The Netflix of History. Use code 'timeline' for 80% off bit.ly/TimelineHistory

I love how we all have no problem pointing out that writers of the past had certain axes to grind or political points to push but then act like the ones in modern times do not.

I'm a prehistorian. Francis Pryor is a well respected prehistorian and has seriously advanced what we know of prehistoric Britain. No academic is perfect and we often say a lot of 'wrong' things which might be 'right' at the time. Archaeology is a science and it is constantly evolving. We study people, which are the hardest subjects to study. There is so much we can't know and we draw on the efforts of MANY disciplines to help us study past peoples. So, whereas I can't agree with everything being said in this documentary series, what is said largely reflected what we knew at the time (2004). Certain language was being used that would capture audiences. Words like 'celtic' and 'barbarian' and 'migration/invasion' are often used as rhetoric to evoke emotion among viewers who might have learned about (extremely outdated--like, 1960s/1970s) models of early Britain. The advancements in the methods and theories and ideas of archaeology are slow to hit mainstream dispersal. And it requires a large percentage of consensus to get there in the first place. Dr. Rachel Pope has just revolutionized what we know of 'celts' and 'celtic languages'. That paper is still being written and will likely be published this year/2020. It won't be mainstream for a long time yet. It'll undergo a lot of debate and scrutiny. But if it does change our view of 'celts' and 'celtic languages', it'll feel very much like many of you do now. Why should it be absurd to suggest that sea 'forts' are warehouses? Defending an expensive store of goods with stone walls and palisades seems like a good idea to me. It also sends a statement. Language change is a fascinating subject. People don't just abandon their native language, but it does start to change if you begin trading with people of a different language. We often think of the coercive approach to language change (Koreans forced to speak Japanese during their 20th C. occupation, for example), but we also see the peaceful addition of languages too (Spanish is rapidly becoming the dual language of Chicago). It's a matter of communication, for whatever reason. Revision is key to archaeology. It's nothing to apologize for. This retrospection is critical for understanding how we interpret past peoples. For a long time, the past was a world of MEN. No women, but we kind of assumed they were there. Gender archaeologists spent decades asserting their views about 'women's work' and the role of women in the past. No one cared when archaeologists started calling past as a world of PEOPLE. But then again, as viewers, we are influenced by our own histories and ideas and experiences. Also, archaeology is weird, confusing, and very incomplete. We do our best and we love to share what we know.

I really love the way this episode was written by Dr. Pryor, so seamlessly weaving one piece of evidence after another. Wonderful!

I have said it before. Sutton Hoo bears a striking resemblance to the ship burials in Vendel-Valsgarde from 500-600 BC just north of Upsala in Sweden. What that implies I can not say. I am a layman.

What a great conversation at 5:45. It is so nice to see two people who completely disagree debating so respectfully.

Archaeologists in programs I've watched have pointed out it's very difficult to find Anglo Saxon buildings because they were wood. It doesn't necessarily mean there is no archaeological evidence. Even where there's supposed to be evidence it's difficult to find. The DNA studies have revealed there is substantial biological Anglo Saxon ancestry. It seems pretty clear the Angles and Saxons came from Europe to Britain.

So awesome to see and hear Francis Pryor narrate this show.

A Farmers view made me smile as Feances raises sheep! He has such a lovely voice we are blessed as he shares his wisdom.

I find the argument about a Celtic language being replaced by a Germanic language without invasion singularly unconvincing. People are deeply tied to their mother tongue. They don't give it up easily. Languages do die. But they die when they are overwhelmed by a more powerful local group who speak another language. They don't die because a community admires another culture and wants to learn from it. People develop a pidgin to communicate with people they are trading with. They may borrow the architecture, the musical styles, the fashions of another culture. But they keep speaking the language of their childhood, unless they are overwhelmed.

