quote:

Wood was used for high status buildings. Stone for the peasantry.

MJ, perhaps you could explain the situation at West Heslerton for us then?

But I'm sure you'd be happier to give us a history of Trumpton.

best

Harry A

<<I'm old enough to have known both my grandfather and my grandson and to know that the former's mode of speech was very different from the latter's. Is this rate of change entirely exceptional in history (due to the advent of broadcasting and extensive travel)? >>

Silaction, you're measuring two different things. Normally, five generations (and remember that's already getting on for two hundred years) would not change much. We know this from, say, listening to the earliest phonograph records and comparing the language with educated teenagers today.

However, in these highly mobile times, it is certainly quite possible (perhaps you can report back) that your grandfather is speaking a regional dialect and your grandson Received English. The differences could be very marked indeed. But three things:
1. You are listening to the two voices as an English-speaker and picking up myriad subtle distinctions that are not, strictly speaking, 'language'.
2. You are not hearing differences through time but differences through relocation in place, class, education etc.
3. But for all that, your grandfather and your grandson would be able to converse without the least difficulty. They would not be remotely comparable to, say, an Anglo-Saxon trying to converse with a "Middle" English speaker.

<<If it isn't then I have some difficulty believing my 80x gt grandfather would be intelligible to me.>>

Eighty generations represents two to three thousand years, so it is anybody's guess whether you would be able to understand the English of that remoteness. That said, I would claim that you probably would if you and your conversee were prepared to take things slowly.

<<I didn't read Chaucer till I was seventeen and found most of it mighty hard for a few months and pretty easy thereafter. I assume this is because I educated myself into the language by studying the footnotes. This makes me wonder if those of you who find it easy and therefore feel it is not far from modern English are saying so from a position of having taught it to yourselves and are missing the fact that for most lay people it makes little sense.>>

No. Both Ishmael and I have made it clear that we did not take that route. You started from the normal premise that Chaucer is, to some degree, a foreign language and therefore to be approached in the spirit of translation. If you do this it starts off hard but gets easier as you learn this "foreign language".

If you don't bother at all with the meaning but simply look at each word as being modern English mis-spelled then when you've finished transcribing, you are left with an ordinary English poem which happens to have some antique usages. It's just a degree more difficult than, say, Byron's Don Juan:

The wind swept down the Euxine, and the wave
Broke foaming o'er the blue Symplegades

<<Rather than asking those who are familiar with it if it makes sense you should perhaps ask people in the street if THEY can make head or tail of it. And don't tell me, in the words of Vic Feather about something else "they talk of little else in Barnsley, M'lud" because they don't! If you'd have given me Chaucer at aged eleven I'd have said it was double dutch. Aren't kids, not scholars, the best judges of language?>>

But, Silaction, that's exactly what we've done

A sword and buckler bore he by his side
A white coat and a blue hood weared he
A bagpipe well could he blow and sound
And there with all he brought us out of town

That's not a translation of Chaucer, these are Chaucer's ACTUAL WORDS (in modern spelling). Are you honestly saying that Barnsley Man wouldn't be able to understand them? If you are, you'll probably have Harry on your case. He's very protective of Yorkshire sensibilities.

<<Not sure if anyone has gone into the radical effect of incomers on language. A lot of modern teenagers have adopted a form of English borrowed from the West Indies, and they've done so in a flash of time. Hasn't this happened lots of times through history?>>

Of course it has. It happens every year in every playground in Britain. Every subgroup imaginable has its own form of English. Now you tell me, Silaction, when these teenagers and West Indians are middle aged what language will they be speaking? And will they not be able to talk to your grandfather with the greatest of ease? Via a spirit medium if necessary.

Couldn't agree more. It's a mystery.
The academics huff and puff and get cross, but they wont provide illustrations of similar changes occurring elsewhere. I've asked a couple of times on this site and all you get is vague references to Arabic or Slavic.
Despite Bede, and at the risk of being labelled a Nazi, I'm still with MJH and the other Applied Epistelmologists on this.

