3rd October 2011, 11:35 AM
As for the general thrust of some of the comments, that it all rebooted to a default 'pre-Roman' condition, well only because the most dominant members of the society at that time enforced that - and so the process of integration and creolisation continues just with a new set of masters. As to how the post-Roman survivors of the 5th century were able to redesign their society/values etc to mid first century defaults I just do not know. Oral history allows the survival of some cultural values (and baggage) but not everything - and even an 'underground' movement would morph into something very new and different over 400 years.