The period after the Roman Empire abandoned Britain has long been known as the “Dark Ages” for a reason. Scholars believed that after the Romans left, local industries collapsed and effectively all progress ceased for centuries. They theorized that Britain was plunged into a cultural and economic abyss with their departure.
But for some time now, a growing body of evidence has challenged that narrative. And in a new study published today in the journal Antiquity, researchers explore the assumption that Britain’s metal economy was no longer viable. Specifically, they question the idea that when the Romans left Britain around 400 AD, statecraft and iron production—which the Romans may have brought with them to the islands—were immediately and irreversibly abandoned.
Regenerating the economy of Northern England
The researchers studied metal contaminants in a sediment core extracted from Aldborough in North Yorkshire, a former Roman centre for metal production. They combined this analysis with other local textual and archaeological evidence.
“By finding that pollution fluctuations correspond to sociopolitical events, pandemics, and recorded trends in British metal production c. AD 1100–1700, the authors extend the analysis to earlier periods lacking written records, providing a new post-Roman economic narrative in Northern England,” the researchers argued in the paper.
Until now, the fate of Britain’s crucial metal industry after the Romans left was unknown, and there is no written evidence to suggest that major production continued after the third century. However, the researchers’ approach has revealed that British metal production remained strong until about a century after the Romans left, dropping off abruptly sometime around 550-600 AD.
It remains a mystery what caused the crash, but other historical sources and DNA evidence suggest that Europe was ravaged by the bubonic plague at the time, which devastated the entire economy of the region.
Britain’s rich history of metalworking
However, the study shows that “not all industrial production of goods ended by the early 5th century,” Christopher Lovell, the study’s lead author and an archaeologist at the University of Nottingham, said in a statement to The Local.
“Aldborough probably had a stable expansion of metal production using Roman-period ores and coal fuel,” he added.
More broadly, Loveluck and his team’s work adds to the expanding body of evidence suggesting that the so-called Dark Ages weren’t so dark after all.
Interestingly, the sediment core also reveals other post-Roman fluctuations in metal production that align with other major events in British history, including Henry VIII’s Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 16th century. During this time, metal production declined significantly as people literally pulled metal from monasteries, abbeys and other religious houses, Loveluck explains.
