quote:

1. We have plenty of evidence for rank and file dwellings given the number of areas which have been investigated archaeologically.

Again, you appear not to understand the role of your model in this assessment of the current state of the evidence. No one is disputing that the evidence so far is consistent with your model; or that you have plenty of evidence to satisfy your model.

But that does not prove your model correct (any more than any deduction proves a premise) or your sample representative.

quote:

There are numerous reasons for Tells being so substantial, just one of which is that the use of mud bricks, which when they degrade, turn back to mud....

Many Time Team viewers know that, but (I'll wager) few know why tells should be adduced here in relation to the English countryside.

quote:

There are some areas where we do have deep stratigraphy - where Roman towns have been re-occupied in the medieval period and continue in use today - London, Colchester, Chichester, Chester, etc. I know of no excavations in villages (and there have been plenty) which have encountered similar stratification

You just said "deposits do not form uniformly over time", so how come these are necessarily comparable now? Where the key question is what is erasable by what, Roman cities and sleepy villages seem to make an uneasy comparison.

quote:

...having had it explained to him...

'Explained' is a bit strong, as the discussion itself shows...

quote:

that settlements do not and cannot completely erase evidence of earlier settlements completely,

Be fair: it only has to become unrecognisable for it to be... well... unrecognisable. But how do you know evidence can not be erased? Because no evidence of erased evidence has ever been found? Or because the mechanics of living on the same spot in England for thousands of years has been reproduced?

quote:

he was asked to provide positive evidence to support his (and your) contention that modern villages have Iron Age and Roman origins

I told you outright that I have none: I'm asking the question. I also told you outright that it doesn't matter very much and we could leave the matter behind.

quote:

He clearly cannot provide such evidence.

Why would I? As I said: I do not even assert that it is true!

quote:

With nowhere else to go, he resorted to talking about the incompleteness of datasets. Pathetic.

Just now, that was the very cornerstone of the profession. Forgive me for having trouble keeping up...

---

quote:

the entirely spurious assumption that 'things don't change very much'.

Just as an aside, aardvark, do you think the UK domestic mains electricity supply changes very much?

quote:

Originally posted by M J Harper:
I am admonished. Let me see, finally, if I have understood the orthodox archaeological position correctly:
1. Roman cities that "have been re-occupied in the medieval period and continue in use today" (say, 1500 years of occupation) form tells
2. Anglo-Saxon villages still in use today (say, 1500 years of occupation) don't.

No

The former contain deeply stratified archaeological deposits. the latter do not. Tells do not occur in britain - they are a v specific site type, common in the eastern Mediterranean

quote:

Originally posted by Innocent Bystander:

quote:

I have been saying this for ages.

Forgive me for missing your point, aardvark, but how does

quote:

The Iron Age pottery we find, on both low status and high status sites is very well fired and lasts for a long time.

answer the question of whether there is so much surviving Iron Age pot that there is 'no room' for people to have had badly made pots as well? And how does

quote:

If they also used v poorly fired pots, we have no evidence for it.

contradict "for all we know, they had bad pots that have left no evidence"?

For the last time on the pottery thing. We find well made hard fired pottery on both low and high status settlements. The absence of the 'bad' pottery you are obsessing about, or wooden or other organic containers, which we know they used, does not detract from that. Neither does it reflect on our ability to recognise or date Iron Age settlements.

As for the rest of it, go off and read some books

quote:

Originally posted by Innocent Bystander:

quote:

1. We have plenty of evidence for rank and file dwellings given the number of areas which have been investigated archaeologically.

Again, you appear not to understand the role of your model in this assessment of the current state of the evidence. No one is disputing that the evidence so far is consistent with your model; or that you have plenty of evidence to satisfy your model.

But that does not prove your model correct (any more than any deduction proves a premise) or your sample representative.

Yet you (and Mr Harper) are advancing a model without an evidential base. I ask again. If modern villages were occupied in pre-Roman or Roman times, why do we not find material evidence consistent with this? We seem quite good at identifying sites of that date everywhere else in the country - why is it just villages that cause this problem?

Well, Aardvaak, strictly speaking it's not our job to advance models with or without evidential bases. We just point out anomalies in established evidence which those too close to the matter are prone to overlook. Though I agree, as in this case, the anomalies point to a new model but then we are hogtied because, sort of by definition, evidence for the new model is scarce simply because practitioners have hitherto either not been looking for it or have been mislabelling it when they do.

