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This is the whole problem. There have been no Saxon finds at the base levels anywhere on the dyke and no one has looked for Roman evidence of late because it's thought to be Saxon. If you go to the Clwyd Powys Archaeological Trust (CPAT) the only argument and evidence they put forward against it being Roman is that it's like Wat's and Wansdyke which are 'most likely' Saxon. We now know Wat's Dyke isn't and the jury's still out on Wansdyke. They tell us:
"Sir Cyril Fox, an archaeologist who made a pioneering study of the earthwork in the 1920s and 1930s, interpreted the Dyke as the product of a negotiated agreement between Mercia and the Welsh Kingdoms. That view has been disputed by more recent researchers such as Frank Noble and David Hill, who explain the Dyke more as a directly defensive earthwork built explicitly in the Mercian interest at a time of continuing instability along the presumed frontier." They also sayy: "While it would be wrong to dismiss such arguments [about Severus building it] just because they offer interpretations markedly different from the orthodox view, it is important to realise that there are very good reasons for the general dating of Offa's Dyke to the Anglo-Saxon period. As Ian points out 'Offa's Dyke can be compared most closely with other dykes - like the nearby Wat's Dyke or the Wansdyke in Wiltshire - which are of likely Anglo-Saxon date, and at the same time is very different in detail from a Roman monument like Hadrian's Wall. Although lacking the absolute date that a demonstrably original building inscription or a sequence of radiocarbon dates might give, the Anglo-Saxon date of Offa's Dyke is unequivocally established'. "
Carbon dating was done in the 80's but never made public. Why? We don't know. According to an ex-archaeologist - whom I'm afraid I can't name - he found Roman evidence in the 50's, which then disappeared the day after the find! Why? Is it a coincidence that Sir Cyril Fox's book on the Dyke was coming out at the same time? Well, trying not to make this all sound like some conspiracy theory, it seems like some people don't want it known that it was Roman - if it is - as it will upset some apple carts. I think things have changed now and apart from having to rewreite a few history books if the findings are correct, we're ready for it.
How many people know Wat's Dyke dates to 446AD? Not many. Here's the quote from 'History Today - Aug 1999':
"The new evidence has emerged from the line of the ancient earthwork on an Oswestry industrial estate, Maes-y-Clawdd, south of the town. A small hearth or fire site was uncovered on the old ground surface beneath the raised bank. Some heavily worn sherds of Romano-British pottery were also retrieved, though these may have been residual deposits within the soil on which the fire had burnt. Dating analysis at Queen's University, Belfast, of charcoal and burnt clay samples centres puts the dyke's construction at around AD 446. This is an important finding with broader implications, because datable evidence from the dykes is almost non-existent. Moreover, the surviving records for the period are scanty and often garbled. A Shropshire County Council Archaeological Service report on the excavations by H.R. Hannaford concludes that the most likely date indicates that the people who constructed Wat's Dyke were not the Mercians of Offa (r. 757-96) or subjects of his predecessor, Aethelbald (r. 716-757). "
The most recent study can be seen in the book 'Offa's Dyke: History and Guide' (Tempus Publishing, Stroud 2003). By David Hill and Margaret Worthington. Here's part CAPT's own review of the book:
"From an academic perspective, perhaps the greatest disappointment of this book is the restricted view of the potential of archaeology Hill and Worthington implicitly espouse. Their explanation of Offa's Dyke, and the analytical route by which they get to it, casts the monument as little more than a footnote to the extremely scanty historical sources available for this period. The fact that their 'defensible' dyke model is, by their own admission, speculation entirely unsupported by archaeological evidence, is presented as a necessary concession to extracting any story at all from a 'dead' structure such as Offa's Dyke (see pg 126). Yet this need to resort to unashamed make believe is surely more a self-inflicted consequence of their own analytical approach. Their attempt to make a critical virtue of simplifying the dyke and its form - by radical pruning of its geographical extent to get rid of the 'problem' of the gaps, by emphasising generalised description which sometimes seems to overlook conflicting evidence, and by virtually ignoring Offa's Dyke's comparative relationship to other nominally similar earthworks such as the nearby Wat's Dyke - only really succeeds in erasing exactly the kind of contextual details and contrasts from which more sophisticated and substantive archaeological explanation could have grown. "
Our own company ARC (Archaeological Reconstruction Company) are considering getting a team together and doing a dig ourselves, even if it's just to get the ball rolling.
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