JD Hill, Pre-Roman Iron Age

8/12/2019 JD Hill, Pre-Roman Iron Age

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The Pre-Roman Iron Age in Britain and Ireland (ca. 800 B.C. to A.D. 100): An OverviewAuthor(s): J. D. HillSource: Journal of World Prehistory, Vol. 9, No. 1 (March 1995), pp. 47-98Published by: SpringerStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25801071.

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Journal of World Prehistory, Vol. 9, No. 1, 1995

The Pre-Roman Iron Age inBritain andIreland (ca. 800 B.C. toA.D. 100): An OverviewJ. D. Hill1

Those communities that lived in Britain and Ireland ca. 800 B.C. toA.D. 100represent particularly well-researched examples of the complex agrarian,nonurban, societies with high population densities that characterize thePre-Roman Iron Age across temperateEurope. This paper provides a criticalintroduction to the extensive recent literatureon thePre-Roman Iron Age inBritain and Ireland. Evidence from the large number of salvage excavationsand surveys, the application of

a wide range of analytical techniques, andimportant changes in interpretative frameworks are transformingunderstandings of this period. After reviewing these developments, achronological account of theperiod is outlined which attempts to integratethese new results. This suggests that current interpretationsof social processesacross Iron Age Europe in terms of state formation, urbanization, andcore-periphery relations withMediterranean civilization need revision.KEY WORDS: Iron Age; British Isles; social reproduction; regional diversity; ritual.

INTRODUCTIONThis paper provides an overview of the Pre-Roman Iron Age (PRIA)in the area known today as theUnited Kingdom and theRepublic of Ireland. This is the period between the end of the Bronze Age in temperateEurope and the Roman conquest ofmost ofmainland Britain between A.D.43 and A.D. 84. The period is normally divided into three phases; Early,Middle, and Late (abbreviated here EPRIA, MPRIA, and LPRIA, respec

tively) (Fig. 1). I outline themain characteristics and developments of thisera, introducing the reader to the results of recent research and changingChurchill College, The University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB3 ODN, United Kingdom.

470892-7537/95/0300-0047507.50/01995PlenumPublishing orporation

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48 Hill

CalenderYears

100AD50 AD050BC100 BC

200 BC

300BC

400 BC

500BC

600BC

700BC

800BC

900 BCFig. 1. A chronology for the British Pre-Roman Iron Age (after Collis, 1984;Darvil, 1987; Haselgrove, 1993; Stead, 1985).



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The Iron Age in Britain and Ireland 49

interpretative frameworks. Above all, I hope that this summary will illustrate the great potential offered by an almost unparalleled density, in bothtime and space, of high-quality data available for the study of the Pre-Roman Iron Age inBritain. This ismaterial which can be used to address awide range of questions about European later prehistory in particular andthe understanding of complex, agrarian societies in general.The British Isles comprise a collection of two large and many smallerislands off the north coast of the European landmass (Fig. 2). Perceptionsof this geographical reality have strongly shaped interpretations of thePRIA. Both the English Channel/North Sea and the Irish Sea have beenassumed to have been major boundaries in Later Prehistory, so that theBritish mainland has been considered as a unity distinct fromContinentalEurope and from Ireland. As such the British IronAge is often consideredin isolation and assumed to be different from that of western mainlandEurope. The apparent peripheral location of the British Isles on the edgeof "mainstream" developments inCentral Europe and/or theMediterranean has strongly shaped chronologies and social interpretations. Innovations are held to have come from the south, only slowly filteringnorth andwest (Hingley, 1995). This results in a southeast versus northwest divide,strengthened by perceptions of the physical and political geography of Britain. The east and south are lowlying and drier than themore upland andwetter west and north (Fig. 2). The east and south have also been the mostpopulous and politically dominant parts of Britain in recent centuries. Towhat extent Iron Age communities inwest and north Britain and Irelandwere in reality more backward or less complex compared to those in thesoutheast needs reassessment (Hingley, 1995; Jones, 1995).General accounts of the period are given byRaftery (1994) for Irelandand Cunliffe (1974, 1991) formainland Britain. To these should be addeda collection of new reviews and studies (Champion and Collis, 1995), areview of the later PRIA (Haselgrove, 1989), a national review for Scotland(Hingley, 1993), and several regional summaries (e.g., Knight, 1984; Harding, 1982; Lambrick, 1992; Quinnell, 1986; Williams, 1988). However, onlytwo regions are extensively covered by syntheses and regional analyses.These are western and northern Scotland (e.g., Armit, 1989, 1992; Foster,1989b; Hedges, 1987; Hingley, 1993, 1995) and southern central EnglandWessex and the upper Thames Valley (e.g., Cunliffe and Miles, 1984;

Fitzpatrick and Morris, 1994; Lambrick, 1992). The growing published results of fieldwork and research are regularly abstracted in theBritish Archaeological Bibliography. For the place of the PRIA within BritishPrehistoric and Roman archaeology, see Bradley (1991, 1984), Darvill(1987),Haselgrove (1989),HerityandEogan (1977),Millett (1990a), andO'Kelly (1989).



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50 Hill

" ~ East Yorkshire

^ TheMidlands ^^Eas^^|___^"^f Thames Valley ^_

SouthWest England Wessex

Landover 200m English Channel

Fig. 2. Map of Britain and Ireland showing the location of some of the regions discussedin this paper.



