Settlement Hierarchy and Social Change in Southern Britain in the Iron Age

SETTLEMENT HIERARCHY AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN SOUTHERN BRITAIN IN THE IRON AGE BARRY CUNLIFFE The paper explores aspects of the social and economie development of southern Britain in the pre-Roman Iron Age. A distinct territoriality can be recognized in some areas extending over many centuries. A major distinction can be made between the Central Southern area, dominated by strongly defended hillforts, and the Eastern area where hillforts are rare. It is argued that these contrasts, which reflect differences in socio-economic structure, may have been caused by population pressures in the centre south. Contrasts with north western Europe are noted and reference is made to further changes caused by the advance of Rome. Introduction North western zone The last two decades has seen an intensification Northern zone in the study of the Iron Age in southern Britain. South western zone Until the early 1960s most excavation effort had been focussed on the chaiklands of Wessex, but Central southern zone recent programmes of fieid-wori< and excava Eastern zone tion in the South Midlands (in particuiar Oxfordshire and Northamptonshire) and in East Angiia (the Fen margin and Essex) have begun to redress the Wessex-centred balance of our discussions while at the same time emphasizing the social and economie difference between eastern England (broadly the tcrritory depen- dent upon the rivers tlowing into the southern part of the North Sea) and the central southern are which surrounds it (i.e. Wessex, the Cots- wolds and the Welsh Borderland. It is upon these two broad regions that our discussions below wil! be centred. Beyond the two south eastern zones three further regions can be broadly defined (fig. 1): a south western zone, including western Wales, Cornwall, Devon and western parts of Somer- set; a large northern zone, in which there is a considerable range of variation, and a north jn. western zone, including the extreme north and west of Scotland. the Western Isles and Orkney and Shetland. In each, the settlement evidence Fig. I. The principal socio-economic zones of Britain by SUggestS different systems of socio-economic the seeond eenlury BC. organization and different rates and directions 162 BARRY CUNLIFFE of development. While these areas are of and to express ethnicity through distinctive considerable interest in their own right it is the decorative styles, of which pottery is archaeolo- south and east of the country which are of imme- gically the most evident. The reasons for these diate concern to the theme of this volume. supposed "social pressures" are at present diffi- cult to define but one line of argument which commends itself is to suppose that the Wessex Chronology and change: 1000-400 BC popuiation was reaching the holding capacity of the land through a combination of factors such It the period from before lOOO BC to about as popuiation growth and decrease in soil fertil- 400 BC (Ha B - La T I) the British Isles was in ity due to environmental constraints or over- close contact with continental Europe. The cropping. In support of such an explanation it range of metal types found widely distributed can be shown that active arable exploitation of in the island (weapons, metal vessels and horse stable plots of land had already been underway trappings) show that continental types were in Wessex for at least half a millennium before being brought in in some quantity, presumably the sixth century and it is highly likely that the by a complex of social exchange mechanisms, thin, poort-textured, chalkland soils were by and ingeniously copied and improved by British now showing signs of exhaustion. A further rele craftsmen (for a summary sec Cunliffe 1978a, vant observation is that there appears to be a 137-157). Meanwhile hillforts were being widely notable increase in the number of sites found constructed in most parts of the country in a dating to after the seventh century (Cunliffe variety of styles incorporating vertical walling 1978b). Thus, while positive statements are ill- of timber, stone or a combination of the two, advised at present, it is fair to say that there is in a manner closely similar to continental forts a growing body of evidence which points to of the Ha B and C {ibid, 243-255). The impres- stress among the Wessex popuiation as early as sion given by a survey of the surviving evidence the seventh/sixth centuries. As we shall show is of a degree of uniformity over much of the these trends became intensified. country heightened by extensive exchange net- The characteristic settlements in Wessex at works across the North Sea. By Ha D - La T I, this time are hillforts and homesteads. Of the however, the volume of imports had declined. hillforts, Danebury provides an extensively In the seventh and sixth centuries significant