tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post9117463764726088197..comments2024-03-28T00:11:33.489-04:00Comments on bensozia: Archaeology in the 2010s: the Paleogenetics RevolutionJohnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01037215533094998996noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-49814900243597236372020-01-12T18:31:50.948-05:002020-01-12T18:31:50.948-05:00Historians have been arguing about how many Anglo-...<i>Historians have been arguing about how many Anglo-Saxons came to Britain for 200 years, with no result. Was there a mass migration, or just a coup by elite warriors?</i><br /><br />There's almost never a coup by "just the elites". The common foot soldier is the lynchpin, and unless you can sway local forces to accept you as their rulers wholesale, you need to bring in at least some of your own troops to impose your rule upon others and help "convince" the locals to fall in line.<br /><br />For every single elite soldier clad in the finest armor and armed with the most sophisticated weaponry, you must have hundreds or thousands of "grunts" wielding cheap spears and wearing munitions grade armor (if they're lucky enough to have armor at all!) to fill out the bulk of a pre-modern army. This is true virtually everywhere - large numbers of lowly conscripts, retainers, mercenaries, and adventurers are universally vital.<br /><br />Britain in the waning years of Roman control was an unstable frontier, which would have naturally drawn opportunists hoping to win riches, glory, or even titles by whatever means they could manage.<br /><br />One might compare it to the American West, or various gold rushes over the years - lots of people from all walks of life coming and hoping to make it big, most of them failing, some of them going back home, and others deciding to stay and make a life in the new lands. Only a very small number of people "struck it rich", and many of those people already had substantial resources to begin with, and simply expanded or transitioned their extant holdings to the new frontier.<br /><br />So you likely had powerful lords adventuring for land and titles, who brought with them their retainers and conscripts to fight for them, and they also attracted mercenaries offering to tip the odds in their favor for gold, and of course the whole situation would have attracted bandits and pirates and simple war profiteers looking to get rich, or at least fight for scraps and leftovers...G. Verlorennoreply@blogger.com