The Anglo-Saxon house: a new review (original) (raw)
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The Butser Saxon Houses A1 A2 Report
Report on the Interpretation and Construction of the Experimental Church Down Anglo Saxon buildings A1 and A2 at Butser Ancient Farm, 2024
This report documents the construction of two experimental buldings at Butser Ancient Farm. Each is based upon specific archaeology excavated at the Mid-Saxon settlent at Church Down, Chalton, Hampshire UK. The excavations were led by P.V Adyman and M. Hughes during 1972 - 72, and T Champion, 1973 - 76. The report reviews the archaeology and its interpretation in therms of the structures created, the construction processes and rationales.
This paper examines the character and significance of a cellared structure discovered during recent excava tions on the site of a later Anglo-Saxon settlement at Bishopstone, East Sussex. The structure in question formed a focal element within an estate centre complex administered by the Bishops of Selsey from c. AD 800, otherwise surviving in the celebrated pre-Conquest fabric of St Andrew's parish church. The excavated footprint of this cellared structure is examined in detail and conjectural reconstructions are advanced on the basis of comparative evidence garnered from historical and archaeological sources. The collective weight of evidence points towards a tower, pos sibly free-standing, with integrated storage/cellarage accommodated within a substantial, 2 mdeep subterranean chamber. This could represent a timber counterpart to excavated and extant masonry towers with thegnly/episcopal associations. The afterlife of this structure is also considered in detail on the grounds that it provides one of the most compelling cases yet identified of an act of ritual closure on a Late Anglo-Saxon settlement. Alongside being dismantled and infil led in a single, short-lived episode, the abandonment of the tower was marked by the careful and deliberate placement of a closure deposit in the form of a smith's hoard containing iron tools, agri cultural equipment and lock furniture. One of the few such caches to be excavated under controlled scientific conditions, it is argued that the contents were deliberately selected to make a symbolic statement, perhaps evoking the functions of a well-run estate centre.
Anglo-Saxon Studies In Archaeology and History
2000
Anglo-Saxon Studies in Archaeology and History is an annual series concerned with the archaeology and history of England and its neighbours during the Anglo-Saxon period. ASSAH offers researchers an opportunity to publish new work in an interdisciplinary forum which allows diversity in length, discipline and geographical spread of contributions. Papers placing Anglo-Saxon England in its international context, including contemporary themes from neighbouring countries, will receive as warm a welcome as papers on England itself. Papers submitted to ASSAH must be accurate and readable without detailed specialist knowledge. They must now also conform to the new house style which has been introduced to bring a common set of referencing conventions to the journal. This new format has been used in this issue. A style sheet is available in hard copy or electronic format from the editor. All papers are peer-reviewed. Volume 13 can be said to be truly interdisciplinary carrying papers from diverse disciplines such as place-name studies, art history, historiography and archaeology. A strong theme in this current issue is the early Anglo-Saxon period with a range of papers touching on aspects of migration. Another shared theme is the complexity and multiplicity of meaning in iconography and art, whilst military strategy and military kit take this volume into the Late Anglo-Saxon period. The contributors to this issue have been extremely patient and the Editor would like to thank them for their tolerance and fortitude. The Editor and the Oxford University School for Archaeology would also like to record their gratitude to all those who read and commented upon the contributions to this volume. Thanks also go to Hertfordshire Archaeological Trust who made a generous subventions towards the publication costs.
Special Deposits' in Anglo-Saxon Settlements
Medieval Archaeology, 2006
WHILE THE archaeological evidence for ritual activity in Later Prehistoric and Romano-British settlements is reasonably plentiful, there has been little discussion of such evidence from Anglo-Saxon settlements. This paper presents a preliminary survey of 'special' deposits, primarily of humans and animals, within Anglo-Saxon settlements and considers what the composition, context and placement of such-presumably votive-deposits tells us about the nature of Anglo-Saxon ritual. This evidence is compared to that from Iron-age and Roman Britain, as well as Continental NW. Europe. In particular, the relationship of special deposits to buildings, boundaries and entrances is considered. The burial of animals, humans and 'special' objects in settlements of the later Germanic Iron-age and Migration Period (4th-7th centuries A.D.) in regions bordering the North Sea has long been recognized as a distinctive phenomenon. 1 These often occur in association with buildings, have generally been regarded as the remnants of a ritual act and are conventionally referred to as 'foundation deposits', implying that they were deposited during the construction of a building and were intended to protect it and its occupants. When comparable deposits have been found in Anglo-Saxon settlements, however, they have received little attention and indeed the whole question of ritual activity in these settlements has been largely overlooked. In contrast to the study of Anglo-Saxon cemeteries, where the role of ritual has long been given emphasis, analyses of settlements have invariably, and perhaps understandably, focussed on settlement layout, economy and the functional aspects of buildings. 2 This paper offers a preliminary survey of the evidence for such 'special deposits' in Anglo-Saxon England and is largely restricted to settlements that have been excavated on a sufficient scale to allow the context of these deposits to be understood. 3 What
Late Saxon and Norman London: thirty years on
London Under Ground: The Archaeology of a City (eds) Ian Haynes, Harvey Sheldon & Lesley Hannigan, Oxford: Oxbow Books, pp 206-32, 2000
A survey of the advances made in our knowledge of the archaeology of late Saxon and Norman London, particularly of the City of London, between the 1960s and the end of the 20th century.