JD Hill, Pre-Roman Iron Age

The Pre-Roman Iron Age in Britain and Ireland (ca. 800 B.C. to A.D.
100): An Overview
Author(s): J. D. Hill
Source: Journal of World Prehistory, Vol. 9, No. 1 (March 1995), pp. 47-98
Published by: Springer
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Journal
of
World
Prehistory,
Vol.
9,
No.
1,
1995
The Pre-Roman Iron
Age
in Britain and
Ireland
(ca.
800 B.C. to A.D.
100):
An Overview
J.
D. Hill1
Those communities that lived in Britain and Ireland ca.
800 B.C. to A.D. 100
represent particularly
well-researched
examples of
the
complex agrarian,
nonurban,
societies with
high population
densities that characterize the
Pre-Roman Iron
Age
across
temperate Europe.
This
paper provides
a
critical
introduction to the extensive recent literature on the Pre-Roman Iron
Age
in
Britain and Ireland. Evidence
from
the
large
number
of salvage
excavations
and
surveys,
the
application of
a wide
range of analytical techniques,
and
important changes
in
interpretative frameworks
are
transforming
understandings of
this
period. After reviewing
these
developments,
a
chronological
account
of
the
period
is outlined which
attempts
to
integrate
these new
results. This
suggests
that current
interpretations of
social
processes
across Iron
Age Europe
in terms
of
state
formation, urbanization,
and
core-periphery
relations with Mediterranean civilization need revision.
KEY WORDS: Iron
Age;
British
Isles;
social
reproduction; regional diversity;
ritual.
INTRODUCTION
This
paper provides
an overview of the Pre-Roman Iron
Age (PRIA)
in the area known
today
as the United
Kingdom
and the
Republic
of Ire
land. This is the
period
between the end of the Bronze
Age
in
temperate
Europe
and the Roman
conquest
of most of mainland Britain between A.D.
43 and A.D. 84. The
period
is
normally
divided into three
phases; Early,
Middle,
and Late
(abbreviated
here
EPRIA, MPRIA,
and
LPRIA, respec
tively) (Fig. 1).
I outline the main characteristics and
developments
of this
era,
introducing
the reader to the results of recent research and
changing
Churchill
College,
The
University
of
Cambridge, Cambridge
CB3
ODN,
United
Kingdom.
47
0892-7537/95/0300-0047507.50/0 ? 1995 Plenum
Publishing Corporation
48 Hill
Calender
Years
100 AD
50 AD
0
50 BC
100 BC
200 BC
300 BC
400 BC
500 BC
600 BC
700 BC
800 BC
900 BC
Fig.
1. A
chronology
for the British Pre-Roman Iron
Age (after
Collis, 1984;
Darvil, 1987;
Haselgrove, 1993; Stead,
1985).
The Iron
Age
in Britain and Ireland
49
interpretative
frameworks. Above
all,
I
hope
that this
summary
will illus
trate the
great potential
offered
by
an
almost
unparalleled
density,
in both
time and
space,
of
high-quality
data available for the
study
of the Pre-Ro
man
Iron
Age
in Britain. This is material which can be used to
address a
wide
range
of
questions
about
European
later
prehistory
in
particular
and
the
understanding
of
complex, agrarian
societies in
general.
The British Isles
comprise
a
collection of two
large
and
many
smaller
islands off the north coast of the
European
land mass
(Fig. 2). Perceptions
of this
geographical reality
have
strongly shaped interpretations
of the
PRIA. Both the
English
Channel/North Sea and the Irish Sea have been
assumed to have been
major
boundaries in Later
Prehistory,
so that the
British mainland has been considered as a
unity
distinct from Continental
Europe
and from Ireland. As such the British Iron
Age
is often considered
in isolation and assumed to be different from that of western mainland
Europe.
The
apparent peripheral
location of the British Isles on the
edge
of "mainstream"
developments
in Central
Europe
and/or
the
Mediterra
nean has
strongly shaped chronologies
and social
interpretations.
Innova
tions
are
held to have come from the
south,
only slowly
filtering
north and
west
(Hingley, 1995).
This results in
a
southeast versus
northwest
divide,
strengthened by perceptions
of the
physical
and
political
geography
of Brit
ain. The east and south are
lowlying
and drier than the more
upland
and
wetter west and north
(Fig. 2).
The east and south have also been the most
populous
and
politically
dominant
parts
of Britain in recent
centuries. To
what extent Iron
Age
communities in west and north Britain and Ireland
were
in
reality
more backward or
less
complex compared
to those in the
southeast needs reassessment
(Hingley,
1995; Jones,
1995).
General accounts of the
period
are
given by Raftery (1994)
for Ireland
and Cunliffe
(1974, 1991)
for mainland Britain. To these should be added
a
collection of new reviews and studies
(Champion
and
Collis,
1995),
a
review of the later PRIA
(Haselgrove, 1989),
a
national review for Scotland
(Hingley, 1993),
and several
regional
summaries
(e.g., Knight,
1984;
Hard
ing, 1982; Lambrick, 1992; Quinnell, 1986; Williams,
1988). However,
only
two
regions
are
extensively
covered
by syntheses
and
regional analyses.
These are
western and northern Scotland
(e.g.,
Armit, 1989, 1992; Foster,
1989b;
Hedges, 1987;
Hingley,
1993,
1995)
and southern central
England
Wessex and the
upper
Thames
Valley (e.g.,
Cunliffe and
Miles, 1984;
Fitzpatrick
and
Morris, 1994; Lambrick,
1992).
The
growing published
re
sults of fieldwork and research are
regularly
abstracted in the British Ar
chaeological Bibliography.
For the
place
of the PRIA within British
Prehistoric and Roman
archaeology,
see
Bradley (1991, 1984),
Darvill
(1987), Haselgrove (1989), Herity
and
Eogan (1977),
Millett
(1990a),
and
O'Kelly (1989).
50
Hill
" ~<& Vt*
Shetland
^-^1
/^Vn^-r^-rs-r-*^
Orkney
Hebrides
\ly 4/
|
Scottish
f
^
j
Highlands
Atlantic Ocean
x?5f
^_f^~S
North Sea
^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^
EaSt
v^-2!r
V
\ IrisJlS?I
>
East Yorkshire
^
The Midlands
^^^Eas^^|
___^"^f
Thames
Valley ^_
7
South West
England
Wessex
Land over 200m
English
Channel
Fig.
2.
Map
of Britain and Ireland
showing
the location of some of the
regions
discussed
in this
paper.
The Iron
Age
51
The
paper
is divided into three
parts.
I first outline a
history
of British
Iron
Age
studies to familiarize the reader with the main
approaches
over
the last 60
years,
which have
produced
the
picture
of the Iron
Age
we now
have. I then sketch the main features of the
settlement,
economy, ritual,
and social
organization, recognizing
that this will
inevitably
be a
caricature
and mask the
great variety through
time and
space. Finally,
I offer a
chronological
overview and
interpretation
of the main
changes
that oc
curred
during
these final
eight
centuries of British
Prehistory.
To reduce the
length
of the
bibliography, specific
references for indi
vidual excavations and
surveys
have been omitted. The location of
key
sites
discussed below is
given
in
Fig.
11,
but for
every
specific
site
named,
the
county (unit
of local
administration)
is
given
to
help
readers
approximately
locate the site if
they
have access to a
good
atlas
map
of the British Isles.
Finally,
readers should
note,
for
reasons discussed
below,
that radiocarbon
based
chronologies
are not
extensively
used in British and Irish PRIA stud
ies. All dates in this article
are absolute dates derived from
a
mixture of
both calibrated radiocarbon and historical
dates,
unless otherwise stated.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF IRON AGE STUDIES
In common with British
archaeology
in
general,
there has been little
concern with either
documenting
or
analyzing
the
history
of Iron
Age
stud
ies
[see Avery (1976),
Cunliffe
(1991),
and Collis
(1994)
for basic
outlines;
see
Mulvaney (1962)
and Evans
(1989a)
for
examples
of detailed critical
studies].
Paradoxically,
Iron
Age
studies had their
beginnings
both before and
after the
adoption
of the Three
Age System
in the midnineteenth
century.
The
study
of those
peoples living
in Britain before the Roman
conquest
and described
by
Classical authors
represents
a
vibrant
scholarly
tradition
stretching
back to the fifteenth
century.
Notions about these "Celtic"
peo
ples
formed
during
the Romantic and Nationalist eras still
play
a
strong
role in
shaping
both
popular
and academic
perceptions
of the Iron
Age
(e.g., Champion,
1987,
Chapman,
1992; Hill,
1989).
However,
it can
be
ar
gued
that a
coherent "Iron
Age archaeology" emerged only
in the 1920s
and 1930s. These decades
saw an
explosion
of excavations and the estab
lishment of
chronological
and
explanatory
frameworks,
along
with the nec
essary
disciplinary
framework.
Key
excavations in Wessex
provided
the
type
sites and research
agenda
that
were
then extended to the whole of main
land Britain. A basic
three-stage pottery chronology
was
proposed
for
southeast
Britain,
each
corresponding
to a new
"culture"
brought by
con
52 Hill
tinental
migrants.
This ABC culture
history
and
integral chronology
were
increasingly
refined
over the next 30
years.
This culture historical
approach
was
largely rejected
in the 1960s and
1970s,
essentially
with the
rejection
of the invasion
hypothesis
to
explain
cultural
change.
Its
rejection
in the United
Kingdom corresponded
to re
duced concern with
identifying
the arrival of Celtic
peoples
and/or
lan
guage. However,
this has remained
a
central
question
in Irish
prehistory
(e.g., Raftery,
1994; papers
in
Emania,
1991).
New
explanatory
frameworks
in the United
Kingdom
stressed internal social evolution and were
particu
larly
influenced
by contemporary developments
within
geography (e.g.,
Cunliffe, 1974; Clarke, 1972; Grant,
1986). Throughout
the 1970s and
later,
Barry
Cunliffe has held the
pivotal
role in PRIA studies. His
early
work
led to the first
synthesis
of the
new view of the
period (1974).
Cunliffe's
major
research excavations in
Wessex,
especially
at
Danebury, Hampshire
(1984), provided
the
spur
for
important
scientific
analyses (e.g.,
Jones,
1984)
and still
essentially
set the research
agenda
for others to follow or
react
against.
The 1980s continued
many existing
trends,
but with an
explanatory
shift
away
from
simple
internal social
evolutionary
models to consideration
of the
impacts
of external contacts. Core and
periphery
models became
particularly important
for
explaining change
and
exploring
the
impact
of
the
spreading
Roman
empire (e.g., Haselgrove,
1982; Cunliffe,
1988).
How
ever,
the
greatest development
has been the
explosion
in rescue
(salvage)
excavations and
surveys
across the United
Kingdom
and Ireland. Its full
consequences
have
yet
to be
felt,
but where there have been concentrations
of rescue
archaeology
it is
providing
a
fuller
understanding
of Iron
Age
communities in the foci of both traditional
research,
such as
Wessex,
and
others.
The often sizable finds
assemblages
from such excavations have led to
important
work on craft
production
and
distribution,
drawing
on a
range
of
analytical techniques (e.g.,
Ehrenreich, 1985;
Heslop,
1988; Morris, 1994c;
Northover, 1994; Scott,
1991). Increasingly
subtle and
sophisticated
studies
of botanical and animal remains
are
revealing
both the
complex
nature of
Iron
Age farming practices
and the
taphonomic processes
that worked to
produce
the
archaeological
record
(Allen
and
Robinson, 1993; Grant, 1984;
Jones, 1995;
Maltby,
1985, 1994;
van der
Veen, 1992; Wilson,
1985).
The
study
of
coinage
has witnessed
a
massive increase in the number of finds
and
types through
the discoveries of metal detector users
(Van
Arsdall, 1989;
Haselgrove,
1993;
Mays, 1992).
However,
with notable
exceptions (Hasel
grove, 1987; 1988;
Fitzpatrick,
1992b; Sellwood,
1984),
numismatics is es
sentially
an autonomous and
separate
branch of Iron
Age
studies. A similar
separation
marks the
study
of Iron
Age/"Celtic"
"Art"
(i.e.,
decorated metal
The Iron
Age
53
work) (Megaw
and
Megaw,
1989; Stead, 1984,
1985).
These,
and the con
siderable
body
of studies of "Celtic"
Religion/"Myth" (e.g.,
Green, 1986,
1992),
are seen
by
some as somewhat divorced from
archaeological
studies
of settlement and
society (Fitzpatrick,
1991;
Taylor, 1991).
Since the late 1980s
a
number of scholars have
challenged
the
explana
tory
frameworks of Iron
Age
studies
(e.g.,
Bowden and
McOmish, 1987;
Fitzpatrick,
1991; Foster, 1989a;
Hingley,
1984, 1990b; Hill,
1989
1995a,b;
Parker-Pearson, 1995;
Sharpies,
1991b; Woolf,
1993a-c). Drawing
on de
velopments
in
archaeological theory,
work in Neolithic
archaeology,
and
detailed studies of
archaeological
material,
they
have
argued
that the
pe
riod was different from what has
previously
been assumed
(Hill,
1989, 1993;
Parker-Pearson, 1995;
Parker-Pearson and Richards
1993).