<Actually, I didn't. I clearly used the words pre-Roman. YOU assumed that means Celts.>>

You didn't mention Celts and nor did I. We were merely disagreeinga about whether the pre-Roman population of lowland Britain lived in scattered two-to-three-house hanlets or pukka full-blown villages. Whatever language they spoke, there's verly little trace of where they lived...according to present assumptions.

<<Your initial reference was to the historical pattern of Celtic settlement, which I took to mean the 'crofting' settlemnt pattern of the Higlands Islands and western Britain.>>

And so I was.

<<If we are indeed dealing with pre Roman Britain then you do have settlement heirarchies and nucleated settlements in the form of the things called oppida and the things called hillforts.>>

I don't doubt it. But there are still 10-20,000 villages to account for where yer actual people lived.

<<I think the problem here lies in the definition of intensive farming - in my world a family can intensively farm an area. I would no way equate intensive farming with the need for villages. Roman vlla estates manage to farm quite intensively without the need for villages. >>

I am afraid you are no agrnomist then...a fault you share with all early historians and archaeologists. You cannot have a grain exporting area (as Iron Age Britain was) or be a major civilised province (as Roman Britain was) without having 'intensive agriculture' which in the pre-very-modern era means really substantial populations. That means villages.

Sorry, old chap, but there's no getting round it. Of course since villages in England are held by early historians and archaeologists to be Saxon inventions (pretty remarkable in itself if you think about it) everybody vaguely draws a veil over this unavoidable fact. So I ask the question again that you have skipped over,"Where were all the people that were working the Roman estates living? Why do we never find much domestic housing on the estate itself but we do always find a village just down the road?"

<<Modern English villages have 2 key institutions at the heart of them - the manor and the church. One of these simply has no relevance to the pre-Roman period, and there is no evidence that I know of to indicate that the other was a meaningful concept before the Saxon period. How do you explain that?>>

What's there to explain? All villages have the infrastructure relevant to their time. You might as well ask, "Where's the village pub?" Or the cricket green. Or the mill house. If you are claiming specifically that the village is built round the church and the church is a specifically post-Roman addition I refer you to the fact that as far as we can tell old churches are usually built on pre-Roman sacred sites. Which I would think rather clinches my case.

<<Re-read my post. I'm sure I said we find plenty of them. That means lots. Now if each settlement contains an extended family of say 20 people, then all you need is 10,000 such settlements to rech your magic 2 million.>>

You are getting delirious, dear boy. In the first place we woud only reach 200,000 on your figures. To reach two million we would need 100,000 of your precious settlements. Pray, tell me how many we have found in lowland Britain. If it's more than fifty I will eat your trowel.

As to the rest, I entirely agree. We rely on the archaeologists every bit as much as you do, and until they get their paradigms straight we will continue to have to shrug our shoulders. In our business you can only point out the anomalies, demonstrate that the current picture makes no sense and hope that one day some archaeologists will appear that will take a radical look at their entire chronology. (Or whatever paradigm error they are committing ...it may be pottery styles...it may the stone building error... it'll be something simple but very basic on which all else stands.)

quote:

Originally posted by Caedbaed:
The academics huff and puff and get cross, but they wont provide illustrations of similar changes occurring elsewhere. I've asked a couple of times on this site and all you get is vague references to Arabic or Slavic.

What you actually got was a suggestion that (and where) you can look it up for yourself BEFORE deciding there are no parallels or that this is a "mystery". This you have not done, wanting it presented to you on a plate presumably cut into bite-sized pieces. Several of us have given many potentially useful pointers to where the "revisionist" arguments clearly fall down, where more information can be sought. All have been ignored or churlishly dismissed, which is hardly behaviour likely to induce us to make much of an effort to provide any more. You will forgive us then not to be rushing to spend the next couple of weeks arguing our case in another 25 Time Team -unrelated pages against people who cannot be bothered to check their facts before their puerile attempts to demolish whatever is said just for the sake of it who demonstrate they actually have no substantial knowledge of what they are talking about - see Harper's attempts at epistemologically deconstructing archaeology above. (I suspect that we have here some ideas born of reading some 1930s textbooks bought for 50p in a car boot sale, Alfred Watkins possibly among them, he was arguing for the same sort of continuity in siting of settlements and other features over the millennia back in the 1920s.)

quote:

Originally posted by M J Harper:
Eighty generations represents two to three thousand years, so it is anybody's guess whether you would be able to understand the English of that remoteness.

