WHY ARCHAEOLOGY FORCES ARTHUR TO NORTHERN BRITAIN

The Arthurian Battles, Along with Banna, Magnis and Aballava

Many people (including myself) have tried to make the case for a Southern Arthur.  Unfortunately, none of us have properly taken the archaeological record into account when doing so.

The following three very helpful maps are taken from Nicholas Higham (King Arthur:Myth-Making and History).  They show the Saxon settlements as evinced by cemetaries for the entire Arthurian period.

When it comes to considering Arthur as a historical entity, we are confined chronologically to the only dates we are provided with for the hero - c. 516 for Badon and c. 537 for Camlann.  

If we opt for the South as the location for his battles, we must be able to define a frontier zone.  We must then be able to show that either this frontier was held for a significant period of time or the enemy was actually pushed back. Lastly, we must be able to make linguistically sound identifications of the battle sites that reflect those conditions and military theater.

As it turns out, we cannot.  Plain and simple.

On the other hand, what was going on in the North perfectly dovetails with the best possible (and in some cases ONLY possible) battle-site identifications. Any attempts to distort/contort or creatively etymologize place-names (through language-match substitutions, "looks like" or "sounds like" comparisons, etc.) are doomed.  Trust me; I know this by sobering and often bitter experience. 

I would urge my readers to consult the work of Dr. Ken Dark, who has argued convincingly for the necessary presence in the North of a sub-Roman dux Brittanniarum-like figure.  Such a personage would have been based either at York or on Hadrian's Wall.  

Arthur's battles, as I have laid them out in the North, nicely track along the Roman Dere Street, defining an obvious boundary between the invading Saxons to the east and the Britons to the west.  Badon at Buxton (referred to by the early Saxons as Bathum, as indicated by the existence of the Batham Gate Roman road) fits well with such an arrangement of battles, and Camlann can be allowed to stand for Camboglanna/Castlesteads on the Wall.  

Survival of the Artorius name can also be demonstrated in the North.  The same cannot be said for the South.  

What this all means, of course, is that archaeology forces Arthur to Northern Britain.  I predict that any future attempts to place him in the South will, ultimately, fail.  The only way out of this predicament is to propose much earlier dates for Arthur in the South, and I don't see how we can justify doing that given the current state of our knowledge of things Arthurian.