Digging up ancient graves looking for pots to cook in​…

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Robot Emperor R
Robot Emperor Nov 25, 2015 10:59:29
Replying to tiompan

tiompan wrote:
“If evidence of an aceramic Post-Roman Britain was anything more than informed extrapolation? Obvious to me now (post in haste etc) that we can never expect anything else from archaeology. “

When there are extrapolations /over-interpretations , they are due to individuals not the discipline , in this case the dissenting voice ,complete with evidence ,was also an archaeologist.

Nah. Nothing wrong with extrapolation, just ask palaeontologists. I'd argue that, given the relative paucity of archaeological data for vast swathes of human prehistory, that it is inevitable. Individual finds still open up whole worlds of new possibilities, the Stonehenge archer for example, that are strictly speaking beyond their existence as just artefacts.

As in science, historical speculation taken from archaeology is changed one discovery at a time. I intended no slur on the noble pursuit.

Missed your dissenting voice and evidence. From sources related to the link you provided (thanks again, fascinating) regions of Britain do seem to have been aceramic for a surprising amount of time after the occupation and pots from earlier periods were reused. I think I agree with Thesweetcheat that loot a more likely motive for digging stuff up, pots a welcome bonus.

Hopeless dilettante that I am, I'll flit on to something else to interest me for a day or so now.

T tiompan
tiompan Nov 25, 2015 13:02:45
Replying to Robot Emperor

We take the extrapolations/over interpretations with a pinch of salt , there can be quite a variety for each case at any one time ,and bigger changes within a generation .It is what we expect from archaeos but it is not their most important contribution .
The Stonehenge Archer is a good example ,we no longer believe that the presence of a bracer is an indication of an archer .

Mark's dissent was with the orthodoxy of previous historians and the evidence proving Britain wasn't aceramic in the post Roman period was the presence of pre Roman coarse ware production in eastern Yorkshire that was still producing pottery in the post Roman 5th C "It is scarcely credible that structural phases 3 - 7, which involve major and (in the case of Phase 4) massive structural alterations, and must post-date AD 388, can be compressed into a chronology which sees all of this activity as having taken place before c.AD 420. (This assertion is further reinforced if account is taken of the single Theodosian coin recorded as having come from the make-up deposit of structural Phase 1). It is infinitely more likely that the chronology of the structural sequence extends at least to c.AD 450, and very probably beyond."
Looting and scavenging for pots in earlier monuments may have taken place ,despite the lack of evidence ,but more certain activity, is that like the BA inhabitants who re-used earlier neolithic monuments ,the Anglo Saxons did the same and were actually depositing pottery , as well as human and animal remains in the earlier monuments .