Well, as a man in the street I tested myself with this - http://www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/changlang/activities/...er/chaucerpage1.html
On the reading test, with the aid of some guessing I scored maybe 90 - 95% comprehension, as you predicted, but on the oral one it went down to about 75%. But of course, that goes back less than a third of the way to pre-Roman times.

Silaction, I think you've slightly grasped the wrong end of the stick. All we are saying is that "Modern" English goes back as far as records begin, which is the fourteenth century. As you have confirmed, it is English bar the shouting.

We don't know what happened to English before then because we have no records but it is hardly likely to alter by 5-10% (your figure) in the seven hundred years going back to Chaucer and then virtually 100% in the next seven hundred years to when the Anglo-Saxons are supposed to have brought it over here. (Never mind that it's actually only two hundred or so years if we take the Anglo-Saxons own word for what they were speaking in 1100).

PMB, you're not really very good at this name-calling lark, are you? So now I'm a ley-line fanatic. And all because I observed that old churches tend to be sited on already sacred places. I'm a bit surprised you didn't know this...it's a commonplace amongst archaeologists and pre-historians generally though clearly not linguists. But never mind, old chap, have a look at the Black Madonna sites in the Tatra/Carpathians...that should get you started.

quote:

We don't know what happened to English before then because we have no records but it is hardly likely to alter by 5-10% (your figure) in the seven hundred years going back to Chaucer and then virtually 100% in the next seven hundred years to when the Anglo-Saxons are supposed to have brought it over here.

I was actually focussing on the implications of the oral test. Projecting my result back a further 700 years proportionately would result in a comprehension level of less than 50% wouldn't it?

I find that quite believable. You should visit some parts of Dudlay, where the English is said to be somewhat Chaucerian, but I'd say pre-Chaucerian. Its certainly less than 75% comprehensible to me...

<<Yet again you are arguing from a position of ignorance. Who says we have found no workers buildings? Cite me references.>>

Come on, Aardvaak, don't be daft. You've been in this business quite long enough to have followed a dozen villa digs. They are all of a pattern and none of them have workers houses. I mean "houses"...you know where people live... with hearths...and domestic refuse...bejaysus, there hard to miss.

<<Most villas have large outbuildings, many of which would have been suitable for housing estate workers,>>

Dear God, man, are you being serious? And they all troop up to the big house for din dins? I have never in all my born days heard of such an arrangment. Agricultural workers live in houses...always have, always will. And if you find a whole stash of 'tied cottages' on a Roman villa estate...perhaps you can cite me a reference since it's you that's proposing something quite unheard of.

And yes, there are always a large number of outbuildings on a farm...or did you think they stored animals, crops and equipment in the master bedroom?

<<whilst in some cases - such as the EH excavations at Stanwick or the recent excavations at Stansted, settlements built specifically for estate workers have been excavated. The 'English village doen the road' argument is spurious. How many places in Britain would this not apply to, regardless of the presence or absence of a Roman villa?>>

Look, every estate has estate workers. That's a given. Sometimes they live in, sometimes they live out. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about the agricultural population needed to feed two million people and provide exports by the boatload to other parts of the Empire. A lot of that food was grown on villa estates and that means one helluavalot of workers. And archaeology can't say where they were all living.

