How Anglo-Saxon History Is Still Evolving in 2024 | Yeavering, Northumberland

[@christinecnew3268]

Thank you for all your hard work! Great lecture!

[@AlexIlesUK]

Thank you. Glad you enjoyed it!

[@kaylemoine1571]

A person with his feet on the ground. No drama. Just info that is growing without detracting from those who have gone before. Thank you.

[@AlexIlesUK]

Thanks a lot!!

[@alecbrown66]

To bolster your thread, here in the wiltshire Avon Valley we have string of hill forts, many reocupided around the end of the iron age, and some, continue to be used into tudor times like at Braemore House. Interestingly this string of forts ( I prefer earthworks) are at very regular distances of 3 miles, from old Sarum at the north end to Christchurch at the coast, and all on the western side of the river. On the Eastern side are nearly all the roman forts, villas and roads, with the only 1 exception:- the triangular 18th century Palace, the home of lord longford

[@wodenravens]

Not sure why this was recommended to me, but instantly subscribed! Great professional delivery and straight to the point!

[@AlexIlesUK]

I'm glad it did!! Thank you for subscribing and I'm glad you like my work!

[@historywithhilbert]

Loved it!

[@AlexIlesUK]

Thank you! Glad it ticks the boxes for a fellow Northumberian/Frisian!

[@dougdoug5949]

Enjoyed by this Geordie lad. Good stuff.

[@AlexIlesUK]

Only adopted Geordie! But really glad!

[@sophiabee8924]

Love this. I spent a lot of my childhood years in a village in the Tweed valley (Walkerburn). There are terraces there (possibly farming) on the hill side just before you leave the village to the west. Above and slightly to the east, if you look at Google Earth, it seems that there could be round houses. Locally, these were called the Roman terraces, and people used to say they grew grapes there. There's no evidence of Romans though. I have been watching your channel for a while now. It's great to see how you have evolved as a content producer. I'm not a historian , I'm a retired SEND tutor with a love for our history. Thank you, Alex.

[@AlexIlesUK]

A lot of those teraces are neolithic but is need to look into it! Could be Roman Iron Age! I'm really glad you enjoy the content and how it's developed!

[@kimsmith2292]

Thanks

[@AlexIlesUK]

Thank you, that's very kind!

[@candicevader]

Thanks!

[@AlexIlesUK]

Incredibly generous of you thanks again!

[@DneilB007]

I appreciate your balanced, grounded approach to new information and insights-and I love the enthusiasm! You have a new subscriber!

[@AlexIlesUK]

Thank you and I hope you enjoy it here!

[@MarkJ.Ashwin]

Terrific presentation.

[@AlexIlesUK]

Thank you!

[@kimsmith2292]

Love you passion for history. I’ve learned so much. Thank you

[@AlexIlesUK]

You are welcome and I'm glad you're enjoying them!

[@IrishMedievalHistory]

Amazing work!!

[@AlexIlesUK]

Thanks a lot! Means a lot from you guys!

[@Lynnthomason45]

I enjoyed your presentation. My deep ancestry is Yamnaya prior to moving out of the eastern steppes. I’m fascinated to think that my maternal lineage extends for thousands of years. Thanks, Lynn in Naples FL 💕

[@AlexIlesUK]

Glad you enjoyed it

[@davidashley7717]

Love Ad Gefrin, must confess - out of habit when i think of the Saxon-era my head defaults to Winchester, Essex & the south, but the increasingly sophisticated power base thriving in the Northumbria region in c6-7 is very exciting to study & investigate

[@AlexIlesUK]

Well I'm a bit biased towards the North so we balanced out :)

[@ellebob5775]

Fascinating!

[@AlexIlesUK]

Thank you

[@raphlvlogs271]

I remember Matt Easton from @scholagladiatoria once suggested that the military pole axe started out as a cattle/ beef processing tool in the early medieval era before it became weaponised

[@AlexIlesUK]

Possible but I would need to look at the items, if you search for the Rhynie man and look at his sholder youll see the tool. I affectionaly call it the Bonkstick 600.

