Archaeologica.org

Digit wrote:In the 'original' Arthurian stories, as told in the Mabinogion, the period is described as a time of great unrest and social upheavel. It speaks of cold wet summers when crops fail and the people are reduced to eating the dead.
The descriptions of the weather suggests that the time period was the 6th C when, IIRC, Iceland was experiencing a major period of vulcanism.

OK, so we need to prepare.
Please go easy on pepper from now on, Roy, I can't stomach strongly spiced food...

Minimalist wrote:Your making an assumption that it was a big family, Ish. We have evidence of one guy who, BTW (in case you missed it) was a real live military commander in Britain. Now, I know you'd prefer to assign everything to mythology but it does seem that this guy was real.

I don't want to assign everything to mythology. It's just that, unlike you, I can tell the difference between history and mythology. Lucius Artorius appears to be real. Arthur was certainly mythical. And I never said anything about size. But this was the name of the family who were famed for their equestrian skills in a military context. They were called the Artorii. If there was only one of them, there would have been no family called the Artorii.

No one would have given a rat's ass what the Celts wanted. The Britons were fully Romanized and when the legions left they were apparently quite sad to see them go.

According to whom? The Roman historians? The Celts are still with us and occupying the lands to the west to which they retreated under the Romans, and they're still not fully "Romanized" 1500 years later, (even Henry VIIIth couldn't bring their church to heel) so I damned sure they weren't then! The Celtic myths are cosmological and anyway knows what myths are how to read them, knows this. It's plain to see.

Plus, I repeat for the third time, and I notice you don't reply to it, there is nothing in the story of this Roman centurion that tallies with the mythological stories of Arthur.

There's a very long gap between the writing of the myth and the time it was said to have happened. As certain minimalist scholars in the ANE have pointed out, such "histories" tell us more about the time of the people who wrote them than they do about the period they are discussing.

BTW, 'Roman' historians had far more on their minds than Britain as the empire came crashing down around their ears.

How Boudicca lost:

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/337573/ba ... d_britain/

Ancient numbers, particularly when given by the other side, are notoriously unreliable.

Minimalist wrote:Ancient numbers, particularly when given by the other side, are notoriously unreliable.

Alas, it's what we've got to work with until we get better data...

Which is, unfortunately, why some people accept the bible, too.

A little critical thinking is in order.

Minimalist wrote:A little critical thinking is in order.

Which is not the same as a kneejerk reflex outright rejection.

try this on for size then, a dna remnant of Roman cavalry auxillaries in our midst.....

http://www.jogg.info/32/bird.pdf

John1 wrote:try this on for size then, a dna remnant of Roman cavalry auxillaries in our midst.....

http://www.jogg.info/32/bird.pdf

Yep, the 'Roman Special Forces' that Arthur commanded consisted of warriors from many far-flung lands in the Roman empire. Some of those commandos later became knight's of Arthur's fabled Round Table. I'm sure the Roman army must have had ethnic units, like the British have/had the Ghurkas.

The Romans recruited from specific areas for specific legions or auxillia but the promise was of Roman citizenship and land upon completion of service. The whole point was that non-Romans wanted to become Romans.

It was an effective technique.

The distribution in figure 6 implies a hard core in the area around Chester (Deva) which was the base of Legio XX Valeria Victrix for 200 years, they also were with Paulinus in North Africa before the Boudiccan campaign. The XX also recruited in North Africa (several Centurians) but used Illyian cavalry auxillary troopers hence the Haplogroup E and V13 predominance. 200 years of XX veterans settling in the area?

John1 wrote:The distribution in figure 6 implies a hard core in the area around Chester (Deva) which was the base of Legio XX Valeria Victrix for 200 years, they also were with Paulinus in North Africa before the Boudiccan campaign. The XX also recruited in North Africa (several Centurians) but used Illyian cavalry auxillary troopers hence the Haplogroup E and V13 predominance. 200 years of XX veterans settling in the area?

So a goodly percentile of the British really are couscous, spaghetti, and humus eaters!

Of course that was before the Jutes, Angels, and Saxons spliced their Germanic genes into the populace, and the Norse and Dane Vikings theirs, and then the Norman frog legs...

Mrs. Hyacinth Bucket is living proof!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_IYifp8hFE&NR=1

It's quite a funky island!

Is she wearing a shower curtain? There has to be some humor here. Someone please enlighten those of us on the west side of the pond.

Lol .RS .You can even get New Age Hyacinths .

George