The Mystery Of The Sutton Hoo Anglo-Saxon Helmet | King Arthur's Britain | Timeline

The Netflix of History. Use code 'timeline' for 80% off bit.ly/TimelineHistory

I love how we all have no problem pointing out that writers of the past had certain axes to grind or political points to push but then act like the ones in modern times do not.

I'm a prehistorian. Francis Pryor is a well respected prehistorian and has seriously advanced what we know of prehistoric Britain. No academic is perfect and we often say a lot of 'wrong' things which might be 'right' at the time. Archaeology is a science and it is constantly evolving. We study people, which are the hardest subjects to study. There is so much we can't know and we draw on the efforts of MANY disciplines to help us study past peoples. So, whereas I can't agree with everything being said in this documentary series, what is said largely reflected what we knew at the time (2004). Certain language was being used that would capture audiences. Words like 'celtic' and 'barbarian' and 'migration/invasion' are often used as rhetoric to evoke emotion among viewers who might have learned about (extremely outdated--like, 1960s/1970s) models of early Britain. The advancements in the methods and theories and ideas of archaeology are slow to hit mainstream dispersal. And it requires a large percentage of consensus to get there in the first place. Dr. Rachel Pope has just revolutionized what we know of 'celts' and 'celtic languages'. That paper is still being written and will likely be published this year/2020. It won't be mainstream for a long time yet. It'll undergo a lot of debate and scrutiny. But if it does change our view of 'celts' and 'celtic languages', it'll feel very much like many of you do now. Why should it be absurd to suggest that sea 'forts' are warehouses? Defending an expensive store of goods with stone walls and palisades seems like a good idea to me. It also sends a statement. Language change is a fascinating subject. People don't just abandon their native language, but it does start to change if you begin trading with people of a different language. We often think of the coercive approach to language change (Koreans forced to speak Japanese during their 20th C. occupation, for example), but we also see the peaceful addition of languages too (Spanish is rapidly becoming the dual language of Chicago). It's a matter of communication, for whatever reason. Revision is key to archaeology. It's nothing to apologize for. This retrospection is critical for understanding how we interpret past peoples. For a long time, the past was a world of MEN. No women, but we kind of assumed they were there. Gender archaeologists spent decades asserting their views about 'women's work' and the role of women in the past. No one cared when archaeologists started calling past as a world of PEOPLE. But then again, as viewers, we are influenced by our own histories and ideas and experiences. Also, archaeology is weird, confusing, and very incomplete. We do our best and we love to share what we know.

I have said it before. Sutton Hoo bears a striking resemblance to the ship burials in Vendel-Valsgarde from 500-600 BC just north of Upsala in Sweden. What that implies I can not say. I am a layman.

I really love the way this episode was written by Dr. Pryor, so seamlessly weaving one piece of evidence after another. Wonderful!

Archaeologists in programs I've watched have pointed out it's very difficult to find Anglo Saxon buildings because they were wood. It doesn't necessarily mean there is no archaeological evidence. Even where there's supposed to be evidence it's difficult to find. The DNA studies have revealed there is substantial biological Anglo Saxon ancestry. It seems pretty clear the Angles and Saxons came from Europe to Britain.

Francis Pryor has some interesting ideas about the development of post Roman Britain but I do not agree with his basic contention of a largely peaceful cultural sea change from that of the native British to  the early Anglo Saxon. Fashion and foreign contact can effect changes in a culture but not to the extent of changing the dress, language, lifestyle and development as appeared to occur at that time. The almost total absence of British nouns in English, despite the tenuous word order change, and the lack of Celtic names for towns and dwellings in nearly all of England indicates that something far more profound than a change of fashion took place. That is indicative of a new culture being introduced by a new people. I do not believe that the native Britons were all either exterminated or pushed west, I think that assimilation by the dominant society and culture (ie the Anglo Saxons) is far more likely and the only way for a foreign culture to become dominant is by conquest. The truth is probably somewhere between the two extremes of gradual, peaceful change and bloody, violent intrusion. At present, despite the claims made in this series, the jury is still out on this and unless some startling new discoveries are made in the future, will remain so for some time to come.

