When the last Roman legions were withdrawn in AD 407, the native British leaders, who under the Romans had been great landowners and town dignitaries, continued to live in a Roman manner. Roman culture still flourished and contacts with the continent continued.
Nevertheless there were changes. Some of the hillforts used in Iron Age times were now refortified as the strongholds of chiefs, defensible against other chiefs and against the Germanic invaders now pouring into the south and east.
Among these forts was South Cadbury, traditionally associated with King Arthur, a shadowy figure who may have lived around AD 450-500, the embodiment of the spirit of native British resistance to the Anglo-Saxon invaders.
Important evidence for life in early post-Roman times comes from the meticulous excavations at Wroxeter in western Britain. Timber buildings replaced the stone structures of Roman times; one, a large hall, was probably the seat of a local prince.
The objects used by the people of Wroxeter show that they clung to their Romanized lifestyle for many years. Further east, however, in the lands exposed to Germanic invaders, towns were generally abandoned and the native people's way of life destroyed by the barbarian invaders. In these regions it is hard to distinguish native from invader.
