Talk:Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain

Summarize Timeline Top Qs Fact Check

So, I've just been through the article and consolidated large amounts of duplicated material, so whatever its faults the article is now shorter and more focused.

My current wishlist is:

• a better (but concise) survey of where the archaeogenetic evidence has got us to so far. (Might this involve restoring or replicating some material that @JASpencer has moved to Historiography of the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain?) The genetic evidence is really hard to synthesise given that we don't yet have professional scholarly syntheses, and of course our coverage needs to include criticisms of the archaeogenetic work. But the archaeogenetics strike me as an important aspect of current thinking that readers of this article will want an up-to-date take on.
• putting §2 'Competing descriptions of the settlement' at the beginning rather than after the list of sources. Whereas academic research puts the sources first and the conclusions last, readers of an encyclopedia aren't going to read our long survey of primary sources and then draw conclusions from them. So I think the survey of sources should go second — available if keen readers want it, but not in the way of readers who want to understand what scholars think happened in the fifth century.

I wouldn't want to put words in his mouth, but I think from the discussion in the previous section that @Andrew Lancaster's wishlist might include:

• keeping the order as it is but reducing the number of subheadings to produce a simpler-looking table of contents
• Andrew thinks that "explaining the current mainstream is the main aim for this article and needs to be near the top. There is a core of it which is text based and NOT contested." What I think he means by this is that he doesn't believe that the assimilationist model is mainstream, but he does believe that sources like Gildas and Bede provide a mainstream account which is not contested. Apologies if I've misunderstood.

Any views? For reference, here's the contents list as it stands at the time of writing this post:

Contents

• 1 Survey of evidence
  • 1.1 Written evidence up to Bede
    • 1.1.1 Continental Roman sources
    • 1.1.2 Gildas
    • 1.1.3 Bede
  • 1.2 Linguistic evidence
  • 1.3 Archaeological evidence
    • 1.3.1 Understanding the Roman legacy
    • 1.3.2 Settler evidence
    • 1.3.3 Tribal characteristics
    • 1.3.4 Landscape archaeology
    • 1.3.5 Distribution of settlements
    • 1.3.6 Cemetery evidence
    • 1.3.7 Isotope analysis
  • 1.4 Genetic evidence
    • 1.4.1 Ancient genome studies
    • 1.4.2 Modern population studies
    • 1.4.3 Criticism
• 2 Competing descriptions of the settlement
  • 2.1 Traditional account: a massive migration
  • 2.2 Acculturation theory: a small migration
  • 2.3 Archaeogenetics, isotope analysis, and the disruption of consensus
  • 2.4 Regional variation
  • 2.5 Debate: estimating migrants' numbers
• 3 See also
• 4 Notes
• 5 Citations
• 6 Bibliography
  • 6.1 General
  • 6.2 Archaeology
  • 6.3 History
  • 6.4 Genetics

Alarichall (talk) 13:20, 9 March 2025 (UTC)

I think you know very well that you are distorting my position, now for the second time. Do not do this again. I have said that the current mainstream is no longer defined as a conflict between extreme versions of migration and assimilation arguments. (Both are now mainstream. They are [ADDED: NOT] mutually exclusive!) My proposals:

• I think the latest shortening of the genetics section can indeed be discussed. There was not really a clear agreement to move so much out of this article, although I can understand the reasoning. I know that this is a topic our editors do not always agree about. I hope other editors will comment.
• As per various past discussions and experiences trying to bring these articles into a more focussed condition I think there is some consensus here that after the lead there should be one or two sections explaining both the "traditional account" and the basic uncontroversial written evidence (controversy is for elsewhere), because these two points form the basic starting point and context which all readers will need in order to understand everything else. Not doing this, which seems to be the push, means effectively giving Bede priority over the near contemporary Gildas in a way which our readers won't be allowed to see, and which I think does not represent any field consensus. I've explained this above in many detailed ways. I have not seen a counter argument.
• We should try to limit the number of sectioning levels to 2 IMHO.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:38, 9 March 2025 (UTC)
• You moved the traditional account back together with the "competing theories". By definition, this section is not about a current competing theory, and it was made a few days back with the express intention of explaining context for readers. So this is not appropriate and I will return it. I think the whole idea of needing to call everything 2 competing theories is wrong-headed, misleading and illogical, even if it makes sense as a certain type of textbook style. I would get rid of that whole competing theories section and move the good bits elsewhere.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:42, 9 March 2025 (UTC)
• I also strongly advise that we should avoid over-complicated heading names, and over-reliance upon multiple jargon names for specific arguments if those arguments can be explained in normal everyday English. For example, assimilation, acculturation etc are being used for the arguments that there was "less" migration, whereas migration gets called traditional, migrationist etc. For a normal educated reader this can all be explained as one discussion about the relative importance of migration. We must avoid writing in academic codes.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:47, 9 March 2025 (UTC)
• And why is Peter Schrijver being discussed now only under "traditional" accounts? --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:49, 9 March 2025 (UTC)
• I think maybe about 10% of the archaeology section is worth keeping, and I think the "competing descriptions" sections is also mostly off topic and redundant for this article. These two sections represent a very big part of the article. Some of the other sections perhaps deserve expansion, but trying to think about this is difficult unless there is some level of cooperation between editors, because expanding anything will probably create duplications and increase the size.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:16, 9 March 2025 (UTC)