For instance, it would now appear that you agree that Roman-origin cities in Britain have detailed, stratigraphied and deep 1500-year long archaeologies whereas Anglo-Saxon origin villages do not.

Now I am sure you can think of reasons for this disparity (so can I) but the point is that we tend to notice these apparent anomalies (because it's our professional business to do so) whereas you don't (because it's not your professional business to do so). If you (all) would not be so defensively hostile you might recognise that we have a useful role when giving your subject its annual audit.

quote:

Originally posted by M J Harper:
Well, Aardvaak, strictly speaking it's not our job to advance models with or without evidential bases. We just point out anomalies in established evidence which those too close to the matter are prone to overlook. Though I agree, as in this case, the anomalies point to a new model but then we are hogtied because, sort of by definition, evidence for the new model is scarce simply because practitioners have hitherto either not been looking for it or have been mislabelling it when they do.

For instance, it would now appear that you agree that Roman-origin cities in Britain have detailed, stratigraphied and deep 1500-year long archaeologies whereas Anglo-Saxon origin villages do not.

Now I am sure you can think of reasons for this disparity (so can I) but the point is that we tend to notice these apparent anomalies (because it's our professional business to do so) whereas you don't (because it's not your professional business to do so). If you (all) would not be so defensively hostile you might recognise that we have a useful role when giving your subject its annual audit.

No offence Mr Harper, but if the sole outcome of your wisdom is that I now know that there is deep stratification in towns and cities which were first built in the Roman period, and then occupied more or less continuously since the Late Saxon period, but that similar stratification does not occur in villages, then you have told me nothing I did not alreasy know.

We have already discussed the fact that stratigraphy does not form at a uniform rate.

Where is the great mystery.

What I am interested in is the anomaly whereby someone who professes to be relatively intelligent believes it is useful to present models about archaeology without bothering to examine the evidence in the first place. Please explain what evidence there is to support your contention that modern viillages have Iron Age and Roman origins. What is this evidence that we are mislabelling? as ffor not looking for evidence, that is not how archaeology works. We do not sit around reading tomes of archaeological orthodoxy and thinking 'right, which model should I go and examine today' then set off and dig sites to prove the current orthodoxy. We excavate sites, often at random, and interpret and publish what we found. Many of us would tae great delight if we could prove your case, but we cannot - not for a lack of digging holes in the right places, but for the lack of evidence to support your case when we do.

quote:

That's 50 metres in about 10,000 years. Does that mean the Anglo-Saxon origins of English villages 1500 years ago can be found 7 or 8 metres down? (Or rather, that all villages can be found 7 or 8 metres up?)

If only you knew about what you were talking .. I don't mean that in the way of a person who knows not about deposition but is asking questions to find out... but more in the way that you can't argue a solid case for a theory if you don't actually know what you are talking about...

It would be like me arguing that atoms were made of cheese with nuclear physicists - not so much challenging there views but making a fool of myself.

I am not saying you are making a fool of yourself.. I am however saying that if you are going to argue a point...then you better know what you are talking about...

Perhaps one day I might find the lost Tell Luton..

Most people ask me why archaeology is buried.. why it is deeper in towns and shallow in countryside.. these are valid questions.. but like so many of this thread.. they are questions that should not need to be asked by you, if you have come up with a solid theory.. you can't stand there like a child and keep asking... but why.... but why... and have to be patiently explained why... before dropping that subject (that erodes your own beliefs) and move on to another 'but why?'

quote:

2. we have "tells" that are tens of metres thick elsewhere in the world but none in Britain

Save me from this howl at the moon stuff...

ps... for the record.. you will find that Tells rely on mubbrick architecture to grow.. each mudbrick house built on top of the next... You might find it difficult to build mudbrick in Britain.. (a wild guess... but high rainfall is not known for allowing mud to stay up too long)

quote:

Applied Epistemology would put these together and try to come up with, we might call it, a unified anomaly and get down to work. Archaeology does not recognise either as problems in the first place.

thats the problem... you would start a theory from a lack of understanding... archaeology is evidence based.. and is able to evolve with new evidence..

Applied Epistys seem to not have to bother with anything other than making wild unprovable, silly theories...



one last question... Do you really really believe what you type? And do you carry out research in places other than the internet?

