Iron Age Britain Research Articles

The Production of Copper Alloys in Iron Age Britain

This paper presents a selection of compositional analyses of Iron Age copper alloy artefacts from northern Britain. The results were obtained as part of a larger project which examined Iron Age and Roman copper alloys in northern Britain (the region from the Trent-Mersey to the Forth-Clyde). The quantitative analyses were carried out using EDXRF on drilled or polished samples. Comparisons are made with results from the late Bronze Age and early Roman period in northern Britain. The results are also compared with those already published from a range of Iron Age sites in southern England. The large total number of copper alloy analyses from the British Iron Age has made possible a synthesis of the data which has largely been assembled piecemeal. It is now clear that a tin bronze was the principal copper alloy for much of the Iron Age. The composition of this alloy is distinct from the alloys used in the Late Bronze Age and during the Roman period although there is considerable ‘blurring’ at the transitions. A brief outline of the analytical method employed and the analytical results are included.

The Pre-Roman Iron Age in Britain and Ireland (ca. 800 B.C. to A.D. 100): An overview

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.

4.5. Potin coinage in Iron Age Britain, archaeology and chronology

Cet article réexamine les origines, la chronologie et la diffusion des monnaies coulées en Bretagne insulaire. Il existe deux séries différentes de potins. La première série s'appelle d'habitude le type « Thurrock », d'après le dépôt qui y fut trouvé en 1987. Bien que ce type ressemble à LT 5284 - ce qui pourrait être son prototype direct - l'analyse des métaux et les trouvailles récentes suggèrent que cette série doit être insulaire avec pour origine le Kent. Elle commençait, probablement pendant la seconde moitié du IIe s. avant J.-C., à être émise alors que les monnaies gallo-belges en or devenaient courantes. La deuxième série insulaire - les potins linéaires bien connus du Kent - paraît tirer son origine du type « Thurrock ». Ces monnaies sont fréquemment trouvées sur des sites dans tout le sud-est de l'Angleterre. Les données de soixante-quinze sites et de plus de cent vingt contextes archéologiques différents ont été étudiées pour examiner la datation et la diffusion de cette série. Les résultats confirment la typologie de D. Allen et indiquent que les types précoces (les types A-L) se trouvent fréquemment dans des contextes datant d'avant 60 avant J.-C. Ces données - appuyées par les dépôts - suggèrent que la série linéaire a commencé vers 100 avant J.-C. et que sa fabrication a continué jusqu'à la seconde moitié du Ier s. avant J.-C. D'abord les monnaies coulées insulaires servaient probablement de monnaie à fonction spéciale et n'étaient utilisées que dans quelques opérations limitées ; après le milieu du Ier s. avant J.-C. cependant, leur diffusion et probablement leur fonction ont beaucoup changé. Les derniers types (types M-P) sont très étroitement associés à un nouveau réseau d'agglomérations avec des liens commerciaux étendus qui se sont développés à cette époque au nord et au sud de la Tamise.

Visions of Power: Imagery and Symbols in Late Iron Age Britain

This article is a speculative essay about one aspect of authority and power in the late Iron Age. Excellent narratives exist which discuss the political context of the rise of the polities of Verica and Cunobelin in the South East of Britain, but over the last few decades the place of druids in this story has been neglected. However druids did exist, and they need to be worked into our narratives of the past. What follows leads to a discussion of their nature and function in society, and of their decline in importance during the large-scale social changes which took place in the generations immediately preceding the Roman conquest. The article uses a mixture of ethnographic, historical, numismatic, and archaeological evidence.

DNA in charred wheat grains from the Iron Age hillfort at Danebury, England

The genetic history of wheat is the story of the world's temperate staple food. Arcahaeologically, charred grains are the common way wheat is preserved. Study of burnt spelt wheat from the British Iron Age shows DNA is present, and begins to shows the wheat's character.

Production and Distribution of Pottery and Salt in Iron Age Britain: a Review

This paper questions whether the current model of hillforts as central places for the control and redistribution of goods in Iron Age Britain is appropriate by reviewing the evidence for the production and distribution of both pottery vessels and salt in ceramic containers. Suitable data found in published reports of excavations from all parts of Britain are considered, if available, and the information is synthesized by defined region and broad phase.