<<Usually? I can think of a few (genuinely a handful) where you can demonstrate that a church has been built on an earlier sacred site. I know of no-one who would claim that the majority are. Again, cite your sources.>>

Well, we both know this is an area of the keenest debate so let's just say you think a few, I think a lot. Actually I think "practically all" but that's more a personal thing (between you and me, PMB had a point, I am ever so slightlyon the freaky wing when it comes to the Ancient Brits).

But it is not, after all, a central question because a church can be added to a village when it goes Christian. Nonetheless I stick to my guns on this question.

On the matter of density, I am sure your statements are correct but it's all incredibly anecdotal. You know perfectly well that if you plot all the known settlements nationwide they wouldn't add up to (relatively speaking) a row of beans. Two million people, however they lived, leave a lot of evidence and archaeology is simply not taking on board that what it's found does not even nearly meet the case. You know this in your bones.

On the question of basic dating paradigm errors, I have not hitherto gone into it much personally. You have to remember that all this stuff is irrelevant to the argument put forward in The History Of Britain Revealed since it doesn't matter who was living how. For all I know all the English-speakers were living in scattered hamlets as you say.

Nevertheless, as an Applied Epistemologist and trying to meet PMB's plangent cries, I thought I'd open up some new channels. Bear this in mind while I wrestle with your comments.

<<Sites are predominantly dated by the presence or absence of material culture associated with particular timescales. You claim, purely it would seem on the basis that they have English sounding names, that English villages must date back thousands of years, to before the Roman conquest. >>

No, the other way around. Orthodoxy claims they must be of late origin because they believe the language to be of late origin. The new language paradigm opens up the possibility of these same villages being of ancient origin.

<<When asked why substantial quantities of Iron Age and Roman waste material do not consistetly turn up in these villages, you merely mutter about paradigm error, clope your shoulders and scuttle off.>>

Yes, that's perfectly true. However it's my experience that by posing the question (because it is never posed) interesting answers may be forthcoming. Let's see what this thread throws up...you'll be surprised what creeps out of the woodwork when a lot of people are thinking about something for the first time. You could even help out yourself even if it might seem at first like you're shooting yourself in the foot. Aren't you a teensy bit bored with being orthodox?

<<Even if you had a point regarding prehistoric chronologies, i think even you must accept that Roman material is both easy to recognise and relatively well dated (even if we ignore all the shiny red pottery, all those coins are really hard to discredit). So why then, if modern villages were present in the Roman period, do we not find substantial quantities of Roman potttery and coins in them?>>

Of course a critical question...the critical question. But this is where the paradigm operates to skew conclusions. We frequently find sites where there is Iron Age material in association with Roman material AND in association with a 'modern' village. But because it is assumed that the village is post-Roman, the village gets defined as being where the Iron Age deposits aren't. If you see what I mean. And this is all added to the fact that modern villages are the one area of the British countryside that typically large scale digs do not take place. Though this is being steadily rectified.

Remember, you can't use stratigraphy with this question because the Iron Age stuff is a priori being defined as non-village. Even where you find it directly underlying Saxon material, the conclusion would be that the either the Saxons re-occupied the site or they built on an existing Romano-British "hamlet. No respectable archaeologist would say, "Hey, look, a pre-Roman village with continuous occupation."

<<Finally a plea. If you wish to make sweeping generalisations about what archaeology does and doesn't tell us, please go out and buy a general archaeology of Britain book. >>

Please don't say things like this. We're always being told we don't know what the orthodox position is simply because we disagree with it. As Applied Epistemologists we have to study the orthodox material. I did after all write a whole book on it, and I know many of colleagues are really quite up-to-speed. I'll be happy to continue on a basis of mutual self-esteem.

And sweeping statements are our stock-in-trade. You'll get used to it. Eventually. Possibly.

quote:

Originally posted by M J Harper:
it's my experience that by posing the question (because it is never posed) interesting answers may be forthcoming. Let's see what this thread throws up...you'll be surprised what creeps out of the woodwork when a lot of people are thinking about something for the first time.

