Talk:Cadbury Camp/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Llywrch (talk · contribs) 07:09, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

Looking forward to reviewing this for GA. -- llywrch (talk) 07:09, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

Comments

In general, this article meets the GA criteria: it is well-written, verifiable w/o any original research, neutral, stable, & competently illustrated. (Yes, I left out "broad in coverage"; more about that below.) But there are some issues, which are fixable.

1. There are three hill-forts in Somerset (& a few more outside of Somerset, let's ignore those) named "Cadbury", & this article mentions only one other one -- South Cadbury -- & not Cadbury Hill near Congresbury (aka Cadcong); & Cadbury Camp is the least familiar of the three. It'd help if all three were mentioned close to the beginning to help folks who aren't instantly familiar with the hill forts of Somerset.

• I've added these at the beginning of the history section.— Rod ^talk 16:42, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

1. The longitude & latitude in the infobox are off: they direct the end user to a spot about 300 meters south of the hill-fort. (Yes, you can find the hill-fort using the present figures, but it would be impressive if they pointed the user to the center of the site.) When I added the Ordnance Survey National Grid coordinates to the infobox, they pointed me squarely on the center of Cadbury Camp. So I'd suggest changing those. (FWIW, I think it would be best if the OS National Grid values were included in all infoboxes of British archeological sites. It is my impression that people familiar with the subject prefer these over latitude & longitude; the latter values are there for those of us not as familiar with the subject.)

• Tweaked. There have been multiple debates about the use of OS grid refs (which I use on paper maps) and the inclusion of lat & long for worldwide users (and those that rely on satnavs) so I think the consensus at present is to include both.— Rod ^talk 16:42, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
  • I hope that consensus holds. -- llywrch (talk) 18:03, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

1. About the name. To pick nits, Cadbury actually comes from the Anglo-Saxon Cada-burh, where burh means "fort" or "town". (I studied Anglo-Saxon in college, so I'm putting it to use here.)

• You are obviously well qualified to review this and (although "on the other side of the world") much better qualified in this area than I am. I've changed as suggested and support with Ekwall's book which is my preferred source for English placenames.— Rod ^talk 16:42, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Correcting myself here -- & adding a reliable source. The Anglo-Saxon would correctly be Cada-byrig, where byrig is the dative of burh; burh usually becomes "borough", although there are examples in Dorset of burh -> "bury". (See Margaret Gelling, Signposts to the Past: Place-names and the history of England (London: J.M. Dent & Sons, 1978), pp. 143-6 -- which can be used as a general citation for this in any article.) -- llywrch (talk) 18:03, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

1. Sources. I checked the sources you used here & IMHO they all are reliable, some more than others. Barry Cunliffe is a fairly prominent authority on British archeology, although I'm a bit unsure about using a tv show as a citation. (I'm told the BBC is a far more serious source on matters such as archeology or history than the American equivalent, so perhaps I'm worrying about nothing.)

   But one area that could stand improvement is in citing print sources. What appears to be the earliest description of Cadbury Camp, Seyer's Memoirs Historical and Topographical of Bristol (1821) is fortunately accessible online here. (None of the bibliographies about this hill-fort note this is a 2-volume book, & the pages you want -- pp. 80-1 -- are in the volume I linked to.) I don't know what resources you have at hand, but if you could use the Victoria County History for Somerset here, or St. George-Gray's report of his excavations at Cadbury Camp, that would be good.

   My own resources, while surprisingly good for someone on the other side of the globe, are 30-40 years old, but from checking the online sources you cited it appears the latest research on Cadbury Camp was published that long ago. Two works that you will find useful if you write more on hill-forts in Somerset are: (1) Philip Rahtz & Peter Fowler, "Somerset A.D. 400-700", in Archaeology and the Landscape (London: John Baker, 1972), pp. 187-221; & (2) Ian Burrow, Hillfort and Hill-top Settlement in Somerset in the First to Eighth Centuries A.D., BAR British Series 91 (Oxford, 1981). Both I expect are out-of-print, but I hope you can find a copy at a library near you. (I may be able to provide a copy of Rahtz' & Fowler's article for your use, if you can't find one over there.)

• Thank you for the Seyer source which I have used. I agree the BBC is RS. The specific one here is a programme called Time Team from channel 4 (with Mick Aston) which did a lot to popularise archaeology in the UK & the source is used on multiple wp articles. I've checked British History Online which hosts most of the VCH resources which are online & couldn't find a specific entry apart from a very brief (and not helpful) entry for Tickenham from a gazetteer of 1880. I do have a hardcopy of Vol 1 from 1906 but there is nothing useful in there (the books I have about the county are listed at User:Rodw/Books if you ever want me to check anything in any of them). I've not previously heard of the Philip Rahtz & Peter Fowler paper and would appreciate a copy, although I do have several Rahtz books (he excavated the Pagans Hill Roman temple a few hundred yards from where I'm sitting). While working on List of hill forts and ancient settlements in Somerset I have previously borrowed Ian Burrows book from the library, which had to be got from the stores taking several weeks and the copy I got was so well thumbed it was almost unreadable in places.— Rod ^talk 17:21, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

1. Context of the hill-fort. One problem I've noticed in reading Wikipedia articles on history is that people/places/events often are not explained in their context: for example, the deeds of a ruler might be provided, but nothing is said about how those deeds fit into the other events of his time. (Part of this omission is due to fear of violating the "no original research" rule -- although with enough research, one can find reliable sources that explain the context.) From your note on the talk page, I suspect you wanted to address this shortcoming too, & you did address it in the second paragraph of the section "History".