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The paper is divided into three parts. I first outline a history of BritishIron Age studies to familiarize the reader with themain approaches overthe last 60 years, which have produced the picture of the IronAge we nowhave. I then sketch the main features of the settlement, economy, ritual,and social organization, recognizing that thiswill inevitably be a caricatureand mask the great variety through time and space. Finally, I offer achronological overview and interpretation of the main changes that occurred during these final eight centuries of British Prehistory.To reduce the length of the bibliography, specific references for individual excavations and surveys have been omitted. The location of key sitesdiscussed below is given in Fig. 11, but for every specific site named, thecounty (unit of local administration) is given to help readers approximatelylocate the site if they have access to a good atlas map of the British Isles.Finally, readers should note, for reasons discussed below, that radiocarbonbased chronologies are not extensively used inBritish and Irish PRIA studies.All dates in this article are absolute dates derived from a mixture ofboth calibrated radiocarbon and historical dates, unless otherwise stated.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF IRON AGE STUDIESIn common with British archaeology in general, there has been littleconcern with either documenting or analyzing the history of IronAge studies [seeAvery (1976),Cunliffe 1991),andCollis (1994) for asic outlines;see Mulvaney (1962) and Evans (1989a) for examples of detailed critical

studies].Paradoxically, Iron Age studies had their beginnings both before andafter the adoption of the Three Age System in themidnineteenth century.The study of those peoples living in Britain before the Roman conquestand described by Classical authors represents a vibrant scholarly tradition

stretching back to the fifteenth century. Notions about these "Celtic" peoples formed during the Romantic and Nationalist eras still play a strongrole in shaping both popular and academic perceptions of the Iron Age(e.g., Champion, 1987, Chapman, 1992; Hill, 1989). However, it can be argued that a coherent "Iron Age archaeology" emerged only in the 1920sand 1930s. These decades saw an explosion of excavations and the establishment of chronological and explanatory frameworks, along with the necessary disciplinary framework. Key excavations inWessex provided the typesites and research agenda thatwere then extended to thewhole of mainland Britain. A basic three-stage pottery chronology was proposed forsoutheast Britain, each corresponding to a new "culture" brought by con



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52 Hilltinental migrants. This ABC culture history and integral chronology wereincreasingly refined over the next 30 years.This culture historical approach was largely rejected in the 1960s and1970s, essentially with the rejection of the invasion hypothesis to explaincultural change. Its rejection in theUnited Kingdom corresponded to reduced concern with identifying the arrival of Celtic peoples and/or language. However, this has remained a central question in Irish prehistory(e.g., Raftery, 1994; papers in mania, 1991). New explanatory frameworksin theUnited Kingdom stressed internal social evolution and were particularly influenced by contemporary developments within geography (e.g.,Cunliffe, 1974; Clarke, 1972; Grant, 1986). Throughout the 1970s and later,

Barry Cunliffe has held the pivotal role in PRIA studies. His early workled to the first synthesis of the new view of the period (1974). Cunliffe'smajor research excavations inWessex, especially at Danebury, Hampshire(1984), provided the spur for important scientific analyses (e.g., Jones,1984) and still essentially set the research agenda for others to follow orreact against.The 1980s continued many existing trends, but with an explanatoryshift away from simple internal social evolutionary models to considerationof the impacts of external contacts. Core and periphery models becameparticularly important for explaining change and exploring the impact ofthe spreading Roman empire (e.g., Haselgrove, 1982; Cunliffe, 1988). However, the greatest development has been the explosion in rescue (salvage)excavations and surveys across the United Kingdom and Ireland. Its fullconsequences have yet to be felt,but where there have been concentrationsof rescue archaeology it is providing a fuller understanding of Iron Agecommunities in the foci of both traditional research, such asWessex, andothers.

The often sizable finds assemblages from such excavations have led toimportant work on craft production and distribution, drawing on a range ofanalytical techniques (e.g., Ehrenreich, 1985; Heslop, 1988; Morris, 1994c;Northover, 1994; Scott, 1991). Increasingly subtle and sophisticated studiesof botanical and animal remains are revealing both the complex nature ofIron Age farming practices and the taphonomic processes that worked toproduce the archaeological record (Allen and Robinson, 1993; Grant, 1984;Jones, 1995; Maltby, 1985, 1994; van der Veen, 1992; Wilson, 1985). Thestudy of coinage has witnessed a massive increase in the number of findsand types through the discoveries of metal detector users (VanArsdall, 1989;

Haselgrove, 1993; Mays, 1992). However, with notable exceptions (Haselgrove, 1987; 1988; Fitzpatrick, 1992b; Sellwood, 1984), numismatics is essentially an autonomous and separate branch of Iron Age studies. A similarseparation marks the study of IronAge/"Celtic" "Art" (i.e., decorated metal



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work) (Megaw and Megaw, 1989; Stead, 1984, 1985). These, and the considerable body of studies of "Celtic" Religion/"Myth" (e.g., Green, 1986,1992), are seen by some as somewhat divorced from archaeological studiesof settlement and society (Fitzpatrick, 1991; Taylor, 1991).Since the late 1980s a number of scholars have challenged the explanatory frameworks of Iron Age studies (e.g., Bowden and McOmish, 1987;Fitzpatrick, 991;Foster, 1989a;Hingley,1984,1990b;Hill, 1989 1995a,b;Parker-Pearson, 1995; Sharpies, 1991b; Woolf, 1993a-c). Drawing on developments in archaeological theory,work inNeolithic archaeology, anddetailed studies of archaeological material, they have argued that the periodwas different fromwhat has previously been assumed (Hill, 1989, 1993;Parker-Pearson, 1995; Parker-Pearson and Richards 1993). An importantfocus of this new work has been on the formation of the archaeologicalrecord and the spatial organization of settlements. Confirming previoussuggestions (Grant, 1984; Wait, 1985; Cunliffe, 1992), such studies have argued that the bulk of material deposited on Iron Age settlements can beconsidered as "structured deposition" resulting not from daily refuse maintenance activities but from periodic rituals (Hill, 1993, 1995b; Hingley,1990b, 1993). Equally, the organization of settlement space cannot adequately be explained in straightforward functional terms, but as an embodiment of an Iron Age cosmology (Hill, 1995b; Fitzpatrick, 1994a; Foster,1989b; Parker-Pearson, 1995; Parker-Pearson and Richards, 1993). Otherstudies build on similar approaches to consider the role of ritual and spacein the reproduction of society, offering alternative interpretations of IronAge social organization (Ferrell, 1995; Foster, 1989b; Hill, 1995a, b; Hingley, 1984, 1993; Sharpies, 1991b). These new approaches have importantconsequences for all aspects of Iron Age studies which should be realizedin coming years.

