DEFENDED SETTLEMENTS

 Cadbury Castle and environs

The phenomenon of fortification-building was not new to the Middle Ages. For millennia, humans have felt the need to protect themselves and their territory and have erected fortifications to provide safety and security from the elements and also from covetous neighbors. Well before the first castle arrived in England, fortified settlements occupied craggy hilltops and jutting coastal headlands throughout the British Isles. Many still dominate those sites and are easy to spot on a day's outing. Many, like Maiden Castle in Dorset, date to the Iron Age and have acquired place-names that imply a dual usage as a properly fortified military residence. In some ways, the military terminology can be extended to cover many of these fortifications. Nonetheless, these premedieval structures lacked the essential ingredient that would otherwise characterize them as true castles: private ownership.

The univallate and multivallate sites of prehistory offered substantial protection from an attack or prehistoric livestock rustling, functioning as fortified communal settlements (comparable to medieval walled towns) rather than individual ranches. The group's leader or chief probably lived in a separate, private dwelling at the site, but his home was just one part of the whole complex, which often formed a densely occupied settlement. Some hillforts and promontory forts, which guarded headland settlements, served as supply and distribution centers, granaries, animal pounds, and possibly as military establishments or ritual sites. Many times, embedded rings of steep-sided earthen ramparts and deep ditches defended the entire settlement, sometimes cut into chalk-beds, buttressed with timber posts or compacted stone, and stockaded with timber palisades. Like medieval castles, many defended settlements were fronted with substantial gateways. However, these prehistoric earthwork forts were never intended exclusively for use as fortified private residences.

Arguably Britain's most legendary Iron Age fort, Cadbury Castle commands a hilltop overlooking the tiny village of thatched stone cottages in South Cadbury, Somerset. Long touted as the site of King Arthur's Camelot, archaeological excavations directed by Leslie Alcock from 1966 to 1970 targeted portions of the enormous multivallate fort, the summit of which covered 18 acres. The effort revealed that the fort was occupied as early as 3300 BC, during the Neolithic era, and that Bronze Age and Iron Age peoples added the defenses, lined the concentric ramparts with limestone slabs and deepened the ditches. By 100 BC, the entire set of four ramparts and ditches had been completed and small huts and storage pits filled the summit and accommodated the expanding settlement.

During the first century AD, the Romans devastated the hilltop settlement, the home of the Durotriges, members of the Celtic tribe based at Dorchester (then known by the Roman name, Durnovaria) who commanded at least twenty hillforts in southern England, including mammoth Maiden Castle. The bodies of thirty adults and children slaughtered by the Romans lay buried at the southwest entrance to Cadbury Castle until their discovery in the 1960s. In addition to collecting scores of pottery sherds imported from France and the Mediterranean, archaeologists discovered the remains of a large timber hall, dating to about AD 500. Whether or not the man who spawned the Arthurian legends actually called this place his palace, someone of considerable status —perhaps a chieftain —decided the hillfort should be reoccupied and ordered the construction of the timber framed structure. Perhaps, the leader administered justice and watched over the surrounding lands from this fine vantage point and guided his community into a period of sought-after calm after the Romans retreated from England. Some historians believe Cadbury Castle could very well have been the inspiration for Camelot.

Britain's prehistory

Britain has not always been an island. It became one only after the end of the last ice age. The temperature rose and the ice cap melted, flooding the lower-lying land that is now under the North Sea and the English Channel.

The Ice Age was not just one long equally cold period. There were warmer times when the ice cap retreated, and colder periods when the ice cap reached as far south as the River Thames. Our first evidence of human life is a few stone tools, dating from one of the warmer period s, about 250,000 BC. These simple objects show that there were two different kinds of inhabitant. The earlier group made their tools from flakes of flint, similar in kind to stone tools found across the north European plain as far as Russia. The other group made tools from a central core of flint, probably the earliest method of human tool making, which spread from Africa to Europe. Hand axes made in this way have been found widely, as far north as Yorkshire and as far west as Wales.

