The Archaeology of Britain: An introduction from ... - waughfamily.ca

• 186 • Catherine Hills
Attention has also been devoted to more subtle variations in status. Some graves contained
sword, shield and spear, others spears only. Some had five brooches, others one or none. It is
possible to use this variation to reconstruct pyramidal gradations of rank that compare well with
those recorded in later law codes. However, some of the variation is regional or chronological,
and some may be due to varying religious beliefs or the ancestral burial traditions of different
families. Age and gender seem to structure some differences: the attribution of weapons to men
and jewellery to women has been broadly confirmed by osteological sexing of the bones, and
relatively few grave goods were buried with children. But not all men had weapons nor all women
brooches, and each cemetery has practices different from its neighbour, displaying a wide variety
of local preferences within a standard range, and making it very difficult to produce any but the
most general patterns.
Settlements
In western Britain and Scotland, a number of fortified sites have been identified on historical or
archaeological grounds as being of early medieval date (Figure 10.6), including Dinas Powys in
Wales, Tintagel in Cornwall, and Dunadd and Dundurn in Scotland (e.g. Campbell and Lane
1993). These sites are most often on hill tops or steep promontories, or on crannogs. They have
produced imported Mediterranean pottery and glass, decorated metalwork, and evidence for the
manufacture of similar metalwork. The nature of the sites as fortified strongholds and the presence
of high-status objects makes it clear that these are elite residences, although they have not produced
elaborate structural remains. They cannot yet be put in the wider context of the network of
contemporary lower status farms and villages that must have existed, because these are still proving
difficult to distinguish from similar settlements of much earlier or later date.
Figure 10.6 Aerial view of fort at Dundurn, Perthshire.
Source: Ian Ralston