THE NATURE OF THE BRITISH PRE-ROMAN IRONAGEThe Pre-Roman IronAge was a world of farmsteads, a changing land

scape of small, dispersed, long-lived settlements often enclosed by a wallor bank and ditch and practicing mixed farming based on cereals, animalhusbandry, and woodland management.

A deteriorating cooler and wetter climate marked the firsthalf of thethird millennium B.P., followed by some amelioration toward the end ofthe period (Jones, 1995). Against thisbackground, the PRIA landscape wasone of constant flux through the piecemeal process of final permanent forest clearance, agricultural intensification, innovation, and expansion intomarginal areas (Jones, 1995).



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54 HillEvidence throughout Britain demonstrates that the layout of these enclosed farmsteads was ordered by deep-seated cultural rules and ritual concerns. For example, these specified that the house and settlement shouldbe entered from the direction of the rising sun (Fig. 3). Settlements werealso an important focus for rituals involving sacrifice, feasting, and the deliberate deposition of a range of material in specific parts of the settlement.Such rituals and cosmologies have been interpreted as extruding into allareas of the life of the household (Parker-Pearson, 1995; Hingley, 1993;Hill, 1994, 1995b).Circular buildings were the dominant architectural form throughoutBritish later prehistory, inmarked contrast to the rectangular houses foundinContinental Europe (Audouse and Buchsenschutz, 1991). Other commonstructures included small, raised storage buildings and, in southeast Britain,

storage pits/silos. The finds recovered from excavations of these sites, although their deposition was clearly structured, provide evidence for theundifferentiated world of domestic, craft, and agrarian activities containedby such settlements. This repertoire of ceramic, metal, and bone objectshas been extended through finds of organic architectural fragments andobjects from excavations ofwaterlogged sites (e.g., Coles and Coles, 1986).

Wood, basketry, and leather containers must have played a very importantrole, especially as most of Britain and Ireland was largely aceramic in thisperiod. However, domestic lifewas probably drab, as there is little evidencefor decorated or colorful woodwork or textiles (Evans, 1989b). Many settlements were occupied formany generations, with individual houses oftenrebuilt on the same spot several times, and settlement layouts remodeledover their long use.

Households and SettlementsSuch a picture is, of course, a caricature. While it is true that both

larger and/or unenclosed settlements existed in some places, the single, architecturally isolated household unit was the dominant settlement formthroughout the period. However, its size, composition, and specific architectural expression varied through time and from one part of Britain toanother (Fig. 4). A wide range of enclosed farmsteads of different sizesand shapes is known from southern Britain. They include the oval or Dshaped sites ofWessex (e.g., Little Woodbury, Wiltshire; Winnall Down,Hampshire), small rectilinear settlements common across theEnglish Midlands (e.g., Fisherwick, Staffordshire; Haddenham V, Cambridgeshire; ParkFarm, Warwickshire; Enderby, Leicestershire) and the so-called "banjo enclosures" and associated sites with long funnel-shaped entrance passages



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\\ //^ Draughton (Northamptonshire)

Wakerley (Northamptonshire) (T 1 \\

AirportCatering Site, Stansted (Essex) Dragonby (Humberside)i

BrigstockNorthamptonshire)1 u \|West Stow (Suffolk)

0_ 100m

Fig. 4. Comparative plans showing the variety of forms of settlement inEast Anglia and theEast English Midlands, ca. 200 B.C. to A.D. 50 [after Cunliffe (1991) and individual sitereports].



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Twywell (Northamptonshire) Haddenham V (Cambridgeshire)Fig. 4. Continued.



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58 Hillleading into themain enclosure (e.g.,Woodside and Dan y Coed, Dyfed;Micheldever Wood, Hampshire; Mingies Ditch, Oxfordshire). A similarrange of different-shaped and -sized enclosed household units are knownfromwest and north Britain (e.g.,Walesland Rath, Dyfed; Collfryn, Powys;Rispain Camp, Galloway; West Brandon, Durham; Cornish "Rounds" suchas Trevisker). These also include courtyard houses (e.g., Chysauster, Cornwall), duns, wheel houses (e.g., Jarlshof, Shetland; Clettraval, North Uist;Cnip, Lewis), brochs (stone "tower" houses, e.g., Mousa, Shetland;Gurness, Orkney; Sollas, North Uist), and crannogs (individual householdsdemarcated by water; e.g., Milton Loch,, Galloway; Buiston, Strathclyde)(Cunliffe, 991;Darvill, 1987;Hingley, 1993).