Francis Pryor has some interesting ideas about the development of post Roman Britain but I do not agree with his basic contention of a largely peaceful cultural sea change from that of the native British to the early Anglo Saxon. Fashion and foreign contact can effect changes in a culture but not to the extent of changing the dress, language, lifestyle and development as appeared to occur at that time. The almost total absence of British nouns in English, despite the tenuous word order change, and the lack of Celtic names for towns and dwellings in nearly all of England indicates that something far more profound than a change of fashion took place. That is indicative of a new culture being introduced by a new people. I do not believe that the native Britons were all either exterminated or pushed west, I think that assimilation by the dominant society and culture (ie the Anglo Saxons) is far more likely and the only way for a foreign culture to become dominant is by conquest. The truth is probably somewhere between the two extremes of gradual, peaceful change and bloody, violent intrusion. At present, despite the claims made in this series, the jury is still out on this and unless some startling new discoveries are made in the future, will remain so for some time to come.

For those arguing about Pryor ignoring DNA evidence, note that Timeline chose to use the expression "brand new historical series" in 2017 for a program first broadcast in 2004. The DNA work showing the significant change in population DNA after the Roman period wasn't done until around 2015 or so.

Romans used frisians in the UK. They have written it. Frisia was drowning in their country and familiar already with England. In the Netherlands it is known the frisians almost all moved out of the wetlands. They were already trading with England. They knew the land. Old english and old frisian are the most familiar languages. Probably the Jutes Angels and Saxons came after the frisians towards England, looking for land.

Wow! He shuts down any theory that conflicts with his own

Frisians were the traders of the 5th and 6th centuary. Living in the wetlands of the Netherland and coastle Germany. They traded and worked together with the romans. The shortest way to England was East-anglia. Also Old-english and Old Frisian is almost the same. I do believe that the frisians did not invade but traded a lot on the english coast. Especially in the time water got a greater problem in the Netherland, they probably moved to England a lot. The saxons lived more inland of the Netherlands an Germany. Every person was carrying a so called sax. It's not only a saxon thing wearing a knife.

English is not descended from German. It is descended from the West Germanic branch of languages, from which both English and German are descended. In addition to the subtle influence of the Celtic language, there was also influence from the Norse language (e.g. the use of "th" in our language, which is not found in German).

The funniest part is when he describes England as a democracy, and the walks into the house of lords (unelected people who can overrule (slightly) democratically elected MPs, but who ultimately answer to a monarch. @42:00

As a former postwoman, I came across many foreign familynames, from all over Europe and Asia. When I happened to start a conversation, I noticed even more 'foreignity' amongst the people. There has allways, through the ages, been a coming and going of peoples searching for a better living, freedom, learning. I love that. Makes a society so interesting. What I like most of 'the English' is their interest in their history as their present identity. Their dead are among them, their archtecture and tools still in use, their culture cherished and vivid.

And now we have "our diverse and resilient culture"...Thanks for the insight Francis...

You can call it "invasion", you can call it "mass migration", the fact is still that between the V and the VI centuries the population in the island called Britannia by the Romans, drastically changed. Did the Romans begin to settle German immigrants on British land? Were those immigrants mercenaries and/or farmers who slowly (or drastically) took over the power when the Romans left the provincia? Was that a "process", or was it a dramatic sequence of violent episodes? Nobody can still write down an ultimate truth on this page of history. What I find surprising in this case is the absolute lack of any alternate model to replace the concept of "invasion", to explain the "germanization" of the Roman-British civilization in that age in that land. You can't simply say "No, I don't believe in the great invasion" you must give an alternative model about the change that actually took place in Britain! Sorry for the low quality of my English but I'm just an Italian viewer with a deep interest in Late Roman history.

I think that reason why there isn't evidence of a military invasion by the Anglo-Saxons like their was during the Roman invasion is because native English had significantly assimilated into Roman culture and when the Anglo-Saxons eventually showed up their wasn't much friction between the two because northern Europeans had ALSO assimilated to the Roman culture that conquered them. This would kind of explain why the Sutton Hoo helmet has a bit of a Roman like style along with other archeological finds throughout southern England.

I've seen other docs that state that the Saxons, Angles, Jutes and Frisians were invited to come to Britannia to act as "live-in" mercenaries to help bolster the military forces of the Christian Romano-British in their fight against the Gaels, Picts and not so fellow pagan Britons. What started out as a protection agreement slowly became a colonization.

