Boundaries in early medieval Britain

Issue focusing on the nature of physical and metaphysical boundaries in the early medieval world, including papers presented at a session entitled `Boundaries and liminal zones in early medieval Britain' held at the Theoretical Archaeology Group meeting in Birmingham in December 1998. They include

considers some preliminary hypotheses regarding settlement along the River Thames in the period c. 500--1100 AD, and suggests directions for future research

explores territorial identity in Anglo-Scandinavian Lincolnshire (c. 850--1100) through the social construction of boundaries, addressing human movement through the landscape via the distribution of artefacts, and outlining the historical understanding of boundaries within the county of Lincolnshire

examines aspects of the relationship between secular and ecclesiastical traditions of settlement in conversion-period Britain, with a focus on the use of boundary features. The paper considers the role of settlement boundaries in the development of the church as a central element in the early medieval landscape

a recent reappraisal of the burial record in the Avebury region suggests that the burials of early medieval date form a distinctive and unusual group. The paper discusses the funerary evidence and suggests that certain distinctive traits may be explained through the historical background of the region as a contested political frontier throughout the sixth to eighth centuries

reviews the character, chronology and context of the development of English rural settlement between the later-sixth and eleventh centuries with a particular emphasis on boundary features. Two principal settlement types, enclosed and rectilinear, are considered and tracked, and the essay concentrates on settlements rather than settlement patterns with lesser-known and more recent excavations brought to the fore. The increasing significance of boundary features from the later-sixth, but particularly the seventh and eighth centuries, is stressed and a basic categorisation of settlement forms is offered. The author argues that boundary features are a reflection of the nature of social order, and that these developments took place because of the growth and consolidation of the early English kingdoms whose increasing geographical extent required new forms of social organisation