An
important
focus of this
new work has been
on the formation of the
archaeological
record and the
spatial organization
of settlements.
Confirming previous
suggestions (Grant,
1984; Wait, 1985; Cunliffe,
1992),
such studies have
ar
gued
that the bulk of material
deposited
on
Iron
Age
settlements
can
be
considered
as "structured
deposition" resulting
not from
daily
refuse main
tenance activities but from
periodic
rituals
(Hill,
1993, 1995b;
Hingley,
1990b,
1993). Equally,
the
organization
of settlement
space
cannot ade
quately
be
explained
in
straightforward
functional
terms,
but
as an
embodi
ment of
an
Iron
Age cosmology (Hill,
1995b;
Fitzpatrick,
1994a; Foster,
1989b; Parker-Pearson, 1995;
Parker-Pearson and
Richards,
1993).
Other
studies build on similar
approaches
to consider the role of ritual and
space
in the
reproduction
of
society, offering
alternative
interpretations
of Iron
Age
social
organization (Ferrell,
1995; Foster, 1989b; Hill, 1995a, b;
Hin
gley,
1984, 1993;
Sharpies, 1991b).
These
new
approaches
have
important
consequences
for all
aspects
of Iron
Age
studies which should be realized
in
coming
years.
THE NATURE OF THE BRITISH PRE-ROMAN IRON AGE
The Pre-Roman
Iron
Age
was a world of
farmsteads,
a
changing
land
scape
of
small,
dispersed, long-lived
settlements often enclosed
by
a wall
or
bank and ditch and
practicing
mixed
farming
based
on
cereals,
animal
husbandry,
and woodland
management.
A
deteriorating
cooler and wetter climate marked the first half of the
third millennium
B.P.,
followed
by
some amelioration toward the end of
the
period (Jones, 1995). Against
this
background,
the PRIA
landscape
was
one of constant flux
through
the
piecemeal
process
of final
permanent
for
est
clearance,
agricultural
intensification, innovation,
and
expansion
into
marginal
areas
(Jones, 1995).
54 Hill
Evidence
throughout
Britain demonstrates that the
layout
of these
en
closed farmsteads
was ordered
by deep-seated
cultural rules and ritual con
cerns.
For
example,
these
specified
that the house and settlement should
be entered from the direction of the
rising
sun
(Fig. 3).
Settlements
were
also an
important
focus for rituals
involving
sacrifice,
feasting,
and the de
liberate
deposition
of
a
range
of material in
specific parts
of the settlement.
Such rituals and
cosmologies
have been
interpreted
as
extruding
into all
areas of the life of the household
(Parker-Pearson,
1995;
Hingley,
1993;
Hill, 1994,
1995b).
Circular
buildings
were the dominant architectural form
throughout
British later
prehistory,
in marked contrast to the
rectangular
houses found
in Continental
Europe (Audouse
and
Buchsenschutz,
1991).
Other
common
structures included
small,
raised
storage buildings
and,
in southeast
Britain,
storage pits/silos.
The finds recovered from excavations of these
sites,
al
though
their
deposition
was
clearly
structured,
provide
evidence for the
undifferentiated world of
domestic, craft,
and
agrarian
activities contained
by
such settlements. This
repertoire
of
ceramic, metal,
and bone
objects
has been extended
through
finds of
organic
architectural
fragments
and
objects
from excavations of
waterlogged
sites
(e.g.,
Coles and
Coles,
1986).
Wood,
basketry,
and leather containers
must have
played
a
very
important
role,
especially
as most of Britain and Ireland was
largely
aceramic in this
period.
However,
domestic life was
probably
drab,
as there is little evidence
for decorated
or colorful woodwork
or textiles
(Evans, 1989b). Many
set
tlements were
occupied
for
many generations,
with individual houses often
rebuilt on the same
spot
several
times,
and settlement
layouts
remodeled
over their
long
use.
Households and Settlements
Such
a
picture
is,
of
course,
a
caricature. While it is true that both
larger
and/or
unenclosed settlements existed in some
places,
the
single,
ar
chitecturally
isolated household unit was
the dominant settlement form
throughout
the
period.
However,
its
size,
composition,
and
specific
archi
tectural
expression
varied
through
time and from one
part
of Britain to
another
(Fig. 4).
A wide
range
of enclosed farmsteads of different sizes
and
shapes
is known from southern Britain.
They
include the oval
or
D
shaped
sites of Wessex
(e.g.,
Little
Woodbury,
Wiltshire;
Winnall
Down,
Hampshire),
small rectilinear settlements common across the
English
Mid
lands
(e.g.,
Fisherwick, Staffordshire;
Haddenham
V,
Cambridgeshire;
Park
Farm, Warwickshire; Enderby, Leicestershire)
and the so-called
"banjo
en
closures" and associated sites with
long funnel-shaped
entrance
passages
H sr
ft *n o 3 > (TO
ft 5* w ?. 5' w s a 2. S a tn
/
? i ?equinoxes-"^^\T~-equinoxes- ~ -
" \ SS^
Angle of declination at solstices in 1000B.C.-? 23.8*
e> \v Azimuths calculated for 50* 30'N (south coast of England)
^ ' -yp. ??rC\ ^llll^V ^ 56' 0 N (northern border of Northumberland) assuming
^ III ? ^^N^^ Q horizonlal skvlinc' 311(1 ignoring minor factors such as refraction
X
Fig. 3. The orientation of Pre-Roman Iron Age round houses in southern Britain (Oswald, 1991). This plot shows the clear preference for
the doorways of circular structures to face east. Oswald (1991)
has
shown
that this would not be the optimal direction for a doorway to face
in Britain, if doorway orientation was determined by climatic or lighting factors. He has also shown a subsidary peak, with some doorways
oriented on midwinter sunrise.
\\
//^ Draughton
(Northamptonshire)
Wakerley (Northamptonshire) (T
1 \\
Airport Catering
Site,
Stansted
(Essex)
Dragonby
(Humberside)
i
Brigstock (Northamptonshire)
(1
u
!
\
|
West Stow
(Suffolk)
0_
100 m
Fig.
4.
Comparative plans showing
the
variety
of forms of settlement in East
Anglia
and the
East
English
Midlands,
ca. 200 B.C. to A.D. 50
[after
Cunliffe
(1991)
and individual site
reports].
The Iron
Age
in Britain and Ireland 57
Twywell (Northamptonshire)
Haddenham V
(Cambridgeshire)
Fig.
4. Continued.
58 Hill
leading
into the main enclosure
(e.g.,
Woodside and Dan
y Coed,
Dyfed;
Micheldever
Wood,
Hampshire; Mingies
Ditch,
Oxfordshire).
A similar
range
of
different-shaped
and -sized enclosed household units are known
from west and north Britain
(e.g.,
Walesland
Rath,
Dyfed; Collfryn, Powys;
Rispain Camp,
Galloway;
West
Brandon, Durham;
Cornish "Rounds" such
as
Trevisker).
These also include
courtyard
houses
(e.g., Chysauster,
Corn
wall),
duns,
wheel houses
(e.g.,
Jarlshof, Shetland; Clettraval,
North
Uist;
Cnip, Lewis),
brochs
(stone
"tower"
houses, e.g., Mousa, Shetland;
Gurness,
Orkney;
Sollas,
North
Uist),
and
crannogs (individual
households
demarcated
by
water; e.g.,
Milton
Loch,,
Galloway; Buiston,
Strathclyde)
(Cunliffe,
1991; Darvill, 1987;
Hingley, 1993).
Although
enclosed settlements
may
be the dominant settlement form
in some areas
throughout
the
period,
there
may
have been considerable
changes
in their size and form
through
time,
and over a few tens of kilo
meters,
as Williams'
(1988) study
of settlement in southwest Wales
clearly
demonstrates. In northeast
England/southeast
Scotland
changes
in the size
and form of these enclosed units
through
the
period
have also been iden
tified,
and linked to
changes
in households'
food-producing regimens
and
strategies
of social
reproduction (Ferrell, 1995).
This and other recent in
terpretations
have cast individual households
as the fundamental units in
understanding
the constitution of PRIA
societies,
through
their interaction
and
competition, growth
and
fracture,
and
changing
structure and
makeup
(Hingley,
1984, 1993; Hill, 1995a,
c).
The
archaeological
record is biased toward enclosed sites which
are
more visible
compared
with unenclosed settlements. In some
areas,
and in
some
centuries,
unenclosed settlements were the
norm,
with a
consequence
that little is known about settlement and mundane activities. This is true
for Ireland
throughout
the PRIA
(Raftery, 1994).
In
many
areas there was
a clear trend with time toward enclosure
(e.g.,
East
Anglia)
or toward more
massive/permanent
enclosure
(northeast England
and southeast
Scotland).
Unenclosed settlements varied
considerably
in size and form.
They ranged
from individual houses scattered within fields
(e.g.,
Garton
Slack,
Humber
side),
to unenclosed versions of isolated settlements
(e.g., Prestatyn, Clywd;
Newmill,
Perth),
to small rows of
buildings (e.g., Roxby,
North
Yorkshire;
Winnall
Down,
Hampshire; Kilphedir, Sutherland),
to uncommon
tightly
packed
clusters of houses
(e.g.,
Little
Waltham, Essex;
Glastonbury,
Som
erset).
Loose
agglomerations
of households
are more common
(e.g.,
Ashville, Oxfordshire; Mucking, Essex), although
in
many,
individual house
hold units
were still
spatially distinguishable (e.g., Gravelly Guy,
Oxford
shire),
if not set within their own
ditched/hedged
enclosures. This
arrangement
of
square/rectangular
settlement
compounds grouped together
is
a
frequent
feature of
agglomerated
settlements of ca. 300 B.C. onward
The Iron
Age
(e.g.,
Catswater, Cambridgeshire;
Dalton
Parlours,
West
Yorkshire;
Sil
chester,
Hampshire; Dragonby,
Humberside;
Poole
Harbour,
Dorset) (Fig.
4).
In almost no case can
any
central focus be identified within such
ag
glomerated
settlements
or
"villages." Agglomerated
settlements
appear
to
have been most common in
parts
of central and eastern
England, although
they
are
known outside
(e.g., Thorpe
Thewles, Cleveland; Beckford,
Here
ford,
and
Worcestershire).
Such settlements were
rarely
the sole settlement
form in an area and could be
contemporary
with
small,
enclosed settle
ments. These
may
have been
specialist
units,
such as
banjo
enclosures,
within the
complex
utilization of the Oxfordshire Thames
Valley (Lambrick,
1992). Alternatively,
there could be
conglomerations
of
single-compounded
farmsteads,
sometimes
alone,
sometimes in clusters of
varying
sizes
(cf.
Dal
ton
Parlours and other sites in West
Yorkshire;
Catswater with Haddenham
V,
Cambridgeshire).
Throughout
Britain,
settlement size and form
appear
to have been
pri
marily products,
and
producers,
of local social forms and not
simply prod
ucts of environment
or
simple
economy (Hingley, 1984,1995; Ferrell,
1995).
Thus
during
the second half of the first millennium
B.C.,
one
major
river
valley,
the
Thames,
in
central/eastern
England
was
dominated
by open, ag
glomerated
settlements,
while in other
valley systems
such as the
Trent,
Avon,
and
Severn, individual,
enclosed settlements were the norm
(Knight,
1984;
Hingley,
1989;
Ellis et
aiy
1994). Similarly,
in eastern
Scotland,
en
closed farmsteads
were dominant south of the Firth of
Forth,
while to the
north unenclosed settlements
were the norm. These
regions
were also dis
tinguished by
the
presence
of
large
hillforts in the
south,
absent from the
north,
and the use of different
types
of metal work
(Macinnes,
1982;
Hin
gley,
1993,
personal communication).
Houses
The round
house,
a circular structure that was built with
wooden, turf,
or stone walls and roofed with thatch or
turf,
was the
major building
form
across Ireland and Britain in the first millennium B.C.
although
the size and
form of the round house varied in time and
space.
In southern and central
England
very
large,
"monumental,"
roundhouses were common
during
the
first half of the first millennium B.C.
(Late
Bronze
Age/Early PRIA).
How
ever,
the size of
houses,
along
with their monumental
aspirations
and
possible
central social
focus,
greatly
diminished in later centuries. The reverse
appears
to have taken
place
in the
north,
especially
in Scotland
(Hingley,
1993; Foster,
1989b).
Here houses of the first half of the first millennium B.C. were
gen
erally
smaller and
slighter
structures,
compared
to the
range
of
large
monu
60 Hill
mental round houses constructed in the second half of the millennium. The
best-known
examples
are the brochs:
freestanding
round stone tower build
ings
constructed from 200 B.C.
