Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology (29 page)

A high-status occupation site used by a king or bishop, comprising one or more large structures assumed to be halls, together with associated buildings and sometimes enclosed by a bank and ditch. They date to the period from the 5th century
ad
through to the 11th century
ad
. Excavated examples include those at Cheddar, Somerset, and Yeavering, Northumberland.

 
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1
A compound name used to describe amalgamated groups of Angles, Saxons, and others who from the 5th century
ad
were living away from their homelands, and to distinguish them from their kindred still on the continent.
2
The period in early English history between the collapse of British power
c.
ad 550 and the Norman conquest of ad 1066 when the eastern part of the country was dominated by migrant Angles and Saxons. The period is generally divided into three chronological subdivisions: the early Saxon period up to about ad 650, the middle Saxon period from about ad 650 to ad 850, and the late Saxon period from 850 down to ad 1066. The first of these broadly equates with what is also sometimes referred to as the
PAGAN SAXON
period. The Anglo-Saxon period saw the emergence of a series of seven kingdoms in England (the Heptarchy), the most important of which were
MERCIA
,
NORTHUMBRIA
, and
WESSEX
. The Anglo-Saxons were also responsible for the establishment of the English language and a pattern of settlement that became characteristic of the medieval period and in part still survives today.

 
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See
POUND
.

 
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A belief that events in the world are mobilized by the activities of spirits.

 
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The Egyptian hieroglyph for ‘life’, consisting of T surmounted by a loop. Representations of this symbol carried by the gods and pharaohs are often seen on wall paintings.

 
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A French school of historical thought, established by Marc Bloch and Lucien Febvre in the late 1920s and developed by Fernand Braudel in the 1950s and 1960s, which focuses on the idea of the history of ideologies, worldviews, and mental structures: the historical context. Key to this is the matter of time and the interrelationships between different timescales in the way that human beings perceive and operate within the world. History becomes a dialogue between the past and the present, the task of the investigator being to explore simultaneously both the interests and ideas of the society to which the investigator belongs and those things which are specific to the culture of the people being studied.

 
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