   Then there is the issue that information on the hill-forts of Somerset is quite thin: of the 89 hill-forts Burrow lists in his monograph, less than a third have been excavated to any degree, & only 2 -- South Cadbury & Cadbury Hill-Congresbury -- well enough to support any serious analysis. Cadbury Camp is, despite the limited amount of information available, one of the better known sites. So it may be what you've written is the best that can be done.

   But digging a little further, I did find some material you may be able to use in this article. For example, looking at the map in Rahtz & Fowler, it's clear that Cadbury Camp sits on a ridge of dry land between the Somerset Levels & the marshlands near the mouth of the Avon, which links Portishead to the mainland. And there is evidence that Portishead survived as a settlement long after the end of Roman Britain, so Cadbury Camp takes on a strategic value for both the Romano-British defenders & the Anglo-Saxon invaders. On the other hand, Burrow in his monograph at several points notes that the hill-forts in Somerset were abandoned as defensive positions as Roman rule progressed (although at least one shows signs it was used as a base for outlaws), & instead asserts that during the Roman period many acquired a religious or cult function. Burrow explicitly mentions Cadbury Camp as one example of having a religious function (p. 161).

Sorry to have rambled a bit here. I'm trying to integrate what I've read in a coherent manner, & I sense I may have failed in discussing "sources" & "context of the hill-fort". If those sections sound confused, feel free to put those two sections aside until after the GA process. But there are two more points I believe need addressing:

• Accounting of the finds. I sense you compiled the artifacts recovered from the hill-fort from the several online sources; they don't offer the same clear account Burrow offers in his monograph. On pp.291-293 he provides a list of finds & the approximate dates they were found:

Casual finds

Pre-1922 include shards of Roman Pottery found in the interior

A coin of Claudius Gothicus (268-269) "in the entrance" of the hill-fort. (This must be the "brass" mentioned.)

After WWII a coin of Valentinian II (375-392) was found "well inside the ramparts"

In 1974 the Roman altar with an image of Mars was found in the ditch of the hill-fort on the NE side. (Burrow has no information where this find ended up -- but he does provide a drawing of the stone in his book.)

The 1922 excavation

Roman pottery was found in a trench cut in the interior of the hill-fort. (These finds were sent to the Taunton Museum, but Burrow was unable to locate them.) Some definite material of Iron Age vintage were found in the excavations near the entrance.

• Legends/Traditions of King Arthur. Looking at the source you cited for the assertion that some have mistakenly associated Arthur with Cadbury Camp, I don't think it supports the assertion. Years ago I was very interested in the "historical Arthur" (which is why I own so many books on Britain & Wales for the period AD 400-900), & I don't remember Cadbury Camp ever being associated with Arthur. I have another book or two I should check first before saying this, but any association of Arthur with this hill-fort would be 20th century.

I hope this helps. -- llywrch (talk) 07:31, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. I've tried to add in some further bits re name, other sites, finds and another reference for the Arthurian tradition. — Rod ^talk 19:29, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

As I mentioned on your Talk page, this is almost good to go. Just three minor points; if you haven't seen the first, the etymology of Cadbury & cite of Margaret Gelling is above. The other two are:

• Now that you added a sentence about the other Cadburys, I wonder if the first paragraph of the "History" section might better fit at the end of the opening section. It is general enough to make sense there. What do you think?
• The other is a matter of style. In the fifth paragraph, same section, there is the sentence "Several of the finds were uncovered during excavations by Harold St George Gray in 1922, however the coin dating from around 370 was discovered in 1945 and a Romano-British relief in the inner defensive ditch in 1974." That "however" has rubbed me wrong since the first time I read it. ("However" implies an exception or contrary to an expressed opinion; nothing is being expressed here.) I try not to pick at people's writing style -- if it's wrong, I'll just fix it myself -- however, for a long while I couldn't think of a better word. So after thinking about it -- probably for far too long -- I think "although" would be the better word here.

As I said, just some minor points. -- llywrch (talk) 18:03, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

Thanks again. The "dative" of an anglo saxon derivation is beyond me and as you obviously have a clearer view of this (and the source) would you be kind enough to add it it? I've moved the "other Cadburys" (including the sources) to the lead but I'm a bit worried as my understanding is that the lead shouldn't contain stuff which isn't in the body of the article. I've changed the "however" to "although" as suggested.— Rod ^talk 18:53, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, didn't mean to confuse you. (Why the Anglo-Saxons used the dative case in place-names baffles me... but they did. Probably one more reason why no one speaks Anglo-Saxon any more.) I rewrote the sentence to include the important point from Gelling's book -- that the form of the Anglo-Saxon word was byrig, not burh -- & letting the rest slide. If that works for you, then we can call this good & move on. -- llywrch (talk) 07:01, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

Thanks - your edit is fine by me.— Rod ^talk 07:16, 30 June 2015 (UTC)