The Northern Counties to AD 1000"The Northern Counties to AD 1000 deals with the prehistory and early history of the most northerly region of England, covering the historical counties of Northumberland, Durham, Cumberland, Westmorland and Lancashire north of the Sands. The greater part of the source material derives, from archaeological or palaeoenvironmental research, though there are more conventional historical sources for the interlude of the Roman occupation and for the golden age of Anglo-Saxon Northumbria and its aftermath, with which the volume closes. Dr Higham has not been content solely to organise evidence into the usual framework of successive human cultures; rather, he has preferred to concentrate on the ways the local community adapted itself to changing environmental conditions, and changing technological and social possibilities. He also makes the underlying assumption of the genetic continuity of this population from the late mesolithic onwards, despite the impact of the specific migrations which demonstrably took place. In addition he shows how changing climatic and environmental conditions acted as a catalyst between human population levels, the demands made by man, and the environment on which those demands were made. In doing so, he stresses the responsibility of man for impoverishing that environment."-- |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
Pleistocene History and Vegetation Succession | 8 |
Subsistence Strategies | 19 |
Copyright | |
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abandoned activity Aethelfrith agricultural appears arguably aristocracy artefacts associated axes Bamburgh Bede Bernicia Britain British Bronze Age burial cairns Carlisle Celtic cemetery centre Chesterholm Cheviots chronological Church clearance coastal complex conquest construction context Corbridge cultivation Cumbria deposits Dere Street ditch Durham early east economic elsewhere enclosure English estates evidence example excavation farm Fell forts frontier garrisons Gododdin Higham hillforts Housesteads identified imply Jobey King Lake District land late prehistoric least lowlands major mesolithic Milfield military monasteries neolithic Norse North northern counties northern England Northumb Northumberland Northumbrian occupation occurred palisaded Pennines Piercebridge place-names pollen population pottery pre-Roman probably province Rheged Roman period Romano-British round-house rural Scandinavian Scotland second century second millennium seems settlement soils Solway southern Stanegate stone strategies structure substantial suggest third century timber tradition Traprain Law Tyne Tyne and Wear upland valley vici Votadini wall Yeavering Yorkshire