Although enclosed settlements may be the dominant settlement formin some areas throughout the period, there may have been considerablechanges in their size and form through time, and over a few tens of kilometers, as Williams' (1988) study of settlement in southwest Wales clearlydemonstrates. In northeast England/southeast Scotland changes in the sizeand form of these enclosed units through the period have also been identified, and linked to changes in households' food-producing regimens andstrategies of social reproduction (Ferrell, 1995). This and other recent interpretations have cast individual households as the fundamental units inunderstanding the constitution of PRIA societies, through their interactionand competition, growth and fracture, and changing structure and makeup(Hingley, 984, 1993;Hill, 1995a,c).The archaeological record is biased toward enclosed sites which aremore visible compared with unenclosed settlements. In some areas, and insome centuries, unenclosed settlements were the norm, with a consequencethat little is known about settlement and mundane activities. This is truefor Ireland throughout the PRIA (Raftery, 1994). Inmany areas there wasa clear trend with time toward enclosure (e.g., East Anglia) or toward more

massive/permanent enclosure (northeast England and southeast Scotland).Unenclosed settlements varied considerably in size and form.They rangedfrom individual houses scattered within fields (e.g., Garton Slack, Humberside), to unenclosed versions of isolated settlements (e.g., Prestatyn, Clywd;Newmill, Perth), to small rows of buildings (e.g., Roxby, North Yorkshire;Winnall Down, Hampshire; Kilphedir, Sutherland), to uncommon tightlypacked clusters of houses (e.g., Little Waltham, Essex; Glastonbury, Somerset). Loose agglomerations of households are more common (e.g.,Ashville, Oxfordshire; Mucking, Essex), although inmany, individual household units were still spatially distinguishable (e.g., Gravelly Guy, Oxfordshire), if not set within their own ditched/hedged enclosures. Thisarrangement of square/rectangular settlement compounds grouped togetheris a frequent feature of agglomerated settlements of ca. 300 B.C. onward



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(e.g., Catswater, Cambridgeshire; Dalton Parlours, West Yorkshire; Silchester, Hampshire; Dragonby, Humberside; Poole Harbour, Dorset) (Fig.4). In almost no case can any central focus be identified within such agglomerated settlements or "villages." Agglomerated settlements appear tohave been most common inparts of central and eastern England, althoughthey are known outside (e.g., Thorpe Thewles, Cleveland; Beckford, Hereford, andWorcestershire). Such settlements were rarely the sole settlementform in an area and could be contemporary with small, enclosed settlements. These may have been specialist units, such as banjo enclosures,within the complex utilization of theOxfordshire Thames Valley (Lambrick,1992). Alternatively, there could be conglomerations of single-compoundedfarmsteads, sometimes alone, sometimes in clusters of varying sizes (cf.Dalton Parlours and other sites inWest Yorkshire; Catswater with HaddenhamV, Cambridgeshire).

Throughout Britain, settlement size and form appear to have been primarily products, and producers, of local social forms and not simply products of environment or simple economy (Hingley, 1984,1995; Ferrell, 1995).Thus during the second half of the firstmillennium B.C., one major rivervalley, theThames, in central/eastern England was dominated by open, agglomerated settlements, while in other valley systems such as the Trent,Avon, and Severn, individual, enclosed settlements were the norm (Knight,1984; Hingley, 1989; Ellis et aiy 1994). Similarly, in eastern Scotland, enclosed farmsteads were dominant south of the Firth of Forth, while to thenorth unenclosed settlements were the norm. These regions were also distinguished by the presence of large hillforts in the south, absent from thenorth, and the use of different types ofmetal work (Macinnes, 1982; Hingley, 1993, personal communication).

HousesThe round house, a circular structure thatwas built with wooden, turf,or stone walls and roofed with thatch or turf,was themajor building formacross Ireland and Britain in the firstmillennium B.C. although the size andform of the round house varied in time and space. In southern and central

England very large, "monumental," roundhouses were common during thefirsthalf of the firstmillennium B.C. (Late Bronze Age/Early PRIA). However, the size of houses, along with theirmonumental aspirations and possiblecentral social focus, greatly diminished in later centuries. The reverse appearsto have taken place in thenorth, especially inScotland (Hingley, 1993; Foster,1989b). Here houses of the firsthalf of the firstmillennium B.C. were generally smaller and slighter structures, compared to the range of largemonu



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60 Hillmental round houses constructed in the second half of themillennium. Thebest-known examples are the brochs: freestanding round stone tower buildings constructed from 200 B.C. (Armit, 1992; Hingley, 1993). Examples

ofthese brochs include Dun Carloway on Lewis, Gurness on Orkney, andMousa on Shetland. Northern houses may also have differed from southernhouses through a possible different emphasis in their internal division anduse. An emphasis on axial symmetryand radial partition in the north mightbe contrasted with a bipartite division, north:south, leftirightdistinction eitherside of the entrance in southern buildings (Hingley, 1990; Fitzpatrick, 1994a;Parker-Pearson, 1995; Reid, 1989).

AgricultureAn unfortunate by-product of the increased and proper importance ofscientific specialist contributions in PRIA studies is the artificial compartmentalism of our understandings of PRIA life. It is not realistic to attemptto separate themanagement of animal herds from plant husbandry in un

derstanding agricultural practices or to separate this from pottery production,metallurgy, social organization, and ritual. The numbers of individualsengaged in any "full-time" specialist activity throughout the period wouldhave been negligible and all "craft" production, construction activities, andexchange (or warfare?) had to be scheduled within the household's agricultural year. In all parts of Ireland and Britain, we are not dealing withsubsistence economies, but surplus-generating economies inwhich households aimed to produce for their successful social reproduction and forcompetition with other households. The forms through which this surpluswas consumed were shaped by dominant social discourses, often articulatedand legitimated through ritual (Barrett, 1989; Hill, 1995b).The basis of these social forms rested on the exploitation of plants?asfood, fodder, fuel, or building material (Jones, 1995). Mixed farming tookplace throughout Ireland and Britain, although the relative importance attached to plant versus animal products, and to particular species, varied inspace and time.At no period before or after is the archaeological evidencefor food-producing regimes so dominated by cereal crops, nor, in the premodern era, so concentrated on domesticated plants and animals (Jones,1995). Wild animals and plants comprised a tinycontribution to the overalldiet inmost of Britain, although it is now clear that their exploitation andconsumption were heavily surrounded by taboo and ritual (Grant, 1984;Hill, 1995b).