The Horse in British Prehistory: some speculations

This speculative article considers a range of aspects of the relationship between human communities and the horse in various periods throughout prehistory. The management of horses, more especially in iron age Britain, is reviewed with respect both to human use of the species and the availability of food supplies and forage, while attention is also focused upon the question of whether or not the horse was domesticated, in the strictest sense of that term, until later in prehistory. The clear evidence for the ‘ritual’ deposit of equine material in a variety of contexts is briefly discussed in the light of current notions of Celtic other-world beliefs.

Gurness and Midhowe brochs in Orkney: some problems of misinterpretation

Since 1980 a new view about the nature and development of the Scottish iron age broch towers has emerged among younger prehistorians in the north—one which emphasizes their purely local origin and development, wider range of architectural features and long period of construction and use, over half a millennium or more. This contrasts with the author's earlier views which supposed these hollow-walled dry stone towers to have been built over a fairly limited time span in the middle Iron Age, as being structurally homogeneous and as having enough exotic elements among their associated finds to justify the belief that influential immigrants had a hand in the emergence of important elements of the ‘broch cultures’. Crucial to the new view is a reinterpretation of the Orkney broch of Gurness which in effect links its architecture to the late bronze age roundhouse site at Bu and supports the theory of local evolution. The evidence reviewed here shows that this view can be sustained neither at Gurness nor at the very similar Midhowe broch nearby. A significant part of the ‘new wave’ hypothesis about brochs—which has been endorsed by several senior colleagues—is therefore based on doubtful evidence and a new synthesis is urgently required. This episode seems to be another example of the instability which can afflict some modern British prehistoric archaeology, which tends to embrace new ideas too easily and to ignore existing evidence which is inconvenient.

COIN SCALES IN LATE PRE‐ROMAN IRON AGE BRITAIN

SummaryA survey of excavation reports for sixty‐one LPRIA sites in Britain reveals five ‘fine’ balances and objects possibly representing seven more. This paper describes the scales and discusses their use in Iron Age Britain.

Iron Age ceramic studies in Great Lakes eastern Africa: a critical and historiographical review

The influence of Merrick Posnansky's work on the development of Iron Age Great Lakes ceramic studies is traced and an historiographical analysis of the published material of associated African, American, Belgian and British Iron Age Africanist archaeologists is offered. The article examines the methodologies and concepts employed by archaeologists from the 1950s to the present, as they defined the chronological, classificatory, regional and stylistic boundaries of Urewe and rouletted pottery. Particular attention is paid to the influence of American, British and Belgian worldviews on Iron Age research priorities and consequent disparities between Early Iron Age and Later Iron Age studies. Also examined are conclusions about the ethnic identities of the makers of the ceramic material and the significance of the shift from Urewe to rouletted pottery. The paper concludes with some alternative explanations about the relative scarcity of Early Iron Age ceramics and the swift but widely dispersed introduction of rouletted pottery.

The Atlantic Scottish Iron Age: five levels of chronology

Five forms of evidence are currently relevant to the archaeology of the Atlantic Scottish Iron Age. These are defined and evaluated to construct a sequence of structural and artefactual development. It is argued that a lack of clarity on the evaluation of dating methods is responsible for much of the confusion in the literature. Alternative chronologies to that constructed here are valid, but must be explicit on their evaluation of the dating evidence and on the weighting and primacy of dating levels. The terminology of the `Atlantic roundhouse' is introduced as a framework which enables conventional structural typologies to be more effectively analysed. Within the extended chronology and using the new terminology as a descriptive device, developments can be traced which offer new perspectives on the settlement sequence and undermine the unilinear models of the Atlantic Scottish Iron Age. Differences in development between the Northern and Western Isles are already becoming apparent. 14C dates for the Atlantic Scottish Iron Age are listed and critically discussed in an appendix.

PITS, PRECONCEPTIONS and PROPITIATION IN the BRITISH IRON AGE

Summary: Large pits have long been known to be a characteristic of the British Iron Age. Originally they were thought to be habitations but since the 1930s they have been assumed to have served as grain silos. This paper reviews our changing conceptions and then considers a range of new data for special burials within the pits. A model is developed which sees the storage of seed grain in pits as a deliberate act designed to place the grain in the protection of the chthonic deities. the chronological and spatial implications of pit storage in Britain are briefly considered.

