Settlement Patterns and Morphology

Question 1

What does morphology mean here?

Answer 1

Shape on the ground

Question 2

The english landscape didnt see nucleated villages until…

Answer 2

…around the 9th-10thCE

Question 3

What is the most common settlement type excavated so far?

Answer 3

Those comprised of dwellings for 2-3 families (maybe co-heirs, brothers or cousins etc.)

Question 4

Which building types are hard to distinguish between each other?

Answer 4

A lot of high-status secular households and early monasteries

Double-houses eg?

Question 5

What are some difficulties for archaeologists?

Answer 5

• Many EME sites ‘clean’ (few finds exept some pottery and bone)
• Lack of datable finds making dating occupation layers difficult
• Lack of focal point or clear ‘edges’
• Few finds inside means hard to know which were lived in and which were barns and that

Question 6

Where was a common location for EME settlements to be established?

Answer 6

On top of Romano-British farmland

Question 7

What was seen in most parts of post-Roman Britain?

Answer 7

“a marked decline of population at the end of the Roman Period…” (Hamerow)

Question 8

Where was an exception to post-RB decline?

Answer 8

Vale of Pickering - densely populated area 4th-6thCE?

Question 9

Where is an example of re-use and maintenance of RB enclosures?

Answer 9

West Heslerton

Question 10

What is one of the most contentious issues regarding EME settlement pattern?

Answer 10

Who and how much the European mainland was responsible for the distinctive character of EME settlements

Question 11

What are the dimensions of the house in comparison to longhouses on the continent?

Answer 11

Smaller and less complex

Avg 8-10m x 4-5m - no byre or roof-beam supports (walls only)

Question 12

What are the two rare but “distinctively ‘English’” feature of houses in later period? (Hamerow)

Answer 12

1. Double plank construction

2. annexes at the gable ends of buildings

Question 13

What does Hamerow think is the likely explanation for the unique EME building style?

Answer 13

Its likely the “combine impact of migration and acculturation, and changes in the composition and economy of the household”

Not an ethnic thing

Question 14

What were some features of houses common in the 7thCE?

Answer 14

Smaller buildings less than 6m length, 1/3 (found) aligned N-S rather than E-W

Question 15

Why was standardisation only apparent for a small number of 5th-7thCE buildings?

Answer 15

Standardised buildings would have “required access to relatively straight timbers” Hamerow - better timber spenny

Question 16

Where did the Warendorf type house spread?

Answer 16

Across N. Europe and Scandinavia but not EME

Question 17

When were post-in-trench and plank-in-trench foundations used from?

Answer 17

600’s onwards

Question 18

Why was post-in-trench and plank-in-trench building type chosen over the other and vice verse?

Answer 18

Its not clear

Question 19

How might a high-status house be built?

Answer 19

With certain walls more intricate build style (eg stave built) - only seems to be on one or two of the walls

Question 20

What has a recent study suggested as to how building were erected?

Answer 20

Late Saxon -“erected as a series of trusses laid out and preassembled on the ground, then raised and positioned into postholes” Hamerow

Easier (required fewer people until the final stage)

Question 21

What was one method for a foundation trench?

Answer 21

One vertical side and one sloped side (see book) so a prefab wall could slide into the trench

Possibly 7thCE but definitely later

Question 22

How does regional diversity evolve?

Answer 22

A lot of uniformity in the building tradition across much of England from 5th-7thCE - in the later period we see more regional diversity

Question 23

Although few upland buildings can be dated to this period…

Answer 23

…generally made of stone and timber rather than just timber

Probs availability of resources

Question 24

“farmsteads of this period regularly changed location” Hamerow

Answer 24

Yes

Question 25

How might the life-span/’social life’ of a building have manifested?

Answer 25

In a name for it (eg heorot in Beowulf)

Question 26

What appears to be the life-cycle of a building?

Answer 26

Many places abandoned whilst still habitable - not much evidence of repair or renewal in many places

Bruck suggests possibly built after marriage, then dismantled after head of household’s death

Question 27

What is Ribblehead, Yorkshire a significant example of?

Answer 27

Construction like Scandinavian longhouses (with rectangular buildings with stone walls with rubble interior)
But too early to “be the result of Scandinavian settlement” (Hamerow)

Question 28

Where is there evidence of fire being a risk?

Answer 28

Cowdery Down = 7 buildings there burnt down in period

Question 29

How was building location changing in the middle saxon period?

Answer 29

Easier to find evidence of rebuilding, renewal, and building on the exact same spot

Now restricted by land ownership?

Question 30

What does Richard Darrah estimate?

Answer 30

That oak roundwood of diameter 0.2-0.25m would need repairs after 20 years and “major rebuilding” after 40years.

Question 31

What is the most numerous type of EME building to be ID’d archaeologically?

Answer 31

Grubenhauser

Question 32

Describe annexes

Answer 32

• Found from 600’s onwards
• Could only be accessed from inside the building
• This feature restricted to larger buildings
• Feature obscure (maybe hold stuff in)

Question 33

What was a trad in Netherlands and Germany?

Answer 33

Store unthreshed grain in the rafters of houses

Question 34

What was Flixborough?

Answer 34

A rural estate

Question 35

Where was it that Clerics viewed as housing evil spirits by the 7th & 8thCE?

Answer 35

Coastal marshes and fenland

Question 36

In 7th & 8thCE, how did elites gauge their wealth?

Answer 36

“gauged their wealth primarily in terms of potential for cereal production” - Chris Lovelock

Question 37

When do most upland and marshland settlements date from?

Answer 37

7th-8thCE

Question 38

Where was Gosberton? What did it have going on?

Answer 38

In the watery margins of Licolnshire

Had lots going on (Animal Husbandry, barley, smithing, salt production)

Question 39

How might life have differed in coastal areas?

Answer 39

Marginal wetland hard to police so pretty independent

Made decent killing off of produce even after food renders - lots of free peasants in coastal regions

Question 40

What are the causes for migration to marginal land?

Answer 40

Not clear if if it was promotion by estate owners to maximise rent, or “colonisation by free farming lineages” Lovelock

Question 41

Describe social status in coastal areas

Answer 41

Imported goods may not have been such a marker of social status as in inland areas - Lovelock

Question 42

Where had an enclosed farmstead in 8th-9thCE?

Answer 42

Cottam (Yorkshire Wolds)

Question 43

What could settlements be (4)?

Answer 43

• Areas of agricultural consumption
• Specialist manufacturing
• Resource collection
• Consumption

Question 44

What does Lovelock think regarding Ecc and Sec settlement pattern

Answer 44

Thinks cos monasteries made of brick and mortar, they are the first permanent centres on the landscape - may have influenced secular bois to do the same (with more permanent centres)