Presentation is loading. Please wait.

Presentation is loading. Please wait.

University of Oxford Department for Continuing Education From Civilisation To Barbarism? Western Britain in the Early Middle Ages Tutor: Dr Kirsten Jarrett.

Similar presentations


Presentation on theme: "University of Oxford Department for Continuing Education From Civilisation To Barbarism? Western Britain in the Early Middle Ages Tutor: Dr Kirsten Jarrett."— Presentation transcript:

1 University of Oxford Department for Continuing Education From Civilisation To Barbarism? Western Britain in the Early Middle Ages Tutor: Dr Kirsten Jarrett

2 How might changing exchange networks have affected technologies - and how might this have affected identities? Economic (systems and) exchange: Trade / exchange & distribution of materials & products Technological exchange: skills / knowledge transference Cultural exchange: shared ideas → adoption of styles (visual ‘code’ / ‘message’ embedding beliefs & identities) or / and shared styles → changing ideas or ‘meanings’

3 How might the following have affected technologies - and identities? Withdrawal of the Roman state / military Restricted trade / exchange with the Continent & Mediterranean Transformation of established transportation systems / network ‘nodes’ (e.g. closure of roads, abandonment of towns) Development of localised and regional power & civil war

4 Building technologies: stone → timber – changing skills & materials and / or stylistic influence? Metalworking technologies: continuity of some styles, particular to needs of Western Britain? Recycling of materials Ceramic technologies: contraction of regional industries (changing superstructure – and markets?). Gradual stylistic & technological changes? Food / drink technologies: diet (ingredients, cooking techniques & associated material culture) may be closely related to social identities. Late C5 importation: supply drives or responds to particular ‘tastes’?

5 What might we learn from metalwork? Clothing / personal adornment (e.g. brooches, pins, hobnails) Building / manufacturing techniques / styles (e.g. nails & tools) Warfare / subsistence / leisure (e.g. weapons, knives) Style (not necessarily or directly) ≠ ‘ethnic’ or cultural identity Techniques & Composition : exchange networks & cultural influence

6 Bowl furnace Metalworking

7 Metalworking moulds and crucible, Dinas Powys Peripatetic? Copper alloy casting Techniques : Lead model ‘Cere Perdue’ (Lost Wax)

8 Champlevé: Cells cast or carved in surface of Field and filled with glass paste, then fired Millefiori Enamel

9 What might we learn from ceramics ? Techniques – comparable to prehistoric: Handmade (coil-built or ‘pinched’), ‘clamp-fired’ (lower temperatures – softer fabrics: less durable) Composition: ‘tempers’ & ‘inclusions’ Mostly local clays (stream-bank / dug) – but some wider distributions Finish: e.g. ‘grass marked’

10 ‘Grass-Tempered’ Pottery ‘British’: C5-6? Anglo-Saxon: C5+

11 Diet and cooking techniques (vessel forms & food / soot residues) Leisure & social / political networks / identities (food / drink in creating / maintaining social ties & obligations) (p. 13 Booklet) Building technologies (daub / fired clay: walls & ovens)

12 C4+ Ceramic styles C4+: increasingly ‘Roman’ in Cornwall? Hand-made pottery: C5 ‘devolution’ of ‘Roman’ styles & influence of Germanic?? C4+ (across west) samian seems to remain ‘fashionable’ – continued high status associations?

13 Imported ceramics: Mediterranean Amphorae: Late C5-6 North African Red Slipped Ware Biv/ LRA 3 N Afr. c. AD 475-550 Phocean Red Slipped Ware Bii / LRA 1 (Syria)

14 Imported ceramics: Continental ‘D Ware’: C6-7 Bordeux ‘E Ware’: C6-7 Gaulish / Frankish (derivee sigiltee pateochretienne – DSPA)

15 Trade Routes Mediterranean & East to Western Britain: late C5 – mid C6 East to eastern Britain: Late C6-C7+

16 Trading sites Bantham, Devon

17 Mothecombe, Devon

18 Bone, antler, and stone


Download ppt "University of Oxford Department for Continuing Education From Civilisation To Barbarism? Western Britain in the Early Middle Ages Tutor: Dr Kirsten Jarrett."

Similar presentations


Ads by Google