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PDF (The Thesis' Text) Durham E-Theses A Place called Home: Understanding Bronze Age (c. 2400-800 cal BC) Settlement in Britain CASWELL, EDWARD,JAMES How to cite: CASWELL, EDWARD,JAMES (2020) A Place called Home: Understanding Bronze Age (c. 2400-800 cal BC) Settlement in Britain , Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/13447/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk 2 A Place called Home: Understanding Bronze Age (c. 2400-800 cal BC) Settlement in Britain By Edward James Caswell Abstract This thesis studies the form, appearance, location and use of Bronze Age (c. 2400- 800 cal BC) settlement sites in England, Scotland and Wales. It begins by providing a historiographical review of British Bronze Age settlement studies. This identifies that recent publications favour site specific discussions, while the past regionalised nature of settlement investigation has resulted in new findings often being overlooked. The thesis identifies a gazetteer of 22,000 potential Bronze Age settlement sites known to the historic environment records of England, Scotland and Wales. Compelled by the observation that prior studies have overly relied upon typo-chronological schema to their detriment, it primarily studies those sites associated with radiocarbon dates. It assesses the form of Bronze Age structures within these sites, the periods in which they are used, their location and the features found within them. It studies these using a bespoke database containing 1085 Bronze Age structures from 316 independent sites representing all excavated and radiocarbon dated examples in England, Scotland and Wales. It also draws upon datasets collated during the data collection phase including a gazetteer of 6975 potential Bronze Age settlement sites, 1488 Bronze Age settlement sites that 1 have been excavated although not necessarily radiocarbon dated and a dataset of over 9000 Bronze Age radiocarbon dates. These analyses demonstrate that the dominant form of architecture is the roundhouse, although this takes many forms across the entirety of Britain. It identifies a boom in the construction of permanent settlement structures at 1700 cal BC, followed by a sharp decrease in settlement several hundred years later. It also finds that the majority of Britain was inhabited during the Bronze Age, although locations appear to be preferred closer to major rivers and the coast. These settlements were often short lived. Over half comprised less than three structures and few show signs of extensive social stratification. It concludes by suggesting the possible activities occurring on these settlement sites and, through the use of several other supporting datasets, demonstrates the value in assembling and analysing a national gazetteer of specific Bronze Age phenomena. 2 A Place called Home: Understanding Bronze Age (c. 2400-800 cal BC) Settlement in Britain By Edward James Caswell Submitted for the qualification of PhD in the Department of Archaeology Durham University 2019 i Table of Contents CHAPTER 1: AN INTRODUCTION TO SOCIETY AND SETTLEMENTS IN THE BRITISH BRONZE AGE ................................................................................................................. 1 1.1 Social transformations in the British Bronze Age .................................................................... 1 1.2 Understanding Bronze Age societies in Britain ....................................................................... 5 1.2.1 Problem statement 1 ........................................................................................................... 6 1.2.2 Problem statement 2 ........................................................................................................... 9 1.3 Understanding the Bronze Age in Britain through settlements ............................................. 10 1.4 Synthesising Bronze Age settlements in Britain .................................................................... 12 1.4.1 Problem statement 3 ........................................................................................................ 16 1.5 Aim ....................................................................................................................................... 17 1.5.1 Research questions ............................................................................................................ 18 1.5.2 Discussion Themes ............................................................................................................ 21 1.6 Approaches to the research questions .................................................................................. 21 1.7 Structure of the thesis .......................................................................................................... 22 CHAPTER 2: HOW BRONZE AGE SETTLEMENTS HAVE BEEN STUDIED IN BRITAIN – A REVIEW OF LITERATURE AND RESEARCH CONTEXT ..................................................... 24 2.1 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 24 2.2 The first studies of Bronze Age settlement (18th century–1940) .......................................... 25 2.2.1 Earliest recognitions of Bronze Age settlements ............................................................... 25 2.2.2 Chronology ........................................................................................................................ 27 ii 2.2.3 Finding post holes ............................................................................................................. 28 2.2.4 Sussex Bronze Age houses ................................................................................................ 30 2.2.5 Little Woodbury ................................................................................................................ 32 2.2.6 Summary ........................................................................................................................... 32 2.3 Post Woodbury settlement studies (1940-1970) ................................................................... 33 2.3.1 Continued excavation ....................................................................................................... 34 2.3.2 Typologies ......................................................................................................................... 37 2.3.3 Radiocarbon dating ........................................................................................................... 39 2.4 New Archaeology (1970-1990) .............................................................................................. 40 2.4.1 Continued research into settlements ............................................................................... 42 2.4.2 Summation ........................................................................................................................ 44 2.4.3 Defining Bronze Age settlement structure form ............................................................... 45 2.4.4 Landscape studies ............................................................................................................. 51 2.4.5 Ellison’s thesis and 1980 articles ....................................................................................... 54 2.4.6 Narratives .......................................................................................................................... 55 2.4.7 Summary ........................................................................................................................... 57 2.5 It’s not the economy stupid (1990-2000) ............................................................................... 57 2.6 Moving to the present era (2000-2019) ................................................................................. 61 2.6.1 Themes .............................................................................................................................. 62 2.7 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................ 71 2.7.1 Reaching proposition 1 ..................................................................................................... 72 2.7.2 Reaching proposition 2 ..................................................................................................... 74 2.7.3 Reaching proposition 3 ..................................................................................................... 75 2.7.4 Summary ........................................................................................................................... 76 iii CHAPTER 3: THEORETICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL APPROACHES OF THE RESEARCH PROJECT .....................................................................................................................
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