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

Abstract

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.

Crossing Crawford's conceptual divide: monumental linear earthworks in later prehistoric and early medieval Britain

“…Our assessment of the linear earthworks of Britain emphasises how, despite some excellent studies of individual linear earthworks (e.g. Ray & Bapty 2016;Williams 2021), theoretical and material advances in their study remain constrained by period-based interpretative models little changed since the early twentieth century. Differences of interpretation relate not solely to materially different archaeologies, but to contrasting frameworks for interrogating landscape.…”

“…Malim 2010: 250; Fioccoprile 2016), however, the dominant trend continues to see prehistoric linears as marking tenure and rarely serving any martial role (McOmish et al 2002: 64;Fenton-Thomas 2003). In contrast, within early medieval studies, martial interpretations remain prevalent (Grigg 2015(Grigg , 2018, despite some emerging attempts to incorporate social and symbolic roles (Squatriti 2002;Williams 2021). This interpretative divergence largely rests on the contrasting models of social organisation that are seen to define these periods: smaller, more heterarchical communities of the early first millennium BC versus more hierarchical Late Iron Age and early medieval societies.…”

Rethinking Offa’s Dyke as a Hydraulic Frontier Work

“…Details of vegetation and settlement patterns cannot be easily reconstructed. Likewise, fluctuations in hydrology, including those caused by medieval and post-medieval drainage and canalisation cannot be fully evaluated by this approach (see also Williams 2021). The method thus inevitably simplifies considerable complications and uncertainties regarding the linear earthworks and their landscapes, an issue revealed by the more detailed recording and nuanced mapping criteria drawing upon Lidar instituted by Delaney (2021).…”

“…Furthermore, given the low frequencies and vagaries of discovery, I make no attempt to map any early medieval find-spots in relation to Offa ' The next layer of analysis takes us to the macro-scale. As for Wat's Dyke (Williams 2021), this article identifies an additional, new maritime context for Offa's Dyke through its links with both the Bristol Channel and Irish Sea (see also Griffiths 2010;Swallow 2016). Considering Offa's Dyke's 'flow' -addressing its roles in observing, controlling and curtailing movement over land and also the manipulation of movement in and over water (see Edgeworth 2011)helps us consider the biaxial mobilities of the linear earthwork on this grander perspective.…”

“…Finally, the possibility that Offa's Dyke stretched to the Irish Sea has been proposed afresh based on field observations, thus opening up new potential significances for considering the monument's maritime and riverine dimensions (Ray 2020;Ray et al 2021: 63-73). In addition, a previous study has argued that Wat's Dyke -dated to the early medieval period like its longer neighbour -was part of a Mercian 'hydraulic frontier zone' (Williams 2021). 2, 5, 7, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14 and 20).…”