Barbarians to Angels by Peter S. Wells

Author:Peter S. Wells
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 2008-10-08T04:00:00+00:00

CONTINUITY INTO THE MIDDLE AGES—SAXON LUNDENWIC

In the traditional framework, a distinction is made between Roman London and Saxon London, with finer distinctions between Early and Late Roman and Early, Middle, and Late Saxon. In earlier traditions of research, these categories had some value as means for organizing accumulating information, but the use of such categories also hinders thinking about broad patterns of continuity. In fact, until the mid-1980s, when archaeological excavation began on the site of the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden, there was little evidence for Early Saxon activity in London at all.

The beginning of the Saxon period in London is traditionally defined as the time when material culture designated as Germanic became abundant, during the fifth and sixth centuries. Until a couple of decades ago, it was believed that a clear topographical separation existed between the Roman city in what is now the City of London on the north bank of the Thames, between the Fleet River and the Tower of London, and the post-Roman Saxon settlement to the west, where the Thames bends from flowing northward to flowing eastward, just downstream from Westminster. Recent discoveries have greatly complicated this picture.

Objects classified as Germanic have been recovered within the Roman city. Examples include a chip-carved bronze belt buckle made around A.D. 400 found at Smithfield, and several sixth-century bronze brooches recovered from Lower Thames Street and at Tower Hill. Conversely, Roman objects have been found in the early medieval settlement area around Covent Garden. These include fourth-century Roman coins, a brooch in the shape of a dolphin, other ornaments, and numerous tiles reused as pavings in various contexts. The significance of these finds is that we can no longer be content with the neatly delineated Roman city to the east and the Saxon settlement to the west. It is now apparent that since the time when the first Roman settlement was established in the area in the mid-first-century A.D., there has been considerable habitation, manufacturing, industrial, and construction activity on the north bank of the Thames, and it did not let up from early Roman times to the present day.

When dealing with a large modern urban center, it is always important to remember that the only archaeological evidence that we can collect is what happens to have been preserved and happens to be situated in places where modern construction activity exposes layers belowground. When a new subway line is put in or a new office tower is constructed, archaeologists have an opportunity to investigate archaeological layers preserved beneath the modern city. It is a very different situation from exploring an ancient settlement that is no longer the site of a great urban complex. At abandoned sites such as Troy in Turkey, Teotihuacan in Mexico, and Cahokia in Illinois, archaeologists are able to explore parts of the site that they think might contain important remains. Based on the scattered and random (in the sense that the archaeologist cannot plan where to dig) distribution of archaeological materials from early

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