Hmm. Well it depends on what basis the question is posed. I'm more inclined to the "shifting sands" interpretation of Ardvaark here, and repeat his plea that you get a decent book on archaeology and read it up before you start pretending to apply epistemology to its methods and conclusions, about which clearly you know next to nothing. "Sweeping statements" mean absolutely nothing when made by the uninformed.

As for "when a lot of people are thinking about something for the first time", I've said what I think about the "originality" of the ideas produced by these Revisionists.....

quote:

Originally posted by M J Harper:
PMB, you're not really very good at this name-calling lark, are you? [...] I observed that old churches tend to be sited on already sacred places. I'm a bit surprised you didn't know this...it's a commonplace amongst archaeologists and pre-historians generally though clearly not linguists. But never mind, old chap, have a look at the Black Madonna sites in the Tatra/Carpathians...that should get you started.

Well first of all I called nobody names. What I was saying is that the idea that "prehistoric villages" underlie modern ones which is "why we cant see them" is hardly anything new, it goes back to the 1920s at least. And the evidence supporting that assertion is as poor now as it was eighty years ago - despite all the landscape archaeology work that has been done since.


That old churches "tend to be sited on already sacred places" is far from a "commonplace amongst archaeologists and pre-historians generally". In fact of course prehistorians don't commonly study the locations of old churches, which in itself should show the fallacy of your glib statement. The number of churches where this can be proven or even reasonably surmised is far in the minority when compared with those where there is no such evidence (apart from vague New Agey speculation which is not enough to make this idea a "commonplace amongst archaeologists and pre-historians generally".)

As for the "Carpathians" I have not the foggiest idea what you are trying to say. The Black Madonna shrine is in Czestochowa which is not by any stretch of the imagination in the Carpathians, still less Tatras - which were mortly uninhabited wasteland until settled from the 13th century onwards, so there is little chance of settlement continuity with "pre-Roman" sites there. In any case any mountain valley (nota bene) chapel dedicated to the BLACK Madonna is going to be post 17th century for it was then that the Czestochowa Icon received its current status. So there actually is nothing to "start" with. This is just another pathetic attempt to change the subject when the weakness of your basic paradigm is revealed to be laughably inadequate. And now I expect you will seize on this to try to start another ten page discussion attempting to show I don't know my Tatras.

Where did Roman villa estate workers live? See the Gadebridge Herts report, where the excated evidence shows they did indeed occupy the aisled building there. Then there's the Little Oakley villa, Essex (published by me yonks ago as an EAA monograph) which had evidence of a number of timber buildings with occupation debris both in the near vicinity of the villa building itself and our fieldwalking and that of an amateur group recovered evidence of another two settlements within shouting distance. The same appears at a number of villas in the same areas such as St Osyths where the villas were excavated in the 19th century and the adjacent settlements a decade or two ago in advance of gravel quarrying. There really is NO LACK of evidence for rural settlement in the Roman period - or indeed the previous Iron Age as Ardvark has shown. And quite clearly the cases when it occurs away from the site of modern villages are far more numerous than the opposite, if MJH and his sidekicks were right, the ratio would be reversed. Coming back to the Roman villa estate workers, there is also an idea that (as in recent central Europe) workers would be brought in temporarily from surrounding areas for busy periods, and at other times they engaged in other activities, such as salt-making in Essex. That of course would be the context of them being accomodated temporarily in villa outbuildings, as the central European workers were. MJH's argument about "intensive farming" omits any mention of tributary networks, which was the means by which the elite of central and northern Europe acquired very sizable agricultural surpluses for exchange. Again, doing a bit of reading first would not go amiss.

Caedbaed was bemoaning the fact that some of us were not spending the time teaching him the things he needs to know to take part in a discussion here. But I really think if non-archaeologists want to use an archaeology discussion forum to basically trash a century or so's archaeological research, it really behoves the wreckers to try and find out more of what they are talking about before they pronounce something a "mystery" which only they are priviledged enough to hold the key which "reveals the shocking truth". That is not "name calling" Mr Harper, it's an observation.