However, the ice advanced again and Britain became hardly habitable until another milder period, probably around 50,000 BC. During this time a new type of human being seems to have arrived, who was the ancestor of the modern British. These people looked similar to the modern British, but were probably smaller and had a life span of only about thirty years.

Around 10,000 BC, as the Ice Age drew to a close, Britain was peopled by small groups of hunters, gatherers and fishers. Few had settled homes, and they seemed to have followed herds of deer which provided them with food and clothing. By about 5000 BC Britain had finally become an island, and had also become heavily forested. For the wanderer-hunter culture this was a disaster, for the cold-loving deer and other animals on which they lived largely died out.

About 3000 BC Neolithic (or New Stone Age) people crossed the narrow sea from Europe in small round boats of bent wood covered with animal skins. Each could carry one or two persons. These people kept animals and grew corn crops, and knew how to make pottery. They probably came from either the Iberian (Spanish) peninsula or even the North African coast. They were small, dark, and long-headed people, and may be the forefathers of dark-haired inhabitants of Wales and Cornwall today. They settled in the western parts of Britain and Ireland, from Cornwall at the southwest end of Britain all the way to the far north.

These were the first of several waves of invaders before the first arrival of the Romans in 55 BC. It used to be though t that these waves of invaders marked fresh stages in British development. However, although they must have brought new ideas and methods, it is now thought that the changing pattern of Britain's prehistory was the result of local economic and social forces.

The great "public works" of this time, which needed a huge organisation of labour, tell us a little of how prehistoric Britain was developing. The earlier of these works were great "barrows", or burial mounds, made of earth or stone. Most of these barrows are found on the chalk uplands of south Britain. Today these upland s have poor soil and few trees, but they were not like that then. They were airy woodlands that could easily be cleared for farming, and as a result were the most easily habitable part of the countryside. Eventually, and over a very long period, these areas became over farmed, while by 1400 BC the climate became drier, and as a result this land could no longer support many people. It is difficult today to imagine these areas, particularly the uplands of Wiltshire and Dorset, as heavily peopled areas.

Yet the monuments remain. After 3000 BC the chalk land people started building great circles of earth banks and ditches. Inside, they built wooden buildings and stone circles. These "henges", as they are called, were centres of religious, political and economic power. By far the most spectacular, both then and now, was Stonehenge, which was built in separate stages over a period of more than a thousand years. The precise purposes of Stonehenge remain a mystery, but during the second phase of building, after about 2400 BC, huge bluestones were brought to the site from south Wales. This could only have been achieved because the political authority of the area surrounding Stonehenge was recognised over a very large area, indeed probably over the whole of the British Isles. The movement of these bluestones was an extremely important event, the story of which was passed on from gene rat ion to gene ration. Three thousand years later, these unwritten memories were recorded in Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of Britain, written in 1136.

Stonehenge was almost certainly a sort of capital, to which the chiefs of other groups came from all over Britain. Certainly, earth or stone henges were built in many part s of Brita in, as far as the Orkney Islands north of Scotland, and as far south as Cornwall. They seem to have been copies of the great Stonehenge in the south. In Ireland the centre of prehistoric civilisation grew around the River Boyne and at Tara in Ulster. The importance of these places in folk memory far outlasted the builders of the monuments.

After 2400 BC new groups of people arrived in southeast Britain from Europe. They were roundheaded and strongly built, taller than Neolithic Britons. It is not known whether they invaded by armed force, or whether they were invited by Neolithic Briton s because of their military or metal working skills. Their influence was soon felt and, as a result, they became leaders of British society. Their arrival is marked by the first individual graves, furnished with pottery beakers, from which these people get their name: the "Beaker" people.

Why did people now decide to be buried separately and give up the old communal burial barrows? It is difficult to be certain, but it is thought that the old barrows were built partly to please the gods of the soil, in the hope that this would stop the chalk upland soil getting poorer. The Beaker people brought with them from Europe a new cereal, barley , which could grow almost anywhere. Perhaps they felt it was no longer necessary to please the gods of the chalk upland soil.

