house dark age

[Red Orc]

Well, this is excellent (two archaeologists and an ancient historian having a big fight - maybe they should scrap 'Time Team' and put on 'Archaeology Wars' instead), but I fear we're no-where near answering Duhamel's question!

Yes, I took the title of the thread, and interpreted the original question as something like: "in the Dark Ages, Britain was divided between a Saxon east and a Romano-British (continuity) west... I know what Saxon houses looked like, but what were British houses like?"

And that might not be what was meant, but that's the question that I was trying to answer. If the question was about British houses in the Roman period, then I would have no problem in agreeing wholeheartedly with Ruarigh's answer - predominantly roundhouses in rural areas, rectilinear in towns, and increasingly 'romanised' (square, with tiles and painted plaster) as you move up the social scale.

So I think a lot of the arguments have just been about different understandings of the question. I think on the whole we all agree about the data...

[Ruarigh]

Well, this is excellent (two archaeologists and an ancient historian having a big fight - maybe they should scrap 'Time Team' and put on 'Archaeology Wars' instead), but I fear we're no-where near answering Duhamel's question!

And in today's Archaeology Deathmatch, Zahi Hawass takes on Phil Harding. The fight starts in five minutes, but first a word from our sponsor ... 
I love the idea and the potential for devious trowel action. In fact, I think we need to stage it at a show!

On your other point about arguing from a different understanding of the question, I agree completely.

[duhamel]

I actually thought about the time of Arthur. I think just having some pictures for inspiration and not a college debate , but it does not matter it's funny

[Red Orc]

OK; western Britain, about 500AD; I'd say, mostly rectangular, some in Roman form, but made of wood rather than stone; some in more like Saxon form, long hall-type buildings (but without Saxon style grub-huts/Sunken Featured Buildings/Grubenhauser); with the possibility of some roundhouses, stone built in North Wales or maybe Cornwall or Northern England, probably wooden in Western England.

Hope that's absolutely clear, and not at all complicated... 

[Doomsdave]

whenevr Zahi Hawass says "pyramids" it makes me giggle.

He says it a bunch here:

[Ruarigh]

If you like Zahi Hawass, then you will probably enjoy this site:
http://www.egyptastic.co.uk/

[duhamel]

Also the fact that the specialist of Egypt 's maddening, I'm still not a good image of a house in dark age 

[Ruarigh]

Try this photo. It is a reconstruction of a 6th century house in Northumberland.
http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1306378
This may not be the right location to suit you, but I seem to recall one scholar trying to place Arthur up in that direction. I cannot find anything more relevant than this, for which I apologise, but perhaps Red Orc will have some ideas.

You might find more by googling sub-Roman Britain, but I did not have the patience to go through all the dross to find something more useful. Sorry.

Cheers,
Ruarigh

[Red Orc]

Sorry, I cannot find better pictures. My attempts have already failed. The best illustrations I know of are in books and not on the net. Anything with pictures of Iron Age roundhouses should give you an idea for later roundhouses; Bronze Age roundhouses are too big. The roundhouse should be about 8-10m diameter, I would say. Earlier they were more like 15m.

Ruarigh's picture, from Bedeworld, is supposed to be an Anglo-Saxon hall, but it is not so very different to the houses that some (many?) Britons would have lived in in the centuries after the Roman period. It is similar both to the timbered plastered houses in many small towns in Roman Britain, and also at the 'halls' of sites like South Cadbury ('Camalatte' according to John Leland in 1542), Dinas Powys and Castle Dore - if one believes that the rectangualr structure there was C6th in date; it was re-dated in 1985, to an earlier period.

I have been doing more research; and I have found out about a 5th century AD wooden roundhouse in Northern England, after I said that there probably weren't any that late, and that they may be stone anyway... pah, archaeologists, what do they know? It was only recently discovered though, and this of course is a problem with archaeology, things keep being discovered.

As to whether Arthur was a northerner... maybe, if he existed. Some of the places and characters in the stories seem to be northern. I think there is so little evidence one can legitimately claim Arthur was from any part of Britain. Or Gaul, or Spain, or the future Scotland, or wherever one likes! He has a Roman name; he led an army against Saxons and maybe other Britons. After that, anything is possible!

[cataphractarius]

As for rectangular buildings - as far as I remember what I learned what now seems aeons ago, there were rectangular structures beside the large hall at Cadbury; are these still considered to be undated? If not, might they be a good starting point?

Alternatively, what about a Roman barracks block with a sign "under new management"?  (Sorry, probably not helpful, but I couldn't resist...)

[duhamel]

good or not  ??

http://www.gallica.co.uk/celts/photo_album/1/Dcp03112.jpg

[Red Orc]

Good for some of the houses in western Britain I think. If it's a hall at some kind of possible 'royal' or chiefly site, make it a bit bigger and a bit grander; some may have been taller or had a more steeply-pitched roof; but essentially, that's pretty much what I'm talking about.