>Well before Canute. I can't remember for sure whether there was
>evidence for coracles at the same time period -- but isn't it
>accepted that the Britons had arrived there in boats?
Depends who you mean by "Britons", the celts arrived by boat but they certainly had decent ships by the time the Romans arrived. They were quite a bit more seaworthy than the galleys the Romans were used to. At the other extreme there is evidence for human habitation in Briton during the ice age when there was still a land bridge with France.
While I can imagine crossing the channel in a coracle given good weather it's horribly risky for sea fishing which as a regular supply of food requires going out in most weathers. I wouldn't expect to see a regular diet of deep water seafood in Britain until you had wooden ships stable enough to survive a rough sea.
-- Donald Oddy http://www.grove.demon.co.uk/
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