The Beaker people probably spoke an Indo-European language. They seem to have brought a single culture to the whole of Britain. They also brought skills to make bronze tools and these began to replace stone ones. But they accepted many of the old ways. Stonehenge remained the most important centre until 1300 BC. The Beaker people's richest graves were there, and they added a new circle of thirty stone columns, this time connected by stone lintels, or cross-pieces. British society continued to be centred on a number of henges across the countryside.

However, from about 1300 BC onwards the henge civilisation seems to have become less important, and was overtaken by a new form of society in southern England, that of a settled farming class. At first this farming society developed in order to feed the people at the henges, but eventually it became more important and powerful as it grew richer. The new farmers grew wealthy because they learned to enrich the soil with natural waste materials so that it did not become poor and useless. This change probably happened at about the same time that the chalk uplands were becoming drier. Family villages and fortified enclosures appeared across the landscape, in lower lying areas as well as on the chalk hills, and the old central control of Stonehenge and the other henges was lost.

From this time, too, power seems to have shifted to the Thames valley and southeast Britain . Except for short periods, political and economic power has remained in the southeast ever since. Hillforts replaced henges as the centres of local power, and most of these were found in the southeast, suggesting that the land successfully supported more people here than elsewhere. There was another reason for the shift of power eastwards. A number of better-designed bronze swords have been found in the Thames valley, suggesting that the local people had more advanced metalworking skills. Many of these swords have been found in river beds, almost certainly thrown in for religious reasons. This custom may be the origin of the story of the legendary King Arthur’s sword, which was given to him from out of the water and which was thrown back into the water when he died.

The mid-eighth century of a settlement at Staraia Ladoga.

This was situated beside the inflow of a settlement at Staraia Ladoga. (See Map A). This was situated beside the inflow of the little river Ladozhka into the river Volkhov, 13 kilometres up the Volkhov from Lake Ladoga. At Staraia Ladoga in the late twentieth century only the area nearest the town is cultivated. The surrounding countryside consists of forests and enormous stretches of bog, no less impenetrable in the early middle ages. A surface area of 2,500 metres has been excavated systematically. The bottom- most substratum of the lowest stratum, 'Horizon E 3 ', has been dated precisely with the help of dendrochronology, the technique which seeks to establish an absolute chronology from the sequences of tree rings discernible in the wood used for structures, paving and so forth. Dendrochronology's methods of dating are more or less free of controversy and the dating of the settlement's earliest 'micro-horizon' to the 750s has met with general acceptance. Almost as certain has been the attribution to a Scandinavian craftsman of a set of smith's tools, found in a 'production complex' for working in wood and metal in this same substratum. The 26 pincers, hammers, tongs and so forth found in the 'complex' have precise analogies in kits found in Scandinavia proper. In other words, persons from afar were working at Staraia Ladoga from the first. 

In construction technique and lay-out the large wooden houses with heating apparatus in their centres are not dissimilar to those of indisputably Finno-Ugrian settlements, but they could as well be Scandinavian workmanship, and the virtual absence from the stratum of the eighth and earlier ninth centuries of finds of ornaments or tools classifiable as Finnic is striking. The indigenous population of the surrounding countryside was Finno-Ugrian, but it was very sparse indeed. Thus outsiders, and probably only outsiders, were the founders. This is shown most clearly by the finds of leather shoes, combs and other personal belongings characteristic of Scandinavians. The combs are found from the lowest substratum onwards. They are believed to have been made by itinerant craftsmen. 

