Sir,—Your readers are to be congratulated on having an authoritative exposition from Mr. Crawford of his important work in recognising by means of aerial photographs traces of former agriculture and of village sites long since deserted.
This is of the very greatest interest, for in conjunction with other evidence it proves that a great revolution in agriculture took place either during the Roman occupation or very shortly afterwards. Much of the forest land in the valleys seems to have been cleared and rendered available for cultivation, and about the same time the tillage of the uplands gave place to grazing, while the villages on the downs were replaced by settlements in the lowlands.
To me it seems much more likely that the strenuous work of deforestation was carried out in the period of Roman domination under the direction of an energetic and civilised race than in the early days of an invasion by “savage hordes,” to use Mr. Crawford’s somewhat unnecessarily depreciatory description. These cannot have been very numerous, and it is difficult to believe that they would have exhausted themselves in felling the virgin forests instead of appropriating the fields that already existed—especially at a time when the practical cessation of exports provided little inducement for intensive cultivation.
Mr. Crawford remarks that “occasional Roman ‘villas’ may have been built in the lowlands; but of extensive or systematic clearing there is no evidence.” What evidence would he expect to find after more than fifteen hundred years of agricultural operations? We know, on the other hand, that in the fourth century the exports of wheat and wool from Britain were important, and this is presumptive evidence that considerable progress in the transformation had then already been made.
This is not the place to reopen the vexed question of the character of the “Saxon” or “English”
conquest. All that I wish to stress is that, valuable as are Mr. Crawford’s recent contributions to
archæology, they cannot be regarded as disposing of Mr. Seebohm’s work on the “English Village
Community.”—Yours, etc.,
John W. Evans.
The Athenænum.
July 10, 1923.
Source info: MS note by AW “Observer July 15”; checked in library.