Formative Britain

By Martin Carver,

Book cover of Formative Britain: An Archaeology of Britain, Fifth to Eleventh Century AD

Book description

Formative Britain presents an account of the peoples occupying the island of Britain between 400 and 1100 AD, whose ideas continue to set the political agenda today. Forty years of new archaeological research has laid bare a hive of diverse and disputatious communities of Picts, Scots, Welsh, Cumbrian and Cornish…

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

Why read it?

1 author picked Formative Britain as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Archaeologists have a history of stimulating and provocative big-picture thinking about Britain, and this volume represents one of the latest and most ambitious surveys of the material remains of Britain as a whole. Its author is a veteran excavator with experience on sites from Sutton Hoo to Portmahomack. Carver’s title signals one of his goals: to break free of the ethnic, national labels for this period, and to lay down a new chronological and geographical framework for thinking about the whole of Britain across the period. 

From Rory's list on Britain in the Early Middle Ages.

Want books like Formative Britain?

Our community of 12,000+ authors has personally recommended 100 books like Formative Britain.

Browse books like Formative Britain

Book cover of Viking Kings of Britain and Ireland: The Dynasty of Ivarr to A.D. 1014
Book cover of From Pictland to Alba: Scotland, 789-1070
Book cover of The Inheritance of Rome: A History of Europe from 400 to 1000

Share your top 3 reads of 2024!

And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.

1,188

readers submitted
so far, will you?

5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in civilization, the Middle Ages, and presidential biography?

Civilization 224 books
The Middle Ages 431 books