The earliest types of combs are likely to have been brought to Ladoga by their owners, or were worked up on the spot: they were not objects of barter or gift exchange. For most Scandinavian adults of either sex possessed a comb, and made frequent use of it on their hair. Combs were valued, and had some decorative features, but they were not de luxe. Clay pitchers of the type known as 'Tatinger ware', made somewhere in Francia, have also been found at Staraia Ladoga - as well as at other trading settlements in the Baltic region. Scandinavian-style tools and everyday articles have, then, been found at Staraia Ladoga, and an obvious inference is that the earliest frequenters of the site were Scandinavians. They were not, though, the only ethnic group at Staraia Ladoga in the first generations of its existence: Baits were also present. There must have been some activity or commodities which attracted a medley of persons to this seemingly inhospitable and previously uninhabited spot in the mid-eighth century. The question is: what? 

The answer comes from joining up the three above-mentioned developments in a straight line of cause and effect. Staraia Ladoga's formation may be seen as a function of the influx of silver dirhams into the north-west, while this in turn could be regarded as the consequence of the Abbasids' less belligerent policies and their striking of huge quantities of dirhams. The arrival of dirhams in the north does in fact seem most likely to have been a by-product of the Abbasids' accession and active promotion of commerce. The hoard whose youngest coin dates from 786-7 is the earliest to have been discovered in the north up to now. This suggests that exchanges between the Middle East and the far north-west started or resumed soon after the Khazaro-Arab warfare abated. The location of this hoard was none other than Staraia Ladoga, and it is not a freak phenomenon. Another apparently complete hoard, having a youngest dirham of 808, has been found to the south of Staraia Ladoga. Still more significantly, oriental coins have been excavated on the site of two successive wooden buildings at the bottom of the settlement's 'Horizon E 3 '. Thus silver coins from the Middle East were to be had at Staraia Ladoga in the very earliest buildings and in effect they constituted its basic raison d'etre. This would mean that news of the Abbasids' output of silver coins reached the shores of the Baltic within a few years. But we cannot be sure that trade between the Middle East and the fur-yielding regions to the north of the Kama ever stopped entirely. And the Swedes probably continued to go on hunting or bartering expeditions to Lake Ladoga after the sixth century, while their settlements on the Aland islands continued. They may also have been intermediaries in the long-distance connections between the Arctic north and Anglo-Saxon England: by the late eighth century walrus ivory was being used in Anglo-Saxon carvings.


If movement of populations along the great river valleys of the northern forest zone was more or less incessant, news of traders bearing silver from the Moslem south could have travelled quite rapidly. And that silver could move fast between the Middle East and the north-west is shown by the sequence of coins in structures at Staraia Ladoga. A silver piece struck in Tabaristan in 783 has been found in a structure built over one containing an earlier Tabaristan coin, issued in 768. Silver is not the only commodity of external origin to be found in the earliest substrata of Staraia Ladoga. Amber from, most probably, the coasts of the southern and south-eastern Baltic occurs in the form of small ornaments and also as unworked raw material. The lumps of amber were carved and drilled (without any heating process) into beads and pendants in workshops such as the 'complex' where the 26 smith's implements were found. Amber was highly valued and it was frequently reworked. Finds of amber are fairly plentiful at Staraia Ladoga, in stark contrast to anywhere else in the north-west. Glass beads have been found in very great profusion at Staraia Ladoga. In the lowest two substrata of 'Horizon E 3 ', the variety of shapes and colours is particularly wide, and these layers contain some of the most inherently valuable types, silvered beads and silver beads covered with light-brown glass to give the effect of gold. A workshop for glass-making has recently come to light at Staraia Ladoga and it appears to have started functioning at the beginning of the ninth century. But it probably depended on imported scrap for its raw material, and it cannot have produced every type of bead found at Ladoga. Many, probably most, of the beads represent imports. Furthermore, the beads found are too numerous to have been intended only for use by the earliest habitues of Ladoga. They were continuously being brought or manufactured so as to be exchanged for other commodities, and while at first many of them were made of silver or were of intricate construction, these types gave way during the ninth century to simpler, though still brightly coloured ones. Presumably the latter were less valuable, and reflected growth in the volume of commercial activity. 