Funny how chaps like Pryor come on so strong with their thesis that they dismiss anything that threatens their particular paradigm. This always has a corrosive effect on their credibility as scholars and turns the process into a pissing match rather than a collaboration with a common goal. SOME TIMES TWO THINGS CAN BE EQUALLY TRUE. Some of Pryor's initial comments in Episode 1 are revealing. He, like so many other historians, is fighting a battle with some ex-colleagues or professors we don't even know or care about. This is not how scholarship is supposed to work - but the pettiness and zealous devotion to their life's work and rigid paradigm are often their greatest weakness. The reality is, if you make your own "history" documentary - you control pretty much everything, and if that view is limited to an invested paradigm, that is all we learn.

Excellent, many thanks. At long last the actual history of humanity is recognized in the lives of ordinary people--not just the bravura of narcissism.

as a huge fan of time team, seeing Dr. Francis in his element is awesome! Hes like a schoolboy so exited and pround!

Keeps claiming the Britons didnt have their culture affected by invaders except for the fact they basically lost their entire language, nice atory bro.

"The people of Britain changed their language, their customs, their political allegiance because they knew from experience that this was the best way to keep up with changing times"? Really? Did they figure this out from the wee trickle of continental families that are grumblingly admitted to have landed upon the isles? This is absurd in so many ways.

Before "A bunch of Celts who fought and drank" After "A bunch of Germans who fought and drank - but at least their farms were very neat and clean"

Excellent video. Would've liked more on Hengest and Horsa. Also, one of the big issues for Bede was that the Anglo-Saxons were calculating Easter wrong. He felt they needed the Roman Church to help convert them into doing it correctly.

So, where does all the anglo saxon names on towns come from?

"I don't believe" is hardly a sound basis for reaching a conclusion.

It wasn't just that "the Roman troops departed". Britain had been a Roman province for about 400 years and that had indelibly changed the culture long before the Anglo-Saxons started moving in. Much like the American Indians the native Celtic / Druid population had been decimated or driven west to Wales or Ireland. I think during this period there was an influx of trade and people from the continent which blended to form the ancestors of modern England.

The Norman invasion didn't lead to population replacement and in fact consisted of only a few thousand men and their horses, but nevertheless transformed English society and were still definitely invasions.

Seriously proposing that a series of forts were built to facilitate trade? That's not what forts are built for, and if you want to facilitate trade you build docks and warehouses that open up additional space for people and goods. You don't surround yourself by stone walls and poke your head up waving your goods on a spear point.

And slowly, but surely, we come to the end of the film where it is "look how diverse we are", look at our "identities". Identity is not as important as the "idea" and our "idea" of Western Civilization is the individual and the value of him/her.

ANOTHER GREAT ACCOUNT / CHANNEL. WE LOVE ANCIENT, MYSTERIOUS HISTORY.

Pryor clearly has his own agender and own version of history.

HOW MANY COMMERCIALS DO YOU NEED!!!!

Perhaps the 6th-century Justinian Plague is relevant. If there was still trade between the Mediterranean and Britain, the plague may have reached Britain. The Anglo-Saxons came from the continent, and may have had more genetic resistance to plagues than the Celtic people. If there was a mass die-off of Celts in mixed Celtic/Anglo-Saxon areas, the Anglo-Saxons would become dominant by default.

So insightful would love to learn more.

I love red faced Francis Pryor! And I still love Time Team!!! Good see you Helen!

“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.” ― George Orwell, 1984

An unconvincing documentary to say the least.

It's amazing how positive these archaeologists are about things for which there is absolutely no, or very little, evidence. Thanks god they're not scientists.

Excellent! Such pleasure to watch and listen to… Supreme.

A very interesting presentation, but Pryor's explanation of why British people changed their language from Celtic to Germanic is weak and unconvincing.

Agreeing with most of the comments below - the course of the change from Celtic England to Anglo-Saxon England is probably complex and obscure, but Pryor's interpretation is weirdly tendentious. For example, at Sutton Hoo he carefully ignores the obviously Germanic techniques and design in the construction of the Sutton Hoo ship. Britons could have copied the style of Germanic ships, but they could not have adopted the construction techniques without strong tuition.

Yes, a diversity of a Celtic and Anglo-Saxon backgrounds. That makes sense. Two interesting European cultures make up what it means to be English. Something to be proud of.