Although across much of Britain the main focus would have been thefields surrounding/close to the settlement, it is clear thatmany households



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relied on members traveling some distances to supervise animal herds insummer pastures. Temporary seasonal settlements are known from riverfloodplains (e.g., Farmoor, Oxfordshire; Hesterton, East Yorkshire), estuarine marshes (e.g., Maere, Somerset), and, probably, forests and uplandpastures. Such seasonal movements may have also been accompanied byother activities such as sea salt extraction or, in the forests of the SussexWeald, clay winning, quern stone quarrying, and timber felling (Sue Hamilton, personal communication). Similarly, in thewetlands of the southernVale ofYork, ironproduction may have been a seasonal undertaking (SteveWillis, personal communication).The major underlying trends throughout the firstmillennium B.C.were the increased permanent clearance of woodland, intensification ofland use, and expansion of intense utilization/settlement into areas of thelandscape previously marked by episodic clearance and forest/scrub regeneration. The result was to produce a densely populated landscape at thetime of the Roman conquest. Estimates of the size of the population ca.1 B.C./A.D. are fraughtwith difficulties, but between 2 and 5million people appears to be a reasonable figure, similar to that forMedieval Britain(Fowler, 1978; Cunliffe, 1991; Millett, 1990a). These processes of agricultural intensification, which Jones (1995) sees as inherently unstable, wereaccompanied by piecemeal agricultural innovation in terms of the adoption of new species (e.g., domestic fowl), technologies (e.g., iron-tippedard plows, the hand quern), and crop varieties (e.g., bread/club wheat,rye) (Jones, 1984, 1995). The latter often implies wide-reaching changesinhouseholds' timemanagement, and age/sex divisions of labor and widerrelations. Bread/club wheat, for example, required more intense and timeconsuming methods of cultivation including deeper plowing, greater fertilizer inputs, and weeding (Jones, 1995). The pace of these innovationsincreased in the last two centuries of the PRIA, but followed no simplewave of advance model from southeast to northwest (van der Veen, 1992;Jones, 1995). For instance, bread wheat was probably taken up at the sametime or earlier in southwest Scotland and northeast England than in southeast England [e.g., Rispain Camp, Galloway Jones, (1995); Rock Castle,North Yorkshire (van der Veen, 1992)].How local groups or individual households reacted to, or seized theopportunities afforded by, these long-term pressures was neither uniformnor determinist. Permanent settlement clearly expanded during the period,and by inference population grew, yet there has been almost no seriousconsideration of this central phenomenon [except in northeast England,where very detailed pollen studies have been combined with archaeologicalresearch; see van der Veen (1992), Haselgrove (1989), and Ferrell (1995)for summaries]. The detailed sociology and mechanics of this process of



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62 Hillaccretion are poorly understood. Who moved [whole existing households,parts of households or new households, individuals (What age or gender?)]?Why did theymove?Need itbe increased ensities fpeople?itself a cultural specific judgment?or due to rules of inheritance andhousehold dynamics or competition between households? How farwouldthey have moved (a few kilometers, several 10s or even 100s)? Whateverthe causes, it is clear that those groups moving to intensifyexploitation ofpreviously "marginal" areas were more open to agricultural innovation(Ferrell, 1995; Jones, 1985, 1995; van der Veen, 1992) and/or often scheduled larger parts of their annual cycle for specialist "craft" activities suchas metal working, pottery production, quern stone production, and evenexploitation of beaver pelts and bird feathers (e.g., Evans and Serjeantson,1988;Haselgrove, 1989;Millett, 1990b;Sharpies,1990).

Craft Production and ExchangeCraft production and exchange shared the same picture of diversityand variation as the agricultural regimes inwhich theywere embedded.

There was a general trend through time toward an increased scale of production and specialization. Recent work, however, demonstrates that thiswas far from a straightforward process of increasing social complexity (e.g.,Morris, 1994a, c; Ehrenreich, 1991, 1994; Haselgrove, 1989). There is littlesubstantial evidence for centralized control of production and distributionin the bulk of PRIA communities, as has often been assumed (Morris,1994a,b;Marchant, 1989;Hill, 1995a).Many settlement excavations of the Late Bronze Age and PRIA produce assemblages of chipped stone and flint tools and waste. Although usually ignored or dismissed as residual Neolithic or Early Bronze Age material,it is clear from recent studies that stone and flint tools continued in use

alongside tools made from iron (e.g., Ford et aL, 1984; Martingale, 1988).Scientific analyses have made important recent advances in our understanding of iron, bronze, silver, and gold working in the period (e.g.,Ehrenreich, 1985; Northover, 1984, 1994; Scott, 1991; Stead, 1984). Metalworking utilized a wide range of ore sources within the British Isles, although itsmost skilled practitioners clearly knew of Continental-wide developments and fashions. Working iron and bronze appears to have hadseveral tiers of workers, although this need not imply a hierarchy (Ehrenreich, 1991). A small number of skilled smiths produced complex and elaborate objects such as swords, cauldrons, torques, and shields, and there isevidence that individual techniques were not widely disseminated (Salterand Ehrenreich, 1984). However, themanufacture of tools and other mun



