Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms | DNA, Culture and Identity.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Study of Antiquity and the Middle Ages. As always, I am your host, Nick Barksdale, and today you are going to be given a journey back through time into the very heart of the Anglo-Saxon world, and it's going to explore a variety of topics, from architecture taking you to the very history itself, to studies being done to help us better understand the past and where various different peoples actually came from. And so, not only are we going to explore an Anglo-Saxon town and castle, but we're also going to explore the very people who lived there, who came from different parts of the world to call that area their home. The person taking you on this tour is none other than Alex Iles, and he's not just bringing you history, but he's even bringing you a special guest, an expert on the ground to help me and you better understand the subjects that we all love. And honestly, I hope you enjoyed this as much as I did. Hello to the followers and friends of the Study of Antiquities and the Middle Ages. My name is Alex Iles, and in today's episode, we're going to look at some of the Dark Age history of Britain, specifically the Anglo-Saxons who migrated across from Northwestern Europe to settle here in the British Isles and form the peoples today that you'll know as the Anglo-Saxons. I'm standing here in the crypt of St Aidan's Church in Bamburgh with Jessica, who's the project manager of the Bamburgh Bones. So Jessica, will you tell us, what is the Bamburgh Bones? The Bamburgh Bones is a very exciting project, and it came from a community initiative. There's a small group of volunteers who created a group called Bamburgh Heritage Trust, and they said they'd like to do more interpretation about the Bamburghs and Anglo-Saxon heritage. So looking around for a space to do some interpretation, the vicar was on the group, so he suggested this crypt as a really interesting space. It had been closed off to the public for 30 years due to health and safety and the very poor access that was then. And so Bamburgh Heritage Trust went to the National Heritage Authority Fund and managed to get funding for a project to reopen the crypt, so access St Aidan's Church. And then while they were doing that, they thought about the Bohol remains, the excavations at the site. The Bohol site is just to the south of the castle, and it's a cemetery site which was excavated by Bamburgh Research Project and Durham University between 1999 and 2007. As a result of that excavation, they excavated about 110 human inhumations, all East-West alignment, so we know they're Christian. There's very little burial goods, so they knew that from the start off. And then they did radio carbon dates on the site, and that dates the site to around 650 to 800, so a very early medieval cemetery site with really good preservation due to the nature of the soil composition here. So they have these skeletons, and then it's a question of what you do. Now, anybody that's excavated a cemetery in Britain will know you do it under licence from the Home Office. That licence stipulates what you do with the bodies. So after the research was complete, it was to be reburied. But because we knew so much about these bones and these people, and this amazing link that we have to our Northern Christian heritage, actually we decided to do something really special with these people. Rather than put them into a hole in consecrated ground, we created the ossuary, the Bamburgh ossuary, which what we did is we got charnel boxes from Italy, and we put each skeleton into its own charnel box, and then we put them into the second crypt. Here in the crypt, there is a smaller second crypt, which is just to my left here, and that's what we did. So every single skeleton is in its own box, and they're put there, and we commissioned a grill, a lovely beautiful Anglo-Saxon, morphic knot grill, and that closed, so this is their final resting place, but here in our ossuary. Fantastic. I'll just show our followers this second crypt you mentioned, and just inside there you can see the charnel boxes, which is the final resting place of these 100 odd individuals who were excavated, and then studied, and then have been returned to this resting place here in St Aidan's Church. Now with that as well, would you take us through what a charnel box is, because we have an example of a charnel box here. The first thing I have to say to our followers and friends is that the skeleton inside this box is a plastic skeleton, don't worry, you're not seeing actual human remains. The reason why we have a spare charnel box like this is because actually it's quite difficult to put your mind around, actually when we in our skeletal form, we don't amount to much in terms of space, so that's why we have a spare charnel box to demonstrate this. So all the charnel box needs to really be is long enough to take a femur, and bulky enough to take a skull, because those are the two sort of mass bones that we look at. If I open it, slide it open for you, you can see basically we don't amount to much in the end. So that's a whole skeleton in there, just its individual component parts. Yes, so it's very respectful that the person's final resting place would be within an area, a parish, where they would have lived, they would have