Another great documentary! Thank you for sharing 👍

6.50 the argument here could be that the increase spread of Plague amongst the Celts at the time meant that great swathes of land were left abandoned or unpopulated as a result. Meaning the Anglo-Saxons were able to move west and deeper into modern England without resistance.

Language change, that's the best counter-argument against this theory, there's no way the people would change their language because of new peaceful travelers, we know from history that the people who invade make their language the spoken language by force.

I prefer the invasion explanation. It happened in Belgium too. until 400 AD, the population in Belgium was romanized Celtic, then the Francs come in from the North, and there seem to have been no struggle. If you look at the toponyms, you see that rivers and villages along rivers are Celtic, and toponyms in empty spaces between them are German of origin. The Francs just settled in the available space.

Awesome. Anyone who can get me to reconsider my POV as Francis just has earns my respect.

I was told that the Anglo-Saxons integrated with native Britain when I was at school 35 years ago. Sounds like he's trying to make an already established history into a new revolutionary idea.

Am I an idiot for watching this series thinking this was about the myth and legends of King Arthur?

This was a really interesting documentary. Lots of food for thought.

Great program. 👍Thank you.

I read Frank Stenton’s Anglo Saxon England many years ago and thoroughly enjoyed it. Do we just discard this book now.

The Britons just adopted a foreign language for the heck of it, very unlikely

I really enjoy telling the story of Vortigern's Tower in which the birth of Arthur is foretold. It's difficult to separate fact from fiction

This doesn't address how the Celtic language survived Roman occupation, but was replaced by English. The Normans were few in number as he claims the Saxons were, yet significant amounts of English remained post invasion. Something is missing here.

Well needless to say I sensed where this was going in the first 3 seconds. It's obvious now why the first two parts are free; so they can try to bend you over and insert the post-modern objective they had all along.

I have a very close and trusted friend who has complied a dossier of so much information on this person(s) in his extensive collection he has unearthed more than one that could be called Arthur or of the Aurthurian umbrella sort of like maybe Zorro or Robin Hood a character for whom there is not a direct spot on here it is person but people who fought for things that were exemplary. Archetypes they're called I know. But I am a hopeless romantic at heart. I think that Jack Whyte's King Arthur series of books were the most well put together idea's of the anti-Saxon hero trying to put together a nation that would stand against the enemies foreign and domestic.

Several decades ago I worked with a fellow who had inherited an unusually explicit bit of his own genealogy. His family had handed down a piece of information that had to have originated maybe 1500 years ago. He was a descendant of a fellow named "Fubert the Saxon". I have concluded that whether or not there was an Anglo-Saxon invasion of the British Isles, there were, at one time, people living there who reckoned that they were Saxons.

Sorry to say, I became interested in this topic after watching the dig. It’s pretty neat. Now I’m eating it up.

02:50 - 03:32 - You don't bury a king with all these precious items on the foreign soul, exposing it to probable devastation or robbery by indigenous (British) population. You bury a king in such luxurious manner on the soil (territory) you as ethnicity consider as yours. Basically, it is impossible to generalize about "invasion" or "not invasion". It probably must have varied from one part of British island to another.

So - The show called King Arthur's Britain - hypes up the search for Arthur in two episodes...Then says in the 3rd there was no invasion, no reason for Arthur to have existed...

Sorry,to say I always found Francis totally unconvincing,even when he appeared on Timeteam. Francis is an archaeologist,not an historian. No archaeological evidence does not mean something did not occur. Give me Michael Wood anyday.

2:36 "Came in to help" Yeaaahh! As in "We're from the government and we're here to help"

The case for almost completely peaceful adopting another language is utterly unconvincing. He's arguing with an agenda instead of going where the evidence leads him. Lots of stuff in part I & II is quite good, but that's where he lost me.

More holes than a swiss cheese in most of his arguments.

When the lady was talking about the dig and how Oxford n cambs came to help… my thoughts went out to Mr Basil Brown. The real MVP!