[@ScottOsborne]

Yep! I see your passion and appreciate it. I hit the subscribe button and hope to see more of your videos in the future.

[@AlexIlesUK]

Thank you, got a couple more about hillforts and working on some more Roman episodes for the fututre. If you have anything you are intrested in I always take feedback, but it may be a while before you see it! Alex

[@ForestArchaicCollective]

love the new theme 🎶 great episode!! great breakdown

[@AlexIlesUK]

Thank you!

[@neilfarrow1535]

A site being used in the AS period doesn't necessarily mean continuity of use (although other evidence may support continuity). It could be conquest of the site, or the site may be considered advantageous for the same reasons that a hill fort was built there.

[@AlexIlesUK]

I think there's going to be evidence of continuous use in the future.

[@kubhlaikhan2015]

Older buildings are a rich source of buildiing materials for new ones. It makes sense to reuse sites without implying any continuity of purpose.

[@kubhlaikhan2015]

@@davidsoulsby1102 I'm saying that the reuse of a site - whether in the same way or a different way - doesn't really tell us anything. Continual use of a castle doesn't tell us who was inside it, rebuilding of houses in a different style doesn't mean they weren't the same ethnic group following a newer fashion. Personally I am very sceptical about the way modern historians use the term "Anglo-Saxons" as if they were a foreign people with foreign ideas. There is no sound evidence for the Germanic replacement hypothesis, no sound rationale either. Anglosaxon was just a new pidgin language adopted for trade and educational purposes after the routes to Rome were blocked by civil war. Even estimates of the number of people who spoke it before the Norman period are tenuous and unproven. Sadly, most of our history is a collection of myths of dubious origin that still likes to pretend it is "scientific". I don't see it.

[@harrynewiss4630]

@@kubhlaikhan2015 rubbish

[@wodenravens]

​@@kubhlaikhan2015 I briefly had similar views after reading Oosthuizen. It was quite romantic to think that the Ancient Britons weren't conquered and instead just code-switched and became Germanic. It didn't take me long to realise that such theories were very weakly supported by the evidence, however. And recent DNA evidence has more-or-less put that theory to bed. There almost certainly was a substantial migration over the North Sea that was associated with a Germanisation of the British Isles. Whether that is a 'replacement' or an 'invasion' or just 'migration' is hard to say, but the genetics are pretty clear cut at this point. The 2022 Gretzinger paper in Nature pretty much confirmed this: "We identify a substantial increase of continental northern European ancestry in early medieval England, which is closely related to the early medieval and present-day inhabitants of Germany and Denmark, implying large-scale substantial migration across the North Sea into Britain during the Early Middle Ages. As a result, the individuals who we analysed from eastern England derived up to 76% of their ancestry from the continental North Sea zone, albeit with substantial regional variation and heterogeneity within sites." Gretzinger, J., Sayer, D., Justeau, P. et al. The Anglo-Saxon migration and the formation of the early English gene pool. Nature 610, 112-119 (2022). doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05247-2

[@-vz-]

cheers mate! love your videos!

[@AlexIlesUK]

Thank you so much!!

[@gtd-sq2pj]

Good show!

[@AlexIlesUK]

Thank you!

[@rsfaeges5298]

Another engaging video. 👍👍

[@AlexIlesUK]

Thank you!

[@jsa-z1722]

Alex you have a great voice. Consider audiobook narration as a side hustle!

[@AlexIlesUK]

Haha! Thank you! Got to practice that!

[@tobyplumlee7602]

Following. What an interesting video.

[@AlexIlesUK]

Thank you!

[@Clans_Dynasties]

Great video

[@AlexIlesUK]

Thank you!!

[@waynemcauliffe-fv5yf]

Good stuff

[@AlexIlesUK]

Thank you!

[@reubenaberlin]

Brilliant.

[@AlexIlesUK]

Thank you!

[@7cColin]

Bede's narrative is very anti-British, he blamed them for failing to convert the incoming pagan Anglo-Saxons, so it has maybe been too easily accepted in the modern period that the two peoples were always antagonistic and mutually exclusive. This is fascinating stuff, thank you for sharing.