(Armit,
1992;
Hingley, 1993). Examples
of
these brochs include Dun
Carloway
on
Lewis,
Gurness on
Orkney,
and
Mousa on Shetland. Northern houses
may
also have differed from southern
houses
through
a
possible
different
emphasis
in their internal division and
use. An
emphasis
on axial
symmetry
and radial
partition
in the north
might
be contrasted with a
bipartite
division, north:south,
leftiright
distinction either
side of the entrance in southern
buildings (Hingley,
1990;
Fitzpatrick,
1994a;
Parker-Pearson, 1995; Reid,
1989).
Agriculture
An unfortunate
by-product
of the increased and
proper
importance
of
scientific
specialist
contributions in PRIA studies is the artificial
compart
mentalism of our
understandings
of PRIA life. It is not realistic to
attempt
to
separate
the
management
of animal herds from
plant husbandry
in un
derstanding agricultural practices
or to
separate
this from
pottery produc
tion,
metallurgy,
social
organization,
and ritual. The numbers of individuals
engaged
in
any
"full-time"
specialist activity throughout
the
period
would
have been
negligible
and all "craft"
production,
construction
activities,
and
exchange (or warfare?)
had to be scheduled within the household's
agri
cultural
year.
In all
parts
of Ireland and
Britain,
we are not
dealing
with
subsistence
economies,
but
surplus-generating
economies in which house
holds aimed to
produce
for their successful social
reproduction
and for
competition
with other households. The forms
through
which this
surplus
was
consumed
were
shaped by
dominant social
discourses,
often articulated
and
legitimated through
ritual
(Barrett,
1989; Hill,
1995b).
The basis of these social forms rested on the
exploitation
of
plants?as
food, fodder, fuel,
or
building
material
(Jones, 1995).
Mixed
farming
took
place throughout
Ireland and
Britain,
although
the relative
importance
at
tached to
plant
versus animal
products,
and to
particular species,
varied in
space
and time. At no
period
before
or after is the
archaeological
evidence
for
food-producing regimes
so dominated
by
cereal
crops,
nor,
in the
pre
modern
era,
so concentrated
on domesticated
plants
and animals
(Jones,
1995).
Wild animals and
plants comprised
a
tiny
contribution to the overall
diet in most of
Britain,
although
it is now clear that their
exploitation
and
consumption
were
heavily
surrounded
by
taboo and ritual
(Grant,
1984;
Hill,
1995b).
Although
across much of Britain the main focus would have been the
fields
surrounding/close
to the
settlement,
it is clear that
many
households
The Iron
Age
61
relied on members
traveling
some
distances to
supervise
animal herds in
summer
pastures. Temporary
seasonal settlements are
known from river
floodplains (e.g.,
Farmoor, Oxfordshire; Hesterton,
East
Yorkshire),
estu
arine marshes
(e.g.,
Maere,
Somerset),
and,
probably,
forests and
upland
pastures.
Such seasonal movements
may
have also been
accompanied by
other activities such as sea salt extraction
or,
in the forests of the Sussex
Weald,
clay winning, quern
stone
quarrying,
and timber
felling (Sue
Ham
ilton,
personal communication). Similarly,
in the wetlands of the southern
Vale of
York,
iron
production
may
have been a
seasonal
undertaking (Steve
Willis,
personal communication).
The
major underlying
trends
throughout
the first millennium B.C.
were
the increased
permanent
clearance of
woodland,
intensification of
land
use,
and
expansion
of intense
utilization/settlement into areas of the
landscape previously
marked
by episodic
clearance and
forest/scrub
regen
eration. The result
was to
produce
a
densely populated landscape
at the
time of the Roman
conquest.
Estimates of the size of the
population
ca.
1
B.C./A.D.
are
fraught
with
difficulties,
but between 2 and 5 million
peo
ple appears
to be a reasonable
figure,
similar to that for Medieval Britain
(Fowler, 1978; Cunliffe, 1991; Millett,
1990a).
These
processes
of
agricul
tural
intensification,
which Jones
(1995)
sees as
inherently unstable,
were
accompanied by piecemeal agricultural
innovation in terms of the
adop
tion of new
species (e.g.,
domestic
fowl), technologies (e.g., iron-tipped
ard
plows,
the hand
quern),
and
crop
varieties
(e.g.,
bread/club
wheat,
rye) (Jones,
1984,
1995).
The latter often
implies wide-reaching changes
in households' time
management,
and
age/sex
divisions of labor and wider
relations.
Bread/club
wheat,
for
example, required
more intense and time
consuming
methods of cultivation
including deeper plowing, greater
fer
tilizer
inputs,
and
weeding (Jones, 1995).
The
pace
of these innovations
increased in the last two centuries of the
PRIA,
but followed no
simple
wave
of advance model from southeast to northwest
(van
der
Veen, 1992;
Jones,
1995).
For
instance,
bread wheat was
probably
taken
up
at the same
time or earlier in southwest Scotland and northeast
England
than in south
east
England [e.g., Rispain Camp, Galloway
Jones,
(1995);
Rock
Castle,
North Yorkshire
(van
der
Veen,
1992)].
How local
groups
or individual households reacted
to,
or
seized the
opportunities
afforded
by,
these
long-term pressures
was
neither uniform
nor
determinist. Permanent settlement
clearly expanded during
the
period,
and
by
inference
population
grew, yet
there has been almost no
serious
consideration of this central
phenomenon [except
in northeast
England,
where
very
detailed
pollen
studies have been combined with
archaeological
research;
see van der Veen
(1992), Haselgrove (1989),
and Ferrell
(1995)
for
summaries].
The detailed
sociology
and mechanics of this
process
of
62 Hill
accretion are
poorly
understood. Who moved
[whole existing households,
parts
of households
or new
households,
individuals
(What age
or
gen
der?)]? Why
did
they
move? Need it be increased densities of
people?it
self a cultural
specific judgment?or
due to rules of inheritance and
household
dynamics
or
competition
between households? How far would
they
have moved
(a
few
kilometers,
several 10s
or even
100s)?
Whatever
the
causes,
it is clear that those
groups moving
to
intensify exploitation
of
previously "marginal"
areas were more
open
to
agricultural
innovation
(Ferrell,
1995; Jones, 1985, 1995;
van der
Veen,
1992)
and/or
often sched
uled
larger parts
of their annual
cycle
for
specialist
"craft" activities such
as metal
working, pottery production,
quern
stone
production,
and even
exploitation
of beaver
pelts
and bird feathers
(e.g.,
Evans and
Serjeantson,
1988;
Haselgrove,
1989; Millett, 1990b;
Sharpies, 1990).
Craft Production and
Exchange
Craft
production
and
exchange
shared the same
picture
of
diversity
and variation as the
agricultural regimes
in which
they
were
embedded.
There was a
general
trend
through
time toward
an
increased scale of
pro
duction and
specialization.
Recent
work, however,
demonstrates that this
was far from a
straightforward
process
of
increasing
social
complexity (e.g.,
Morris, 1994a, c; Ehrenreich, 1991, 1994;
Haselgrove, 1989).
There is little
substantial evidence for centralized control of
production
and distribution
in the bulk of PRIA
communities,
as has often been assumed
(Morris,
1994a, b; Marchant, 1989; Hill,
1995a).
Many
settlement excavations of the Late Bronze
Age
and PRIA
pro
duce
assemblages
of
chipped
stone and flint tools and waste.
Although
usu
ally ignored
or dismissed
as residual Neolithic or
Early
Bronze
Age
material,
it is clear from recent studies that stone and flint tools continued in use
alongside
tools made from iron
(e.g.,
Ford et
aL, 1984;
Martingale, 1988).
Scientific
analyses
have made
important
recent advances in our un
derstanding
of
iron, bronze, silver,
and
gold working
in the
period (e.g.,
Ehrenreich, 1985; Northover, 1984, 1994; Scott, 1991; Stead,
1984).
Metal
working
utilized
a wide
range
of ore sources within the British
Isles,
al
though
its most skilled
practitioners clearly
knew of Continental-wide de
velopments
and fashions.
Working
iron and bronze
appears
to have had
several tiers of
workers,
although
this need not
imply
a
hierarchy (Ehren
reich,
1991).
A small number of skilled smiths
produced complex
and elabo
rate
objects
such
as
swords, cauldrons,
torques,
and
shields,
and there is
evidence that individual
techniques
were not
widely
disseminated
(Salter
and
Ehrenreich,
1984).
However,
the manufacture of tools and other mun
The Iron
Age
dane
objects
such as
nails, etc.,
was
widespread;
almost
every
PRIA set
tlement
yields
some metal
working (smithing)
evidence,
although
initial ore
extraction
was much more restricted. Whether this
implies
a
widespread
common
knowledge
of basic
metallurgy
or itinerant metal workers is not
clear. The available evidence
does, however,
indicate that metal
working
was
always
a
small-scale and short-term
activity,
with
very
little investment
in
long-lasting
facilities.
This
picture applies
to other
activities,
such as
pottery production.
Considerable work on
pottery
distribution is
revealing
its
complexity
and
variability (Peacock,
1969; Morris,
1994a). Again,
there was no
investment
in
permanent
production
facilities such as
kilns,
although they rapidly ap
peared
after the Roman
conquest.
Models of
increasing
centralization of
production through
time
are not
supported by
the
evidence,
although,
in
general, pottery
may
have been
exchanged
over
longer
distances in
greater
quantities
toward the end of the
period.
Potters in Poole
Harbour, Dorset,
provided
the
majority
of
pottery
for a
large surrounding region
ca. 100
B.C. to 100 A.D.
(Brown,
1991;
Hearne and
Cox,
1994).
This was not the
situation in southeastern
England
at the same
time,
although
this area was
characterized
by oppida (possible
urban
settlements)
and an
increasingly
centralized
polity.
As
such,
in this case and in
others,
the
organization
of
craft
production
cannot be
simply equated
with the level of
(apparent)
so
cial
complexity (Morris, 1994a).
Similar studies
on other
products
confirm this
complex
situation.
Quern
stone
production
in southern
England
ca. 200 B.C. to 50 A.D. did
see the
emergence
of
a few
important
sources
(Peacock, 1987), yet
in north
ern
England
the reverse situation took
place (Heslop,
1988;
Haselgrove,
1989).
Other
important
craft
products exchanged
over some
distances in
cluded
glass
beads,
manufactured in
a
very
restricted number of locations
(Henderson, 1991),
shale,
jet,
and
salt,
from both mineral sources and
seawater
(Morris, 1994b).
To what extent wood and worked bone or textile
products
were
exchanged
over similar distances is unclear. The
procure
ment,
raising,
and
exchange
of other
commodities,
such as
horses,
hunting
dogs,
sea
birds,
pelts,
and
feathers,
were also of social
importance (Grant,
1984;
Evans and
Serjeantson,
1988; Hill,
1955b).
To this list should also be
added
people
and
knowledge.
Ritual
Ritual has become
an
important
focus of
study
in recent
years
(Cun
liffe, 1992;
Fitzpatrick,
1984; Green, 1986, 1992; Hill, 1995b;
Hingley,
1993;
Whimster, 1981; Wait,
1985).
In the
past,
it has been assumed that there
64
Hill
Fig.
5. Ritual
deposits
on Pre-Roman Iron
Age
settlements.
Deposit
of human
(above)
and
animal
(below)
carcasses in disused
grain storage pits
from Winnall
Down,
Hampshire (after
Fasham, 1985; Hill,
1995c).
was
very
little obvious ritual
activity
in this
period,
which is dominated
by
an
archaeology
of the domestic
lacking
the monumental
aspects
which
typi
fies the British Neolithic and
Early
Bronze
Age.
This was
particularly
ar
gued
because of the
general
absence of
any
archaeologically
visible
treatment of the dead or
clearly
ceremonial monuments for the bulk of
the
period.
From the Late Bronze
Age
onward,
it
appears
that
excarnation
was the normal
mortuary practice,
the bones not
subsequently being
buried.
However,
small numbers of human remains
were
deposited
on
Late Bronze
Age
and Iron
Age
settlements,
as
part
of the dominant ritual traditions
The Iron
Age
65
which involved the
deposition
of
a
range
of domestic items
including
animal
remains,
broken
tools,
and
pottery
in
primarily
settlement contexts
(Need
ham, 1993; Whimster, 1981; Wait, 1985; Hill,
1995b) (Fig. 5).
While most
recent concentration has been on ritual activities on
settlements,
it is im
portant
not to
neglect
other locations for ritual activities within the land
scape,
such as
wells,
boundary
earthworks, caves,
and wet
places
such as
springs, bogs,
rivers,
and lakes
(Hill,
1995b;
Hingley, 1990b, 1995;
Fitzpa
trick, 1984; Wait,
1985).
A
tiny
number of formal
burials,
if
poorly understood,
are
scattered
across Britain and Ireland from the Late Bronze
Age
to MPRIA
(Whimster,
1981)
.