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dane objects such as nails, etc., was widespread; almost every PRIA settlement yields some metal working (smithing) evidence, although initial oreextraction was much more restricted. Whether this implies a widespreadcommon knowledge of basic metallurgy or itinerantmetal workers is notclear. The available evidence does, however, indicate thatmetal workingwas always a small-scale and short-term activity,with very little investmentin long-lasting facilities.This picture applies to other activities, such as pottery production.Considerable work on pottery distribution is revealing its complexity andvariability (Peacock, 1969; Morris, 1994a). Again, there was no investmentin permanent production facilities such as kilns, although they rapidly appeared after the Roman conquest. Models of increasing centralization ofproduction through time are not supported by the evidence, although, ingeneral, pottery may have been exchanged over longer distances in greaterquantities toward the end of the period. Potters inPoole Harbour, Dorset,provided the majority of pottery for a large surrounding region ca. 100B.C. to 100 A.D. (Brown, 1991; Hearne and Cox, 1994). This was not thesituation in southeastern England at the same time, although this area wascharacterized by oppida (possible urban settlements) and an increasinglycentralized polity. As such, in this case and in others, the organization ofcraft production cannot be simply equated with the level of (apparent) social complexity (Morris, 1994a).Similar studies on other products confirm this complex situation.Quern stone production in southern England ca. 200 B.C. to 50 A.D. didsee the emergence of a few important sources (Peacock, 1987), yet in northern England the reverse situation took place (Heslop, 1988; Haselgrove,1989). Other important craft products exchanged over some distances included glass beads, manufactured in a very restricted number of locations(Henderson, 1991), shale, jet, and salt, from both mineral sources andseawater (Morris, 1994b). To what extentwood and worked bone or textileproducts were exchanged over similar distances is unclear. The procurement, raising, and exchange of other commodities, such as horses, huntingdogs, sea birds, pelts, and feathers, were also of social importance (Grant,1984; Evans and Serjeantson, 1988; Hill, 1955b). To this list should also beadded people and knowledge.

RitualRitual has become an important focus of study in recent years (Cunliffe,992;Fitzpatrick, 984;Green, 1986,1992;Hill, 1995b;Hingley,1993;Whimster, 1981; Wait, 1985). In the past, it has been assumed that there



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64 Hill

Fig. 5. Ritual deposits on Pre-Roman Iron Age settlements. Deposit of human (above) andanimal (below) carcasses in disused grain storage pits fromWinnall Down, Hampshire (afterFasham, 1985;Hill, 1995c).

was very little obvious ritual activity in this period, which is dominated byan archaeology of the domestic lacking themonumental aspects which typifies the British Neolithic and Early Bronze Age. This was particularly argued because of the general absence of any archaeologically visibletreatment of the dead or clearly ceremonial monuments for the bulk ofthe period. From the Late Bronze Age onward, it appears that excarnationwas the normal mortuary practice, thebones not subsequently being buried.However, small numbers of human remains were deposited on Late BronzeAge and Iron Age settlements, as part of the dominant ritual traditions



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which involved the deposition of a range of domestic items including animalremains, broken tools, and pottery in primarily settlement contexts (Needham, 1993;Whimster,1981;Wait, 1985;Hill, 1995b) (Fig. 5).While mostrecent concentration has been on ritual activities on settlements, it is important not to neglect other locations for ritual activities within the landscape, such as wells, boundary earthworks, caves, and wet places such assprings, bogs, rivers, and lakes (Hill, 1995b; Hingley, 1990b, 1995; Fitzpatrick, 984;Wait, 1985).A tiny number of formal burials, ifpoorly understood, are scatteredacross Britain and Ireland from the Late Bronze Age toMPRIA (Whimster,1981) .However, the one clear exception is the "Arras Culture" inEast Yorkshire ndHumberside (Stead,1991a;Dent, 1982;Champion,1994;Millett,1990b). Here, a formal burial tradition involvingLa Tene style inhumationsunder square barrows, arranged in long cemeteries along preexisting landboundaries existed during theMPRIA. Examples of these cemeteries includeGarton Slack, Garton Station, and Wetwang Slack (Stead, 1991a; Dent,1982) .The majority of graves are poorly furnished, but a small number included elaborate weapons, other metal work, and two-wheeled horsedrawncarts or chariots. The origins of this anomalous rite have been much debated

with apparent linkswith burials in northeastern France used to argue forGallic migration. However, there are several equally "anomalous" LateBronze Age/EPRIA barrow burials inEast Yorkshire and recent work onthe settlements shows no discontinuity in terms of architecture or pottery(Stead, 1991a). Perhaps this local phenomenon should be interpreted as another example of the use ofmaterial culture and social practices to distinguish radically one group of communities from its neighbors. This is aphenomenon of "regionalization" that typifies the PRIA inBritain and beyond, and that is one of itsmost marked characteristics.One possible difference between the western and northern parts ofthe British Isles and the south and east lay in their attitudes to the past.Only in the north and west were Neolithic and Early Bronze Age monuments the focus of attention, be it as a location for burial (e.g., Kiltierney,Co. Fermanagh; Knowth, Co. Meath; Stackpole Warren and Plas Gogerddan, Dyfed), building monumental round houses (e.g., Pool, Howe, andQuanterness, Orkney), or incorporation within central sites (e.g., Tara, Co.Meath) (Hingley,1993, 1995;Murphy,1992;Raftery,1994).

