Formative Britain: An Archaeology of Britain, Fifth to Eleventh Century AD

Routledge Archaeology of Northern Europe

by Martin Carver

Formative Britain presents an account of the peoples occupying the island of Britain between 400 and 1100 AD, whose ideas continue to set the political agenda today. Forty years of new archaeological research has laid bare a hive of diverse and disputatious communities of Picts, Scots, Welsh, Cumbrian and Cornish Britons, Northumbrians, Angles and Saxons, who expressed their views of this world and the next in a thousand sites and monuments.

This highly illustrated volume is the first book that attempts to describe the experience of all levels of society over the whole island using archaeology alone. The story is drawn from the clothes, faces and biology of men and women, the images that survive in their poetry, the places they lived, the work they did, the ingenious celebrations of their graves and burial grounds, their decorated stone monuments and their diverse messages.

This ground-breaking account is aimed at students and archaeological researchers at all levels in the academic and commercial sectors. It will also inform relevant stakeholders and general readers alike of how the islands of Britain developed in the early medieval period. Many of the ideas forged in Britain's formative years underpin those of today as the UK seeks to find a consensus programme for its future.

Genres: Medieval, History

736 pages, Hardcover

First published January 12, 2017

About the author

Martin Oswald Hugh Carver, FSA, Hon FSA Scot is Emeritus Professor of Archaeology at the University of York, England, director of the Sutton Hoo Research Project and a leading exponent of new methods in excavation and survey. He specialises in the archaeology of early Medieval Europe. He has an international reputation for his excavations at Sutton Hoo, on behalf of the British Museum and the Society of Antiquaries and at the Pictish monastery at Portmahomack Tarbat, Easter Ross, Scotland. He has undertaken archaeological research in England, Scotland, France, Italy and Algeria.

Reviews

[GRANT · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good overview with a current perspective from the author's own field work including Sutton Hoo and multiple other sources. This is a broad book looking at the whole Island including reference points in Ireland, Scandinavia, and the rest of Europe. Sparse archaeological evidence for early Christianity indicates that it was a much simpler form or post-Roman Britain just left it aside. The author highlights the growth of Northumbrian Monastic religion that didn't appear with its significant monuments until nearly the Eighth Century. Bede got most of his local stuff right and the hint is that he deliberately left out the Britons which is interesting as in Northumbria, the melting pot of Angles and Britons was at work with both groups merging into one. Southeast was more Saxon-dominated and the local Britons disappear earlier. The Welsh didn't leave much physical evidence of Christianity even with hagiography and legends that go earlier. The Maginogion has interesting things to say about the Irish incursions with the Welsh and Y Gododdin is probably an accurate story but less heroic and more juvenile-warrior braggadocio.

Oh, there's a lot more here. And well-illustrated too!

The author's style is engaging and easy to read with some educated background on Britain's convoluted history. I highly recommend the book.

[Riversue · Rating 4 out of 5]

Exhaustive details on the archaeology of the Anglo-Saxon period.

[Julia Ibbotson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting - and of course the early part of this period is my research area which is why I was fascinated by it.