<<then you have told me nothing I did not alreasy know. >>

No offence, Aardy, but you didn't actually "know" that. This is something we come across time and time again in our work (and in all subjects, archaeologists are not specially prone to it). Whenever we point out some anomaly or other, people hardly ever say, "Cheers, mate, it's probably nothing but we'll got on to it right away. Best clear it up pronto." They always say, "That's so obvious we knew it all the time."

Of course you did. So perhaps you can let me have the reference to the monograph "Reasons why English villages differ from cities in the depth of their stratigraphy".

quote:

Originally posted by M J Harper:
<<then you have told me nothing I did not alreasy know. >>

No offence, Aardy, but you didn't actually "know" that. This is something we come across time and time again in our work (and in all subjects, archaeologists are not specially prone to it). Whenever we point out some anomaly or other, people hardly ever say, "Cheers, mate, it's probably nothing but we'll got on to it right away. Best clear it up pronto." They always say, "That's so obvious we knew it all the time."

Of course you did. So perhaps you can let me have the reference to the monograph "Reasons why English villages differ from cities in the depth of their stratigraphy".

Please don't patronise me. you are just making yourself look even more daft. There is a whole subdiscipline of archaeology which deals with site formation processes, called Geoarchaeology. Yet again I can only plead with you to go away and do some more reading

You could start with:

French, C, 2002, Geoarchaeology in Action: Studies in soil micromorphology and landscape evolution

Limbrey, S, 1975, Soil Science and Archaeology

Nash, D, T ad Petraglia, 1987, M. Natural Formation Processes and the Archaeological Record (British Archaeological Reports, 1987)

but pretty much any half decent Geoarchaeological textbook should cover it. If you are interested, Charley french's book also deals wwith a tell site

Or you could look at the proceedings of any of the Interpreting Stratigraphy conferences held regularly - at least 2 of the articles in the 1992 publication deal with differences between 'urban' and 'rural'. I could go on, but there's no chance that you will bother, so i don't see why I should.

Now then, perhaps its time you answered the question I have asked you several times and you have consistently refused to answer.

Please explain what evidence there is to support your contention that modern viillages have Iron Age and Roman origins. And why have we not found material evidence for Iron Age and Roman activity in modern villages?

quote:

Please explain what evidence there is to support your contention that modern viillages have Iron Age and Roman origins. And why have we not found material evidence for Iron Age and Roman activity in modern villages?

you forget aardvark.... they don't need to.

As to using the Internet as the only source of research... You can find anything from detailed and well researched analysis.. all the way to outlandish theories...... hmmmmm like this one

Sorry, Aardy, but I'll have to carry on patronising if you insist on ignoring what I am saying. I merely said that you didn't "know" that Roman cities had different "tell" depths than English villages. There's absolutely no reason why you should of course. Just part of the service.

quote:

Originally posted by M J Harper:
Sorry, Aardy, but I'll have to carry on patronising if you insist on ignoring what I am saying. I merely said that you didn't "know" that Roman cities had different "tell" depths than English villages. There's absolutely no reason why you should of course. Just part of the service.

My goodness, I bet after you've posted to a forum like this where you cannot edit your posts you have sleepless nights worrying about whether you don't come over just a teensy-weensy bit like an utterly pompous
self-satisfied but daft ass with statements like that...

My guess is that Aardvark actually DOES know the difference between the sort of stratigraphic record one gets in towns and villages. Its a shame that self-appointed "epistemologists" (are you really "professional epistemologists"? It does not look like it I must say) seem to have no idea about the existence of such a concept in the archaeological literature and practice. But then if you don't, you can hardly claim even tongue-in-cheek to be doing any kind of recognisable "epistemology" of archaeology.

quote:

Originally posted by M J Harper:
So perhaps you can let me have the reference to the monograph "Reasons why English villages differ from cities in the depth of their stratigraphy".

Well, I hardly think its worth a monograph any more than "why my English trousers don't fall down when I put my belt on". The concept is well-enough known and of course explored in the literature which you can't once again be bothered to check before announcing something as "our epistemology's big contribution".