Hoarding and the deposition ofmetal objects inwatery contexts werethe most visible ritual activities of the Late Bronze Age. Dry land hoardsof bronze objects ceased with the beginning of the Iron Age, although deposits ofmetal work in rivers, lakes, and bogs continued on amuch reducedlevel (Bradley,1990;Fitzpatrick, 984;Hingley,1993;Raftery,1994;Wait,1985). Other "watery deposits" included a fewMediterranean pots (Har



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66 Hillbison and Laing, 1974), wooden figures, such as from Ballachulish, Highland, and Ross Carr, Humberside (Coles, 1990); food, pottery and agricultural tools (Dairy, 1980; Hingley, 1993);

and some human bodies, such asLindow Man (Stead et al., 1986). The offerings of food and objects associated with daily life are part of a general ritual focus on home and harvestthatmarksmuch of thePRIA (Hill, 1995b;Hingley, 1993;Wait, 1985).The deposits of metal work in both wet and dry locations increased in intensity in the last three centuries of the PRIA across Britain, although theirdistribution was patchy with distinct clusters. The most important clusterwas in central and northern Ireland (Bradley, 1990; Fitzpatrick, 1984; Raftery, 994;Wait, 1985).

This period also saw the appearance of shrines and archaeologicallyvisible mortuary practices. In southeast England, small single functional ritual buildings, often within a square compound, were constructed from thefirst century B.C. These shrines or temples were often very similar in planto contemporary structures in northern France, e.g., Hayling Island, Hampshire; Chanctonbury Ring, West Sussex; Harlow, Essex; Fison's Way, Thetford, Norfolk; and Uley, Gloucestershire (Wait, 1985; Gregory, 1991;Woodward and Leach, 1993). In different parts of Britain archaeologicallyvisible mortuary practices begin to be carried out for at least some of thepopulation (Whimster, 1981). Both of these processes involved humanly creating spaces for specific types of ritual for the first time inmany centuries.Attention usually concentrates on the "Aylesford-Swarling" cremationrite in parts of southeast England, which represents the extension of northFrench cremation practices across the English Channel (Whimster, 1981;Fitzpatrick, 1994b; Haselgrove, 1984, 1989). However, this could be seenas a local and specific manifestation of a broader process with other contemporary, or even earlier, local manifestations in different parts of Britain.Individual or small cemeteries of burials, generally inhumations (a few including swords), increasingly appeared in parts of England (especially inCornwall, Devon, and Dorset), Wales, Scotland and Ireland from ca. 300200 B.C. onward (Whimster, 981;Murphy, 1992;Raftery,1994; Collis,1972). These formal burials and shrines and the metal work deposits ofthe Later PRIA could be interpreted as a diminishing of, or emerging alternative to, the predominant domestic focus of ritual found inmost ofBritain in preceding centuries.

"Central Sites": Hillforts, Oppida, and Royal SitesHillforts have often been considered as central to, if not synonymous

with, the study of the Iron Age (Fig. 6). These are large sites enclosed by



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Fig. 6. Comparative plans of hillforts (after Hogg, 1984; Cunliffe, 1991).



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68 Hillearthen or stone walls (ca. 3-20 ha), often on hilltops (Cunliffe, 1991;Darvill, 1987; Avery, 1976). The term is often incorrectly used to describeany upstanding later Prehistoric enclosure, however small. For much of thiscentury they have been considered as the central places within PRIA societies.Originally seen as towns, hillfortswere studied through the applicationof central place theory in the 1960s and 1970s when the use of Thiessenpolygons to establish hillfort territories became de rigueur. This approach,combined with social evolutionary models of the redistributing chiefdom andtraditional notions of a warlike Celtic society, can be seen in Cunliffe's(1984a, b) seminal interpretation ofDanebury, Hampshire (cf.Gent, 1983).This hypothesis, thathillfortswere the fortress residences of an elite, centersof craft production and exchange, and a focal point in the agricultural regimes of the area, has become a very fruitful source of debate.

Building on early critiques of the central place model (Collis, 1981), allaspects of thismodel have been criticized and tested against the availabledata (Stopford, 1987; Marchant, 1989; Sharpies, 1991a, b; Hill, 1995a; Morris, 1994c). The apparent military function of hillforts has also been questioned (Bowden and McOmish, 1987,1989; Hill 1995a, b). Furthermore, notall hillforts were built on hills; similar large enclosures could be low-lying,e.g., Stonea Camp, Cambridgeshire, and Heathrow Airport, Middlesex. Inaddition, analyses of theWessex evidence do not appear to support the central role of hillforts inmanaging production and exchange or as elite residences (Hill, 1995; Morris, 1994c; Sharpies, 1991a, b). Nor were allcontemporary hillforts the same sorts of sites,with differences between sitesin the same regions and between parts of Britain. Thus Scottish hillfortslack the crop storage facilities so central an element in dominant interpretations ofWessex hillforts (Gent, 1983; Cunliffe, 1984a; Hingley, 1993).In sum, hillforts do not represent a single coherent chronological horizon across the country. Some are not IronAge sites at all, but were built,and possibly primarily used, in the Late Bronze Age (e.g., some sites intheWelsh Borders and Southern Scotland such as the Breiddin or Croft

Ambrey, Powys, or Elsdon Seat, Lothian). Others areas saw no hillfort construction until much later than neighboring areas, as inEast Sussex, Surrey,and Kent in the third to firstcenturies B.C. Most importantly, hillfortswerebuilt only over restricted areas of Britain and Ireland. Despite their assumed centrality to the Iron Age, it is clear that most PRIA communitiescould reproduce themselves successfully without hillforts. Where hillfortswere in use, recent interpretations have stressed their role as communal,ritual, foci (Bowden and McOmish, 1987; Sharpies, 1991a, b; Hill, 1995a;Hingley, 1993). It is clear also that their roles could differ across spaceand, on the same site, through time, as is shown byMaiden Castle, Dorset(Sharpies, 1991a). As such itwould probably be wrong to envisage hillforts