This archaeological evidence points unmistakably to the original function of Staraia Ladoga. It was a trading post, and diverse crafts to service the trade were practised there. In fact, there is evidence that amber beads were being fashioned on the spot even before the first wooden structures were built at Staraia Ladoga. There may have been a brief period when workshops with drainage channels were in seasonal operation but no actual settlement had been established. Craftsmen were making things from the 750s in the forementioned 'production complex', whose forge had walls of light wickerwork and lacked any solid roofing. Clearly, business developed rapidly. The decision of the 'founding fathers' then to take up permanent occupation and build a number of wooden residences and workshops would have been quixotic, had they not felt reasonably confident of at least an intermittent supply of goods to buy and to sell. The site of Staraia Ladoga was probably chosen on account of its water-communications. Downstream lay Lake Ladoga, which seems to have debouched directly into the sea in the earlier middle ages, while a few kilometres upstream lay a series of treacherous rapids. Staraia Ladoga's relative isolation, set back from Lake Ladoga itself and in a kind of no-man's-land, recommended it to outsiders seeking to enrich themselves without risk of disturbance from local inhabitants. It was bleak, yet accessible by water. 

Staraia Ladoga's contacts also reached far to the west, judging by the finds of Scandinavian-style combs and Tatinger-type pitchers. These are among the more humdrum of the objects which form a kind of trail, spidery but persistent, eastwards from Hedeby across the Baltic via Central Sweden or along the southern Baltic coast. The earliest firmly datable hoards of dirhams in the Baltic region, of c. 800, form a similar distribution pattern and amber, albeit a natural product on the south shore of the Baltic, is found in only a very few other sites, notably Birka and Staraia Ladoga. Beads belonging to several of the types known in Ladoga have been found in ample quantities at Birka. Their place of manufacture is uncertain, but at least some types were probably made in the Rhineland or elsewhere in Francia or the Mediterranean basin. These scattered bits of evidence imply a nexus of long-distance exchanges and ventures which were essentially for the purpose of gain. They were not primarily objects of gift-exchange between members of ruling or noble elites. The combs made of bone or deer antlers are particularly suggestive in this respect, for they belong to types which have been found as far west as Dorestad in Frisia, York and Dublin. They were everyday objects, of less value than ornaments of precious metal, and so less likely to be kept in use, or on display, indefinitely. They were therefore sensitive to changing fashions in design and decoration and, one might suppose, responsive to the peculiarities of local tastes. Yet combs of the same date show a striking uniformity of size, proportions and ornament. It seems that they were made by itinerant craftsmen who shuttled constantly from trading post to trading post in the Scandinavian world. Using materials which they obtained on the spot, they worked up these combs for local customers.

The Fenris Wolf in the Nordic Asa creed in the light of palaeoseismics

N.-A. MÖRNER

Fig. 1. Map of Sweden with areas of recorded palaeoseismic activity (black dots 1-26; further discussed in M6rner 2003, 2004, 2005). Nine high-magnitude palaeoseismic events are recorded in the Late Holocene. Their ages in Cl4-years Be are given in black outside the map frames. A few place names referring to noise or fractured rock are given (outside the map frames). 'Svealand' refers to an area from where much of the Asa Creed owes its origin. It seems significant that so many earthquakes and place names are located just within this region.

Abstract: The Nordic Asa Creed talks about a giant wolf, "the Fenris Wolf', that was trapped and chained deep in the mountains. When he howled, the ground trembled violently and fractured. With the discovery of frequent high-magnitude palaeoseismic events in Sweden not only in de-glacial time but also in Late Holocene time, it seems both natural and logical that the Fenris tale refers to frightening earthquake events in the past. Once again tales and sagas have been shown to be rooted in facts.

In ancient times, natural phenomena were usually explained in terms of actions by gods. Phenomena such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions were directly frightening; so too were ordinary phenomena like thunderstorms.

