Links to late antiquity - Maria Duggan

Thispublication began as an AHRC-funded doctoral thesis, 'Links to Late Antiquity:Understanding Contacts on the Western Seaboard in the 5th to 7th Centuries',completed at Newcastle University in 2016. This revised version presents abroad-scale discussion of the evidence for contacts and connections in theAtlantic Seaboard region, based principally on ceramics. It extends knowledgeof a category of material with a long history of scholarship in Britain andIreland: amphorae and fineware vessels of East Mediterranean origin. Thepresence of this imported pottery at sites in western Britain, such as Tintagelin Cornwall, has frequently been used to suggest direct links betweenpost-Roman Britain and the Byzantine World. This work offers an alternative position- that the wares reflect active and evolving networks of trans-shipment andexchange operating in the Atlantic Seaboard region between the fifth andseventh century. This first examination of parallel French, Spanish andPortuguese publications provides a fresh perspective on this important group ofartefacts for understanding early medieval Britain.