14th November 2014, 01:35 PM
Marc - on this one you aren't mad, have been having all those problems, although the ones relating to typing/editing stuff (other than my cr*p typing skills) seem to have got better since I changed whatever it was I changed in my profile settings to get the smileys back
'Dark Age' people certainly had access to exotic pot if they wanted/could afford it, anywhere in Britain - Piercebridge in Co Durham is hardly near the sea, and it's a long way up the River Tees, but they were still happily shipping in fancy Mediterranean wines in amphorae then drinking it out of handmade Anglian pottery while re-digging the fort ditch in the late 5th/6th. You get occasional AS pots that are clearly copying RB pots, I've had an amazing one where they'd gone for a pedestal-vase design, for instance. There's a big grey area where RB becomes AS. Seem to recall that in Dorset the BB industry just carries on after the last trireme sailed away, and even introduces new forms in the 'post-Roman' period?
The issue around here is that AS pot just isn't, by and large, getting put in features other than graves. When it does turn up in any quantity it's usually in large features that were probably open for a long time, such as abandoned grub huts, fort/town ditches etc, hardly ever smaller short-duration holes like postholes, cesspits and the like (except for the occasional sherd) - one has to suspect that they'd discovered the above-ground midden? - and of course the pot isn't all that robust in the face of the elements and ploughing
'Dark Age' people certainly had access to exotic pot if they wanted/could afford it, anywhere in Britain - Piercebridge in Co Durham is hardly near the sea, and it's a long way up the River Tees, but they were still happily shipping in fancy Mediterranean wines in amphorae then drinking it out of handmade Anglian pottery while re-digging the fort ditch in the late 5th/6th. You get occasional AS pots that are clearly copying RB pots, I've had an amazing one where they'd gone for a pedestal-vase design, for instance. There's a big grey area where RB becomes AS. Seem to recall that in Dorset the BB industry just carries on after the last trireme sailed away, and even introduces new forms in the 'post-Roman' period?
The issue around here is that AS pot just isn't, by and large, getting put in features other than graves. When it does turn up in any quantity it's usually in large features that were probably open for a long time, such as abandoned grub huts, fort/town ditches etc, hardly ever smaller short-duration holes like postholes, cesspits and the like (except for the occasional sherd) - one has to suspect that they'd discovered the above-ground midden? - and of course the pot isn't all that robust in the face of the elements and ploughing