In the Norse mythology or the Nordic Asa creed, there are many examples of this. Thunderstorms were explained by the noise created by the god Thor throwing his hammer. The land uplift was explained by the giant Ymer slowly rising out of the sea. The end of our world--'Ragnarök" in the Asa crede--is described as a most terrible event when the ground fractures and rocks fragments are thrown higgledy-piggledy, like at a violent earthquake. Grant (2003) concludes that recent observations indicate that 'some of the tales were firmly rooted in fact'.

The Asa Creed originates in pre-Viking time. The mythological chronology given suggests that Odin and Thor arrived at Svealand in Late Iron Age and formed a new dynasty 'Ynglingaätten'. However, there is no discontinuity in the cultural evolution to account for this. On the contrary, there is continued cultural evolution back in time, to at least the Bronze Age and possibly even into the late Stone Age. The oldest place names owe their origin in the Bronze Age. The Asa Creed was written down in the thirteenth century AD by people on Iceland in their famous Edda (as recently reviewed by Grant 2003).

The Fenris Wolf

The god Loke had a son with the giantess Angrboda. The child took the form of a giant wolf--the Fenris Wolf--and became a threat even to the gods themselves (e.g. Grant 2003). Finally, the Fenris Wolf threatened to destroy the whole world. By magic, he was captured and chained deep in the mountains. When he howled, the ground and mountains trembled violently and deep fractures formed and rock fragments were thrown around.

Today, one might say; what a perfect description of a high-magnitude earthquake. Until recently, earthquakes above magnitude 5 on the Richter scale were not known from Sweden. Therefore, no one proposed a seismic origin for the story of the Fenris Wolf. It was simply sidelined as something less interesting. However, in recent years the situation has changed (Mörner 1994, 2003).

The new concept of a high palaeoseismic activity

During the last three decades, it has become increasingly clear that Sweden was subjected to strong seismic activity at the time of deglaciation some 9000-11000 radiocarbon years BP. From the notion that 'big earthquakes rather were the rule than the exception' (MiSrner 1985), there is an extensive palaeoseismic database (catalogue) including 54 magnitude 5-8 events (Mörner 2003). This catalogue even includes several magnitude 7 or 6-7 events in Late Holocene time, i.e. at times when they may have influenced not only the Norse mythology but also ancient place names (Mrmer 2003; M6rner & Strandberg 2003).

As Swedish palaeoseismicity has been presented elsewhere (Mörner 2003, 2004, 2005) this paper focuses on the Late Holocene events and their possible influence on place names, mythology and tales. In the last 5000 years, nine high-magnitude palaeoseismic events are recorded (Fig. 1). All these events are likely to have affected human life physically as well as spiritually. Effects such as faulting, fracturing, ground shaking, earth slides, tsunami waves, would have had considerable destructive effects. The 2000 Be event at Hudiksvall (site 9) set up a huge tsunami wave that washed in over land at least 20 m above sea level. The 2900 BP event at Forsmark (site 10) represents another huge tsunami that broke into lakes at least 25 m above sea level. The 3500 BP event at Marviken (site 12) caused a 5 km fracture, nine large slides (including the down-slope movement of a Bronze Age burial mound) and a local lake tsunami.

The 900 BP event on the Swedish west-coast includes a 1.0 m fault-scarp, rock shattering and liquefaction (with two Viking ships buried in sand by a possible tsunami). Our oldest place names are said to have originated in the Bronze Age. There are many names in Sweden that refer to sounds, noise or fractured rock. The Lake 'Marviken' name seems to refer to fractured rock which fits well with the effects of the 3500 BP event there. Lake 'Dunkern' refers to deep noise (an earthquake just at the spot is dated 8000 BP which seems too old to have affected the place name, but younger events may have followed in the same zone). Lake 'Hjälmaren' refers to 'the noisy' and it seems significant that the area is traversed by faults active in postglacial time (Mörner & Strandberg 2003). 'Päirve' in the far north is a Lapish name referring to noise from the underground. This area was struck by a violent seismotectonic even about 9000 BP (Lagerbäck 1979). This seems far too early for an imprint in the place name. However, there may have been subsequent activities on the fault. Much of the Nordic Asa creed seems to have originated in the region of 'Svealand' (termed 'Svenonian' by Tacitus, 79 AD, and 'Svitjod" in the Icelandic sagas), where the gods Thor and Odin were said to have emigrated and formed a new dynasty. Thus, it is interesting that we have so many traces of earthquakes just here (Fig. 1). All these facts make it highly likely that the tale of the Fenris Wolf owes its origin to actual natural phenomena; that is high-magnitude earthquakes in the Late Holocene (Fig. 1) and their associated effects (faulting, fracturing, shaking, liquefaction, tsunamis).

