Fords and the frontier: waging counter-mobility on Hadrian's Wall

Symonds, Matthew

doi:10.15184/aqy.2019.216

Cited by 3 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…In turn, this perspective provides groundwork for re-evaluating our broader understanding of early medieval linear earthworks' landscape affordances across the island of Britain and beyond, as well as prompting further consideration of linear features of other periods in 'hydraulic' terms during their design, construction, initial use and subsequent life-history (cf. Moore 2012Moore , 2017Symonds 2020;Fioccoprile 2021;Garland et al 2021). I consider watercourses and wetlands as active components in how linear earthworks dominated and controlled mobility and resources in specific localities, over the middle-range and over long distances, not simply as convenient and 'obvious' frontier lines (cf.…”

Section: Rethinking Wat's Dykementioning

confidence: 99%

Rethinking Wat’s Dyke: A Monument’s Flow in a Hydraulic Frontier Zone

Williams

2021

OD Journal

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Britain’s second-longest early medieval monument – Wat’s Dyke – was a component of an early medieval hydraulic frontier zone rather than primarily serving as a symbol of power, a fixed territorial border or a military stop-line. Wat’s Dyke was not only created to monitor and control mobility over land, but specifically did so through its careful and strategic placement by linking, blocking and overlooking a range of watercourses and wetlands. By creating simplified comparative topographical maps of the key fluvial intersections and interactions of Wat’s Dyke for the first time, this article shows how the monument should not be understood as a discrete human-made entity, but as part of a landscape of flow over land and water, manipulating and managing anthropogenic and natural elements. Understanding Wat’s Dyke as part of a hydraulic frontier zone not only enhances appreciation of its integrated military, territorial, socio-economic and ideological functionality and significance, most likely the construction of the middle Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia, it also theorises Wat’s Dyke as built to constitute and maintain control both across and along its line, and operating on multiple scales. Wat’s Dyke was built to manage localised, middle-range as well as long-distance mobilities via land and water through western Britain and beyond.

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Section: Rethinking Wat's Dykementioning

confidence: 99%

Rethinking Wat’s Dyke: A Monument’s Flow in a Hydraulic Frontier Zone

Williams

2021

OD Journal

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“…For example, a novel application of LiDAR data, taking it beyond visualisation and site prospection, is implemented in a high-resolution metric survey, evaluating the projected extent of the mid-second-century AD Antonine Wall in relation to its famed distance-slabs (Hannon et al 2017). Symonds (2020) conducts an evaluation of the development of Hadrian's Wall by considering historic fording places. Moreover, Symonds iterates the significance for understanding seemingly static frontiers in terms of transforming and controlling mobilities in the landscape (see also Murrieta-Flores and Williams 2017).…”

Section: Recent Publicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Just as historic routes provide an inspiration for understanding the design and utility of Hadrian's Wall (Symonds 2020), so do contemporary paths inform the interpretation of a new study of Chinggis Khan's Wall. Deploying high-resolution satellite imagery, Shelach-Lavi et al (2020) explore this 737km-long wall spanning the steppes of modern Mongolia, Russia and China and identify a series of rectangular and circular structures in clusters situated at regular intervals along its line.…”

Section: Recent Publicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Collaboratory, Coronavirus and the Colonial Countryside

Williams

2020

OD Journal

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Introducing the second volume of the Offa’s Dyke Journal (ODJ), this five-part article sets the scene by reviewing: (i) key recent research augmenting last year’s Introduction (Williams and Delaney 2019); (ii) the key activities of the Offa’s Dyke Collaboratory in 2020; (iii) the political mobilisation of Offa’s Dyke in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns; (iv) the ramifications of accelerated efforts to decolonise the British countryside on both archaeological research and heritage interpretation on linear monuments; and (v) a review of the contents of volume 2. Together, this introduction presents the context and significance of ODJ volume 2 for both research on the Welsh Marches and broader investigations of frontiers and borderlands.

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Hadrian's Frontiers in Northern Britain

Bidwell

2022

Britannia

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The structural relationships of the forts, Wall curtain and Vallum are reviewed and a revised sequence of construction for Hadrian's Wall is proposed. The original plan (Stage 1) incorporated much of the earlier Trajanic frontier (the Stanegate) and probably included the Devil's Causeway which ran north-eastwards from Corbridge. Forts were then added to the line of the Wall as a result of three modifications of the plan (Stages 2–4), continuing until late in Hadrian's reign. The Vallum was added in Stage 3. Hadrian probably conceived the original plan for the Wall, but the modifications that followed seem to have been consequences of shifting focuses of loyalty, resistance and outright warfare, beyond and behind the frontier.

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Fords and the frontier: waging counter-mobility on Hadrian's Wall

Abstract: Abstract

Cited by 3 publications

References 10 publications

Rethinking Wat’s Dyke: A Monument’s Flow in a Hydraulic Frontier Zone

Rethinking Wat’s Dyke: A Monument’s Flow in a Hydraulic Frontier Zone

Collaboratory, Coronavirus and the Colonial Countryside

Hadrian's Frontiers in Northern Britain

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