Thanks Fedelm for pointing out how Anglo/Roman the discussion has been - as I admit in my book, I am English and was born in Rome, so can't help it ... but I am hoping Ireland win the 6 Nations today (this is a deliberate puzzle for you so-called 'football' players across the pond); and I *hope* this isn't just because I don't want France to win.

If you are Irish (which you may well not be), of course the fifth and sixth centuries look dramatically different than they do in the former Roman territories: arrival of literacy (with Christianity) and the beginninbg of a Golden Age of Irish art and learning - before it gets rendered provincial again (with a little Viking help) in the ninth/tenth.

But Celtic enthusiasm - like most enthusiasms (?) - can be overdone. I read those two links with interest - but both articles are, in my opinion, largely tosh (to use a highly technical piece of scholarly vocabulary): a few scraps of military equipment don't prove a pre-43 Roman presence (the largest finds of Roman military equipment come from a Danish bog, way outside the empire), and anyway wouldn't this just *extend* Roman power backwards in time ? This is surely Timeteam (led by the excellent Tony Robinson, aka Baldrick)- an excellent programme - trying to drum up viewers.

And, yes Christianity flourished, and some (good) Latin survived in West Britain - and it is impossible too that there would be *no* continuity from the past in conquered East Britain. But - particularly when one looks at the degree of continuity across the Channel in Gaul/Francia - what is most amazing is the lack of continuity in Britain: towns (by 500, at the very latest, even Wroxeter), mortared buildings, wheel-turned pottery, coins, an urban church and administration, all go.
The Britons could - very justifiably - look down their noses at the Anglo-Saxons, who didn't even have any use of writing, but the AS did impose their culture (or lack of it) on the parts of Britain they conquered: most obviously in the total replacement of British (the language) by Anglo-Saxon (the language). In my opinion, Henig (a very nice guy, who lives in Oxford) in that article focuses on a few scraps of information - ignoring all the mass of evidence that points in a different direction. Biologically, the Britons/Celts must have remained - but sadly (and it was a bad thing - because think how much easier things would be in Britain today if the Anglo-Saxons had come to speak British/Welsh and thought of themselves as Britons/Celts) the A-S really did impose their identity on the land they took over.