You can call it "invasion", you can call it "mass migration", the fact is still that between the V and the VI centuries the population in the island called Britannia by the Romans, drastically changed. Did the Romans begin to settle German immigrants on British land? Were those immigrants mercenaries and/or farmers who slowly (or drastically) took over the power when the Romans left the provincia? Was that a "process", or was it a dramatic sequence of violent episodes? Nobody can still write down an ultimate truth on this page of history. What I find surprising in this case is the absolute lack of any alternate model to replace the concept of "invasion", to explain the "germanization" of the Roman-British civilization in that age in that land. You can't simply say "No, I don't believe in the great invasion" you must give an alternative model about the change that actually took place in Britain! Sorry for the low quality of my English but I'm just an Italian viewer with a deep interest in Late Roman history.

Romans used frisians in the UK. They have written it. Frisia was drowning in their country and familiar already with England. In the Netherlands it is known the frisians almost all moved out of the wetlands. They were already trading with England. They knew the land. Old english and old frisian are the most familiar languages. Probably the Jutes Angels and Saxons came after the frisians towards England, looking for land.

What a great conversation at 5:45. It is so nice to see two people who completely disagree debating so respectfully.

Funny how chaps like Pryor come on so strong with their thesis that they dismiss anything that threatens their particular paradigm. This always has a corrosive effect on their credibility as scholars and turns the process into a pissing match rather than a collaboration with a common goal. SOME TIMES TWO THINGS CAN BE EQUALLY TRUE. Some of Pryor's initial comments in Episode 1 are revealing. He, like so many other historians, is fighting a battle with some ex-colleagues or professors we don't even know or care about. This is not how scholarship is supposed to work - but the pettiness and zealous devotion to their life's work and rigid paradigm are often their greatest weakness. The reality is, if you make your own "history" documentary - you control pretty much everything, and if that view is limited to an invested paradigm, that is all we learn.

English is not descended from German. It is descended from the West Germanic branch of languages, from which both English and German are descended. In addition to the subtle influence of the Celtic language, there was also influence from the Norse language (e.g. the use of "th" in our language, which is not found in German).

I think that reason why there isn't evidence of a military invasion by the Anglo-Saxons like their was during the Roman invasion is because native English had significantly assimilated into Roman culture and when the Anglo-Saxons eventually showed up their wasn't much friction between the two because northern Europeans had ALSO assimilated to the Roman culture that conquered them. This would kind of explain why the Sutton Hoo helmet has a bit of a Roman like style along with other archeological finds throughout southern England.

I find the argument about a Celtic language being replaced by a Germanic language without invasion singularly unconvincing. People are deeply tied to their mother tongue. They don't give it up easily. Languages do die. But they die when they are overwhelmed by a more powerful local group who speak another language. They don't die because a community admires another culture and wants to learn from it. People develop a pidgin to communicate with people they are trading with. They may borrow the architecture, the musical styles, the fashions of another culture. But they keep speaking the language of their childhood, unless they are overwhelmed.

So awesome to see and hear Francis Pryor narrate this show.

A Farmers view made me smile as Feances raises sheep! He has such a lovely voice we are blessed as he shares his wisdom.

Incredibly misleading title here. basically all three episodes lead to the central thesis that Anglo-Saxon is a made-up group (while cherry picking certain theories and theorists, FYI), wrongfully asserting that established theories to the british people as ethnically homogeneous (they don't), and that in conclusion it's all about peaceful diversity and migration rather than tumultuous invasion from time to time. Also let's completely disregard the fact that the term Dark ages had much more to do with a relative scarcity of documentation or evidence from that time period when compared to others, rather than as a term of indictment that the time was evil and horrendous. You certainly are applying a 21st century happy thought paradigm to a decidedly non 21st century period of history. And then claiming it has anything to do with the whole idea of Arthurian Britain I guess just to get people to watch.

Frisians were the traders of the 5th and 6th centuary. Living in the wetlands of the Netherland and coastle Germany. They traded and worked together with the romans. The shortest way to England was East-anglia. Also Old-english and Old Frisian is almost the same. I do believe that the frisians did not invade but traded a lot on the english coast. Especially in the time water got a greater problem in the Netherland, they probably moved to England a lot. The saxons lived more inland of the Netherlands an Germany. Every person was carrying a so called sax. It's not only a saxon thing wearing a knife.

Sorry,to say I always found Francis totally unconvincing,even when he appeared on Timeteam. Francis is an archaeologist,not an historian. No archaeological evidence does not mean something did not occur. Give me Michael Wood anyday.

More holes than a swiss cheese in most of his arguments.