Review of Periodical Literature Published in 2001

Abstract

Evidence for trade before 1100 is a major focus of attention in this year's literature, particularly among archaeologists. Pine and others record a Wiltshire site, occupied from c.500 into the eighth century, containing sunken-featured buildings and a large assemblage of pottery and bone, but with little metalwork or glass and little evidence of trade. On the other hand, Perkins indicates from this early period continuing industrial traditions in Kent; chemical analysis of glass objects from Jutish cemeteries strengthens the case for positing a glass industry there, possibly depending on the security of a former Roman town. New findings at coastal sites advance our understanding of early commercial networks. Gardiner with others reports on a mid-Saxon site amid sand dunes on the Hythe inlet, occupied from c.700 until its decline in the later ninth century, with evidence of fishing, bone working, and salt making. The authors consider that it was a commercial site, perhaps seasonal, even though it does not match current categories of mid-Saxon trading location, which they suggest are too rigidly defined. Blackmore and Cowie together suggest trading activity between the later eighth century and the later ninth at a Thamesside site 6 km downstream from Lundenwic. They record several varieties of native pottery and a small quantity of imports. Naylor's work on an inland region similarly suggests that current models need to be elaborated. His distribution maps of archaeological finds around York suggest that the economy from the seventh to the ninth centuries was more complex, and the number of trading sites larger, than current descriptions imply. York was probably the primary point of local contact with long-distance trade routes, but by no means the only one. Trade expanded, and the use of currency increased, from the mid-eighth century, though, following a lengthy period of stability at this new level of commercialization, the region suffered a severe setback after c.866. Blair's study of Oxfordshire between 700 and 1100, in Oxoniensia, reasserts the importance of minster sites as centres of growing settlement and trade. From a very different context, Comber analyses evidence for commercial growth in Ireland between the fifth century and the tenth, and for the emergence of specialist traders in monastic 'towns' and Viking settlements. She examines the distribution of type-specific wares, and the transport networks that could have sustained trade across Ireland. She also surveys evidence for the changing balance of imports to Ireland. The theme of growing complexity recurs, for the period between the tenth century and the early twelfth, in a study by Sheehan and his co-authors, who propose that Beginish Island in the south west of Ireland was a haven for traders between