. Another View Has It That Anglo-saxon Political Processes Were Less

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Another view has it that Anglo-Saxon political processes were less continental imports than the end result of an evolution which originated in competition between ranked lineages. This competition produced in time unstable chiefdoms, the most successful of which coalesced, around the sixth century, into kingly dynasties with more complex political structures (Arnold 1997: 188-210). Evidence for this comes in part from consideration of burials which from the late sixth century onwards come to assume a growing uniformity suggesting the emergence of an elite chiefly culture. This elite, centring on a warrior class, seems to have thrived. By exploiting an economy which, examination of cemeteries and settlement sits shows, had become rather specialised, this elite became increasingly prosperous, and new socio-cultural forms associated with this development, entirely Anglo-Saxon in character, may well have further caused people in places like Northumbria, where the military supremacy of the Anglo-Saxons was particularly strong, to abandon identification with things British as they aspired towards an emerging Anglo-Saxon identity (Arnold 1997).
The documentary and archaeological records indicates that relations between Northumbria and its British neighbours was probably initially relatively peaceful with the Britons happy to allow the Germanic peoples who settled in their midst a roles as their protectors against the Picts to the north. It seems, however, that these relations became strained as the newcomers began to arrive in ever-greater numbers, eventually, despite British resistance, resulting in Anglo-Saxon ascendancy and the marginalisation of indigenous identities. The emergency of new forms of centralised authority, centred on warrior elites, and the concomitant adoption of new socio-cultural processes ensured that Anglo-Saxon domination was complete.
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