excavated example. In its early phase (sixth-fifth divergent developments can be detected in Wes- century) the defences consisted of a massive sex, in particular in Wiltshire and western timber-revetted rampart, fronted by a ditch, Hampshire. Simply stated there appears to be enclosing an area of c. 5 ha, pierced by two a rapid increase in the number of hillforts con entrances set in opposite sides of the enclosure. structed, and highly distinctive decorated pot- The occupation inside appears to have been tery styles appear, first the All Cannings Cross dense, with groups of circular houses set styles with haematite-coated furrowed bowls between areas reserved for grain storage pits and deeply stamped and incised decoration and (Cunliffe 1982b). Other extensively explored later the Meon Hill style typified by haematite- examples include the first phases of Maiden coated scratched-cordoned bowls. On present Castle, Dorset and Winklebury, Hants. A num evidence they date to the seventh and sixth cent ber of other forts have been samplcd but usually uries respectively but the All Cannings Cross only by sections through ramparts and gates styles may begin a little earlier. One possible (c.g. Torberry, Sussex, Yarnbury, Wilts and implication of these innovations is that social Blewburton, Berks). In general these forts are pressures may have led to a greater emphasis of similar sizes (4-6 ha), univallate and often on territoriality which manifested itself in the have two entrances. need to build substantial defensive structures The contemporary settlement sites, as best SOUTHERN BRH AIN IN THE IRON AGE 163 exemplified by the early phases of Little Wood- one hillfort seems to rise to dominance at the bury, Wilts., Meon Hiil, Hants., Old Down expense of all others. The same process is evi Farm, Hants. and Gussage All Saints, Dorset, dent on the block of chalkland between the are all of similar type, consisting of a fenced or rivers Test and Bourne, on the Hampshire/ ditched cnclosure containing circular houses, Wiltshire border. Here, of four evenly spaced granaries and storage pits appropriate to a unit early forts, only Danebury emerges dominant, of extended family size. The possibility of larger the other are abandoned. (For further discus settlemcnts and of unencloscd homesteads is sion and references see Cunliffe 1978a, 268- hinted at by scraps of evidence but the picture 278.) Clearly until every fort has been adequa- is stil! very incomplete. tely sampled it will be impossible to produce an Whether or not similar developments were accurate picture of this process but fig. 2 experienced in other parts of southern Britain attempts to contrast the overall distribution of it is not yet possible to say. Hillforts were cer- hillforts with those forts which, on a variety of tainly being built and occupied in other areas, topographical and cultural evidence, can be e.g. Wandlebury and Wilbury on the Chilterns, shown to belong to the period 400-100 BC. Crickley Hill, Lcckhampton and Shenbarrow While it must be stressed that the data used for on the Cotswolds and Hunsbury further to the the lower map is very uneven and open to re- north aiong the Jurassic ridge, while many of interpretation (and some sites which should be the Wcish borderland hillforts are likcly to have shown may have been omitted simply for lack boen in usc at this time. But the impression of evidence) the overall impression is of a strik given by the available evidence, inadequate ing evenness of spacing. We are looking here though it is, is that Wessex differed from the at a landscape divided into a number of distinct rest of Britain in the density of its early hillforts territories each dominated by a single hillfort. and settlements and in the highly distinctive These developed hillforts (a term used to dis- nature of its decorated pottery styles. We might tinguish them from early hillforts) share a num therefore tentatively conclude that the social ber of superficial charactcristics in common: stresses inherent in southern British society at this time had become intensified in Wessex a. Their defences were built, or rebuilt, in a giving rise to a number of chiefdoms focussed glacis stylc, i.e. the rampart was given a sloping on fortified hilltops, the tribal unity of the core front continuous with that of the inner face of area being rctlected in distinctive pottery tradi- the ditch. Vertical walls or fences may have tions shared by a number of communities. been set on the rampart crests (for summary Cunliffe 1978a, 249). The centre south: 400-1000 BC b. Rebuilding on previously occupied sites might significantly extend the defended area The social processes briefly outlined above (e.g. Maiden Castle, Hambledon Hill, Yarn- became further intensified in the centre south bury). in the period 400-100 BC. A survey of the Wes sex and Sussex data shows quite clearly that c.

Load more