Ross Samson
Biographic Data
| ID | 6052077 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Ross Samson |
| GIVEN NAMES | Ross |
| FAMILY NAME | Samson |
| SIGNATURE | SAMSON R |
| AFFILIATIONS | National Museums Scotland |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 7 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 7 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 7 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1983 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1999 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Slavish Nonsense or the Talking Tool
Populous Dark-Age Towns: The Finleyesque Approach
This paper looks at conventional views of Dark-Age towns: abandoned or underpopulated and lacking economic vitality. Archaeological and textual evidence is used to suggest that numerous urban churches were required to hold a large population that so many were outside the town walls because inside was heavily built up. The paper suggests archaeology can often accurately document the demise of Roman urban structures, but survival and upkeep leaves …
The End of Alamannic Princely Forts and the Supposed Merovingian Hegemony
This paper summarises German archaeologists' interpretation of hillfort occupation and abandonment in south-western Germany from the fifth to ninth centuries AD. It argues against the dominant belief that hillfort occupation ended around AD 500 and that it was related to Merovingian conquest. The archaeological changes enumerated by Konrad Weidemann are shown to be fortuitous, illusionary, or of the wrong date, while the strongest contacts archae…
The Reinterpretation of the Pictish Symbols
The 'meaning' of Pictish symbols on stones exists at a number of levels. This paper deals first with the social context for the symbol stones. It is argued that they are memorial stones; by logical extension, the symbols must refer to the deceased Pict. The paper then deals with the 'semantic' meaning of the symbols. Thomas's interpretation is discounted because the proposed pseudo-syntactical or grammatical rules for reading symbolic messages ar…
Knowledge, constraint, and power in inaction: The defenseless medieval wall
The Merovingian nobleman's home: Castle or villa
The physical appearance of the Merovingian villa has been ignored by most archaeologists and historians, largely because of the paucity of information. Three radically different images can be found in the sparse literature; something akin to a Roman villa, a forerunner of the medieval castle, or a village settlement such as the excavated site of Warendorf, Germany, to which a number of analogous sites have been found in the recent past. This arti…
Finds from Urquhart Castle in the National Museum, Edinburgh
Urquhart Castle is situated on a promontory on the N side of Loch Ness, guarding the entrance into Glen Urquhart, a fertile alcove which has yielded artefacts from as early as the Bronze Age and two ring cairns of the Clava type.The site's tactical importance may have invited the construction of a timber-laced fort.Quantities of vitrified stone are recorded from the early excavations by the Ministry of Works, but apparently no relics 'of any of t…
Knowledge, constraint, and power in inaction: The defenseless medieval wall
The Merovingian nobleman's home: Castle or villa
The physical appearance of the Merovingian villa has been ignored by most archaeologists and historians, largely because of the paucity of information. Three radically different images can be found in the sparse literature; something akin to a Roman villa, a forerunner of the medieval castle, or a village settlement such as the excavated site of Warendorf, Germany, to which a number of analogous sites have been found in the recent past. This arti…
Finds from Urquhart Castle in the National Museum, Edinburgh
Urquhart Castle is situated on a promontory on the N side of Loch Ness, guarding the entrance into Glen Urquhart, a fertile alcove which has yielded artefacts from as early as the Bronze Age and two ring cairns of the Clava type.The site's tactical importance may have invited the construction of a timber-laced fort.Quantities of vitrified stone are recorded from the early excavations by the Ministry of Works, but apparently no relics 'of any of t…
The Merovingian nobleman's home: Castle or villa
The physical appearance of the Merovingian villa has been ignored by most archaeologists and historians, largely because of the paucity of information. Three radically different images can be found in the sparse literature; something akin to a Roman villa, a forerunner of the medieval castle, or a village settlement such as the excavated site of Warendorf, Germany, to which a number of analogous sites have been found in the recent past. This arti…
The Reinterpretation of the Pictish Symbols
The 'meaning' of Pictish symbols on stones exists at a number of levels. This paper deals first with the social context for the symbol stones. It is argued that they are memorial stones; by logical extension, the symbols must refer to the deceased Pict. The paper then deals with the 'semantic' meaning of the symbols. Thomas's interpretation is discounted because the proposed pseudo-syntactical or grammatical rules for reading symbolic messages ar…
Knowledge, constraint, and power in inaction: The defenseless medieval wall
Populous Dark-Age Towns: The Finleyesque Approach
This paper looks at conventional views of Dark-Age towns: abandoned or underpopulated and lacking economic vitality. Archaeological and textual evidence is used to suggest that numerous urban churches were required to hold a large population that so many were outside the town walls because inside was heavily built up. The paper suggests archaeology can often accurately document the demise of Roman urban structures, but survival and upkeep leaves …
The End of Alamannic Princely Forts and the Supposed Merovingian Hegemony
This paper summarises German archaeologists' interpretation of hillfort occupation and abandonment in south-western Germany from the fifth to ninth centuries AD. It argues against the dominant belief that hillfort occupation ended around AD 500 and that it was related to Merovingian conquest. The archaeological changes enumerated by Konrad Weidemann are shown to be fortuitous, illusionary, or of the wrong date, while the strongest contacts archae…
Slavish Nonsense or the Talking Tool
History (6 works) · Archaeology (4 works) · Law (4 works) · Philosophy (4 works) · Political science (4 works) · History (3 works) · Sociology (3 works) · Ancient history (2 works) · Architecture (2 works) · Computer Science (2 works)