THE EARLY CHRONOLOGY of ALET, and ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR HENGISTBURY HEAD and CROSS‐CHANNEL TRADE IN the LATE IRON AGE

Abstract

SummaryThe port of Alet (Saint‐Malo) plays a key role in models of cross‐Channel trade prior to the conquest of Gaul. It is argued here that the bulk of the archaeological evidence from this site may however be more correctly assigned to the decades following the Gallic War, and consequently it is necessary to reassess the nature of the connection between Alet and Hengistbury Head in the first half of the first century BC. the evidence of amphorae and recent work on Armorican pottery, combined with a consideration of the problems of navigation in this region, indicates that a coastal route was preferred to a cross‐peninsular journey via Alet; it is suggested that Guernsey may have been an important point on this route, and that Alet and the gulf of Saint‐Malo were usually avoided. the evidence presented seems to support Caesar's comment that the Veneti controlled cross‐Channel trade at this period.