[@7cColin]

Perhaps St Aidan was not preaching in a desert when he arrived in Northumberland. Maybe not to the converted but possibly to people who were already familiar with Christianity through their native British population.

[@AlexIlesUK]

You are welcome! It's always good to revisit a text and look at it again. Also I think the lines of Briton and Anglo-Saxon were probably a lot more blurred!

[@AlexIlesUK]

I'd think so. I'm sure some were pleased that there was going to be a more structured church operating again. Or even for the first time. We don't know how the Romans delt with it other than the fact there's a lot of British Christian kingdoms in the 5th and 6th century.

[@danielferguson3784]

Bede's problem with the Britons was not just the mutual animosity, but the Celtic Church was heretical to the Roman Catholic, with some different practices. This included calendrical annomilies, setting Easter out of sinque with the Roman year, but also liturgical & practical differences. Bede considered this to be backward & almost unchristian, meaning its followers were little better than pagans. If they would not conform to the Roman standard then they remained outside of the true Church, & thereto the 'Civilised' world, & beyond the hope of Heaven.

[@juliadove1006]

@@danielferguson3784 You got there 19 minutes before me! Yet another case of the Wrong sort of Christian!

[@CBeats-b9z]

Fascinating is there anything else I could read about pre Roman settlements in Northumberland?

[@AlexIlesUK]

I would suggest anytihng by George Jobey as a starting point: archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/library/browse/personDetails.xhtml?personId=6694 After that, theres a couple of options - hope this helps. I have put URL's below: archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/library/browse/issue.xhtml?recordId=1165590 archaeology.co.uk/articles/features/pontelands-prehistoric-past.htm archaeologicalresearchservices.com/product/ancient_northumberland/

[@AlexIlesUK]

Sorry for the Northumbrian costal plane - this link: www.arbsoc.org.uk/IronAge

[@jamescarruthers1967]

Just having a look on Google maps at the sites. I'm not sure if I'm looking at the right place for Maelmin, but the field just north of "Maelmin Henge and Trail" is absolutely packed full of crop marks. There are rectangular (buildings?) with rectangular (walls?) around them, and 2 parallel lines which enclose a huge area, just visible crossing into the field to the south and being clipped by the WWII runway...

[@AlexIlesUK]

There's so much Archeology around there - at least ten henges and lots more yet to be discovered!

[@mikebrambley1136]

So interesting

[@AlexIlesUK]

Thank you.

[@delskioffskinov]

Alex it only took me 35 seconds to subscribe, solely based on that intro wow! never happens lol!

[@AlexIlesUK]

Good to know!! Hope you enjoy the content and please do chat in the comments, I do try to communicate with you all!

[@philipbutler6608]

If you are processing Cattle you would also be drying the meat on racks or smoking and you wouldn’t want to do it in the rainy season. It makes sense to do it as a seasonal event because you need the meat to hold you over the winter. Life activities were driven by weather which is why they would have monuments that tell time. Also it amazes me how people are surprised by the fact the ancients knew astronomy. Unlike today stars were the only show on television in 5000 BC. It’s not an accident we call them Television Stars.

[@AlexIlesUK]

I really want to take some time to think about seasonality and settlements. Its facinating and really important to be able to understand how people interacted with the landscape!

[@philipbutler6608]

@@AlexIlesUK well you can’t grow crops in the fall and winter. People typically gather all summer long into the fall nuts. There are also seasonal fishing opportunities. Gathering eggs from rookeries and things like that everything they did prior to agriculture would have depended on seasons. Also you can store food underground with ice. The American Indians dried Bison meat in the sun and with smoke. Hunter gatherers would have food caches. Even before pottery. The Ancestors of the Navajo built granaries in cliffs. Other strategies include platforms or hanging from trees. The summers would have been spent putting up stores for the winter. Modern urban people don’t appreciate canning and freezers. Food had to be stored without jars, cans, bottles or refrigerated. If we were to have a huge catastrophe urban populations would not know how to survive a single year. The survivors would be farmers and hunter gatherers.