@Alarichall: After re-reading the discussions several times I want to emphasize that what I think the article needs to open with (after the lead) is not really a complete discussion of the written evidence at all. It is background/context information that is needed for the reader to understand all the references which will be made (including in more specialized articles, which the reader may chose to click on). This would include some mention of Procopius, Gildas and Bede, only because they are part of the basic equipment the reader will need. So yes, our article basically lacks a distinct detailed section about academic doubts and debates relating to written evidence. And, to make this clear, I don't really see that as a problem. Consistent with this, I ALSO don't like the idea of this article needing long sections about ANY type of evidence. All these things CAN be farmed out to other articles. (I thought we all agreed, because it seems so obvious.) What we can fit here are only short sections, but these sections should at least list the basic evidence, with some indications about what it implies. Despite the long sections we have on some topics, those are badly failing to at least make sure we mention what evidence is used. That is a minimum/priority target and you seem to be fighting it. Instead we have lots of material where we jump too quickly in discussions about discussions, and we get stuck in those. This leaves no room for expanding anything, so for now we have to prioritize shortening and focussing those long sections, so that they at least mention the basic minimum context which a reader needs before going further, and linking them to specialist articles instead where readers can move to once they've picked up the basics. But for now, if evidence is actually listed at all (almost nothing is explained in the archaeology section) it is mentioned AFTER the discussions about the discussions, which is too late. So IMHO what is motivating me is a big practical concern about "style" for want of a better term, so please avoid making speculations about my personal opinions because AFAIK they are probably not a source of any big difference between us.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 17:46, 9 March 2025 (UTC)

Summarize Timeline Fact Check

Pagewatchers may wish to watchlist Continuity Model of British Ancestry started by JASpencer today. TSventon (talk) 20:01, 11 March 2025 (UTC)

Yes any help would be appreciated. A lot of the continuity model seems to be out of date but it was a big deal 20 years ago. Francis Pryor did two mini-series on the idea that we were all the same from before the Bell Beaker people. Not coincidentally it was also popular around the time that Wikipedia was expanding like topsy.

Although the core of this is Anglo-Saxon, this is a small part of the theory.

JASpencer (talk) 20:08, 11 March 2025 (UTC)

@JASpencer: but did it really justify a new article as opposed to the existing article about British genetics?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 05:36, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

Why not?! Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopaedia :-) Alarichall (talk) 11:01, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

Discuss it there please. But forking, redundancy, duplication etc are not seen as positive in the WP community, and this is based on our experience as WP editors. Also, just to repeat a concern with the edits of yourself and @JASpencer:, being WP:BOLD in a good sense is certainly not the same as working strategically against WP:CONSENSUS building.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:57, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

The low cost of production and copying on the internet is a source of strength on the internet, but it is also a source of a major weak point, which is that information is copied, tweaked and distorted in a million ways very easily, creating large amounts of low quality material, and giving people very little possibility to judge it. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 16:45, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

We don't need to treat Wikipedia as if it's paper rationed. This was an influential school that was essentially the establishment view albeit for a short time, and it still has its adherents. It's also much wider than the Anglo-Saxon debate and definitely needed to be moved from there.

But the main point - about forking - is also something I'd contest. If it's about putting a different slant on an existing article then that's where forking is discouraged, but as a way of bringing in new articles on connected but distinct notable phenomena and at the same time removing undue weight given in existing articles it's not just encouraged - it's the natural engine of Wikipedia's growth and extensiveness and a major strength of Wikipedia to boot. JASpencer (talk) 21:05, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

Nobody has suggested anything about needing to worry about paper? Nobody has mentioned concerns about articles with "distinct and notable" topics. You are clearly both trying to give the impression that I said almost the opposite of what I actually said. Here are some real concerns. Address these?

• One concern I mentioned is about your lack of thought concerning new articles which are highly overlapping and NOT clearly distinct from existing articles. POV forks are not the only type of problematic forking. Articles with high degrees of overlap generally have a lot of knock-on effects, making whole groups of articles very difficult to read or edit and we frankly already have a problem in this group of articles. This type of problem is certainly NOT seen as positive on WP.
• The new article of course has other justifications necessary (WP:OR, WP:SYNTH, WP:NOTE). These relate to core content policy. (This you can best defend over on that talk page.)
• Despite the rhetoric I've not seen the two of you helping much to shorten articles, but rather working in the opposite direction. Again, I think your talk page posts are misleading and diversionary.
• I keep mentioning the importance of building WP:CONSENSUS, and coordination with other editors. This is especially important for people obsessed with being "bold". In effect, you guys seem to think being bold means surprise attacks and telling fellow editors to take a rest from Wikipedia if they don't like your "boldness". You refuse to give clear answers to important questions about what you are doing. You ignore or deliberately distort efforts by others to try to create effective talk page discussions. This is a obviously a big source of my concerns. I think the world is suffering enough from "bold" people who think they are above working with others! --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 22:05, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

I've proposed that this new article should not exist. WP:Articles for deletion/Continuity Model of British Ancestry. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:48, 15 March 2025 (UTC)

Summarize Timeline Fact Check

As various more technical parts of the article (or the substantive bits of them) are going elsewhere, what should be done about the archeology? It's really important for early Anglo-Saxon history, but there does seem to be a lot of weight around the technical details of archaeology.

