I’ve been looking at Anglo-Saxon life in my series of blogs: Living with the Anglo-Saxons, covering social structures, houses, settlements, clothes, food and drink, feasting, health and medicine of the period, and the status of women. There is not a huge amount of hard evidence from archaeology or documents to reveal a great deal about the times. As a writer, I need to use my powers of assumption and imagination from what little we have.

But knowledge is increasing as the Anglo-Saxon period becomes more popular as a research area.

And in January 2021, there came news of a report of an archaeological dig in Overstone, Northamptonshire (further reported in in Current Archaeology 2.3.21, issue 373). The site was being excavated from 2019 by MOLA (Museum of London Archaeology) for a national house builder on the proposed site of a housing estate development. An Anglo-Saxon cemetery and settlement was beginning to be unearthed, revealing information about not only defence but everyday domestic life in an Anglo-Saxon settlement. Very rarely has a cemetery and settlement been unearthed at the same site in the same single excavation. The current tally of findings is:

154 burials (many grave goods reflecting status)

42 structures spread over the site (sunken-feature buildings and post-built structures)

at least 3,000 artefacts, including:

150 brooches

75 wrist clasps

15 chatelaines (decorative belt clasps)

2000 beads

25 spears

40 knives

15 shields

Various domestic artefacts such as ‘cosmetic kits’ including beautifully carved bone combs

Fragments of Anglo-Saxons textiles, which are very rarely preserved: these were buried next to metal objects causing them to become mineralised.

The human remains will tell us much about the Anglo-Saxon diet and health as well as their origins (very exciting in terms of information about migration!) and the artefacts will show us more about everyday life of the times.

I’m looking forward to further analysis of the finds and new learning on this fascinating historical period … The Anglo-Saxons!

Incidentally, evidence of Bronze Age burials in three round barrows were also found at the site, radiocarbon dated back as far as 2000BC.

Take a look at my Anglo-Saxon time-slip with mystery and romance at http://myBook.to/ASOTA

For more about, not just battles, fighting and kings, but about ordinary Anglo-Saxon life.