However,
the one clear
exception
is the "Arras Culture" in East York
shire and Humberside
(Stead,
1991a; Dent, 1982;
Champion,
1994; Millett,
1990b).
Here,
a
formal burial tradition
involving
La Tene
style
inhumations
under
square
barrows, arranged
in
long
cemeteries
along preexisting
land
boundaries existed
during
the MPRIA.
Examples
of these cemeteries include
Garton
Slack,
Garton
Station,
and
Wetwang
Slack
(Stead, 1991a; Dent,
1982)
.
The
majority
of
graves
are
poorly
furnished,
but a
small number in
cluded elaborate
weapons,
other metal
work,
and two-wheeled horsedrawn
carts or chariots. The
origins
of this anomalous rite have been much debated
with
apparent
links with burials in northeastern France used to
argue
for
Gallic
migration.
However,
there are
several
equally
"anomalous" Late
Bronze
Age/EPRIA
barrow burials in East Yorkshire and recent work
on
the settlements shows no
discontinuity
in terms of architecture or
pottery
(Stead, 1991a). Perhaps
this local
phenomenon
should be
interpreted
as an
other
example
of the
use of material culture and social
practices
to distin
guish radically
one
group
of communities from its
neighbors.
This is
a
phenomenon
of
"regionalization"
that
typifies
the PRIA in Britain and be
yond,
and that is one of its most marked characteristics.
One
possible
difference between the western and northern
parts
of
the British Isles and the south and east
lay
in their attitudes to the
past.
Only
in the north and west were Neolithic and
Early
Bronze
Age
monu
ments the focus of
attention,
be it as a
location for burial
(e.g., Kiltierney,
Co.
Fermanagh;
Knowth,
Co.
Meath;
Stackpole
Warren and Plas
Gogerd
dan,
Dyfed), building
monumental round houses
(e.g.,
Pool, Howe,
and
Quanterness,
Orkney),
or
incorporation
within central sites
(e.g.,
Tara,
Co.
Meath) (Hingley,
1993, 1995;
Murphy,
1992;
Raftery, 1994).
Hoarding
and the
deposition
of metal
objects
in
watery
contexts were
the most visible ritual activities of the Late Bronze
Age. Dry
land hoards
of bronze
objects
ceased with the
beginning
of the Iron
Age, although
de
posits
of metal work in
rivers, lakes,
and
bogs
continued on a much reduced
level
(Bradley,
1990;
Fitzpatrick,
1984;
Hingley,
1993;
Raftery,
1994; Wait,
1985).
Other
"watery deposits"
included
a
few Mediterranean
pots (Har
66 Hill
bison and
Laing, 1974),
wooden
figures,
such as from
Ballachulish,
High
land,
and Ross
Carr,
Humberside
(Coles, 1990);
food,
pottery
and
agricul
tural tools
(Dairy,
1980;
Hingley, 1993);
and some
human
bodies,
such as
Lindow Man
(Stead
et
al.,
1986).
The
offerings
of food and
objects
asso
ciated with
daily
life
are
part
of
a
general
ritual focus
on
home and harvest
that marks much of the PRIA
(Hill,
1995b;
Hingley, 1993; Wait,
1985).
The
deposits
of metal work in both wet and
dry
locations increased in in
tensity
in the last three centuries of the PRIA across
Britain,
although
their
distribution
was
patchy
with distinct clusters. The most
important
cluster
was in central and northern Ireland
(Bradley,
1990;
Fitzpatrick,
1984;
Raf
tery,
1994; Wait,
1985).
This
period
also
saw the
appearance
of shrines and
archaeologically
visible
mortuary
practices.
In southeast
England,
small
single
functional rit
ual
buildings,
often within
a
square compound,
were
constructed from the
first
century
B.C. These shrines
or
temples
were
often
very
similar in
plan
to
contemporary
structures in northern
France, e.g.,
Hayling
Island,
Hamp
shire; Chanctonbury Ring,
West
Sussex; Harlow, Essex;
Fison's
Way,
Thet
ford, Norfolk;
and
Uley,
Gloucestershire
(Wait,
1985;
Gregory,
1991;
Woodward and
Leach,
1993).
In different
parts
of Britain
archaeologically
visible
mortuary practices begin
to be carried out for at least some of the
population (Whimster, 1981).
Both of these
processes
involved
humanly
cre
ating spaces
for
specific types
of ritual for the first time in
many
centuries.
Attention
usually
concentrates on the
"Aylesford-Swarling"
cremation
rite in
parts
of southeast
England,
which
represents
the extension of north
French cremation
practices
across the
English
Channel
(Whimster,
1981;
Fitzpatrick,
1994b;
Haselgrove,
1984,
1989).
However,
this could be seen
as a
local and
specific
manifestation of a
broader
process
with other con
temporary,
or even
earlier,
local manifestations in different
parts
of Britain.
Individual or small cemeteries of
burials,
generally
inhumations
(a
few in
cluding swords), increasingly appeared
in
parts
of
England (especially
in
Cornwall, Devon,
and
Dorset),
Wales,
Scotland and Ireland from ca.
300
200 B.C. onward
(Whimster,
1981;
Murphy,
1992;
Raftery,
1994; Collis,
1972).
These formal burials and shrines and the metal work
deposits
of
the Later PRIA could be
interpreted
as a
diminishing
of,
or
emerging
al
ternative
to,
the
predominant
domestic focus of ritual found in most of
Britain in
preceding
centuries.
"Central Sites":
Hillforts, Oppida,
and
Royal
Sites
Hillforts have often been considered as central
to,
if not
synonymous
with,
the
study
of the Iron
Age (Fig. 6).
These
are
large
sites enclosed
by
The Iron
Age
Fig.
6.
Comparative plans
of hillforts
(after Hogg,
1984; Cunliffe,
1991).
68 Hill
earthen or stone walls
(ca.
3-20
ha),
often on
hilltops (Cunliffe, 1991;
Darvill, 1987;
Avery, 1976).
The term is often
incorrectly
used to describe
any
upstanding
later Prehistoric
enclosure,
however small. For much of this
century they
have been considered
as the central
places
within PRIA socie
ties.
Originally
seen as
towns,
hillforts were studied
through
the
application
of central
place theory
in the 1960s and 1970s when the use
of Thiessen
polygons
to establish hillfort territories became de
rigueur.
This
approach,
combined with social
evolutionary
models of the
redistributing
chiefdom and
traditional notions of
a warlike Celtic
society,
can be seen
in Cunliffe's
(1984a, b)
seminal
interpretation
of
Danebury, Hampshire (cf.
Gent,
1983).
This
hypothesis,
that hillforts
were the fortress residences of
an
elite,
centers
of craft
production
and
exchange,
and a
focal
point
in the
agricultural
re
gimes
of the
area,
has become a
very
fruitful source of debate.
Building
on
early critiques
of the central
place
model
(Collis, 1981),
all
aspects
of this model have been criticized and tested
against
the available
data
(Stopford,
1987; Marchant, 1989;
Sharpies,
1991a, b; Hill, 1995a;
Mor
ris,
1994c).
The
apparent military
function of hillforts has also been
ques
tioned
(Bowden
and
McOmish, 1987,1989;
Hill
1995a,
b).
Furthermore,
not
all hillforts
were
built
on
hills;
similar
large
enclosures could be
low-lying,
e.g.,
Stonea
Camp, Cambridgeshire,
and Heathrow
Airport,
Middlesex. In
addition,
analyses
of the Wessex evidence do not
appear
to
support
the cen
tral role of hillforts in
managing production
and
exchange
or as elite resi
dences
(Hill,
1995; Morris, 1994c;
Sharpies,
1991a,
b).
Nor were all
contemporary
hillforts the same sorts of
sites,
with differences between sites
in the same
regions
and between
parts
of Britain. Thus Scottish hillforts
lack the
crop storage
facilities so central an element in dominant
interpre
tations of Wessex hillforts
(Gent,
1983; Cunliffe, 1984a;
Hingley, 1993).
In
sum,
hillforts do not
represent
a
single
coherent
chronological
ho
rizon across the
country.
Some
are not Iron
Age
sites at
all,
but were
built,
and
possibly primarily
used,
in the Late Bronze
Age (e.g.,
some sites in
the Welsh Borders and Southern Scotland such as the Breiddin or Croft
Ambrey, Powys,
or Elsdon
Seat,
Lothian).
Others areas saw no
hillfort
con
struction until much later than
neighboring
areas,
as in East
Sussex,
Surrey,
and Kent in the third to first centuries B.C. Most
importantly,
hillforts
were
built
only
over restricted
areas of Britain and Ireland.
Despite
their as
sumed
centrality
to the Iron
Age,
it is clear that most PRIA communities
could
reproduce
themselves
successfully
without hillforts. Where hillforts
were
in
use,
recent
interpretations
have stressed their role as
communal,
ritual,
foci
(Bowden
and
McOmish, 1987;
Sharpies,
1991a, b; Hill, 1995a;
Hingley, 1993).
It is clear also that their roles could differ across
space
and,
on the same
site,
through
time,
as is shown
by
Maiden
Castle,
Dorset
(Sharpies, 1991a).
As such it would
probably
be
wrong
to
envisage
hillforts
The Iron
Age
0_100_200
kms
Fig.
7. The
essentially mutually
exclusive distribution of hillforts
(filled
circles)
and the ritual
deposition
of La
Tene-style
metal work
(hatched
area)
in Pre-Roman Iron
Age
Ireland
(information
from
Raftery, 1994).
as a
coherent
category
of site with a
corresponding single
common function
(Hill, 1995a).
To use or not use
hillforts
was also
clearly part
of the marked
regional
differentiation that characterizes the PRIA. In the
main,
hillforts
do not tend to occur in the same
areas,
or to be used at the same
times,
as
deposits
of
weaponry
and other metal work in
graves
or hoards
(e.g.,
Bradley,
1992;
Sharpies, 1991b).
This is well illustrated in Ireland
(Fig. 7)
and also in East
Yorkshire,
where there were no hillforts in the
area
prac
ticing
barrow inhumation
(Bradley,
1984; Raftery, 1994).
70 Hill
"Oppida"
is
a
confusing,
and
probably inappropriate,
label
given
to a
variety
of
large
enclosed sites which date to the first centuries
B.C./A.D.
(Cunliffe,
1991; Darvill, 1987;
Haselgrove,
1989; Millett,
1990a).
These sites
are
supposed
to
correspond
to the
"oppida"
found in
parts
of
contemporary
temperate Europe,
which
are often seen as urban settlements
(Collis,
1984b; Wells, 1990,
but
see
Woolf,
1993a) (Fig. 8).
Some of these sites
became the locations of Roman cities and it has been assumed that
oppida
played
an
equivalent
role in
Pre-Conquest society (e.g.,
Colchester,
Chich
ester,
Canterbury,
St
Albans).
Two
types
of
"oppida"
are
distinguished (Cunliffe,
1991; Darvill,
1987).
Enclosed
oppida
are hillfort-sized enclosed sites but have been considered
to be different from hillforts because of their location in river
valleys,
Later
PRIA
origins,
and assumed different function.
However,
given
the
variety
encompassed by
the term
"hillfort,"
and that
many
were not built on
hills
and were built late in the Later
PRIA,
it seems difficult to sustain the
argument
that hillforts
are a
fundamentally
different class of site from that
of enclosed
oppida.
This is
particularly
the case as no enclosed
oppidum
has been
adequately
excavated.
"Territorial
oppida"
is a term used to describe series of
large
earthen
banks and ditches which demarcate
large
areas
(up
to several hundred hec
tares)
of the
landscape. Examples
include the
principal
centers of Later
PRIA
polities
in the
southeast, e.g., Colchester, Essex;
St
Albans,
Hert
fordshire
(Fig. 8);
and
Silchester,
Hampshire,
and
Chichester,
West Sussex.
Problems of
size,
and that
many
are under modern
towns,
make the full
understanding
of such "sites" difficult.
Many
sites
were
clearly
locations of
high-status
settlement, burial,
and
consumption
of continental material.
Such
activities,
though,
were not restricted to these
separated parts
of the
landscape,
and the full
relationships
between what
happened
inside such
"sites" and
beyond
are unclear. Nor
were such sites restricted to the south
east of
England; they
are now known from other
parts
of southern Britain
(e.g., Gussage
Cow
Down, Dorset;
Bagendon, Gloucestershire;
and Hob
Ditch,
Warwickshire) (Corney,
1989;
Hingley
1989; Trow,
1990).
The north
ernmost is the site of
Stanwick,
North Yorkshire
(Fig. 8) (Haselgrove
et
al,
1990).
These sites often
appear
to have been established
on
the
margins
of
preexisting
concentrations
of
settlement,
coinage
distributions,
and other
defined
regional groupings (Haselgrove,
1976;
Corney, 1989).
This situation
probably
also
applies
to the classic territorial
Oppida
of the southeast such
as St.
