STAFFORDSHIRE in the Dark Ages would be unrecog-nisable from how it is now.

Around the time of the Seventh Century, Caverswall was said to be the largest settlement in what we now know as Stoke-on-Trent.

Burslem historian Fred Hughes said: "The big places would have been Caverswall and Penkhull. A lot of the big industrial towns we now know didn't exist.

"There was a big Saxon settlement around Rocester. The people would have followed the River Trent – the waterways were the routes to follow – and that's how people came to settle in Stoke-on-Trent. But the Saxons were a savage and a transient band, they didn't like to stay in one place."

In the Seventh Century, England was full of often-warring kingdoms. Staffordshire would have made up part of the important Mercian Kingdom, the expansionist military realm under kings Penda, Wulfhere and Aethelred.

Dr Gareth Williams, curator of Viking and Anglo Saxon material at the British Museum, said: "They were dangerous times to live if you had any wealth.

"There were a lot of small kingdoms and the way to increase your own was to take it off someone else."

Dr Williams believes the treasures unearthed in the Staffordshire Hoard – expected to be worth a seven-figure sum – would have belonged to "high-status individuals".