Very interesting, and very thought-provoking. But all those Roman shore forts, with walls so massively-thick they endure to the present day, would have required a fantastic outlay of time, effort and resources to build. Somehow, I can’t help thinking that the theory they were storage locations for trading goods just does not justify their fortress-like dimensions. There would have had to be very pressing reasons to construct them. And it’s remarkable that their geographic locations mirror those of the Martello Towers built during the Napoleonic era, and the Chain Home (Radar) stations constructed shortly before the Second World War. And as we all know, there were very urgent and very pressing reasons for building those. It’s also remarkable that in my own location near the Sussex coast, Roman villas have been excavated showing signs of violent destruction and burning …

This fits very nicely into the vortigern story. Basically wealthy Romanised Britains hiring Saxon muscle, then being overthrown by that muscle. The working class was either pushed west and replaced (there have been numerous genetic studies recently that suggest this), or forced by economics to adapt to the new culture. This same process took place to a degree with the Norman conquest, and with the conversion from Pictish culture, to Gaelic Scots culture.

Probably the one thing I noticed in reading these comments are all the various vocabularies and differences in grammar that exist in one very old language.

Very interesting indeed!! I think they are a very adventurous bunch for sure! They have influenced the world in a major way throughout history and now! Jacqueline.

Interesting video but per some of the comments below, how do you know the small hamlet-sized sample space you have excavated is representative of Britain writ large? Obviously with anything as big as a national migration, there are going to be sparse areas, perhaps many, if certain places of ingress are more saturated. Is there something strategic about the area you have reviewed that would make it a necessary foothold for said nonexistent invasion?

Incredibly misleading title here. basically all three episodes lead to the central thesis that Anglo-Saxon is a made-up group (while cherry picking certain theories and theorists, FYI), wrongfully asserting that established theories to the british people as ethnically homogeneous (they don't), and that in conclusion it's all about peaceful diversity and migration rather than tumultuous invasion from time to time. Also let's completely disregard the fact that the term Dark ages had much more to do with a relative scarcity of documentation or evidence from that time period when compared to others, rather than as a term of indictment that the time was evil and horrendous. You certainly are applying a 21st century happy thought paradigm to a decidedly non 21st century period of history. And then claiming it has anything to do with the whole idea of Arthurian Britain I guess just to get people to watch.

For thirty years I've been watching time team... and finally a theory that makes sense. Culture changes at a grain by grain pace - not in leaps and bounds. Of course there are times when society is overwhelmed, but there exists the uneventful periods when change is all but un-noticed.

Feeling a bit nostalgic for days of hot air balloon surveys rather than drone flights

Just fascinating. As a resident of the East Riding it taught me lots !

I am not an expert at all, but *I strongly believe* that overwhelming number of cultural references and historical hints about Saxon-Celtic struggle have got to be based on some facts.

I really thought that towards the end of the documentary they would eventually discuss the actual history. Anglo-Saxon mercenaries were invited by the local government in Briton to help them fight off raiders from Scotland. Eventually the Saxons turned on their Briton patrons and wiped most of them out as evidenced with the rise of King Arthur who was most likely based in wales. I truly believed that this documentary was going to discuss the facts and I was saddened that it instead chose to ignore them and rewrite history to suit their Neoliberal philosophy of Globalism and forced multiculturalism.

Bede not only ventured from Tyneside he lived and worked on Wearside in the monastery of St Peter's where there was a library. What little he did record about his his own life was the fact that he grew up at St Peter's in Monkwearmouth. It is also known that he visited York and Lindisfarne. The programme proposes a fairly radical theory but worryingly gets some very basic facts wrong yet conveniently they do fit the narrative. Pryor's theory is interesting and indeed there are many unanswered questions about the arrival of the Anglo Saxon society in Britain but as a sociologist I am very sceptical though about the notion that over a relatively short time the local Brits simply adopted the culture of a handful of Anglo Saxons. Communities simply do not abandon their cultural identity and their established way of life either willingly or very easily and especially not in pre-industrial societies. One's culture and communal identity is held in place by a set of very complex social and economic factors as well as established beliefs. Pryor himself even argues that contrary to our previous assumptions an especially strong cultural and social identity existed in Britain before the Anglo Saxons arrived. A culture that he argues was superior to the rest of Europe's. What the heck then was it about a few Anglo Saxons of all the other European races that cause the Britons to abandon their own "superior" culture and begin to completely identify themselves en masse as Anglo Saxons within the space of a couple of hundred years? To even to get to the point that Bede did of sneering at the Britons without realising that he was one of them? I am far from convinced that as their own legend of Horsa and Hengist suggests there was a hostile Anglo Saxon invasion of Britain but I will say don't give up the sheep farming just yet Francis.