Albans, Colchester,
and Chichester
(Haselgrove, 1976).
The definition of
a
particular type
of
settlement,
with a
specific
func
tion,
through
the form of
an earthwork
system,
and not
through
a consid
eration of the actual evidence for the
type
of activities
taking place
within
them,
has
hampered
understandings
of these and other
contemporary
sites.
? a > ore n 5" w 2. ST.
5 9 a
2L ET s a
-a
A. St Albans (Roman Vcrulamium } (Hertfordshire) B s?^^ **!5^
B. Stanwick (North Yorkshire) f
C. The Navan
complex
(Armagh)
/^^^^^_^^\
3^>^^
Royal
Burinl
^^^^ ^ _
V \ S King's Stables-^ J
^^^k Palace? \ S
/)
/ LoughnashadeA
/ / ^^V^
Hnughcy's
Fort )
r ^>
11
^ ^
Fig. 8. Comparative plans of Late Pre-Roman Iron Age central
sites
(after Cooney and Grogan 1991; Haselgrove et al 1990; Hunn 1992).
72 Hill
It is clear that
agglomerated
settlements of considerable size existed at
this
time in different
parts
of southern and eastern
England,
some
with evidence
for
long-distance exchange
contacts,
craft
production,
and
wealth,
but not
enclosed at all
by
an earthwork
system (e.g., Dragonby
and
Redcliff,
Hum
berside,
sites within Poole
Harbour, Dorset; Leicester, Leicestershire;
Puck
eridge-Braughing,
Hertfordshire).
Such sites
may
offer
a
better
case for
fulfilling
the roles often ascribed to
"oppida"
than those sites defined as
oppida simply
because of the
presence
of earthwork enclosures. Whether
earthwork
systems
existed or
not,
these
"sites,"
such as
St.
Albans,
Dragonby,
Chichester,
and
Poole,
ought
to be
envisaged
more as settlement
complexes
or
polyfocal
settlement
foci,
rather than as nucleated settlements
(Millett, 1990a).
These sites
appear
to have often been
a
clustering
of set
tlements and
activity
areas,
often
prolific
in finds but
possibly individually
short lived and mobile
(Willis, 1993).
If at all urban
sites,
they represent
a form of urbanism unlike that found in the classical world or later
Europe
(Woolf, 1993a,c).
Contemporary
with the
"oppida"
are the
"Royal
Sites" found in the
Irish Midlands such
as Navan
(Fig. 8),
Co.
Armagh;
Dun
Ailinne,
Co. Kil
dare;
and
Tara,
Co. Meath
(Raftery,
1994;
Llyn,
1986; Wailes,
1990).
These
are
complexes
of
large
circular enclosures of
varying
sizes,
often
containing
smaller circular enclosures
(Fig. 8).
Both Navan and Dun Ailinne were
foci
of some kind in the Late Bronze
Age,
and Navan has in close
proximity
at least two lakes which were the location for the ritual
deposition
of Iron
Age
metal work and human remains
(Cooney
and
Grogan, 1991).
Excava
tions at small focal enclosures at all three sites have
provided
evidence for
circular structures of timber
posts,
which
may
not have been roofed. The
most
spectacular
is the "40-m structure" at Navan
(Lynn,
1986, 1992;
Robertson,
1992),
with
sue
rings
of timber
posts
and a
large
central oak
post
as much
as
13
m tall. This structure was
systematically
filled in with
stones soon after
construction,
the exterior
deliberately
burned and the
cairn
subsequently
covered with
a
2.5-m-thick
layer
of turfs. All these site
complexes appear
to have had
a
ceremonial
function,
with little evidence
of settlement and other activities.
They
are
referred to as the former
cen
ters of local
kings
in later oral histories and
myths (Raftery, 1994).
Social
Organization
The
interpretation
of hillforts and that of PRIA social
organization
have
always
been
inextricably
intertwined and have been the
subject
of in
creasing
debate in recent
years (Haselgrove, 1994).
In
general
there has
been
a shift from
applying generalized
notions of
a
"Celtic"
or
"Iron
Age
The Iron
Age
society"
to
specific interpretations
of
particular
Iron
Age
social forms. This
has been
accompanied by
more reluctance to assume
that PRIA social
forms were hierarchies and
by explorations
of heterarchical forms of or
ganization (Armit,
1992; Ehrenreich, 1991;
Hingley, 1984,1993; Hill, 1995a;
Woolf,
1993a). Along
with this has been an
emphasis
on the household as
a
basic unit of
production
and
on the
spatial organization
of
society
as
integral
to its constitution
(Ferrell,
1995; Foster, 1989a, b;
Hingley,
1984,
1993; Hill, 1995a,
c).
Traditional models have taken
generalized assumptions
of a warrior
based,
hierarchical "Celtic" social form from classical
writings
and Medieval
Irish heroic literature and
applied
them to the PRIA. This use of such an
analogy
has, however,
been much debated. The most
elegant
and
explicit
uses
of such an
approach
are those where this was
combined with
key
ele
ments of
processual
social
archaeology (e.g.,
Clarke, 1972; Cunliffe,
1984a,
b).
Cunliffe's 1984
interpretation
of hillforts
clearly
fits the "Celtic"
approach
with social
evolutionary
notions of the "chiefdom." Other ele
ments of this
approach
are also contained in the different
applications
of
core-periphery theory (e.g.,
Cunliffe, 1984c, 1988; Nash,
1984).
These core
periphery approaches rarely explicitly
articulate the structural Marxist basis
of the
approach. They
do see
society
as
actually
or
potentially hierarchically
organized
around the
competitive
relations between
lineages
or clan
groups
(Haselgrove,
1982; Millett,
1990a).
More recent
approaches
have moved
away
from these
generalizing
standpoints. Sharpies (1991b) interpreted change through
the Wessex Iron
Age by focusing
on the
changing emphasis
on the individual versus the
community.
Other
recent
approaches
have
explored essentially
Marxist
analyses
of
exchange
and
production (e.g.,
Gosden,
1989)
and,
in some
cases,
have
sought
to understand
specific
PRIA communities
through
the
conceptual
tool of "the mode of
production" (Hingley,
1984; Hill, 1995a, c;
Ferrell,
1995).
At the same time Barrett's
(1989;
see
also
1994)
discussions
of the Late Bronze
Age
and
Early
PRIA have been
important stages
in
developing
an
archaeology
of social discourse.
These recent
approaches recognize
that no
single
form of British PRIA
existed. Rather the
archaeological
evidence demonstrates real differences
in the
ways
communities
were
organized
and the material resources of
power
drawn on in their constitution. While variations around the house
hold mode of
production,
with little
degree
of stratification between house
holds, may
be
applicable
for much of the
period,
the
nature, size,
and
ways
in which the household
was
symbolized
varied
considerably.
In other situ
ations,
though,
different
interpretations
are
necessary.
The LPRIA in the
southeast of
England
has clear evidence for marked social
inequalities
in
74 Hill
what
might
be
regarded
as a
"complex
chiefdom,"
if not in some
degree
a
class-divided
society.
CHANGE THROUGHOUT THE PRE-ROMAN IRON AGE
This outline has so far
paid
little attention to the
changes
that trans
formed communities
throughout
the course of the PRIA. An unfortunate
legacy
of the
Three-Age system
is
a
tendency
to talk about "Iron
Age
so
ciety,"
etc.,
as distinct from "Bronze
Age society,"
etc.,
so
failing
to rec
ognise
the differences in social
organization, economy,
and ritual within
the Iron
Age.
This static
tendency
is not
universal,
but
many
accounts which
discuss
change
tend to offer
simple interpretations
of
increasing complexity
through
time,
combined with the
transforming
effect of the withdrawal and
resumption
of
long-distance exchange (e.g., Bradley,
1984; Cunliffe, 1984b;
Haselgrove, 1982).
Such accounts
may
be sustainable when
discussing
tra
jectories
within
a
single region
but
increasingly
come
unstuck when ex
tended across the British Isles in
general.
As
regional syntheses
for
many
parts
of Britain are still
rare,
and
regional
differences
appear
so
strong,
attempting
to
piece together
an honest account of
change throughout
the
period
has
proved
difficult. After
discussing
the nature and
problems
of
the current
chronologies
for the
period,
I outline what I consider to be the
main
changes
within the
period.
To allow
comparisons
with other
parts
of
Europe,
I have used a basic
chronological
division between Hallstatt and
La Tene
periods.
I do not discuss the Roman
conquest
of mainland Britain
from A.D. 43 to A.D.
84,
nor its
consequences
on those communities in
corporated
into the
empire
or for those which found themselves
beyond
its frontiers
(see
Millett,
1990a).
Chronology
Since the 1930s the mainland British PRIA has been divided into three
periods
based on
pottery typology (Fig. 1):
Early (EPRIA,
ca. 700-450
B.C.),
Middle
(MPRIA,
ca. 450-100
B.C.),
and
Late
(LPRIA,
ca. 100 B.C.-A.D.
43).
While this
chronological
scheme is both successful and
easily applica
ble,
it is
important
to
recognize
its attendant biases and
problems.
It could
be
argued
that this
tripartite
division has contributed to the
perceived
dis
tinctive and insular nature of the British PRIA
compared
to Continental
The Iron
Age
Europe.
There the Hallstatt and La Tene
periodization
is the standard
chronology,
not that of
Early,
Middle,
and Late PRIA
(Collis,
1984a; Wells,
1990).
The Continental
chronology
is
essentially
based on metal work
types
and is
applicable
to British material
(e.g.,
Stead,
1984).
Such metal
work,
however,
was
rarely deposited
in settlement
contexts,
and as there are
very
few
graves
in
Britain,
clear links between metal work
chronologies
and
other
chronologies
are
difficult
to establish.
Radiocarbon
played
an
important
role in
demonstrating
that
Early
PRIA ceramic forms
were in use over a
much
longer period
than
previously
assumed,
and also
belonged
to the Late Bronze
Age (Barrett, 1980).
How
ever,
radiocarbon
dating
has not
perhaps
been as
extensively
used as it
might
have been. This is because
prior
to accelerator
dating,
it was not
felt that radiocarbon
provided
the
fine-enough chronological precision
of
fered
by
a
pottery-based
chronology.
This was a
particular problem
for the
first half of the first millennium
B.C.,
when the radiocarbon calibration
curve
is marked
by
a
major
kink
(Pearson
and
Stuiver,
1986).
However,
radiocarbon and other absolute
dating techniques,
such as dendrochronol
ogy (Bailie, 1988),
are the
only
way
to establish
chronology
over most of
Britain and Ireland. This is because the standard
chronology
is based
on
pottery,
which is rare or
completely
absent
over
large
areas in the west
and north Britain.
Even where
pottery
was used in
quantities,
such as southern
England,
it is
probable
that
pottery
is relied
on too
heavily
for
dating.
While
a
par
ticularly
refined
chronology
has been established for Wessex
by
Lisa Brown
and
Barry
Cunliffe
(1984),
similar detailed
chronologies
are not available
elsewhere. It is also
becoming
clear that
pottery
is not an
indicator
primarily
of
chronology,
but of
ways
of
living,
ritual
practice,
and social
identity.
For
example,
in
parts
of eastern
England
MPRIA
pot
forms
are not
replaced
by
new,
Continentally inspired,
forms in the first
century B.C.,
as
commonly
assumed,
but continued
in use
beyond
the Roman
conquest (Evans
and Ser
jeantson,
1988; Willis, 1993,
1995).
Similar
processes
took
place
in other
regions
of
Britain,
such
as southwest
England (Quinnell, 1986),
or have
taken
place
at a local level in those
areas which
fully adopted
LPRIA
pot
tery,
with a
delay
of some decades between sites
only
a
short distance
apart.
Where
pottery
is used to date
sites,
this has
important
ramifications.
A further
possible
confusion is the ceramic
dating
of the
beginning
of
the Iron
Age
to 800 B.C.
by
some
writers,
who
may
distinguish
an Earliest
Iron
Age,
or Transition
phase (ca. 800-600),
before an
Early
Iron
Age
"proper."
This
again
arises from the
pottery,
which reveals
no clear
ty
pological
break
at the
beginning
of the
metallurgical
Iron
Age
in Hallstatt
C
(ca.
700-600
B.C.) (Barrett, 1980).
Furthermore,
reliable absolute dates
for
early
iron
working
or
objects
in Britain and Ireland are not numerous.
76 Hill
The current
chronological
scheme for Britain is outlined in
Fig.
1,
but
it is clear that Iron
Age specialists
cannot afford to be
complacent
about
their
chronologies.
Hallstatt Britain and Ireland ca.
900 to 450 B.C.
The Bronze
Age-Iron Age
transition in
Europe
has
recently
been re
viewed,
stressing
the need to move
away
from
a
view which saw the Bronze
and Iron
Ages
as discrete and
separate
entities
(S0rensen
and
Thomas,
1989).
