c hangilng the color bule t I think its te banbners

[Dinosaur]

If you aint got a midden you aint got a site.

Eek! Don't go spreading that, most of us will be out of a job! :0