Communities, continuity, and change: territorial identities in early medieval southern Britain
Rippon, S
Date: 5 July 2021
Journal
European Journal of Post-Classical Archaeologies
Publisher
SAP Societa Archaeologica s.r.l
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Abstract
This paper explores two different scales of community identity in early medieval Britain
and their possible antecedents in the Roman and pre-Roman periods. The traditional
focus of archaeologists and historians has been on territorial structures of a political and
administrative nature, but it is argued here that these were underlain ...
This paper explores two different scales of community identity in early medieval Britain
and their possible antecedents in the Roman and pre-Roman periods. The traditional
focus of archaeologists and historians has been on territorial structures of a political and
administrative nature, but it is argued here that these were underlain by district- and regional-scale territories that reflected spheres of socio-economic interaction within which
rural communities conducted their daily lives. These various territories were focussed on
fertile lowland areas, with their initially diffuse boundary zones lying within sparsely settled
and physically more marginal environments such as along watersheds. This pattern of territorial identities – deeply rooted in the landscape and its farming communities – had
probably existed for around a millennium before being swept away by administrative reform in the 10th or early 11th centuries AD as the growing power of the English state asserted its authority.
Archaeology and History
Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences
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