Conclusions

Until a few decades ago, we had no idea of the high frequency of de-amplitude earthquakes that struck Sweden in deglacial time. Therefore, no one had thought of the possibility that the tale of the Fenris Wolf could refer to actual earthquake events. With the novel findings of a high magnitude palaeoseismic activity in postglacial time including several high-magnitude events in the Late Holocene, it seems likely that the tale of the Fenris Wolf, in fact, provides a good description of palaeoseismic events in the past. This is further supported by a number of place names referring to sounds and fractured rock.

References

GRANT, J. 2003. An introduction to Viking Mythology. Quantum Publishing, Ltd.

LAGERBÄCK, R. 1979. Neotectonic structures in northern Sweden. Geologiska Frreningens i Stockhohn

Förhandlingar, 100, 263-269.

MÖRNER, N.-A. 1985. Paleoseismicity and geodynamics in Sweden. Tectonophysics, 117, 139-153.

MÖRNER, N.-A. 1994. The Fenris wolf and Swedish paleoseismicity. Bulletin of the INQUA Neotectonics

Commission, 17, 47.

MÖRNER, N.-A. 2003. Paleoseismicit)'of Sweden---a novel paradigm. A contribution to INQUA from its sub-commission on Palaeoseismology, ISBN-91-631-4072-1,320 pp., the P&G unit, Stockholm University.

MÖRNER, N.-A. 2004. Active faults in Fennoscandia, especially Sweden: primary structures and secondary effects. Tectonophysics, 380, 139-157.

MÖRNER, N.-A. 2005. An interpretation and catalogue for paleoseismicity in Sweden. Tectonophysics,

408, 265-307.

MÖRNER, N.-A. & STRANDBERG, S. 2003. Sjrnamnet Hjälmaren i geologisk belysning. Ortnamnssiillskapets i Uppsala Arsskrift, 79-82.

Oppidum of Bibracte

 

 

Plan of the fortifications of the oppidum of Bibracte. The grey area represents land over 700 m in elevation.

Bibracte was a Gaulish oppidum which, according to Julius Caesar’s De Bello Gallico (‘Gallic War’) 1.23, was the capital of the Gaulish tribe known as the Aedui. It is located on Mont-Beuvray near Autun in Burgundy (south-east France). The oppidum covers 2 km2 and extends over three summits which overlook the central part of the Morvan mountains. Its prominent position dominating its landscape must have been even more impressive in antiquity since the mountain top would have been bare and enclosed by massive ramparts.

Many of the gates of Bibracte were constructed primarily for processional purposes, in which function was subordinate to appearance. For example, the northeastern gate, now called porte du rebout (gate of the limb), is the largest example of a gate in any Celtic oppidum yet excavated.

Bibracte was subdivided into several areas or quarters given over to specific activities and social classes. The quarters in the north-east and south-west were reserved for artisans and commerce respectively. The central residential quarter contained many elaborate houses partly imitating the Roman urban house-type with a central open area (atrium) and a garden enclosed by a small colonnade (peristyle; the so-called parc aux chevaux). Each quarter seems to have had a cult site or a temple (see map).

The artisans’ quarters show evidence of elaborate metallurgy, including gold, bronze, and iron working, as well as enamel production. The internal street-plan was comparatively regular in so far as the lay of the land allowed. It was dominated by a south-to-west axis, centred on a convex basin, whose orientation towards the summer and winter solstice implies a cult significance.