Work on both sides of the transition is
revealing
a
complex picture
of
changes
and continuities. Iron
working
was not a
marked
technological improvement
and,
as in other
parts
of
Europe, began during
the Bronze
Age.
As in
Europe generally,
the
major change
in the
archaeological
record
is the cessation of the
deposition
of bronze
objects
and
scrap
in hoards.
Exchange,
use,
and ritual
deposition
of bronze
objects
are the
defining
fea
tures of the
European
Bronze
Age,
which created a
complex
web of social
networks across the Continent
(Champion
et
aL, 1984;
Bradley, 1984, 1990;
Barrett and
Needham,
1988).
In northwest
Europe, including
Britain,
hoards and the
deposition
of metal work in rivers and
bogs largely
ceased
during
the Hallstatt C
period
ca. 700-600 B.C.
(Llyn
Fawr
phase
in
Britain).
At the same time iron
copies
of
prestige
bronze
objects appeared
for the
first time. After this
date, swords, axes, knives,
and sickles
were no
longer
made in bronze and the
deposition
of metal
objects
reduced to a trickle
(Bradley,
1990;
Champion,
1989;
Cooney
and Gro
gan, 1991;
Taylor,
1993; Thomas,
1989).
It is the end of those social
prac
tices which centered around bronze
objects
and sustained the dominant
social discourse of the Later Bronze
Age,
that marks the
beginning
of the
Iron
Age
rather than a break in settlement evidence or
ceramics
(Thomas,
1989).
Where there is settlement evidence before the
transition,
this con
tinues. Where there is no settlement
evidence,
as in
Ireland,
that
pattern
also continues
(Champion, 1989).
A
possibly
more
significant
transition in the
archaeological
record took
place during
the Middle Bronze
Age,
ca. 1500 B.C.
(Bradley,
1991;
Barrett
et
ai,
1991).
It was then that the
long emphasis
on the construction and
use of communal and
funerary
monuments that
typified
the Neolithic came
to an end. For the first
time,
settlements and field
systems
became an in
creasingly
dominant
component
of the
archaeological
record. It was in
these
changes
that the
physical
and social
landscape
of PRIA Britain had
its immediate
origins.
The Late Bronze
Age
was a
period
of climatic de
terioration,
marked
by
an initial contraction of settlement in some
areas,
followed
by
the
continued,
gradual process
of
agricultural
intensification
The Iron
Age
and
expansion
that lasted into the Roman
period.
Burials and
cremations
almost ceased
during
the Late Bronze
Age,
while the ritual
consumption
of metal work increased. At the same time
offerings
of
food,
domestic ob
jects,
and human bones on settlement make their first
appearance
(Bradley,
1984; 1990; Hill,
1995b).
These
were to become the dominant ritual dis
courses,
the
practices
and
ideologies they
sustained and were
sustained
by,
for much of the PRLA.
Depositing
bronze
objects
did not take
place
at the same
intensity
throughout Britain,
or
through
the course
of the Late Bronze
Age (Ehren
berg, 1989;
Taylor, 1993).
Eastern
England
and central Ireland had
major
concentrations of metal
deposits
with sustained contacts with other metal
working
and
consuming
centers in
Europe.
Other
regions
witnessed few
hoards and a limited
range
of
objects. During
the Ewart Park
phase (900
700
B.C.)
of the Late Bronze
Age,
hoard
deposits
reached their
peak
in
eastern
England
and Ireland.
Contemporary
with this abundant metal work
were a
number of enclosed
"miniforts,"
at least one
of which has with direct
evidence for bronze
working (Springfield Lyons, Essex) (Champion,
1994;
Needham,
1992).
Also
contemporary
were riverside sites such as Run
nymede, Surrey,
which
were
clearly
involved in short and
long-distance
ex
change.
These
types
of settlements do not
appear
to have been
occupied
into the
Llyn
Fawr/Hallstatt
C
phase (700-600 B.C.)
when
hoarding
dra
matically stopped
in eastern
England (Taylor,
1993; Thomas, 1989;
Cham
pion, 1994). Weaponry
continued to be
deposited
in the Thames and other
rivers on a much reduced
scale,
even
though
the
objects
continue to show
links with other
parts
of
Europe (Bradley, 1990).
In
regions
that witnessed the
largest
concentrations of
deposits
of
bronze
objects
in earlier
centers,
hoarding appears
to have ceased
rapidly
in the
Llyn
Fawr
stage (Hallstatt C) (Taylor, 1993).
However,
in some of
the areas that
appear
to have been
marginal
in terms of bronze
deposition
before,
this
phase
saw an
increase in the
deposition
of hoards
(Thomas,
1989).
These hoards
are of
a
different character from the
preceding phase
and one
included iron versions of bronze
objects.
In
parts
of Wessex the
period
ca.
800 to 600 B.C. saw the
appearance
of
large
midden
sites,
monumental rubbish
tips (e.g.,
Potterne and East
Chisenbury, Wiltshire)
and the construction of
very
large
round
houses,
often within
large
en
closed farmsteads
(e.g., Pimperne,
Dorset;
Old Down
Farm,
Hampshire;
Dunston
Park,
Berkshire).
Hillforts were built
across Britain and Ireland from as
early
as 1000
B.C.
Although geographically
a
widespread phenomenon,
hillforts
are
found in dense concentrations in
a narrow
regional
band in mainland Brit
ain,
"the hillfort dominated zone"
(Cunliffe, 1991).
In certain areas there
were
distinct flourishes of
construction,
although
it is
increasingly apparent
78 Hill
that
many
hillforts
were
occupied
or used before the construction of sur
viving ramparts.
A
major
flourish in Wessex and the Cotswolds took
place
between ca.
650 and 500 B.C. Some hillforts continued in
occupation
in
these areas into the
MPRIA,
often with
increasingly
elaborate defenses and
changing
social role. These
"developed"
hillforts
appear
to be
particularly
common in
parts
of Wessex where excavations at Maiden
Castle, Dorset,
and
Danebury, Hampshire,
have done much to illustrate their nature
(Cun
liffe, 1984a;
Sharpies, 1991a).
In other
areas
of the
country episodes
of
hillfort construction
or
reoccupation
occurred
throughout
the
PRIA, e.g.,
Welsh border and Severn
Valley
ca.
300-100
B.C.,
and this
episodic
nature
may
conform well to Collis'
(1981)
crisis model of hillfort construction.
Understandings
of the first half of the first millennium B.C. look
ap
parently contradictory depending
on whether
interpretations
concentrate
on metal work or on settlement evidence. A clear break at the end of the
Bronze
Age
is
only supportable
from the metal work evidence. This raises
the
questions
both of the
relationship
between metal work and settlement
and to what extent the division of
prehistory
into neat
period
boxes
(or
social
systems),
with distinct
social, economic,
and settlement
organizations,
is valid. It is not
a case of whether the settlement or the metal work evi
dence
provides
a truer
picture
of social realities at this time.
Rather,
it is
that the evidence
clearly
shows us the need for dialectical
explanations.
One
approach
to this
period
is to see the ritual
consumption
of bronze
and the tradition of ritual
deposits
on settlements as
articulating (increas
ingly) contradictory
alternative social discourses available not
just
to dif
ferent
groups,
but to the same
individuals,
across Britain and Ireland. The
Bronze
Age-Iron Age
transition seen in this
perspective
becomes the
long,
but not
inevitable,
conflict and
replacement
of one dominant social dis
course
by
another
(cf.
Barrett,
1989).
La Tfcne Britain and Ireland ca.
450 B.C. to 100 A.D.
The EPRIA and MPRIA show considerable
continuity
in settlement
and
ritual,
but
possible
changes
may
be
apparent
that
roughly
coincide with
the Hallstatt-La Tene transition
across
Europe
ca.
500 to 450 B.C. On the
Continent these
changes
are most marked in
mortuary
traditions and metal
work
styles (Collis,
1984a; Wells,
1990).
In Britain there is no
change
in
burial
practice, except
for the start of "Arras culture" burials in East York
shire,
which follow
an
indigenous
variation on a
La Tene
mortuary
theme.
British metal work shows the
adoption
of La Tene
styles,
and the
exchange
of some continental La Tene
objects,
from the fifth
century
B.C. onward.
Although
British and Irish metal
working develop
their own local La Tene
The Iron
Age
styles, parallels
and a
few
objects
show
continuing
links with other
parts
of
Europe throughout
the next 500
years (Stead,
1984;
Raftery, 1994).
The
change
from Hallstatt to La Tene also
corresponds roughly
with the
change
from EPRIA to MPRIA ceramics in southern Britain. EPRIA ceramics
were the last manifestation of
a
long
ceramic
tradition,
dating
from ca.
900-1000 B.C.
(Barrett,
1980; Elsdon,
1989).
MPRIA
(400-300
B.C. on
ward)
traditions have fewer
clearly
defined vessel forms and show
greater
sophistication
and control in their
firing (Elsdon,
1989; Morris,
personal
communication).
What these
changes
in
technology
and vessel forms
imply
has not
yet
been
investigated.
The
long
centuries of the MPRIA
appear
on
the surface to show little
change, especially
when contrasted with the
LPRIA. Contacts with other
parts
of
Europe
and within the British Isles
appear
to be few.
Rather,
emphasis appears
to have been
inwardly
or lo
cally focused,
as in other
parts
of La Tene B and C Continental
Europe
(Bradley,
1984; Collis,
1984).
The ritual and economic focus centered on
the
reproduction
of the household and
agriculture.
In
comparison,
the
developments
from
ca. 100 B.C.
appear
to be a
marked break from the MPRIA.
This,
the
LPRIA,
is
chronologically
marked
by
a
range
of new
pottery
forms,
often
copying
north French or
Roman
originals,
and
a new
technology,
the fast
potter's
wheel,
across
southern
England.
In this 150
years,
southern Britain enters the threshold
of
history,
as the Roman
empire expanded
into
France,
Belgium,
and Hol
land,
failed to
conquer
southern
England
in 55 and 54
B.C.,
and
finally,
incorporated
much of Britain from A.D. 43 onward. In those
parts
of Brit
ain close to France a series of marked
changes
in
settlement, ritual,
material
culture,
and
political organization
took
place,
which some
have seen as the
emergence
of
a
moneyed,
urbanized,
state level of social
organization by
the eve
of the Roman
conquest (Champion
et
ai, 1984; Darvill,
1987).
Cul
turally,
this
part
of
England
became
increasingly
like that of
neighboring
areas
in France and
Belgium.
This situation
continued,
if not
intensified,
after the Roman
conquest, leading
to discussions of the "Romanization"
of Britain
prior
to Claudius' invasion in 43 A.D.
(Haselgrove,
1984; Millett,
1990a).
For this
part
of
Britain,
the LPRIA is
protohistoric,
as
Greek and
Latin
literary
sources
provide
some evidence for
political
events,
leaders
and "tribal"
groupings, geography,
and culture.
The earliest of these
changes
was the use of
coinage. Haselgrove
(1993)
has outlined the
development
of British PRIA
coinage
in three main
phases.
The earliest
coinages
were concentrated around the mouth of the
river Thames.
Although
with
possible
earlier
antecedents,
the main use
and
minting
of
coinage
started in the midsecond
century B.C.,
with both im
ported
northeast French
gold types
and local
copies.
The
production
of
cast bronze
coins,
"potins," began
toward the end of the second
century
80 Hill
B.C.
(Fitzpatrick,
1992b; Haselgrove,
1988,
1993).
The functions of
early
coinage
have been much
debated,
some
seeing
all
coinage
as
primitive
cash.
However,
detailed work
on the circulation and
deposition
of
coinages
shows
that not all PRIA
coinages
were the same.
Gold and
potin
coins,
the ear
liest,
would
appear
to have been used in
quite
narrow and
specific
social
relationships (Haselgrove,
1987,
1988). During
the first
century
B.C.
gold,
and
increasingly
silver and struck
bronze,
coinage
was
minted in
large quan
tities in southeast
England.
Silver and struck bronze
coinages
were circu
lated and
deposited
in
a
quite
different manner from
gold,
and
probably
fulfilled more cash-like roles. The use of
coinage spread
into
a
larger part
of
England stretching
from Dorset to
Lincolnshire,
with the
development
of distinct local
issues,
which
appear
to correlate with
sociopolitical group
ings,
or "tribes"
(Fig. 9).
This has allowed
coinage
to reconstruct the
po
litical
history
of southern
Britain,
especially
with the
development
of
inscribed series from ca. 20 B.C. which bear rulers' names. The
coinage
and few
literary
sources
might suggest
a situation of fluid "tribal"
groups
(although
other
interpretations
are
possible),
with the
emergence
of two
major political
entities based in West Sussex and
Essex, Hertfordshire,
and
Kent. Coin
inscriptions,
indirect evidence for
papyrus,
a
few inscribed
pot
sherds,
and
writing equipment testify
to some
degree
of
literacy
in the
southeast before the Roman
conquest.