Industrial specialization in late Iron Age Britain and Europe

A discussion of specialized industries in later prehistoric Britain is presented, with some reference to regional examples from Europe. The subject is tackled by discussing what we mean by industrial specialization with general examples taken from pottery studies and an exotic material, glass. The location of specialized industries, particularly in Britain, is discussed focusing specifically on iron, copper-alloy and the glass industries, their scale, how the industries are sometimes associated with each other and the extent to which they occur in the various forms of oppida, hillforts and smaller scale settlements. The evidence suggests that during the late Iron Age in Britain the larger scale (sometimes more prestigious) industries are located in small settlements. The role of artisans is considered and whether they were peripatetic, or tied to a settlement, depending on the nature of their skills. Using scientific analysis a model for the iron age glass industry is given. All of this is discussed in the context of changing socio-economic contexts, at a time when society was increasingly developing urban characteristics, particularly in Europe. No single fully encompassing model can be provided for the complex developments noted in later prehistoric industries.

Broch building in northern Scotland: The context of innovation

Abstract The brochs of the Atlantic Scottish Iron Age have long been regarded as the products of invasion from the south. The present paper seeks to review the significance of architectural innovation in the light of recent excavations and the emerging extended chronology. To enable a wider perspective a new terminology is proposed for the structures of the Atlantic Scottish Iron Age. Architectural developments are placed in the context of parallel developments in other spheres of material culture and of non‐architectural settlement change. Regional trajectories of development can be defined and form the basis for a review of interpretations for the period.

The Introduction of Roman Ceramic Styles and Techniques into Roman Britain: A Case Study from the King Harry Lane Cemetery, St. Albans, Hertfordshire

AbstractSpecialised ceramics from Gaul were imported into late Iron Age Britain, and their forms copied in native techniques. Roman technology was introduced after the Conquest, and involved changes in paste preparation, surface coating and firing techniques that allowed increases in the scale, standardisation and quality of the production.

The Archaeology of British Potin Coinage

This paper reviews the origins, chronology, and changing circulation pattern of the potin coinage of Iron Age Britain. Archaeological evidence suggests that British potins were made in north Kent from the later second century to the late first century B.C. although potins continued in circulation after this. They were the first indigenous coinage, apparently copying cast central Gaulish imitations of the struck bronze coinage of Massalia, and possibly originated in the Medway area. Initially, potins circulated alongside the imported Gallo-Belgic gold coinages and, like them, were probably used as a form of primitive valuable, but in the mid-later first century, their circulation pattern and Junction changed, becoming closely associated with a network of major sites spanning both sides of the Thames estuary and with the later Iron Age developments which accompanied this, notably the elaboration of the well-known ‘Aylesford Complex’. Appendixes list stratified coins and sites with potin finds.

Impact on the Scottish Iron Age of the discoveries at Leckie broch

Summary The paper reviews some of the evidence for the nature of the broch phenomenon and its origins, using the discoveries at Leckie broch as a starting point. It is concluded that, contrary to a commonly held view, there is evidence for a new phase of contact of some kind between Atlantic Scotland and distant regions like southern England, Ireland and Brittany, a phase which defines the middle Iron Age and sees the onset of the broch-building cultures. As far as the nature of broch society is concerned, it is becoming increasingly clear that the buildings themselves were the defended farmhouses of a minor tribal aristocracy each having the allegiance of several hundred tribesmen and women, and presumably themselves owing allegiance to a tribal chief.

AN INDUSTRIAL ENGINEER (BUT NO PAPYRUS) IN CELTIC BRITAIN

Summary. This article discusses the coin‐making methods used in Iron Age Britain, specifically those used to manufacture the cast bronze coins of Kent. The distinctive markings that appear on the coins reveal a series of mould‐making experiments that optimized the casting process. The spirit of experimentation and innovation is somewhat akin to that of modern day industrial engineering, and shows Celtic metal‐working technology at its best. The hypothesis that papyrus was used in the mould‐making procedures is refuted by an analysis of the striations that occur in the fields of some of these coins.

Burial Practices in Iron Age Britain. By RowanWhimster

Burial Practices in Iron Age Britain. By RowanWhimster

Excavation of a settlement and souterrain at Newmill, near Bankfoot, Perthshire

The accidental discovery of a souterrain beside the A9 road 14 km (8–7 miles) N of Perth led to its complete excavation and the investigation of several hundred square metres of the settlement with which it was associated. A single grave of the Beaker period was also discovered during excavation and is reported elsewhere in this volume. The souterrain was a massive example of the ‘southern Pictland’ group, and the settlement consisted of timber-framed circular houses of the familiar British Iron Age tradition. Little material cultural remains were recovered, but a series of radiocarbon dates places the souterrain's construction in the last century or so be, its use contemporary with the timber houses alongside, its destruction around 200 AD, and the continued use of the site into the 9th century at least.