Talk:Atrebates

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Cunliffe's opinion, if accurately reported, seems to me an extreme example of the current archaeological tendency to deny that any migrations have ever occurred. We know from Caesar the Gaulish Atrebates were Belgae, that the Belgae had settled in southern Britain, and that when Caesar was stuck with no cavalry in Britain Commius was able to provide some horsemen from his people. We know from Frontinus that Commius fled to Britain with followers, and we know from numismatics that someone called Commius ruled the Atrebates in Britain in the later first century BC. It's my opinion that all the so-called "tribal" names from this period were names of ruling clans or dynasties and not ethnic groups at all, but it seems to me undeniable from the evidence that Commius had kin in Britain in 55BC, whom he and his followers were later able to join when they left Gaul, and that Commius established himself as their king in the latter half of the 1st century AD. --Nicknack009 09:40, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I agree that academic fashion has swung towards a view of being much more cautious about linking prehistoric cultures through population movement but would say that the evidence can often support views either way. The whole 'package of knowledge' argument has been transferred wholesale from Bronze Age archaeology where there is of course no historical record to provide context. But even the significance of Caesar's Belgic incursion itself is played down and relocated westwards these days.
For information I quote the sentence from Cunliffe's Iron Age Britain in full:
[Of the political situation in the 1st Century BC] South of the Thames the dominant group were the Atrebates, whose primary focus was Calleva. They seem to have comprised a series of indigenous tribes, possibly with some intrusive Belgic element, given initial coherence by Commius, a Gallo-Belgic leader who fled to Britain in the aftermath of Caesar's Gallic campaigns.
The archaeological record in southern Britain indicates that it was home to numerous small socio-economic groups from the Middle Iron Age onwards. By the first century BC they were abandoning their hillforts and developing loose local confederacies with a single urban centre each. Cunliffe calls these 'proto-states', brought into being through increased trading opportunities with the Roman world. The oppidum at Silchester was founded around 25 BC [1] which I would argue means that Commius had to spend a decade or two establishing himself as a big cheese in Britain after fleeing Gaul rather than walking into a ready made kingdom as a respected prince. From this point of view, it could be argued that Commius built himself a kingdom by exploiting the economic changes that were put in train by Britain's new position on the edge of the Roman Empire. He arrived and having no land, began trading with Rome, eventually building a new trade centre that eclipsed the others nearby, Such a mercantile empire would probably soon begin minting its own coinage to aid cross-channel deals. Maybe a nice familiar name on a coin, like Commius, would have encouraged trust from Gaulish merchants who knew his past. In the absence of any serious competition from the isolated farmsteads, he became the de facto ruler of the area.
It is possible that Commius had earlier kinship with some of these smalltime pre-Atrebatic British market gardeners who could have given him a foothold and I don't think anyone would argue that the ruling, clerical and mercantile classes have not historically been more mobile than hoi polloi. What may not have happened though is that more than a small squadron of Commius' mates or their ancestors ever left their homeland for an uncertain future amongst the backwards British across the water.
I have added similar doubts to the Parisii article too and would be grateful for your thoughts over there. adamsan 10:59, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)


Oooh also:
In the 1960s this model [of Celtic invasions] was challenged as intellectual fashions changed. In a seminal study, Hodson (1964) argued that few of the supposed invasions were represented by clear-cut archaeological horizons. Instead, he pointed to long-term cultural continuities that distinguished the British Iron Age from that of Continental Europe, notably the preference for circular buildings and the lack of burials. With few exceptions, cross-Channel trade provided sufficient explanation for those changes of artefact style that occurred.
...Subsequent surveys of the period by Cunliffe (1991; 1995) and others (e.g. Hill 1995; James and Rigby 1997) have tended to downplay externally induced cultural change, apart from the Late Iron Age, for which intensive contact between south-east England and the Roman world after 50 BC has taken over the role once accorded to Caesar's Belgic settlers. The emphasis has shifted to economic and social questions, prompted in part by Peacock's (1968) use of thin-sectioning to investigate pottery production. This revealed an unexpected degree of centralisation in the manufacture of various styles of fine decorated pottery from south -west England, implying that their distributions owed more to regional exchange networks than to cultural factors.
Haselgrove, C The Iron Age in The Archaeology of Britain Hunter J and Ralston I (eds), Routledge 2005 pp114-115. Quoting: Hodson FR, 1964, Cultural Groupings withing the pre-Roman British Iron Age, Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society, 30, 99-110, Cunliffe's Iron Age Britain and Iron Age Communities in Britain 3rd Ed, Routledge. Hill, JD 1995, The Iron Age in Britain and Ireland (c. 800 BC - AD 100): an overview, Journal of World Prehistory 9, 47-98 and James ST and Rigby V, 1997, Britain and the Celtic Iron Age, British Museum Press. Peacock DPS, 1968, A Contribution to the study of Glastonbury ware from south-west Britain: a review,Antiquaries Journal 46, 41-61 adamsan 11:37, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Makes sense, and ties in with my opinion that the Atrebates were simply a ruling house and not a population group. Similarly, I think the evidence points to the Trinovantes and Catuvellauni being two rival houses vying for the rule of the south-east rather than two rival nations conquering and subjecting each other. I've rewritten and expanded your paragraph to make it clear that Cunliffe isn't claiming Commius and his Gaulish followers had nothing to do with the British Atrebates, which is the impression you inadvertently gave. --Nicknack009 18:18, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Splendid. Do you fancy pitching in on the Stone Age COTW? adamsan 19:34, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

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