[@Ashevillein]

When one thinks about our time and the variety and ages of buildings we use and reuse, I feel a resounding DUH moment. Of course our ancestors didn't stop using sites anymore than we said, 'well, right, the Normans are here now, let's move London. '

[@AlexIlesUK]

It is so true isn't it! A good site invites people back even if it's hundreds of years apart

[@HighWealder]

Interesting and pleased that you continue to use the term 'Anglo-Saxon ', despite some people attempting to replace it with 'early medieval ', in what appears to be ethnic cleansing!

[@AlexIlesUK]

I think Early Medieval is really helpful for a number of reasons. Firslty it shows it was not a clean break when the Normans invaded. The systems that they inherited were already established - else it sweeps under the rug six hundred years of developement, conflict, mixing and the establishment of the various peoples of the British isles. Early medeival is also helpful as it shows that there are a lot of diffrent people, from the British in the North and West, the Picts in Northen and Eastern Scotland, the Irish in Western Scotland (the Scotti) the Welsh and their interactions with the Mercians. It also alows for studies into the Frisians, Franks, Danes, Norwegians and other peoples who also settled into the British isles or interacted with it. Its a very useful term. What I will never use is Early English like some American academics use because thats just wrong and causes a lot more damage than they will ever realise.

[@sabbyd1832]

@@AlexIlesUK I have to agree. One term is used as a time period and the other distinguishes different peoples, culture. Enjoyed, thanks

[@AlexIlesUK]

I am not in step with these people, and I am being honest. I have studied this and it is not a culture war point. It is making sure we are nuanced. What you are doing by saying that is creating an 'us or them' point of view which does not help when we come to the study of this period. I think we are coming at this from different points of view and I have gone into depth above as to why I use early Medieval - one key reason is that we are putting these ethnic toponyms onto people from that period based on our classification of items, buildings and even modern classifications of aDNA. We do not know how they viewed their culture or their ethnicities and if we are not careful we are putting our modern point of view onto ancient populations based on Victorian identifications of items and settlements as well as historical texts from the period. We need to look at how they were interacting and how there are differences even in areas like England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. Then we get the colourful and brilliant pictures of borderlands and the interaction between people that make up our history. I get you trying to suggest that with your statement of 'Nobody ever assumes there is a definite time when a people changed.' but with the rest of your comment it ultimately becomes lines on the map coloured in with nice neat 'Anglo-Saxon', 'Irish', 'Danish' and 'British' blocks like all the maps you can google online. I don't think the Irish parallel is useful as you are bringing in another very weighted and emotionally charged period of history to make a point. There's a good argument for not using Irish or Viking either to define things as exactly that. I will use Anglo-Saxon, Viking, British and Irish when it's useful and appropriate but it's the early medieval period on this channel (roughly AD 410- AD 1066) or late antiquity (AD 250- AD 750) to describe this period of time when I need to be more specific. Best wishes, Alex

[@danielferguson3784]

Romanitas, like Christianity, was the way Kingship was legitimised, through the connection with Roman authority. It meant former warlords could claim to have brought their part of the country into the 'civilised' world, becoming part of the mainstream of Europe, as it had been in the Roman era. There must have been numerous substantial Roman period buildings still available for use during the period of these early Kings, not only the newly built wooden structures. Surely the forts etc along the Wall etc must have been to a great extent available for use.

[@robertvermaat8949]

New tune?

[@AlexIlesUK]

Yes, do you like it? Trying some new things.

[@robertvermaat8949]

@@AlexIlesUK I do!

[@martinjackman2943]

As regards "Echoing Romanitas" .. The taxation through service element of the "Angar/ Angarion" the name given to the postal and haulage systems of the Roman Empire including Britain might be the real origin of the word "Angle" The Anglo-saxon invasion narrative is part of the Norman justification for the Conquest. The post Roman Angle and Saxon incomers were simply a small group joining their kin.. Germanic descended people in Roman service since AD43

[@AlexIlesUK]

I would need to read more to comment more on those, but yes there were germanic peoples in Roman service.

[@mattbell5575]

Nice use of “BC”. Like & follow.

