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The British economy prospered after the withdrawal of the Roman Empire

Archaeological excavations near Aldborough, in the United Kingdom, help us understand life after the Roman occupation

R Ferraby & MJ Millet

When the Roman Empire withdrew from Great Britain, the result was not chaos and economic collapse. The metal industry in what is now northern England has continued and has even been widened over the following centuries, according to an archaeological file of pollution of metals work.

“The argument was that, with the disappearance of state-of-the-art transportation systems, regional savings collapse completely,” explains Christopher Loveluck at the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom. But this is not what archeology has revealed. “We see an increase in metal pollution products.”

Loveluck is part of a team that has excavated Roman remains from Aldborough in North Yorkshire, England. Under Roman domination, this city was called Isurium Brigantum, where metals like iron and lead were exploited and treated.

The team found that the pollution of aerosols in these metal work operations had found itself trapped in the silt accumulating in an old river bed on the archaeological site. By digging through the sediment layers, the team was able to reconstruct how pollution levels varied between 345 and 1779 AD.

“They get this long chronology, so you can really trace up the ups and downs,” said Jane Kershaw at the University of Oxford, which was not involved in research but which studied early metallic exploitation.

At the end of the 300 and the early 400s, the Roman Empire lost control of Great Britain and withdrew. “The government apparatus says, the tax collection apparatus said, no new currency arrives in Great Britain, and they almost certainly remove all the units of the campaign army,” explains Loveluck. The following centuries have few written documents, and certain industries – notably the pottery launched by the wheels – were strong. This gave birth to a story of “The Society of Great Britain in the 5th century which collapses”, explains Loveluck.

The Riverbed Record tells another story. Pollution of lead was low in Roman times and only fell slightly at the end of the 300 and early 400s. It then increased regularly until the mid -500. Likewise, washing pollution increased during the first half of the 1900s.

This argues that Loveluck, suggests continuity in large -scale production of essential products.

The increase in metal production can be due to internal fights, suggests Kershaw. “This is a period when the various Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merge,” she says. “There are a lot of fights between these different kingdoms.” Many men have been buried in tombs with swords and knives.

Metal production then decreased sharply in the mid -500 and remained low for several decades. The team suggests that this could be due to the justinianic plague, which crossed the land around the Mediterranean in 541-549 after JC. Ancient DNA evidence of a cemetery in eastern England show that the plague has reached Great Britain. However, it is not clear how serious or widespread it was. “We do not have serious pits full of plague victims, for example, as we do with subsequent plague events,” explains Kershaw.

The apparent resilience of the production of aldborough metals in the face of Roman withdrawal corresponds to other evidence of economic and political continuity. “Lawwich in Worcestershire [in western England] To an uninterrupted sequence of salt production from the Roman period during the modern period, ”explains Loveluck.

The period after the Roman withdrawal was nicknamed the dark ages, due to a lack of written documents and a supposed intellectual decline. However, historians say that it is at best excessive simplification.

Certain practices cease, such as pottery and construction launched by wheels using stone. But this period also saw the production of spectacular metallurgins, often using copper. “If everything was so terrible and dark, how is it that they wear these incredible pins and that they have colored beads,” explains Kershaw.

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