This PDF File of Your Paper in the Later Iron Age Belongs to the Publishers Oxbow Books and Is Their Copyright
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
This PDF file of your paper in The Later Iron Age belongs to the publishers Oxbow Books and is their copyright. As author you are licenced to make up to 50 offprints from it, but beyond that you may not publish it on the World Wide Web or in any other form. THE LATER IRON AGE IN BRITAIN AND BEYOND edited by Colin Haselgrove and Tom Moore Oxbow Books Published by Oxbow Books, Park End Place, Oxford OX1 1HN © Oxbow Books and the authors, 2007 ISBN 978-1-84217-252-0 1-84217-252-0 A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library This book is available direct from Oxbow Books, Park End Place, Oxford OX1 1HN (Phone: 01865-241249; Fax: 01865-794449) and The David Brown Books Company PO Box 511, Oakville, CT 06779, USA (Phone: 860-945-9329; Fax: 860-945-9468) or from our website www.oxbowbooks.com Cover by Christina Unwin based on an idea by Rachel Pope; reconstruction of burial by Simon James Printed in Great Britain at Short Run Press, Exeter Contents 1. New narratives of the Later Iron Age 1 Colin Haselgrove and Tom Moore 2. The dynamics of social change in Later Iron Age eastern and south-eastern England 16 c. 300 BC–AD 43. J. D. Hill 3. Life on the edge? Exchange, community, and identity in the Later Iron Age 41 of the Severn–Cotswolds Tom Moore 4. Central places or special places? The origins and development of ‘oppida’ in Hertfordshire 62 Stewart Bryant 5. Cultural choices in the ‘British Eastern Channel Area’ in the Late Pre-Roman Iron Age 81 Sue Hamilton 6. Sea, coast, estuary, land, and culture in Iron Age Britain 107 Steven Willis 7. Social landscapes and identities in the Irish Iron Age 130 Ian Armit 8. Re-situating the Later Iron Age in Cornwall and Devon: new perspectives 140 from the settlement record L. J. Cripps 9. Unravelling the Iron Age landscape of the Upper Thames valley 156 Gill Hey 10. Rooted to the spot: the ‘smaller enclosures’ of the later first millennium BC 173 in the central Welsh Marches Andy Wigley 11. From open to enclosed: Iron Age landscapes of the Trent valley 190 David Knight 12. Realigning the world: pit alignments and their landscape context 219 Jim Rylatt and Bill Bevan 13. Good fences make good neighbours? Exploring the ladder enclosures 235 of Late Iron Age East Yorkshire Melanie Giles 14. Putting the neighbours in their place? Displays of position and possession 250 in northern Cheviot ‘hillfort’ design Paul Frodsham, Iain Hedley and Rob Young vi Contents 15. Dominated by unenclosed settlement? The Later Iron Age in eastern Scotland 266 north of the Forth Mairi H. Davies 16. Artefacts, regions, and identities in the northern British Iron Age 286 Fraser Hunter 17. Silent Silures? Locating people and places in the Iron Age of south Wales 297 Adam Gwilt 18. Perspectives on insular La Tène art 329 Philip Macdonald 19. Dancing with dragons: fantastic animals in the earlier Celtic art of Iron Age Britain 339 A. P. Fitzpatrick 20. An archaeological investigation of Later Iron Age Norfolk: analysing hoarding patterns 358 across the landscape Natasha Hutcheson 21. Detecting the Later Iron Age: a view from the Portable Antiquities Scheme 371 Sally Worrell 22. The end of the Sheep Age: people and animals in the Late Iron Age 389 Umberto Albarella 23. To fish or not to fish? Evidence for the possible avoidance of fish consumption 403 during the Iron Age around the North Sea Keith Dobney and Anton Ervynck 24. The production and consumption of cereals: a question of scale 419 Marijke van der Veen and Glynis Jones 25. Making magic: later prehistoric and early Roman salt production in the Lincolnshire fenland 430 Elaine L. Morris 26. Excarnation to cremation: continuity or change? 444 Gillian Carr 27. Households and social change in Jutland, 500 BC–AD 200 454 Leo Webley 28. Weapons, ritual, and communication in Late Iron Age northern Europe 468 Peter S. Wells 29. Understanding social change in the Late Iron Age Lower Rhine region 478 Nico Roymans 30. The age of enclosure: Later Iron Age settlement and society in northern France 492 Colin Haselgrove 31. The polities of Gaul, Britain, and Ireland in the Late Iron Age 523 John Collis List of contributors 529 The end of the Sheep Age: people and animals in the Late Iron Age Umberto Albarella At a conference in Sheffield a few years ago, I suggested customs of the British population before that event. The that if the three age system had been created by a British Late Iron Age is not just of historical interest per se, but zooarchaeologist, we might today be talking of a Cattle it also provides us with the opportunity to analyse the Age (the Early Neolithic), a Pig