Topic 1 – ‘Purposeful Place-Names’ (2025)
Rannoch Daly presented findings from this book by John Blair and Ann Cole which suggests that, particularly in Mercia (West Midlands), groups of settlement names often appear near to one another in complementary, functional clusters. For example, a group of four nearby settlements in a small area SE of Leicester:
- Burton Overy, the ‘-tun’ of the ‘burh’, a central place;
- Stratton, the ‘-tun’ on the strait (Roman) road;
- Carlton Curlieu, the ‘-tun’ of the ceorls (farmers);
- Newton Harcourt, the new ‘-tun’.
Blair/Cole list over 40 of these names (1600 examples) and identify several apparently similar clusters in various counties. They include a statistical appendix by Giacomo Zanella which suggests that these individual examples may not be widespread across the country. The contrasting findings produced a lively discussion.
Topic 2 – West African DNA in 7th century English graves
Dorothy Cowans presented a report by Foody et al (2025) on 18 human skeletons excavated from a cemetery in Worth Matravers, Dorset. New methods of DNA analysis enable much more detailed findings than in the past. Among the skeletons were siblings, cousins and second cousins and an individual whose DNA revealed his origins in sub-Saharan West Africa.
Colm O’Brien reported similar findings by Sayer et al (2025) from a cemetery in Updown, Kent which enabled identification of four generations of a single family including another sub-Saharan West African.
Next meeting: 19th March 2026, Tyneside Irish Centre
Max Adams will be introducing a session on the identification and description of field monuments. Using LiDAR, aerial photography and earthwork survey, we look at the basics of field monument forms – how we classify and interpret them in the light of excavated and circumstantial spatial evidence. From unenclosed Bronze Age settlements to linear earthworks, Roman forts and Early Medieval Grubenhauser, we aim to gain confidence in knowing what we’re looking at.