Looking at liminality over the Longue Durée: an exploration of the archaeology of borderlands through the case study of the Anglo-Welsh border

Roxby-Mackey, Melanie (2026). Looking at liminality over the Longue Durée: an exploration of the archaeology of borderlands through the case study of the Anglo-Welsh border. University of Birmingham. Ph.D.

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Abstract

Borders are an intrinsic component of human societies around the world. Since the earliest hunter-gatherers began to encounter groups other than their own we have been creating and modifying the mechanisms through which we live alongside the ‘other’. Today, despite the nature of our ultra-connected, globalised world borders persist and indeed the need to understand these complex, multi-vocal environments has resulted in the emergence of the interdisciplinary field of border studies. Inevitably, much of the scholarship in this field is undertaken on the character of these landscapes today. Meanwhile, analyses that promise to contextualise our understanding of these environments by accounting for their emergence and evolution over centuries or millennia remain largely under explored.

Similarly, within the context of contemporary archaeological research, beyond studies relating to the borders of the Roman empire, or Limes, borders have, until recently, remained at the literal and metaphorical edge of much work in the field. This thesis explores how landscape archaeology might identify, account for and present the evidence for borderlands over millennia through the development of an empirical and theoretical framework dedicated to constructing the biographies of these complex environments. The utility of this interdisciplinary framework is tested through its application to the case study of the Anglo-Welsh border, a culturally liminal region with ‘old bones’, but one whose origins are poorly understood.

The case is made for the successful application of this model to the Anglo-Welsh borderland, one that reveals both its early prehistoric origins as a culturally liminal region, but also the significance of the region's transitional natural environment in shaping its character. By combining evidence from the landscape itself with documentary, literary, toponymic and folklore sources and thinking about the results through the lenses of affordances, non-verbal metaphors and the Longue Durée this research establishes that it is possible to identify evidence for the biographies of diachronic borderlands over millennia and to identify and account for enduring themes of continuity and change which form and inform these landscapes. Finally, the argument is made for the intrinsic value in adopting these ways of working with and thinking through these complex, hybrid environments more broadly, of their wider relevance to interdisciplinary debates on contemporary borderlands, concerned with issues of mobility and migration, identity and belonging, power and hegemony.

Type of Work:

Thesis (Doctorates > Ph.D.)

Award Type:

Doctorates > Ph.D.

Supervisor(s):