The Times Copyright (120925)
What did the Romans ever do for us? Alongside the familiar aqueducts, sanitation and wine, archaeologists can now add another legacy: an economy that kept on motoring long after their legions marched away.
For the first time, researchers have examined a five-metre sediment core from Aldborough in Yorkshire, once the Roman town of the Brigantes and a major centre of metalworking. The work has revealed that Britain’s industry did not, as was widely believed, grind to a halt with the end of Roman rule around AD410.
“The core has provided the first unbroken continuous record and timeline of metal pollution and metal economic history in Britain, from the fifth century to the present day, at the heart of a major metal-producing region,” said Professor Christopher Loveluck of the University of Nottingham, lead author of the study published in the journal Antiquity.
Until now, it was generally assumed that industrial-scale production declined after the Roman retreat, as written evidence for lead production petered out after the third century. The new findings, based on pollutants from metal production that became trapped in layers of mud that accumulated over almost two millennia, turn that thinking on its head. “Not all industrial commodity production ended in the early fifth century,” Loveluck said. “At Aldborough, it is possible metal production expanded steadily using the ores and coal-fuel of the Roman period.”
The research team found that metal production carried on well past AD400, only collapsing more than a century later, around AD550–600. The cause remains uncertain, though historic sources suggest Europe was being ravaged by bubonic plague, which would have affected economic activity.
More broadly, the findings reveal how Britain’s metal industry waxed and waned in tandem with history: there was a dramatic slump after Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries, when it became uneconomical to make fresh metal because it was cheaper to rip it from religious buildings, then a revival under Elizabeth I, fuelling her wars against Spain and France.
The Romans first invaded Britain under Julius Caesar in 55BC, though the full conquest was not until AD43 under Emperor Claudius. Over the following decades they wove Britain into their imperial economy.
Far from an abrupt collapse, the new data suggests that early medieval Britain was more industrious and economically resilient than the “Dark Ages” label might imply, the researchers said.
“The results offer a revolutionary new insight into the economic history of Britain, which contradicts previous thought that all industrial-scale commodity production collapsed at the end of the Roman period,” Loveluck added.
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