Age (the Late Neolithic), mechanisms of cultural contact. This interest is enhanced and a Sheep Age (the Bronze and Iron Ages; Albarella by the fact that archaeology works at its best when it can 2000). It goes without saying that this is a complete be used comparatively, and the study of this period offers caricature of the reality, but perhaps no more so than us the opportunity to compare life in Britain before and the characterisation of a particular phase of human after this major historical event. It would, however, be a evolution on the basis of the most common material mistake to compare the Late Iron Age exclusively with used to make tools. Of course, just as we find that some the Roman period, as its characteristics depend equally Iron Age societies barely used iron, there are also cases on what occurred before its onset. A comparison with of populations of that period for whom sheep were less the Early and Middle Iron Ages – although the boundaries important than other livestock. Despite the obvious are not as clear cut as those with the Roman period – is exceptions to any generalisation, it is worth bearing in therefore also appropriate. mind that animals can be as representative of a society The chief aim of this paper is to investigate to what as any other elements of material culture. extent the evidence of animal bones from archaeological In this paper I will discuss the relationship between sites can help us in characterising the Late Iron Age. To people and animals in a period that ranges from approx- do so we will have to analyse differences and similarities imately the mid second century BC to the first century with earlier and later periods. A full review of the AD (i.e. the Late Iron Age). We will see that this is a phase available data is beyond the scope of the paper, so I will that especially deserves to be called the Sheep Age and select the elements which are central to the question of anticipates the return to the Cattle Age prompted by the how distinctive was Late Iron Age exploitation of Roman invasion in AD 43. The paper is general enough animals. I will not discuss the intriguing dearth of aquatic in its aims not to require a precise definition of the area resources – particularly fish – at many sites of this under investigation, but broadly speaking I will be writing period, as this is dealt with in another contribution about central and southern Britain. (Dobney and Ervynck this volume). Equally, I will not The interest of the Late Iron Age for our under- deal with the frequent and widespread presence of standing of past (and present) human cultures cannot be skeletons or partial skeletons of animals on Iron Age overestimated. This period pre-dates an important sites. This phenomenon has already generated much invasion, which is historically well documented. It debate (e.g. Grant 1984a; Wilson 1992; Hill 1995a), and therefore provides us with an excellent opportunity to it would not be very useful to revisit the issue here. This analyse the effects of acculturation, or at least attempted is not to say that this paper will focus exclusively on acculturation. We have little chance of properly under- economic aspects of Iron Age societies. That ‘faunal… standing the effects of the Roman conquest of Britain, remains on Iron Age sites are very much “cultural” in if we do not have at least some idea of the lifestyle and the nature of their deposition’ (Parker Pearson 1996, 390 Umberto Albarella 128) is a truism, but it is probably still worth mentioning. esticates (cattle, sheep, and pig) on British Iron Age sites. Any dump of bone material on an archaeological site There are many other works, but this is the key evidence has cultural implications, which are connected with the we must consider in studying the relation between people organisation of the society and its beliefs. These and animals in the Iron Age. characteristics are not exclusive to the so-called ‘structured depositions’ – a much-abused term in British archaeology (see Albarella and Serjeantson 2002). Historical sources Although we have no direct written accounts of the British Late Iron Age, several Greek and Roman writers Previous studies provide some information about life in Britain in this It is often pointed out that our view of the Iron Age is period, but for the most part this includes only a few strongly biased towards central southern Britain (e.g. vague references to the use of animals. The one source Bevan 1999a, 1). This bias also applies to the study of that provides more that a passing reference to agricultural animal bones. Although zooarchaeological studies of practices and the use of animals in Britain is Caesar’s Late Iron Age faunal assemblages have been undertaken account of the Gallic war.