JASpencer (talk) 20:02, 11 March 2025 (UTC) @JASpencer: I've posted my detailed opinions. Please read those. The update is that we now also have a second coverage of several parts of this section, which I think is not a tenable long run situation. In short I am opposed to have a "super section" called "survey of evidence" and another "super section" called "competing descriptions". I think much of what is in these two sections is not worth keeping, and certainly not worth keeping in such a complex format. The archaeology section (like the others) should be written so that it starts with the basic information readers need, but instead we keep accumulating material which looks like vague notes for a commentary about about commentaries.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 05:35, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

I agree that the archaeology content here falls between two stools: not detailed enough to be really useful to an interested reader, but too detailed to be readily readable. BUT people researching this topic these days would say that archaeological(and archaeogenetic) evidence is far more important for understanding what actually happened than Gildas. So I wouldn't want to see us reducing the archaeological content if doing that makes Gildas look more important than he is :-/ Alarichall (talk) 11:17, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

This is a very strange answer! Apart from your standpoint being very debatable, no-one is arguing that there should be no archaeology section, only that what we have is not fit for purpose, and you clearly accept this. Surely you are not arguing that we need to keep a large QUANTITY of text which you agree is not fit for purpose JUST SO THAT we don't make Gildas look too important? Gildas currently has a tiny two paragraph section, and no one is arguing for an expansion of that. You seem to have an obsession with trying to write Gildas out of this article, despite the fact that most things academics write about this topic can't be properly understood without understanding it as background information! (This is not the first strangely exaggerated remark you've made pretending that Gildas dominates the article.) The archaeology section is long enough to be an article, despite how uninformative it is. The solution here is surely to rewrite that section, and bring it up to standard? (There is already an archaeology article where some material might still be useful.) This has nothing at all to do with Gildas, so why mention him? If the archaeology section is dramatically reduced it could in any case easily still be twice as big as the Gildas discussion I think. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:56, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

Alarichall the current language section is about the Celtic influence question and I think you worked on that? This is an interesting topic but can we add something about the more basic question of what evidence exists concerning the arrival of the new language? I am thinking you might be in a good position to help on that? If necessary we can divide this topic into sub-sections. Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:00, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't see this until now! Thanks for asking. I'll try to get up to speed with what is going on in this article. We have a few runic inscriptions in Old English in the fifth and sixth centuries, but basically, the evidence "concerning the arrival of the new language" in what is now England is that the lights go out around the late fourth century, when everyone seems to be speaking Celtic and Latin, and when they come back on around 700, the sources make it look like everyone is speaking Old English. What was happening in the interim can mostly only be guessed from the later sources. Alarichall (talk) 05:39, 11 August 2026 (UTC)

Has anyone seen or got access to Bernard Mees's book? https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9781003268321/english-language-england-bernard-mees --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:05, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

What is the difference between the coverage of this article, and the topic coverage of Sub-Roman Britain? I am not saying there is none, but how do we make it clear? (And if there is a lot of overlap, should we merge both into an article with a suitable broad title?) There is now discussion about this on another article here. I have written there as follows: The settlement period is more or less the same period as the Sub-Roman period. I can see an argument for saying that the focus upon the origins of the Anglo-Saxons can make the article different, but even if we don't merge we should make sure that the articles are "visible" to each other and clearly defined. Overlapping parts can sometimes be shortened, deferring to the other article. What I am seeing in practice is that the topics discussed overlap about 99% so something is wrong for now. As usual even just getting up some rationales and proposed "boundaries" can help us make better articles. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:10, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

A seminal book on the topic, now very dated, was called Roman Britain and the English settlements, by Collingwood, R.G. and Myres, J.N.L.. To me this indicates the inextricable link between the subjects. There is no neat solution and looking for one is probably futile. There will be overlap and repetition, it is unavoidable. Urselius (talk) 06:11, 11 August 2026 (UTC)

Does the later 1886 book by Myres in the same series not replace that work?

Anyway, yes, over course there is always overlap, but (a) for any reasonably important topic it is important to make it clear which article is the main one which everyone working on the topic should be watching and (b) we've had some extreme overlap in the articles related to Anglo Saxon topics.

In this particular case, I think the bigger concern is the obvious overlap in the other two articles. But it is also relevant to this article even if it is simply good to know which are the sub-topics where we can link to another article.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 06:20, 11 August 2026 (UTC)