We could start off with Droop's exposition of how to excavate sites from 1915 which starts off with saying why tell sites are built up, then there's Wheeler's classic exposition "Archaeology from the Earth" of 1956 with its separate sections on how to excavate town and shallowly -stratified sites like villages and cemeteries. Rather suggests that even that far back the difference between them was clear to everyone and needed no introduction as some novel "discovery" of the Internet Age. I bet you could find the same in the works of Petrie, but I don't suppose you'd look. Then there is Barker and Webster and all the rest of those authors you cannot cope with because they are not ON the Internet where you seem to surf for your ideas. As Aardvark has pointed out there are whole books on site formation processes, from several different (at least three I can think of) points of view, so the fact that towns have different stratification from other site types is hardly likely to be something that has escaped notice until some megalomaniac revisionist 'untutored savant' announces the news of his great "beneficial discovery".

quote:

Originally posted by M J Harper:
Sorry, Aardy, but I'll have to carry on patronising if you insist on ignoring what I am saying. I merely said that you didn't "know" that Roman cities had different "tell" depths than English villages. There's absolutely no reason why you should of course. Just part of the service.

Ooh how clever. To take a fact I told you, claim it as your own and then try and sell it back to me as a great new discovery! Feeble.

Now, please explain what evidence there is to support your contention that modern viillages have Iron Age and Roman origins. And why have we not found material evidence for Iron Age and Roman activity in modern villages?

Mr Harper, would you mind explaining your fundamental position in a way which even I can understand?

You say

quote:

But how do you know evidence can not be erased? Because no evidence of erased evidence has ever been found?

In the case of pre-Roman roads, Aardvark has already illustrated how vanishingly unlikely it is that all evidence of all the elements of pre-existing straight roads would have been destroyed by the Romans (evidence #1)and I have pointed out that no evidence of straight roads has been found away from the Roman ones (evidence #2).

You don't appear to have suggested any viable reason why those two facts shouldn't point to an extremely high probability and instead opt to propose an alternative possibility. I suppose there is a "vanishingly small" possibility you are right, but what is the purpose of such a proposition? My understanding of epistomology is that it involves skepticism towards established belief whereas your approach seems to involve dismissing evidence, however strong, which is something entirely different.

Dear Silaction, this is a Bystandian quote and I'll leave it to him to take up these particular cudgels but your reasonable request of course compels me to a reasonable answer. But perhaps you will allow me to deal with it in spirit via this matter of "English village archaeology".

We are all agreed on one thing: that there is no "depth" to this. Here lies all ills. When it comes to cities, when it comes to high status sites, when it comes to Middle Eastern tells, archaeologists can hardly go wrong because they have stratification to tell the story. They apply the same technique to the English village but now they can go wrong. I do not say they do go wrong, as you know it's not of primary importance to the language situation, but as an Applied Epistemologist I merely note that the "paradigm technique" of archaeology, ie stratification, might not 'tell the story'.

I have been watching Time Team assiduously for ten years (?) and, since I was writing a book about the English village during that time, I have observed carefully every time they have excavated in or near one. And always the result is the same: stuff turns up which is sometimes medieval, sometimes 'Dark Age', sometimes Roman, sometimes pre-Roman. But this material is hardly ever stratified, it turns up in different but nearby places. Somewhat higgledy-piggledy.

To add to this there is one factor which I would assert but that professional archaeologists would deny. Pottery is overwhelmingly fundamental in all dating procedures. That's fine when we are dealing with fine pottery -- styles are always diagnostic. But when it comes to rustic pottery, this is not necessarily the case, and because archaeology has always assumed the English village to be an Anglo-Saxon foundation, it has overwhelmingly assumed that pottery found underneath Medieval material is Anglo-Saxon age pottery. It isn't. It's rustic pottery. That's about all that can be said for it. Though I've no doubt that if archaeologists got their paradigm right, even rustic pottery could become properly diagnostic.

This is why the Dark Age "pottery gap" is so important. It is there as a reminder that archaeology is going wrong at this point.

quote:

Originally posted by M J Harper:
Dear Silaction, this is a Bystandian quote and I'll leave it to him to take up these particular cudgels but your reasonable request of course compels me to a reasonable answer. But perhaps you will allow me to deal with it in spirit via this matter of "English village archaeology".

We are all agreed on one thing: that there is no "depth" to this. Here lies all ills. When it comes to cities, when it comes to high status sites, when it comes to Middle Eastern tells, archaeologists can hardly go wrong because they have stratification to tell the story. They apply the same technique to the English village but now they can go wrong. I do not say they do go wrong, as you know it's not of primary importance to the language situation, but as an Applied Epistemologist I merely note that the "paradigm technique" of archaeology, ie stratification, might not 'tell the story'.

I have been watching Time Team assiduously for ten years (?) and, since I was writing a book about the English village during that time, I have observed carefully every time they have excavated in or near one. And always the result is the same: stuff turns up which is sometimes medieval, sometimes 'Dark Age', sometimes Roman, sometimes pre-Roman. But this material is hardly ever stratified, it turns up in different but nearby places. Somewhat higgledy-piggledy.

