Jantero <jantero...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>On 5/16/2012 7:58 PM, Paul J Gans wrote:
>> Jantero<jantero...@hotmail.com>  wrote:
>>> On 5/16/2012 10:30 AM, Paul J Gans wrote:

>>>>> It also seems strange that in his earlier work he is extremely
>>>>> aggressive about people not using evidence correctly, particularly with
>>>>> ethnogenesis and migration (I put a book of his and one of Wolfram's
>>>>> next to each other on my bookshelf and wondered if the books would
>>>>> actually fight) and more recently, rather than rationally refuting
>>>>> Halsall and Heather when they call his accommodation theory into
>>>>> question due to his own use of evidence(the Burgundians just don't fit -
>>>>> even I can see that with my rudimentary Latin), he gets so vehement.

>>>> Bernard Bachrach has been accused of the same thing.

>>>> I suspect that part of the problem is that there is not enough
>>>> evidence.  At one of the sessions I attended there was a discussion
>>>> of the major need for historians and archaeologists to cooperate.

>>>> As it is now each seems to be unaware of the other.  And, like other
>>>> scientists, archaeologists write in a jargon that makes their work
>>>> difficult for the non-specialist to understand.

>>>> One example (not one that came up in that discussion) is the Saxon
>>>> conquest of major parts of England.  The sources claim that it was
>>>> done with fire and bloodshed.  The archaeology seems to indicate
>>>> that for the most part the "takeover" was peaceful with no major
>>>> evidence of the burning of villages.

>>>> There's clearly something not quite right here.  And there is a
>>>> real need to settle the question.

>>>> The transition years including the end of the western Empire and
>>>> the emergence of a new order in the west seem to suffer from the
>>>> same sort of problem.

>>>> For my part I tend to distrust both.  There's lots of work that
>>>> needs to be done.

>>> How about historical genetics? Talk about incomprehensible "jargon".

>>> A 2002 genetic study indicated a lot of Romano/Celtic males (not
>>> females) went missing from the gene pool in Britain during the time of
>>> the Anglo Saxon takeover.

>>> A few relevant timeline points come to mind:

>>> The Roman "Count of the Saxon shore" got killed fighting the Saxon et al
>>> raiders which indicates they were militarily effective and using force,
>>> at least during those times (mid 300s).

>>> By around 390 most of the Roman military had left Britain for the
>>> continent, leavng various doors open.

>>> "To Ætius, now consul for the third time: the groans of the Britons.
>>> The barbarians drive us to the sea; the sea throws us back on the
>>> barbarians: thus two modes of death await us, we are either slain or
>>> drowned."

>>> In the absence of the Legions, the Scot and the Pict tribes starting
>>> attacking the Romano-celts from the west and the north, and apparently
>>> the Angles, Saxons, etc. were hired by the Romano-celts as mercenaries
>>> to combat them (not a peaceful scenario) and then they decided to
>>> themselves move in and take over - afterall, they had dealt with the
>>> tribes the Romano-celts couldn't deal with.

>>> It could be speculated that several centuries of Roman
>>> occupation/government and reliance on their professional military forces
>>> had eroded tribal military institutions and capabilities, making the job
>>> easier for the incoming Saxons et al.

>>> The "Arthur" war band leader who defeated the Saxons at Mt. Baden c. 500
>>> and slowed their encroachment was, well, a *war* band leader.

>>> I would bet that there was a substantial amount of episodic fighting
>>> going on during the 400s into the 500s, in various places, between
>>> various opponents.

>>> If they can avoid it, invaders don't destroy property that they intend
>>> to make their own - these weren't Huns. The Norman conquest didn't leave
>>> an "ash layer" in Angle-land.

>>> Here's a piece on the genetics study, the entire article is well worth
>>> reading:

>>> http://harvardmagazine.com/2009/07/who-killed-the-men-england

>>> " AN EXEMPLAR of this new approach is geneticist Mark Thomas of
>>> University College London, whom McCormick invited to speak at Harvard as
>>> part of the initiative in December 2007. Thomas was among the scientists
>>> who first identified the suggestive pattern of Y-chromosome distribution
>>> among British men in 2002; he had been seeking a plausible explanation
>>> for the data ever since. As he recounted in a lecture titled, “No Sex
>>> Please, We’re English: Genes, Anglo-Saxon Apartheid, and the Early
>>> Medieval Settlement of Britain,” Thomas had found that genetically, not
>>> one of the English towns he sampled was significantly different from the
>>> others. Welsh towns, on the other hand, were significantly different from
>>> each other and from the English towns. Most importantly, he found that
>>> inhabitants of  the Dutch province of Friesland were indistinguishable
>>> genetically from the English town-dwellers. Friesland is one of the
>>> known embarkation points of the Angl0-Saxons—and the language spoken
>>> there is the closest living relative to English. (“Listening to a
>>> Frisian speak,” says Thomas, “is like listening to somebody speak
>>> English with a frog in their mouth.”) "

>> I take your point, but I suspect that you miss mine.  There is
>> still little or no archaeological evidence for the violent
>> replacement of one population by another.  And yes, I understand
>> that written material says otherwise.
>I think I understood your point, I mentioned that: "If they can avoid
>it, invaders don't destroy property that they intend to make their own -
>these weren't Huns. The Norman conquest didn't leave an "ash layer" in
>Angle-land. "
>Or maybe I am missing something - what sort of definitive archaeological
>evidence do you think should be present?