What have Reconstructed Roundhouses Ever Done for Us..?

Abstract

The reconstructed roundhouse is everywhere: on the television, in the literature, in the landscape. It has powerful currency in both the public and academic understandings of the vernacular architecture of later British prehistory, in particular for the Iron Age. However, because the focus of these reconstructions is normally on technologies and engineering principles on the one hand, or on the experience of their occupation on the other, the roundhouse reconstruction — even after more than 30 years research around them — in fact currently tells us remarkably little about the past and a great deal about who we understand ourselves to be. This paper will explore what insight roundhouse reconstructions currently do and do not give into later British prehistory and what they may be able to indicate if the act of building is taken as a theme over the technologies of their construction or the experience of their space.