To add to this there is one factor which I would assert but that professional archaeologists would deny. Pottery is overwhelmingly fundamental in all dating procedures. That's fine when we are dealing with fine pottery -- styles are always diagnostic. But when it comes to rustic pottery, this is not necessarily the case, and because archaeology has always assumed the English village to be an Anglo-Saxon foundation, it has overwhelmingly assumed that pottery found underneath Medieval material is Anglo-Saxon age pottery. It isn't. It's rustic pottery. That's about all that can be said for it. Though I've no doubt that if archaeologists got their paradigm right, even rustic pottery could become properly diagnostic.

This is why the Dark Age "pottery gap" is so important. It is there as a reminder that archaeology is going wrong at this point.

Oh please stop. please. If I laugh any harder it is going to hurt.

Stratigraphy isn't just about positive layers, its also about negative features, the deposits they contain and the relationship between them. Until you understand thie then you are cast adrift without a paddle. As for the pottery, we don't just assume it is post-Roman because it comes from higher up layers than Roman layers, or (as you seem to think) 'because it comes from a village it must be Saxon'. It has been subject to rigourous study including programs of associative radiocarbon dating. As for whether it has pre-Roman origins, well it does tend to be found along with residual Late Roman pottery, which rules out a pre-Roman origin, adn on sites with well dated post-Roman pottery. As for the dating, pottery is OK, but coins and metalwork are even better. Why if these villages are Roman or pre-Roman do they not have other Iron Age or roman evidence - roundhouses? roman building material? coins? brooches? dumps of articulated animal bone (VERY handy for radiocarbon dating). For your theory to be correct, not only do these people have to have been living in archaeologically undetectable structures but they have to have been exclusively using the very poor 'Dark Age' pottery in incredibly small quantities, but not the nice well fired Iron Age stuff that was available on the surrounding small family settlements. they would have to have ever used coins or brooches, and then when the Romans came they continued to live in the same fashion, completely ignoring Roman pottery, coinage, metalwork, building materials etc.

Oh, and they would have to have saved up every scrap of pottery they broke for a few hundred years to make sure it didn't contaminate any of the holes they dug in the ground whilst they were being Iron Age and early Roman.

Why should an aceramic Dark Age be a sign of an error in a paradigm? I suspect that the answer lies somewhere in your own prejudices.

On a small aside, you need to sort out your chronology somewhat. the rustic pottery you have latched upon is conventionally dated to the immediate post-Roman period (5th and 6th centuries) when Dark Age society seems to be largely aceramic. I sincerely doubt anyone claims it represents late Saxon (9th, 10th and 11th century) village origins. You have a whole set of extremely well dated Middle Saxon pottery forms and fabrics in between the 'rustic' stuff and the Late Saxon period, when many modern English villages are thought to have their origins. We have plenty of evidence of Middle Saxon settlements, and funnily enough they rarely co-incide with the location of modern villages either, which often do contain Late Saxon material (again distinctive well fired pots). So marked is this difference that it has led to widespread discussion about settlement shift. Middle Saxon. But I can't expect you to have read about that, now can I?

So the evidence for your argument seems to be that there is a group of poorly made pottery forms traditionally ascribed to the post-Roman period, but which you believe to represent rustic pottery in use in villages from the Iron Age through to the post-Roman period? Have you even checked to see where sherds of this rustic pottery is predominantly found? No. Unfortunately for you the answer is on villa sites, Roman settlements and re-occupied hillforts. Like all other pre Late Saxon material types, it seems to studiously avoid turning up in the one place it should do according to your theory. Still, I'm sure its a truncation thing, or a paradigm error, or an incomplete data set

quote:

Originally posted by M J Harper:
This is why the Dark Age "pottery gap" is so important. It is there as a reminder that archaeology is going wrong at this point.

Good grief. Mr Harper you quite obviously have not got the faintest idea of what you are talking about. For "rustic pottery" read coarseware. Over the main part of the area which we are discussing (the area of the earlier Anglo-Saxon settlements where these villages with the English names occur) there really is no great problem in dating - still less differentiating - coarsewares of the relevant periods. Funnily enough even on rural sites this stuff DOES turn up in perfectly acceptable stratified assemblages in association with material allowing perfectly good dating. There's a bit more to this archaeology than what they show on Time Team you know.