This is a section of Chaucer, rendered exclusively in the Latin alphabet. It is followed by the same passage, re-spelled according to standard by one of Mick's afore-mentioned colleagues.

================

1: Whan that aprill with his shoures soote
2: The droghte of march hath perced to the roote,
3: And bathed every veyne in swich licour
4: Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
5: Whan zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
6: Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
7: Tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
8: Hath in the ram his halve cours yronne,
9: And smale foweles maken melodye,
10: That slepen al the nyght with open ye
11: (so priketh hem nature in hir corages);
12: Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,
13: And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,
14: To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
15: And specially from every shires ende
16: Of engelond to caunterbury they wende,
17: The hooly blisful martir for to seke,
18: That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke.

And now, the re-spellinged...

1: When that April with his showers suit
2: The drought of March has pierced to the root,
3: And bathed every vein in such liquor
4: Of which virtue engendered is the flower;
5: When Zephirus eke with his sweet breath
6: Inspired has in every holt and heath
7: Tender crops, and the young Sun
8: Has in the Ram his half course run,
9: And small fowls make melody,
10: That sleep all the night with open eye
11: (so pricks them Nature in their courages);
12: Then long folk to going on pilgrimages,
13: And palmers for to seek strange strands,
14: To foreign halls, known in sundry lands;
15: And specially from every shire's end
16: Of England to Canterbury they wend,
17: The holy blissful martyr for to seek,
18: That them has helped when that they were sick.

Finally....here is a "Translation" of the same passage from a scholarly source.

1: When April with his showers sweet with fruit
2: The drought of March has pierced unto the root
3: And bathed each vein with liquor that has power
4: To generate therein and sire the flower;
5: When Zephyr also has, with his sweet breath,
6: Quickened again, in every holt and heath,
7: The tender shoots and buds, and the young sun
8: Into the Ram one half his course has run,
9: And many little birds make melody
10: That sleep through all the night with open eye
11: (So Nature pricks them on to ramp and rage)-
12: Then do folk long to go on pilgrimage,
13: And palmers to go seeking out strange strands,
14: To distant shrines well known in sundry lands.
15: And specially from every shire's end
16: Of England they to Canterbury wend,
17: The holy blessed martyr there to seek
18: Who helped them when they lay so ill and weal

Only one line in this "translation" is faithful to the original! For what purpose the distortion? And this is entirely typical I am afraid. Sad.

quote:

Originally posted by 1shmael:
Finally....here is a "Translation" of the same passage from a scholarly source[...] Only one line in this "translation" is faithful to the original! For what purpose the distortion? And this is entirely typical I am afraid. Sad.

Your idea of what is a "scholarly" source is somewhat distorted; this version of Chaucer is rendered in verse for literary, not SCHOLARLY, purposes.

"Typical" of these it cannot be
as ennye fule here ken qwikly see
Tho' like word-stubborne Ishmael,
fuole revisionists rant and reyle
on Literature discussion bent.
But, its time here long spente
Oure topick Chaucerian no longer be,
now talkst we o'archeologie.

You're really getting into the swing of things, PMB. Cheers for the Black Madonna stuff. This was because of all the Mary Magdalan stuff being reported in France and we needed to know whether it was a Europe-wide phenomenon or not. Clearly not. (Whether it is France-wide or even exists at all in any meaningful sense is something we can now concentrate on.)

You might clear up another mystery while you are in a good mood. One of the arguments I used in support of the idea that Latin was originally a commercial shorthand was that "it was unique among European languages in having a vocative case ("Dear Brutus, thank you for etc etc"). When my Polish girlfriend was reading the manuscript she cried out, as only Poles can, "But Polish has a vocative case!" So I altered the sentence to read "...among Western European languages."

This will tell you everything you need to know about my working methods but can you confirm whether it is actually true? And if so, is it true of all the Slavic languages.