Thank you so much this was so helpful for my history revision and was something really interesting to watch in quarantine

Could many Brits have died during the mid-sixth century bubonic plague, leaving unpopulated areas for Angles and Saxons to settle?

There may not have been a foreign invasion in those days, but there is definitely one going on now. The local culture survived then, but there is no certainty it will survive now a days.

I'm very interested in this "Ladder Settlement." I think it's going to end up being far more significant than we can see right now.

A fantastic video: accessible, fascinating and great experts/expertise. Thanks. (Feel a bit sorry for the guy walking with the ground radar).

I'm Mexican. The term anglo Saxon is a badass term. It's powerful.

Look, the gradual immigration of Angles and Saxon is hardly a new view. In fact it has been the mainstream historical account for some time.

Can I ask why some of your videos are unavailable for Australia please always loved your shows on television please make them available for Australia

28:40 There HAD to be a pub talk around a pint scene in this documentary. Fascinating topic and investigation, common problem with Ireland and the Celt invadion, cero archeological evidence.

On hills at the very edge of north wales looking over the cheshire plains i have found burial mounds not just one but at last 5 of them,, now the point im mailing is my area has had no archeological work done we would have sat at the edge of mercia im sure there is a abundance of history waitin to be found

Monty Python has ruined me for watching things like this. Every time the guy says "the Britains" I hear Terry Gilliam as the peasant woman saying "Who are the Britains?" in the back of my head.

In the year 710. King Ine of Wessex fought a huge battle against King Geraint of Dumnonia at Simonsburrow on the north slopes of the Blackdown hills near Wellington in Somerset. This gave the Saxons partial access to East Devon. But they were still fighting 170 years later against King Donyarth of Cornwall. Only expelling the Britons from Exeter in 939 and beyond the Tamar in 944.

I’ve seen so many Time Team episodes (over and over) that even before seeing him, I heard the voice and said: “oh it’s Francis.”

Fascinating and thought-provoking: my only disappointment is that in all of this the story of Britain seems to be seen as an evolution towards what was to become England, and that the North British kingdoms, especially Strathclyde, don't figure: since it outlasted the other post-Roman kingdoms (maintaining a technical identity into early medieval times) this seems odd. We are often shown the patchwork of kingdoms stretching up the east of what is now Scotland, but of course that was rolled back by the Picts (who were Britons) who were in turn (it is assumed) subsumed within the Scots from Ireland. I think a dearth of serious archaeology north of the border may have skewed our limited understanding of post-Roman Britain to produce an almost exclusively English narrative, and that one set of false assumptions may be replaced with another, no less misleading. We hear about Pope Gregory and how the Anglo-Saxons became Christian, but nothing of the Irish monastic tradition and Columkil (Columba) who preceded him and (partially!) Christianised the Picts. Nevertheless this is not a major criticism - I merely wonder whether the patterns Dr Pryor identifies were evident in the "British" societies which lasted longest.

This is my least favourite of the three programmes. he seems to go off track here. it's fair enough to say that there was a mixing of people between Britons and foreign migrators. To say that it was an entirely peaceful event is crazy however. The Welsh call the English the old enemy to this day. There are strong cultural differences between English and Welsh societies to this day. It's pretty horrific how any Welsh and Irish historical documents are simply discarded. There is a great deal to be learnt about the history of this country by learning Welsh and simply reading a map. It's a shame that this episode let's down the series so badly.

So Francis is saying the Celts adopted some Anglo Saxon culture, over time, as a result of a process of trade migration etc, instead of invasion. Quite feasible thus leading to a dominant Anglo Saxon culture with a Celtic underpinning. It would still make English culture largely Anglo Saxon but over a different time frame. All cultures around the world have their view of how they came to be this simply suggests that the route to the end outcome is a different one. All history is created in a political and social context.