• DOI:10.1017/CHOL9780521362917.012
• Corpus ID: 163884188

The earliest Anglo-Saxon kingdoms

@inproceedings{Hamerow2005TheEA,
  title={The earliest Anglo-Saxon kingdoms},
  author={Helena Hamerow},
  year={2005}
}

• H. Hamerow
• Published 1 December 2005
• History

Central to the re-evaluation of the Germanic migration and its impact on post-Roman Britain is the relationship between Romano-British and Anglo-Saxon cemeteries and settlements. The Romano-British cemetery at Queenford Farm, for instance, lay outside the Roman small town of Dorchester-on-Thames in an area with an early fifth-century Anglo-Saxon presence, yet radiocarbon dates indicate that it continued in use into the sixth century. The cemeteries and settlements of the sixth century indicate that the society within which the Anglo-Saxon identity developed was not rigidly stratified and that high-ranking individuals were integrated within the community, in death as well as in life. The earliest Anglo-Saxon leaders, unable to tax and coerce followers as successfully as the Roman state had done, instead extracted surplus by raiding and collecting food renders. By 600, the establishment of the first Anglo-Saxon emporia was in prospect. Anglo-Saxon society, in short, looked very different in ad 600 than it did a hundred years earlier.