Why on earth do you persist in pontificating in ignorance of the facts of the matter when all you can do by acting in this way is make a fool of yourself and mislead others?

quote:

Originally posted by M J Harper:
Though I've no doubt that if archaeologists got their paradigm right, even rustic pottery could become properly diagnostic.

Hmmm. Really? Actually I think archaeology generally reached that sort of knowledge almost a century ago as the result of fieldwaking and excavations - funnily enough primarily those rural sites on the chalklands.

I've got a better idea. Why don't you get YOUR paradigm right, ie find out what it is you are talking about BEFORE you try to put us all right. Is that TOO much to ask?

quote:

For the last time on the pottery thing. We find well made hard fired pottery on both low and high status settlements. The absence of the 'bad' pottery you are obsessing about, or wooden or other organic containers, which we know they used, does not detract from that. Neither does it reflect on our ability to recognise or date Iron Age settlements.

Yes, for the last time: no one is going to deny that you can find evidence that exists and can not find what does not exist. But, e.g. in correlating a quantity of potsherds to a number of inhabitants, how is the unknown and systematic gap in our knowledge accounted for? How is it determined whether the absence of evidence should be construed as evidence of absence in this case?

quote:

We seem quite good at identifying sites of that date everywhere else in the country - why is it just villages that cause this problem?

Well, the prima facie answer would appear to be because they're the villages (which are "unable" to develop deep stratigraphy whereas)... but to delve any deeper we would need to understand the character of the evidence that has been gathered. I tried and failed to find anything of use on the internet and you are unwilling to summarise it for us in appropriate terms...

quote:

quote:

...Does that mean the Anglo-Saxon origins of English villages 1500 years ago can be found 7 or 8 metres down?...

If only you knew about what you were talking...

That was in response to:

"We know what sites which have been occupied for thousands of years continuously look like. We find them in the middle east, and they are called tells."

which has been (though only implicitly) repudiated. So the question of whether archaeology would know what, say, 5000 years of continuous occupation would look like, given that everything is geared to no more than 1500 years, has not been answered.

If continuous processes in towns and cities, since the advent of cheap, durable materials, produce (and conserve) stratigraphy; and natural processes in abandoned sites produce (and conserve) stratigraphy; and villages over the same period of time produce no stratigraphy; then how do we know what depth of time is represented by the lack of stratigraphy in villages?

Compare: they carbon-dated the soil where a layer of chalk chips occurs below Wilmington Long Man. It was about 500 years, about half way between the grass and the chalk bedrock. No one is going to say the South Downs came into existence one or two thousand years ago; so where is the stratigraphy representing the last N thousand years?

quote:

you can't stand there like a child and keep asking... but why.... but why...

Sorry, but that's precisely the nature of investigating a paradigm. It goes on until we reach the point where we are all in agreement on fundamental principles: and that is the basis on which to determine whether the paradigm is sound.

quote:

Please explain what evidence there is to support your contention that modern villages have Iron Age and Roman origins. And why have we not found material evidence for Iron Age and Roman activity in modern villages?

Clearly this means a lot to you. Unfortunately, you have completely misunderstood the nature of the claim and of its discussion.

Continuity of English villages is not a central tenet of The History of Britain Revealed: it's just a first approximation. I paraphrase:
• Things tend always to go on much as they did before (which includes significant changes and advances from time to time, of which we have evidence).
• That probably includes the villages, on the whole, always having been where they are now. (After all, various determining factors about weather and soil and topology and efficient use of labour and resources have always been the same...)
• That probably explains why we have so little direct evidence of the Iron Age population: you can't do a lot of digging where people are living.

He is not asserting that villages have pre-Roman origins; it's just one aspect of the history of England/English worth probing here. But bear in mind that the book is about paradigms, how they are self-perpetuating and how all disciplines work self-consistently within them. So what the evidence we have is evidence of is itself under scrutiny. Trotting out the evidence doesn't answer that. We need to get deeper, to understand its character and see how it stands up on alternative paradigms.

I could spend the rest of my life catching up with the literature, summarise it and on my death bed show how it fits another paradigm at least as well. And someone would still say "no, you have misinterpreted the data". It is far better to discuss the evidence already summarised in your professional heads and persuade you to present it or paraphrase it in a way that reveals the paradigm(s) at work for real among real archaeologists. We need to know the inner workings of the data, as it were, and what you perceive its inner workings to be.