Birdoswald, near the River Irthing in Cumbria, is one of the best preserved Roman forts at Hadrian's Wall. It has attracted archaelogical interest since 1599, yielding abundant data not only about the fortifications themselves, but about the ethnicity of the soldiers who manned them, their religion and technology, and even their personal lives. For instance, women's jewelry and the remains of a surrounding village or "vicus" support the view that the forts of Hadrian's Wall were not isolated outposts, but thriving communities. The British scholar Tony Wilmott has recently suggested that Birdoswald may have been occupied by the descendants of the original troops who manned it until at least the sixth century C.E. - and that those descendants formed the nucleus of a war band which continued to dominate the area for generations after Roman rule ended in Britain.