The time period between 500-950 is often referred to as the Dark Ages. This time period is believed by most to be a time of ignorance and lack of prosperity.(Asimov 85-88) These ideas are generated from a number of artifacts found in a couple of excavations that have taken place recently. From these excavations much knowledge is gained about the past. There was an excavation at Sutton Hoo, England which proved these beliefs to be wrong. The archaeological dig at Sutton Hoo, England unearthed artifacts from the Anglo-Saxon time period, which prove that the term "Dark Ages" is a misnomer. Items, such as pottery with elaborate designs and eating utensils, prove that this really was not a period of ignorance in England, but in actuality, a period of growth.
             The common belief of the "Dark Ages" is that it was a period with no interest in the arts or literature. The next time period was even named the Renaissance just to sound much more superior and intellectual than its predecessor.(Garraty, Gay, and McGill 481) The Anglo-Saxons were the barbaric setters of this Middle Age time period. Western England is the part of England that is most often associated with the negative label of having the Dark Ages. Here even the study of medicine was halted and literature was not studied at all.(Thomas 66-67) Their lifestyles were very different from ours today, because of their barbaric nature. The Anglo-Saxons were at constant warfare. They fought in a style known as "total warfare", which was a type of fighting that had proven to be a very poor type of war. This was a style of fighting from the past which had proven to be extremely wasteful in regards to casualties which, were abnormally high when fighting occurred. In most cases people were not buried when they died, and they were almost never buried if they were killed in war. With England being at constant warfare, there was no time for the spread ...