ANGLO-SAXON ISLAND FOUND
G'day folks,
British
archaeologists have discovered evidence of a previously unknown Anglo-Saxon
island hidden beneath a barley field, a find they tout as one of the country’s
most important in decades.
In 2011
Graham Vickers was scouring a barley field outside the quiet English village of
Little Carlton with his metal detector when he found a medieval writing
implement buried in the freshly ploughed soil. Although the ornate silver
stylus had lain silently below the surface for more than 1,200 years, it turned
out that it had one more extraordinary story left to write since the relic has
led archaeologists to discover a long-lost Anglo-Saxon island that was once a
bustling center of international trade and a crossroads of civilizations from
across northwest Europe hidden underneath the otherwise ordinary-looking field.
After
Vickers reported his intriguing find to the government-funded Portable
Antiquities Scheme, which encourages the voluntary reporting of archaeological
objects unearthed by the public in England and Wales, further investigation
revealed a trove of Anglo-Saxon relics—21 styli used to inscribe wax tablets,
approximately 300 dress pins and a horde of coins dating from the 7th and 8th
centuries.
University
of Sheffield archaeologist Hugh Willmott examined the bounty of artifacts
harvested from the barley field, and once he saw the solid silver stylus that
Vickers initially detected, he knew that the Anglo-Saxon settlement hidden
underground was far from typical. “That’s because a writing implement like this
is a very high-status object,” Willmott said in a statement on the university’s
Facebook page. “We can conclude from it that this site isn’t an ordinary
village—it’s a monastic site or a secular elite site for controlling trade and
exchange.”
Further
clues about the history of the medieval community came from over 100 coins,
called sceattas, that were used at high-status trading sites across northwest
Europe. “It also tells us about local context,” Willmott said. “We’ve got
elites minting a currency, wanting to control resources.” University of
Sheffield students who dug nine evaluation trenches to further study the site
found significant quantities of Middle Saxon pottery and butchered animal
bones.
Willmott
said the most exciting find for him was a small lead tablet with faintly
scrawled letters that spelled “Cudberg,” a common female name in the Middle
Saxon period. “This object is all that survives of this individual,” the
archaeologist said. “When you’re holding this bit of lead, you’re holding the
one surviving element of that human being. I’ve never seen anything like it,
and it’s really very special.”
Along
with University of Sheffield doctoral student Pete Townend, Willmott conducted
targeted geophysical and magnetometry surveys of the site. Using the collected
data, the archaeologists created a computer model to visualize the landscape as
it was around 750 A.D. The farmland near Little Carlton has been dry for
centuries after being drained 300 years ago, but by digitally raising water
levels three feet to their early medieval heights, the researchers discovered
that the barley field, now encircled by dry land, had once been an island
ringed by a channel of the River Lud that provided access to the North Sea,
located five miles away.
Although
the archaeologists note their investigation is still in its early stages, they
theorize that the island, which measured 220 yards by 275 yards, was once home
to a monastery or a center of international trade. The presence of coins from
various parts of mainland Europe offered evidence of commerce with Germany,
Scandinavia and the Low Countries. Loom weights unearthed by archaeologists
indicated that the Anglo-Saxons may have exported woven textiles while
importing pottery and wine. Home to approximately 200 inhabitants, the Middle
Saxon settlement in the kingdom of Lindsey, which later became part of
Northumbria, may have thrived for a few hundred years until its abandonment
around the time when the Vikings began to pillage the British Isles.
The
original discovery by Vickers was kept quiet until now in order to allow
archaeologists to conduct their studies, but the details of what Willmott calls
Britain’s most important archaeological find in decades have now been reported
in the most recent edition of the British publication Current Archaeology. “Our
findings have demonstrated that this is a site of international importance,”
Willmott said, “but its discovery and initial interpretation has only been possible
through engaging with a responsible local metal detectorist.”
Clancy's comment: Wow, it would be amazing to discover something ancient.
I'm ...