The ritual precincts were located in the south (la terrasse, the terrace), the north-west (le teureau de la roche, hill of the rock) and the north-east (le teureau de la wivre, hill of the serpent; these are dialect words: teureau, as theurot, from Gaulish *turra ‘hill’, and wivre, as vouivre, from Latin vipera, Old French vuivre ‘serpent’, cf. Welsh gwiber). In these locations the ritual area have been sited by prominent rocks, which seem to have played a part in the cult. At the site of the terasse a small chapel was built in the Middle Ages.

Three wells were located within the fortified perimeter of Bibracte, and there is evidence for ritual depositions in them, which implies the presence of the commonly occurring Celtic cult of spring deities. Pre-Roman coinage was found inside the walls. Bibracte was a mint, and a coin mould for casting 25 blanks was found on the site (Allen, Coins of the Ancient Celts 34). The name DUMNORIX, which is mentioned in Caesar’s De Bello Gallico, and possibly his portrait, has been found on one of the coins from Bibracte. In Roman times, the population of Bibracte relocated to the newly founded town of Augustodūnum, present-day Autun. The name Bibracte has been explained as a Celtic collective in –axtā based on the root bibr- ‘beaver’, hence ‘place of beavers’ (Lambert, La langue gauloise 59, 188– 9). Modern Mont-Beuvray continues the ancient name.

Aberffraw

 

 

Aberffraw was the royal site of the kings of Gwynedd from the 7th century (or perhaps earlier) until 1282. It is situated in the south-west of the island of Anglesey (Môn) on the estuary of the river Ffraw. Aber ‘river-mouth’ (< Celtic *ad-ber-) is common in place-names in Brittany (Breizh) and Scotland (Alba)—in what used to be the country of the Picts— as well as elsewhere in Wales (Cymru). Today, the name (locally pronounced Berffro) designates a village, the bay onto which the estuary opens, and the bay’s protected ‘heritage coastline’. The population of the community of Aberffraw according to the 2001 Census was 1293, of which 876 inhabitants over the age of 3 could speak Welsh (69.2%).  

Archaeology and History

Excavations carried out in 1973 and 1974 were interpreted as a Roman fort of the later 1st century, with refortification in the 5th or 6th century. Anglesey was first invaded by the Romans under Paulinus in ad 60, as described by Tacitus. However, it could not be immediately garrisoned, owing to the military disaster of the revolt of Boud¼ca. Therefore, the Roman fort probably dates to the subsequent activities of Agricola, who was Roman Britain’s governor in the period c. ad 78–85. The post-Roman re-defence may reflect the arrival at the site of the court of Gwynedd’s first dynasty, who claimed descent from the 5th-century hero Cunedda (Wledig) fab Edern. These early strata were heavily overlain by remains of medieval occupation attributable to the court of Gwynedd. That the site was already a royal centre in the 7th century is further indicated by the Latin commemorative inscription to king Cadfan (who died c. 625) at the nearby church at Llangadwaladr: CATAMANUS REX SAPIENTISIMUS OPINATISIMUS OMNIUM REGUM ‘Cadfan wisest and most renowned of all kings’. The church itself bears the name of Cadfan’s grandson Cadwaladr (†664), who also succeeded as king of Gwynedd.

Aberffraw remained a principal seat or the principal seat for Gwynedd’s ‘second dynasty’, which came to power with the accession of Merfyn Frych in 825.

Balbridie, Kincardineshire

A timber hall was built at Balbridie sometime around 3,600 BC. Of similar construction to buildings found on the Continent, Balbridie was around 26m long by 13m and may have accommodated upwards of thirty people. The reconstruction gives some idea of how the timber hall may have appeared. Located by the banks of the River Dee, the site was near to a variety of natural resources and on good arable soil. Such sites are rarely found in Scotland and represent a self-supporting farmstead. Balbridie was destroyed by fire sometime before 3,250 BC.