Historiography and Archaeology, the Adventus Saxonum, and the Politics of the Early Middle Ages

Abstract

In this interview, the editors and the interviewee discuss contemporary approaches to the study of ethnic identity in the context of the end of Roman Britain and migration to Britain from across the North Sea. A discussion of the interviewee’s attempt to problematise this issue in relation to the cremation cemetery of Spong Hill, Norfolk, is used to open up a wider discussion, which covers issues such as issues of empiricism and interpretation, misconceptions about what it means to correctly draw upon archaeological and historical source material in unison, and the mis/utilisation of the study of the early medieval past in its various forms in relation to contemporary political discourse in Britain around issues such as migration, ethnicity and identity.