A really excellent poem...but not really to the point. This thread is now officially "The Grab Bag" and all are invited to contribute whatever they think has a bearing on, as the title possibly suggests, whether English was spoken in Pre-Roman Britain or not. Could be re-spelling Chaucer... could be Roman villa middens ...it needs a multi-disciplinary attack.

quote:

Only one line in this "translation" is faithful to the original! For what purpose the distortion? And this is entirely typical I am afraid.

Why do you say it is typical Ishmael? It's odd yes, but a typical distortion?

First translation I picked up:

"When the sweet showers of April fall and shoot"

best

HA

MJ, where do your slaves live, your village or the villa?

best

Harry A

Excellent question, Harry. Let me begin to answer it indirectly by taking up the question of "knowing the literature" and especially whether we, Applied Epistemologists, do or do not.

Suppose I read EVERY peer-reviewed piece of research on pre-Roman and Roman agricultural habitments in lowland Britain. Would I be any further forward? No. I would still be left with the overwhelming impression that what is reported bears no relation (in estimated numbers) to the overall population.

However, I would also still be left with the question, "Does this shortfall arise because of the necessarily haphazard and partial nature of archaeological research, or is it because the "village theory" is leading them astray?"

In an ideal word, archaeology would employ statisticians and by using (probably) epidemiological methodology they might begin to come up with an answer. But archaeology doesn't do that...it merely sends people out into the field to dig up more evidence that will forever remain anecdotal in the wider scheme of things.

Now let's turn specifically to Harry's question. Do we find Roman villa sites with no apparent labour force dwellings? Answer, yes. Do we find Roman villa sites with some labour force dwellings? Answer, yes. Have we found a Roman villa site which unambiguously has labour force dwellings commensurate with (let's call it) a plantation economy? Answer, no.

I therefore conclude, in a preliminary sort of way, that the Romans operated the same system that is found all over Europe in fully documented historial times and which is overwhelmingly the most efficient when yields are typically of the order one-to-three (as opposed to the one-to-twenty attainable in modern agribusiness) and when output-per-worker is low (again, unavoidable beofre modern farm machinery):

The ruling elite live in Big Houses and have very extensive agricultural estates that are worked 'for the corn trade' and the labour is supplied by the peasantry who live in nearby villages and who have their own self-sufficient land.

If anyone here can point to anything in the literature that contradicts this picture (whether archaeological or from written records) I'd be interested to hear about it.

quote:

Originally posted by M J Harper:
Cheers for the Black Madonna stuff. This was because of all the Mary Magdalan stuff being reported in France and we needed to know whether it was a Europe-wide phenomenon or not

Who "needs to know"? Get your girlfriend to explain the difference between Mary the Magdalene and Mary the Black Madonna Queen of Poland and Mary of Nazareth, mother of Jesus. Actually the point (you seemed to be making) was something about continuity of settlement sites and sacral sites. I fail to see any connections with Mary Magdalene whatsoever. Perhaps Dan Brown is among the Revisionists' "scholarly sources" too?

No, Latin is NOT by any means "unique" in having a vocative case in "western european languages" (!!). Missing out a whole large chunk of the European languages where the vocative certainly is strongly manifested is another bit of your special pleading. (Yes I do know where, but I really dont see why I should be saving you time from doing your OWN research for your book.)

A "grab bag" on an internet forum is not the same as multidiscilinarity. Don't kid yourself.

quote:

Originally posted by M J Harper:
In an ideal word, archaeology would employ statisticians and by using (probably) epidemiological methodology they might begin to come up with an answer. But archaeology doesn't do that...it merely sends people out into the field to dig up more evidence that will forever remain anecdotal in the wider scheme of things

And you have never seen any statistical work used in archaeological studies of Roman (or any other) settlement pattern, or the results of palaeodemographic modelling? I rest my case. Get a recent book or two (not 1950s ones from a car boot sale), read up on it and then pronounce your "sweeping statements" about "what archaeologists do" masquerading as "multidisciplinarity" and "epistemology". Until you do, its just foundationless and misleading nonsense you are spouting. Like your false and unchecked pronouncements on which languages have and have not a vocative case....