The links between
Picardy
and
Kent, Essex,
and Hertfordshire wit
nessed in the
coinage
from the second
century
B.C.
point
to
long-lasting
social and
kinship
ties between the two areas. It was
through
these ties
that
components
of
a
new, distinct,
cultural
package
were
learned about
and
adopted
in southeast
England. Important
in these
were
changes
in rit
ual. Cremation
burial,
the
"Aylesford-Swarling"
rite,
was
adopted
for some
of the
population (Whimster,
1981;
Stead and
Rigby,
1989;
Haselgrove,
1984,
1989). Although
burials
were
usually poorly
furnished and in small
cemeteries
(e.g., Aylesford, Kent),
a few
were
lavishly equipped
and could
be marked
by
small mounds
("barrows")
or set within
square
ditched en
closures. A few of these
clearly belong
to what the
literary
sources call
"kings"
and their relations
(Lexden,
Essex;
St Albans and
Welwyn,
Hert
fordshire).
These rich
"Welwyn-type"
burials
were furnished with
imported
French or Roman
luxuries,
but in all burials
an
emphasis
seems to have
been
placed
on
drinking.
Shrines
or
temples following
Continental models
were
also used for the first
time,
often
acting
as
locations for
a
range
of
votive
offerings (see above).
Meanwhile similar ritual
practices
which for
merly
took
place exclusively
on settlements decreased in
importance.
The rich
graves
show the
increasing importance
of
exchange
with
France to obtain
a
range
of luxuries
originating
there or further south in
the Mediterranean.
Imports
included
ceramic, metal,
and
glass
vessels
as
s o. 2. ST 9 a
00
North
Eastern
East
Anglian
"I
'Western
00Eastern
000,-
South
Eastern
South Western
Southern'-
- --
0 t00
200
kms
Fig. 9. The main coinage distribution
zones
of LPRIA Britain (after Haselgrove, 1987).
82 Hill
sociated with
eating
and
drinking (Trow, 1990).
These,
and
locally
made
copies,
demonstrate
an increased
concern with the semiotics of the meal
and the use of
eating
and
drinking
as an
active vehicle for social distinction
and emulation. It is in this context that the
consumption
of exotic foodstuffs
and
drink,
such
as Mediterranean wine and fish
paste transported
in am
phorae,
must be set. The Mediterranean material should
essentially
be seen
as a
extension of the
pool
of material
circulating
in northern France. The
scale and mechanisms of these
exchanges
have been revised
recently, sug
gesting
that most took
place through preexisting
links of alliance and kin
ship.
Into such social
networks,
increased Roman
political
activities
involving gifts
and
payments naturally
fitted
(Fitzpatrick,
1989;
Haselgrove,
1982, 1989; Millett, 1990a; Trow,
1990).
The final
major changes
in the southeast
were,
as
outlined,
the
ap
pearance
of
oppida (see above). Many
of these sites include within their
environs rich burials and
high
status
settlements,
indicating
that
they
were
foci for the
developing political
entities witnessed in the coins and
literary
sources. These social
processes probably
involved an
increasing degree
of
social
inequality
and transformation of the
existing
social structure. An
elite,
possibly deliberately distinguishing
itself in its social
practices
and
material culture from the rest of
society
to a
degree
hitherto unknown in
British
Prehistory,
was
clearly
evident. These
processes
of social differen
tiation,
if not class
division,
became
permanently
entrenched as the elite
was
deliberately
maintained and
encouraged by
the Roman
conquerors
(Millett, 1990a).
These
polities
were
in direct
political relationships
with
the Roman authorities from Caesar's failed invasions of southeast
England
in 55 and 54 B.C. onward. Some
kingdoms
were
clients of
Rome,
and it
is in the context of both
political upheavals
within the eastern British
king
dom and internal
politics
in Rome that Claudius invaded southern
Eng
land with the
primary
aim of
conquering
these
"developed" polities
(Haselgrove,
1984, 1989; Millett,
1990a).
These
developments
appear
as a
sudden break and the obvious links
with northern France
supported
the
interpretation
that
they
were the result
of
large-scale
invasion and
migration
from
Belgic
Gaul
(Mulvaney, 1962).
Current
interpretations
continue to
interpret change through
external
causes,
now
stressing
the
importance
of the
spread
of the Roman influence
into northwest
Europe.
These
usually employ
elements of
core-periphery
theory
to
explain
the
developments
in the
peripheral regions
as the
product
of
changes
in the Mediterranean
core. The most
important
and
sophisti
cated
application
of this
approach
to Britain also
envisaged
the local core
periphery
relations that arose from external stimulus of southeast
England
(Haselgrove, 1982).
This
popular
model
interprets
the
developments
in the
southeast as
constituting
a
local
core,
around which
peripheral
communities
The Iron
Age
A
Roman
and/or
Gallo-Belgic imported pottery
B
Cremation
cemetery
? ?
Putative
boundary
between the Iceni and Trinovantes
'tribes'/
'polities'
based on
coinage
distributions
Fig.
10. An
example
of the
regional
contrasts in the use of material culture and social
practices
that characterizes the Pre-Roman Iron
Age.
A
map showing
the distribution in the
county
of
Suffolk,
East
Anglia,
of LPRIA horse harness
fittings,
which contrasts with that of
imported
pottery
and cremation burials
(after
Martin,
1988).
were
themselves transformed in reaction
to,
and
dependent
on,
the core
in
Kent, Sussex, Essex,
and Hertfordshire.
Haselgrove
has also
argued
that
this
regional
core coexisted
on both sides of the
English
Channel and that
the sea was not in this
case a
barrier
(Haselgrove, 1984).
However,
the basis of this dominant model has come under
question
with
new
discoveries and
research,
much
by
Colin
Haselgrove
himself
(1988,
1989,
1995).
These
questions
center on how radical a
break from
previous
social
patterns
these
developments
were,
which were
restricted to
84 Hill
one small
(peripheral?) part
of the British Isles. Does the
emergence
of
this,
like other
geographically
and
chronologically
restricted clusters of rich
graves
and Mediterranean
imports
in the
European
Iron
Age, represent
a
fundamental structural
change
or a brief aberration
crystallized by
the Ro
man
conquest (Haselgrove, 1995)?
Was this
phenomenon
a
sudden break
with the
past,
as
interpretations
which stress external causes
usually
assume,
or the result of
a
series of
deep-rooted
internal
changes during
the MPRIA
(Haselgrove, 1989)?
To
answer these
questions
it is
necessary
to return to the
"dull," agrar
ian,
worlds of the MPRIA. It is
possible
to
argue
that a
series of broad
changes
took
place
across Britain and Ireland as a
whole from ca. 300 B.C.
Not all are
found
everywhere,
nor should
they
be seen as
having
the same
causes; however,
these
changes strongly support suggestions
that there was
no radical break at ca. 100
B.C.,
with the start of the
LPRIA,
more an
acceleration in some
regions.
From 300 B.C. onward the
archaeological
record becomes
generally
fuller and more visible. Not
only
are more sites known
(a
result of both
expanding
numbers and
increasing archaeological visibility),
but all classes
of material culture become more
numerous,
and new
classes of
objects ap
pear
for the first time.
While little
studied,
settlement
expansion
into
previously marginal
ar
eas
may
be the most
important
of these
underlying changes (see above).
The results of settlement
expansion
were not
simply
more
people
and more
land under
more intense
exploitation. Expansion
was
accompanied by
the
laying
out of extensive field
systems
in some areas and a concern with de
marcating large
tracts of
land,
as
expressed
in territorial
oppida.
These
processes
were also
accompanied by
a
range
of
agricultural
innovations
(see
above).
If a
generalization
can be
made,
it is that those
groups moving
into
previously "marginal"
areas
appear
to have been more innovative than
others. It is in these situations that
groups appear
to have been more
open,
or were forced
by
circumstances,
to
change, experiment, specialize,
and cre
ate new forms of
relationships
within and between households
(e.g.,
Ferrell,
1995;
Haselgrove,
1989;
Hingley
1984; Jones, 1985, 1995;
Sharpies,
1990;
van der
Veen,
1992).
Increased
scheduling
of time
away
from food
produc
tion in
many
of these households would
necessarily
entail the
forging
of
new,
or
changing
of
old,
relationships
with others to
exchange produce.
Equally,
new
households
moving
into
previously marginal
areas would lack
the
deep-rooted relationships
between
neighboring
households that would
characterize older
areas of settlement. As
already
noted, many
of the ter
ritorial
oppida appeared
in what could be described as
"marginal"
areas
(e.g.,
St. Albans and
Puckeridge-Braughing, Hertfordshire; Chichester,
The Iron
Age
West
Sussex; Silchester,
Hampshire; Gussage
Cow
Down, Dorset;
Grims
Ditch, Oxfordshire; Stanwick,
North
Yorkshire).
Accompanying
these
changes
was the
appearance
of new
settlement
forms across Britain. It would
appear
that from ca. 200 B.C.
onward,
the
Royal
sites of the Irish midlands were under construction. In north and
west Scotland various forms of monumental round
houses,
most
notably
the
broch,
were constructed in
increasing
numbers from ca.
200 B.C.
(Ar
mit, 1989, 1992; Foster, 1989b;
Hingley, 1993).
In southwest
England,
a
new
form of small enclosed household
unit,
the
round, appears
from ca.
150 to 50 B.C
(Quinnell, 1986).
In northeast
England,
new
forms of
square
enclosed
settlements,
housing apparently
smaller-sized households than
earlier oval
sites,
were
established
on the
heavy
soils
only
then
undergoing
permanent
clearance
(e.g.,
West
Brandon, Durham,
and
Thorpe
Thewles,
Cleveland) (Ferrell, 1995).
In the
southeast,
agglomerated
settlements be
came more
common,
accompanied by
a
process
of
compartmentalization.
This describes the
process whereby
activities
previously
contained within
one
single large
enclosure
were
distributed across a
number of
smaller,
more
specialist
function enclosures
(Hill, 1995b).
Distinct animal
paddocks,
for
example, appear
on settlements for the first time. A similar
process
may
have also taken
place
within the
landscape,
with distinct locations now
set aside for
ritual, burial,
elite
settlement,
etc.
Part of these
changes
would seem to lie in a shift of
emphasis away
from the immediate
community
to the individual
(Sharpies, 1991b)
and to
more
socially
distant ties. A
minority
of individuals became
archaeologically
visible,
as
they
were now marked out for
mortuary
rites
involving
burial,
often with some
grave goods. Certainly,
over
large parts
of Britain
objects
that can be
directly
associated with individuals or the human
body appear
on
sites and off sites in
increasing
numbers
(Sharpies,
1991b; Hill,
1995b).
Brooches, fibulae,
from the EPRIA and MPRIA are
surprisingly
rare,
but
a
distinct feature of the first centuries
B.C./A.D.
is what
might
be called
the "fibula event
horizon,"
the sudden
explosion
of brooch numbers de
posited
on sites. Fine metal work and
weaponry began
to be
deposited
in
watery
places,
on
dry
land,
and in
graves
in
increasing
numbers and in an
expansion
of different
types
from ca. 300 B.C. onward
(Fitzpatrick,
1984;
Raftery, 1994).
Its distribution is
patchy, important
clusters
occurring
in
Norfolk,
Cambridgeshire,
and Lincolnshire ca.
300-50
B.C.,
southern Scot
land ca.
100 B.C.-ca. A.D.
100, and,
most
notably,
north and central Ireland
from
ca.
250 B.C to ca. A.D. 100.
These
changes
and
developments
do not fit
together
in
any
neat man
ner and
may appear
to be
contradictory
to each other.
However,
they place
those
developments
in southeast
England
in a
fuller context and
suggest
that the
appearance
of
broches,
the establishment of the Poole Harbour
86
Hill
56
55
58
5954
60
53
49
52
47
48
0 46
45
51
50
44
42
2
40
41
3
88
9
5
37
39
35
33
10
11
36
32
6
-7
12
13 31 27
30
1
25
24 28
292
20
22
15
16
17
199
3
01
216kn
The Iron
Age
pottery industry,
the
"oppida"
at
Stanwick,
and the
Aylesford-Swarling-type
burials were linked in some convoluted
way.
The
changes
in southeast
England,
and their close
relationship
with
northern
France, clearly
have their antecedents in the links evident in the
coinage
from
ca. 250 B.C. onward. That is
a
century
and half before the
accepted
date for the
beginnings
of Roman influence in northwest
Europe,
ca. 120
B.C.,
and the clearest evidence for Mediterranean contacts with
southeast
England,
ca. 100 B.C. onward
(Fitzpatrick,
1992b;
Haselgrove,
1989,
1993).
In
fact,
the earliest evidence for French and Mediterranean
objects arriving
in Britain is found in western
England, especially
Dorset,
from ca. 120 B.C. Sites such as
Hengistbury
Head, Dorset,
and Mount Ba
ton, Devon,
appear
to have been
"ports
of
trade,"
but the
causes, nature,
and
impact
of these contacts are
subjects
of debate
(Cunliffe,
1987, 1988,
1994;
Sharpies,
1990, 1991a,
b).