[@AlexIlesUK]

Thank you. Yes in a BC/AD man

[@28egordone]

Thank you. I have watched the Time Team digging revealed also that there was a continuation and there was not a sudden collapse in Britain after the Roman Britain. I think the whole problem stems from the tendancy of some academics putting erra in boxes like they like to put people in little boxes. I agree there was a continuation as did my father and he stated that the Normans where very bad for Britain and that it took centuries to have it worked out of our culture. Similarly there was no great invasions just migrations. Early on and later as now. It was and still is as trading nation sea transport being the means.

[@AlexIlesUK]

I keep meaning to do a video on that dig! It's on the list of things to do!

[@ChampChamp2024]

No matter what Anglo-Saxons cultivated this island.

[@AlexIlesUK]

I don't think I said anything different?

[@tundakyat457]

W.A.S.P should actually stand for White Anglo Serf Peasants. All the Anglo-Saxons became the slaves, serfs peasants, Villains, commoners in England after the Norman conquest in 1066. The feudal system lasted for over 600 years in Britain. All the English Kings, Royals Nobles, Aristocrats were all Normans. All the 1% British aristocracy and nobles who own 70% of lands in England today are all descended from the Normans, with no AS mixture. All the white poor destitute indentured servants bond slaves that were brought to America were all Anglo-Saxons.

[@AlexIlesUK]

Not accurate

[@tundakyat457]

@@AlexIlesUK I found it very to believe as well. But once I began to dig deeper, Its 100% accurate. Which part of my comment is wrong.

[@AlexIlesUK]

@tundakyat457 while the aristocracy may have less 'mixing' than others there were only 11,000 Normans invading England. They married into established families and some (very few) Anglo-saxon families survived alongside that some Anglo-saxons were raised as knights and rose to positions after the conquest. It was not a racial apartheid state. In regards to America there were many people brought over. Bonded slavery was not for 'Anglo-Saxons' and many people migrated as well as being sent. That's why I don't agree with your statement.

[@tundakyat457]

@@AlexIlesUK Yes England was a very rigid CAST, apartheid, society. Possibly after the black death in the 13th century they began to mix.. illegitimately of course. But prior, the Normans did not marry the Anglo-Saxons. That was a great shock to me. Come to find out many of the surviving AS nobles fled the island. The remaining who fought against the Normans were subjugated their properties confiscated and they and their families were enslaved, sold to God knows where far off lands. In the 12th century slavery was abolished in England and the AS became serfs/peasants/villeins. Since 90% of the English population were peasants. So who do you think were the bond slaves that were brought to America and the other British colonies.

[@AlexIlesUK]

Where are you getting your information from and where are you from?

[@jeffreyliles2448]

Nice surname! lol

[@AlexIlesUK]

My good sir, we're an endangered species. The reason I'm Alex Iles UK is because there's an American Jazz player and an Austrian make-up artist! Wanted to make sure people were getting the right Iles!

[@jeffreyliles2448]

Indeed we are. Coincidentally my middle name is Alex!

[@standingbear998]

history does not evolve, it was what happened and can't be changed to what you want, just because you don't what it really was or don't agree. what people believe can be wrong but this history is not what is wrong or change

[@AlexIlesUK]

So, can we learn something new that we didn't know before?

[@faithlesshound5621]

We don't learn "What Happened" in a once and forever way. We work out what happened by putting the evidence together, but as time goes on we add new evidence and find we have to discard other elements and come up with different interpretations. There's no unchanging "Oxford History of Northumberland" to which we must genuflect. So in that way "History" does change. Plato might have thought there was an unchanging "Real History," behind all that, but as we have as yet no time machines we have no access to it.

[@AlexIlesUK]

Very well put @faithlesshound5621

[@sophiabee8924]

If we weren't there, we don't know and rely on evidence. The more evidence is uncovered, the theories have to change. That's the evolution. It's a sad day when we stop looking because someone likes the narrative the way it is. That would be the death knell of the enquiring mind.

[@jamesofallthings3684]

Evolving? No, being destroyed.

[@AlexIlesUK]

Have you watched the episode?