worshipped, possibly at the church that was on this site during the Anglo-Saxon period, and also just within a very short distance of the castle which would have been the capital of their kingdom at that time. So this is all very important for the, not only the people who have been laid to rest, but us today understanding our history in this region. I think there's incredible significance on this site, because we know in 635, Aidan founded his first church on this site. That's after King Oswald, who later becomes Saint Oswald, comes back to Northumbria, reunites the two kingdoms in 634. He calls for help from Iona to help convert the Northumbrians to Christianity, to the Celtic Christianity that Aidan knew from the monastery on Iona, St Columba's Monastery. So he founded his first church here, but we can go one step further than that because of the radiant carbon dates on the site, we know since 650, actually some of these people in this ossuary would have heard Aidan preach, they are his first congregation. So it's incredibly significant and appropriate that we give them this really special treatment and then they're here, where they would have heard Aidan and Oswald. And that's a remarkable link from an archaeological point of view. That cemetery site is really, really fascinating and wonderful, but actually where you can make those tangible links to it all at the same, is astounding and it's just such an exciting thing to be part of. That's amazing. Now when they did the research as well, our science has come on a huge amount since early archaeologists and scientists started looking at our past and you've actually done a lot of research on these bones as well using isotopes. Would you be able to tell me a bit about isotopes as well, but then also on top of that tell me about what those isotopes tell us about these people? So isotopes, as you say, is a relatively new, archaeology is a relatively new science, so isotope analysis is quite innovative. But basically what it is, is the enamel of your teeth holds a minimal trace of the environment in which those teeth formed. So it's different from DNA, which is sort of just the essence of us. The isotopes tell us exactly where they come from, where they grew up, where they live, so their sort of identity as such. So the Mambra Research Project and Durham University were fortunate enough to get the funding to do 100% analysis, so they've analysed all the teeth, well a tooth of each individual in that cemetery so to speak, so they know where everybody comes from. So what's come from that is that less than 10% of that population, that combination of what excavated, came from Mambra, but the rest come from much wider field, particularly western principles, so Ireland, Southern Ireland, Northern Scotland and the Scottish Isles, but also continental Europe. So we have evidence of people from Scandinavia, possibly Italy and Spain, and even possibly further afield as well. Yeah, because one of the first people was possibly from Anatolia, or what was Greek Turkey at that time, before the migrations that we see in the later periods in the Middle Ages and of the conquest of Anatolia and Turkey. But with all of those things coming together, we can see that Mambra was actually this really important site during this period we call the Dark Ages, and now we're realising that people have migrated from, as you say, Scandinavia, Ireland, Northern Scotland and all over England, as well as continental Europe, so France, Spain and also places like Greece, to come to Mambra, to be a part of this community, to be a part of this capital, of this newly emerging Northumbrian kingdom of endless Saxons, who we previously just thought of as Germanic barbarians, filling the void of the Roman Empire. But now we've got this really exciting, interesting new kingdom, which is a real melting pot of all of these cultures, with inspiration from all of these different Christian sites, and also outside of the Christian world as well. I think that's the point that's really interesting. Obviously we'll never know why these people were coming this far, but what we do know is 1,400 years ago there was a draw, Mambra was somewhere people wanted to come. Migration is nothing new, be it social or economic, but possibly in this instance actually maybe Christianity was the draw. It was a really new religion, it was actually very egalitarian in the afterlife. That must have been a really appealing thing for the people to hear, that if you're good in this life you're rewarded in the next. That was radical and new, and so maybe that's what was drawing people here. But certainly there must be some economic movement, because we can go so far as to sort of speculate what these people were doing for a living, because they're so close to the castle site as it is, it would be impossible to dig a grave on a castle site, because it's a dolerite extrusion, so you're not going to dig through the windstone. So it's the nearest sort of burial site to the castle, so we think there's some association there. But actually as a population they're robust and healthy, so that also sort of says their diet is good, and their diet is actually quite rich, because certainly there's signs of gout in some of the skeletons, and their teeth are appalling, really really bad teeth. So again a rich diet is quite indicative of what's going on there, but with some skeletons