5:40PM GMT 16 Feb 2015
The Romans brought aqueducts, wealth, security and hot baths to Britain but the best thing they did for the population was to leave, a historian has suggested.
Studies of graves in cemeteries from the 400AD to 650AD show that Britons, on average, lived for around two years longer following the fall of the Roman Empire.
Robin Fleming, professor of history from Boston College in the US, said that once Britons were no longer forced to pay taxes they were able to eat more nutritious food which increased longevity.
Asked if the fall of the Roman Empire was good for Britain, Prof Fleming added: “If you are a villa owner, no. But it you are part of the 97 per cent of the rest, then, yes, it might add a couple of years to your life which makes a difference.
“The people were living longer after Roman Britain because they weren’t being taxed. “
Related Articles
Were the ancient Romans more kinky than you?
19 Nov 2014Sketch: Boris versus the Romans
06 Jan 2015
Despite the boost in lifespan, most women could still only expect to live until around 35 because of the dangers of childbirth, while men were usually dead by their early forties.
Prof Fleming has also discovered that the period was a time of great movement in Britain, when populations ventured across the Pennines and began to mingle with immigrants from Scandinavia, Germany and the Baltics.
Skeletons from a graveyard in West Heslerton, a small village near Pickering, North Yorkshire, showed that the locals had once eaten food from a far wetter climate, suggesting they had moved from the west of Britain.
Prof Fleming said the finding was surprising because most historians thought populations were migrating from east to west during the period.
The graves also revealed that British people were buried with goods from foreign cultures, such as wrist clasps usually found in the early medieval period in Norway, pointing to West Heslerton being a multicultural hub.
“We don’t like to use the term Dark Ages anymore, but there is no written evidence for the late fourth and fifth centuries after the period where Rome falls,” she said.
“It’s a period where lots of people were on the move.
“During the Roman period culture came from the Mediterranean world . But when Rome has fallen they appear to be experimenting a lot more than before. A lot of the skeletons in the graves were not local.
“It was long thought that people were trying to advertise their ethnicity, but what we see in the graves doesn’t match with who that person was genetically.”
In fact, there were so many different cultures coming into Britain after the fall of the Roman Empire that Prof Fleming believes Britons from the period should no longer be described as Anglo-Saxons.
“Anglo-Saxons really makes no sense. It was a name coined by Alfred The Great for political reasons. They should be called Early Medieval people.
“People are coming from all over, including Ireland, Scotland, and the Isle of Man.”
The research was presented at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting in San Jose, California.
Pentru a putea adăuga comentarii trebuie să fii membru al altmarius !
Alătură-te reţelei altmarius