Professor Rob Collins

Are they emerging in the fifth century?

The fifth century is really key, and we just don't know.

So something is happening.

The frontier is fragmenting, probably in the fifth century, but it might not be fragmenting into tiny pieces.

It might be just breaking up into subgroups, you know, subregions.

is the shifting political geography.

Once Hadrian's Wall ceases to be an important kind of boundary or security barrier,

if you stop thinking of it as the edge of protecting Roman Britain, and you start thinking about, well, the powers have shifted.

So actually, what if Bernicia is focused on, I don't know, let's say Newcastle, for example, then actually that's going north and south of Hadrian's Wall.

It's recentering it.

And so Hadrian's Wall stops becoming a border fortification and really just becomes a focus of a bunch of war bands.

And as those kingdoms reshape,

their borders are gonna shift as well.

And it's those shifting borders of new local kingdoms, new local politics, that's going to move those soldiers or warriors away from Hadrian's Wall.

And that, I would say, is actually when Hadrian's Wall is coming to an end,

because it's no longer a military monument.

And you say that sixth century, probably?

Yeah, I'd say, you know, probably later half of the fifth into the sixth century.

And this is where dating is always so key.

When are these things happening?