The debut of this
exchange
coincides with
a
series of
changes
in Wessex
including
the
appearance
of territorial
oppida
such as
Chichester,
West
Sussex,
and field
systems
in
parts
of Dorset and
the
development
of the Poole Harbour
pottery industry, along
with an
abandonment
or
changing
use of hillforts
(Cunliffe,
1984b, 1994;
Fitzpa
trick, 1994b;
Sharpies,
1991a,
b).
Whether the cross-channel
exchange
was
a cause or
effect,
these
developments
in
part
of the
"periphery" appear
to
predate
the rich burials and associated
developments
of the "core" of Hert
fordshire, Essex,
and Kent.
This
pattern
also
appears
to be true in the northern
part
of the
"pe
riphery";
Norfolk,
Cambridgeshire,
Lincolnshire, Leicestershire,
etc. These
areas
maintained,
like
Dorset,
a
strong regional identity
in
comparison
to
the "romanization" or
"gallicization"
of the southeast. MPRIA
pottery
forms
continued in use in
parts
of this
area till around the Roman
conquest (Willis,
1993).
French and Roman
imports
and cremation burials were
rare,
but in
stead a
range
of decorated metal work was
deposited (Martin, 1988).
In
Fig.
11. The location of the
key
Iron
Age
sites in Britain and Ireland mentioned in this
paper.
(1)
Navan;
(2)
Tara;
(3)
Dun
Ailenne;
(4) Llyn Cerig
Bach;
(5)
Plas
Gogerddan; (6)
Walesland
Rath;
(7) Llyn
Fawr;
(8)
Moel
y Gaer;
(9)
Breiddin and
Collfryn; (10)
Croft
Ambrey; (11)
Beckford and Bredon
Hill;
(12) Crickley
Hill;
(13) Bagendon; (14)
Maere and
Glastonbury;
(15) Chysauster; (16)
Mount
Baton;
(17)
Maiden
Castle;
(18)
Poole
Harbour;
(19) Hengistbury
Head;
(20) Gussage; (21) Danebury; (22)
Winnall
Down;
(23) Chichester;
(24)
Silchester;
(25) Ashville;
(26) Aylesford; (27)
Colchester;
(28) Runnymede; (29)
Little
Waltham;
(30)
St.
Albans;
(31) Welwyn; (32)
Thetford; (33) Snettisham;
(34) Haddenham;
(35)
Catswater/Fengate; (36) Twywell; (37)
Fisherwick;
(38) Dragonby; (39) Enderby
and
Leicester;
(40) Wetwang
and Garton
Slack;
(41)
Dalton
Parlours;
(42)
Stanwick;
(43) Thorpe
Thewles;
(44)
West
Brandon;
(45) Yeavering
Bell;
(46)
Eildon
Hill;
(47) Traprain
Law;
(48)
Broxmouth;
(49) Newmill;
(50) Rispain Camp; (51)
Milton
Loch;
(52)
Buiston
Crannog; (53)
Dalrulzion;
(54) Kilphedir; (55)
Gurness;
(56)
Jarlshof;
(57)
Mousa;
(58)
Dun
Carloway
and
Cnip; (59)
Sollas and
Clettraval;
(60)
Ballachulish.
88 Hill
Lincolnshire,
a number of
very large
settlement
complexes emerged
from
200
B.C.,
such as
Dragonby (May,
1970,
1984).
These
parts
of eastern
Eng
land witnessed the ritual
consumption
of elaborate metal work
throughout
the MPRIA on a scale
greater
than that
typifying
most of
Britain,
be it as
dry
and wet
deposits
or in
graves
in the 'Arras" culture of East Yorkshire.
This included the
deposition
of
many
elaborate
bronze, silver,
and
gold
torques,
or neck
rings,
in this
region.
At
Snettisham, Norfolk,
over a
hundred
torques
have been found
predating
the Roman
conquest
of France
(Stead,
1991;
Fitzpatrick, 1992a).
If the use of these
prestige objects
does relate to
possible
social
inequalities
and
developments,
this
suggests
that this
sup
posed "peripheral" region
was an area
of
important
social
developments
ca.
200-50 B.C.?before the bulk of the
developments
in southeast
England.
These
processes
involved the creation of a distinctive material cultural iden
tity
for this
areas,
often slow to
change
in the face of later
gallicized
and
romanized material cultures and
practices
from the south
(Fig. 8).
It is in
this context of local differentiation and cultural
opposition
to
developments
in the
neighboring
"core"
polities
to the south that later
developments
in
East
Anglia
must be
set,
such
as the construction of the multiditched en
closure at
Thetford, Norfolk,
and Boudicca's rebellion in the area
against
Roman rule in 64 A.D.
(Martin,
1998;
Gregory, 1991).
This is not to detract from the
extraordinary developments
witnessed
in southeast
England
in the LPRIA. Nor is it to
suggest
that these
polities
did not become dominant influences across much of southern
England,
a
success linked to the
spread
and emulation of their material culture and
social
practices.
It does
demonstrate, however,
the
great
complexity
that
archaeological
research is
revealing
for the La Tene
period.
Furthermore,
it
suggests
that the initial
adoption
of northeast French culture and
prac
tices must be
seen in the context of the
"regionalization"
that is
a
marked
feature of the PRIA. I have illustrated this
process
of the active creation
and maintenance of local identities
through
the use of domestic architec
ture,
ritual
practices,
and material culture in distinctive
ways
with several
examples.
The
process
does not
imply
isolation or little contact between
groups.
Rather
we must
envisage quite
the
opposite.
Millett
(1990b),
fol
lowing
Hodder,
has
argued
that such
strong
local identities
develop
in the
context of
regular interregional
contacts. If material culture and social
prac
tice are
closely
bound to the
specific
constitution of social forms
(Barrett,
1994),
then these
great
variations in settlement
form, ritual,
and mundane
things
across Later PRIA Britain and Ireland were not local variants on
the same essential
underlying type
of social
organization. They point
to
considerable
variety
and
incongruities
in the
ways
societies
were
organized.
Equally,
this evidence does not
appear
to
support
a
simple
core and
pe
riphery explanation
of
change
in these later
prehistoric
societies.
The Iron
Age
This is
possibly
best illustrated
through
the
changes
that took
place
in central and north Ireland
in the La Tene. These
developments
have
often been overlooked
by
scholars
working
on
mainland
Britain,
as
have
their wider
implications
for
European prehistory.
Out of an
apparent
"dark
age"
with
negligible
evidence for
settlement, burial,
or metal work
deposits
from the Bronze
Age-Iron Age
transition
onward,
the
period
from ca. 250 B.C. is marked
by
a
sudden tremendous floruit of metal work
deposits
and the
appearance
of the
royal
sites
(see above) (Raftery, 1994).
These both
appear
to share
an exclusive distribution with the few hillforts
in
Ireland,
which
are found in the south
(Fig. 7). Dendrochronology
has
shown that sites such
as the Navan 40-m structure
(95/94 B.C.), large
lin
ear
(boundary?)
earthworks such as the
Dorsey,
Co.
Armagh (95
? 9
B.C.),
and the substantial
timber
trackway
at Corlea
(148 B.C.),
Co.
Longford,
indicate the
cutting
of timber and mobilization of labor
on a
huge
scale
over a
comparatively
short
period
of time
(Bailie, 1988;
Raftery,
1994;
Robertson,
1992).
These
developments
would
appear
to indicate a
considerable
degree
of social
hierarchy (Raftery,
1994; Robertson,
1992)
and have wider im
plications.
What,
for
example,
is the connection between the concentra
tion of metal work
deposition,
the
greatest
within PRIA
Britain,
and the
metal work
deposits
of the first
century
B.C./A.D.
in north Wales and
southern Scotland? How did these
changes
in central and north Ireland
impact
on
neighboring parts
of
Ireland, Scotland,
and Wales? There is
a
marked absence in Ireland of the Roman or
Continental
imports
that
are an
important
feature of southeast
England,
northeast
France,
or
south Scandinavia
on the first centuries
B.C./A.D. The
exception
is
a
sin
gle
skull from
a northwest African
Barbary Ape
at the Navan
(2150
? 70
B.P. OxA
3321).
This absence in Ireland should
question
how we
identify
"core" areas in the
European
PRIA. The
changes
in Ireland have been
largely ignored by
both British and Continental Iron
Age specialists.
Why?
Is it because
they
do not conform to our
expectations
of what
should constitute
a
"core,"
or "hot
spot,"
in Later Prehistoric
Europe?
How
many
other similar concentrations of
activity,
"wealth,"
and social
hierarchy
are we
failing
to
recognise,
because we
expect
"cores" to be
marked
by
a combination of Mediterranean
objects, quasi-urban
sites,
and
richly
furnished
graves?
Conclusion: Ireland and Britain in the
European
Iron
Age
Iron
Age
Ireland and Britain have tended to be considered as
distinct,
separate,
and
marginal
to the mainstream of
temperate
Europe.
Most ac
90
Hill
counts of the
European
Iron
Age,
written
by
both British and non-British
writers,
usually
contain few references to Britain or
Ireland. While there
are
both
sociopolitical
and
archaeological
reasons
which
strengthen
this
perceived
British difference and
marginality,
this situation also
applies
for
the
majority
of
temperate Europe,
the
archaeology
of which is also
largely
ignored
in accounts of the
"European"
Iron
Age.
Such accounts
usually
concentrate on
key
hot
spots
and features such as rich burials with Medi
terranean
imports
or
oppida (Champion, 1987).
The result is often to con
centrate on a
geographically
restricted
part
of eastern France and southern
Germany,
with
neighboring
areas,
and consider the rest of
temperate
Europe
as
essentially
similar
or
marginal. However,
I would
argue
that the
Iron
Age
communities of the Atlantic coast of
France,
northern
Sweden,
or southwest Wales
are as
equal
a
part
of a
European
Iron
Age
as those
in southern
Germany.
More
importantly,
as
this
paper
has
shown,
the
wealth of data from this
one
peripheral European region,
Britain and Ire
land,
ought
to raise
important questions
about current
assumptions
and
interpretations
of the
European
Iron
Age
as a
whole.
This is to
argue
that Britain and Ireland were not
peripheral
to the
main
developments
of the
European
Iron
Age;
rather
they
demonstrate
many
of the
key underlying changes,
themes,
and
problems
that
apply
to
the
archaeology
of other
parts
of
temperate Europe.
The
rapid
cessation
of
dry
land hoards of bronze
objects
at the end of Hallstatt
B,
followed
by
the decrease in the numbers of
prestige objects,
often
originating long
distances from their
place
of final
deposition,
from wet
places
and
graves
over
the
following
centuries,
is not a
unique
feature of Britain and Ireland.
As
such,
the
apparent
"isolation" of Britain from ca.
400 to 100 B.C. cor
responds exactly
to the lack of evidence for much
long-distance
contact
(especially
with the
Mediterranean)
across most of La Tene B and C tem
perate Europe.
While Britain and Ireland
may
lack the "La Tene
style"
inhumation burials that characterize this
period
in central
Europe (except
in eastern
Yorkshire),
it is
important
to
recognize
that such
a
burial
rite,
along
with the ritual
deposition
of La Tene "Celtic"
style
metal work in
other
contexts,
was not a
uniform
practice
across
temperate Europe.
Equally, concentrating
on such burials and art
objects may
detract from
understanding
what
appears
to be the common feature of these
centuries,
namely,
the
expansion
of settlement and
population,
and its social causes
and
consequences.
As
argued
above,
it is in this
general phenomenon,
how
ever
varied its local
manifestations,
in which the
developments
of the
LPRIA
(La
Tene
C2/D)
across
Europe
must be set. If Britain and Ireland
are not dismissed
as
peripheral,
then the
increasing
rich and
complex
data
they provide
for
understanding oppida, coinage, long-distance exchange,
etc.,
ought
to have
an
important
contribution to
interpretations
of
possible
The Iron
Age
urbanization,
state
formation,
and the
impact
of the
expanding
Roman
world in other
parts
of LPRIA
Europe.
It is this rich
interplay
of archae
ological
discoveries
and
changing approaches
of
interpretation,
combined
with the
large quantity
of
high-quality
data
easily
accessible to
English
speaking
scholars,
that makes Pre-Roman Iron
Age
Britain and Ireland
both a
rewarding
and
an
exciting
area in which to
study early complex
societies.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would
particularly
like to thank Dee De
Roche,
Melissa
Goodman,
Elaine
Morris,
Richard
Hingley, Angela
Close,
Colin
Haselgrove,
Steve
Willis,
Sue
Thomas,
and
my
reviewers for their
information,
critical com
ments,
and
attempts
to sort out
my
English
in
early
drafts of this
paper.
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I.
(1989).
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JD Hill, Pre-Roman Iron Age

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The Pre-Roman Iron Age in Britain and Ireland (ca. 800 B.C. to A.D.

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