you can sort of start to sort of speculate what they were doing for a living, sort of repetitive actions that resulted in something called a weaver's bottom, which is where the muscles sit next to the feet, where you can see that exaggerated pattern. But also one woman had a weaver's bottom, but she also had a little nick in her front tooth, possibly from continually holding a needle or a thread between her teeth. So it's almost like these are the courtesans or the artisans of the court of Saint Oswald and subsequent kings. Now again, going back to how remarkable that is from an archaeological point of view, but then you add on our northern saints and it's just fantastic. It makes the Dark Ages so much more colourful, because we see all of these different professions going on here in the northeast of England. And again, when people have thought about the Dark Ages, you get an almost Monty Python peasant sitting in the mud view, when actually it's incredibly bright colours, clothings, gold, silver, bronze is commonly being used. We've got amazing swords that have been manufactured by twisting the iron together, then hammering into sword blades, called pattern welding. All of these things going on here in Northumbria, which again I would like to say, if you come back and watch my other videos, you'll be able to see a lot more of that on my YouTube channel as well. But all of these things are going on here in Northumbria and it makes it such a rich and amazing place in the Dark Ages. And some place here where you can just come along and be within, you know, a few foot of the interned is amazing. My other question as well would be is, what is your favourite thing about the Bambra Bones? I think it's bringing more awareness of Saint Aidan, actually. I think he and Saint Oswald were remarkable characters and show such endeavour and adventure to, I mean, to Aidan coming from Ireland and to Iona, to here, to preach to heathens is remarkable. His teaching was all about kindness and being gentle. And actually, I think it's more relevant than ever that we should just all be a little bit nicer to each other. And also that fact that this was a cosmopolitan place and people were coming from all over Europe. So that rich melting pot, those cultural interactions that then resulted in the Lindisfarne Gospels and the sort of Christian landscape that we celebrate like Durham Cathedral could only have happened with Aidan and Oswald starting here. And I just think that's ever so exciting to be part of. Yeah, and so that gets me very excited as well when you talk about it. My final question would be, what is your dream for the Bambra Bones project going forwards? Our ambition has never been to get more people to come to Bambra. What it is, it's about getting those people that come here to know more about that Anglo-Saxon heritage and the fact that this is so central to that wider story. And so if more people come away knowing about St Aidan's Church, the place, then I'm incredibly happy. Fantastic. Another thing as well is that to help you going forwards in the future, what you can actually do is you can sponsor one of the boxes, can't you? Now, again, this isn't like sponsoring maybe like certain charities like a lion or a tiger or anything like that. But instead, you can sponsor a Box of Bones. And it's something I'm planning on doing as well. And I have actually started looking into it as well. But would you tell me a little bit more about sponsoring one of the charnel boxes? Yeah, it's just a way of helping us sustain this. Because obviously, as I'm sure everybody would appreciate, everything has cost and maintaining the equipment. So just in order to help us go forward, it would be lovely if people would sponsor a box. We're very conscious that you're just sponsoring the box. You don't know which skeleton that is, because we're very, very clear that you're not sponsoring an individual. It's a box to help us sustain ourselves. So if anybody would like to, we'd be delighted to hear from them. And obviously, then they'll get information from us and a tote bag and a t-shirt if they like. Fantastic. And I'll put the link as well in the description so you can see more about the Bambra Bones Project, their shop, and also supporting them if you would like to charitably. As always, we thank you for joining us. Please like and subscribe and share this with your friends so more people will discover about this fantastic world in the North of Britain. And I'll hand back to Nick now, who will complete the video. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us today at the Study of Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Alex Isles and Jessica Turner did a fantastic job in bringing you an awesome history and really quickly breaking it down so that we can all better understand this subject. And so to all of my subscribers, check out the links in the video description below. It's going to take you to the Castle Project, the Bones Project, to the work that Alex Isles is doing, to where you can support all of these awesome individuals, organizations, and all of the hard work that they are doing to help people like me and you better understand the subjects that we all love. And so comment your thoughts below, check out the links, give them your full support, and honestly, just help make history matter. Thank you all so much, and have a wonderful night.