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0_100_200 kms

Fig. 7. The essentially mutually exclusive distribution of hillforts (filledcircles) and the ritual deposition of La Tene-style metal work (hatchedarea) in Pre-Roman Iron Age Ireland (information from Raftery, 1994).

as a coherent category of sitewith a corresponding single common function(Hill, 1995a). To use or not use hillfortswas also clearly part of the markedregional differentiation that characterizes the PRIA. In themain, hillfortsdo not tend to occur in the same areas, or to be used at the same times,as deposits of weaponry and other metal work in graves or hoards (e.g.,Bradley, 1992;Sharpies,1991b).This iswell illustratednIreland (Fig. 7)and also inEast Yorkshire, where therewere no hillforts in the area practicing barrow inhumation (Bradley, 1984; Raftery, 1994).



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70 Hill"Oppida" is a confusing, and probably inappropriate, label given to a

variety of large enclosed sites which date to the first centuries B.C./A.D.(Cunliffe, 991;Darvill, 1987;Haselgrove, 1989;Millett, 1990a).These sitesare supposed to correspond to the "oppida" found inparts of contemporarytemperate Europe, which are often seen as urban settlements (Collis,1984b;Wells, 1990,but seeWoolf, 1993a) (Fig. 8). Some of these sitesbecame the locations of Roman cities and ithas been assumed that oppidaplayed an equivalent role inPre-Conquest society (e.g., Colchester, Chichester, Canterbury, St Albans).Two types of "oppida" are distinguished (Cunliffe, 1991; Darvill, 1987).Enclosed oppida are hillfort-sized enclosed sites but have been consideredto be different from hillforts because of their location in river valleys, LaterPRIA origins, and assumed different function. However, given the varietyencompassed by the term "hillfort," and thatmany were not built on hillsand were built late in the Later PRIA, it seems difficult to sustain theargument that hillforts are a fundamentally different class of site from thatof enclosed oppida. This is particularly the case as no enclosed oppidumhas been adequately excavated."Territorial oppida" is a term used to describe series of large earthenbanks and ditches which demarcate large areas (up to several hundred hectares) of the landscape. Examples include the principal centers of LaterPRIA polities in the southeast, e.g., Colchester, Essex; St Albans, Hertfordshire (Fig. 8); and Silchester, Hampshire, and Chichester, West Sussex.Problems of size, and thatmany are under modern towns,make the fullunderstanding of such "sites" difficult.Many sites were clearly locations ofhigh-status settlement, burial, and consumption of continental material.Such activities, though, were not restricted to these separated parts of thelandscape, and the full relationships

between what happened inside such"sites" and beyond are unclear. Nor were such sites restricted to the southeast of England; they are now known from other parts of southern Britain(e.g., Gussage Cow Down, Dorset; Bagendon, Gloucestershire; and HobDitch, Warwickshire) (Corney, 1989; Hingley 1989; Trow, 1990). The northernmost is the site of Stanwick, North Yorkshire (Fig. 8) (Haselgrove etal, 1990). These sites often appear to have been established on themarginsof preexisting concentrations of settlement, coinage distributions, and otherdefined regional groupings (Haselgrove, 1976; Corney, 1989). This situationprobably also applies to the classic territorialOppida of the southeast suchas St. Albans, Colchester, and Chichester (Haselgrove, 1976).The definition of a particular type of settlement, with a specific function, through the form of an earthwork system, and not through a consideration of the actual evidence for the type of activities taking place withinthem, has hampered understandings of these and other contemporary sites.



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?a > ore5" w2. T.5 9 a 2LTs a -a

A.tlbansRomancrulamiumHertfordshire)?^^* 5^

B.tanwickNorthorkshire)

e Navancomplex

(Armagh)^^^^^_^^\

3^>^^ Royalurinl^^^ ^ _

V \ King'stables-^^^^k Palace? \/)/oughnashadeA

/ / ^^V^Hnughcy'sFort )

r>11 ^

Fig. . Comparativelansf atere-Romanron geentralsitesafter Cooneynd rog



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72 HillIt is clear that agglomerated settlements of considerable size existed at thistime in different parts of southern and eastern England, some with evidencefor long-distance exchange contacts, craft production, and wealth, but notenclosed at all by an earthwork system (e.g., Dragonby and Redcliff, Humberside, sites within Poole Harbour, Dorset; Leicester, Leicestershire; Puckeridge-Braughing, Hertfordshire). Such sites may offer a better case forfulfilling the roles often ascribed to "oppida" than those sites defined asoppida simply because of the presence of earthwork enclosures. Whetherearthwork systems existed or not, these "sites," such as St. Albans,Dragonby, Chichester, and Poole, ought to be envisaged more as settlementcomplexes or polyfocal settlement foci, rather than as nucleated settlements(Millett, 1990a). These sites appear to have often been a clustering of settlements and activity areas, often prolific in finds but possibly individuallyshort lived and mobile (Willis, 1993). If at all urban sites, they representa form of urbanism unlike that found in the classical world or later Europe(Woolf, 1993a,c).

Contemporary with the "oppida" are the "Royal Sites" found in theIrish Midlands such as Navan (Fig. 8), Co. Armagh; Dun Ailinne, Co. Kildare; and Tara, Co. Meath (Raftery, 1994; Llyn, 1986; Wailes, 1990). Theseare complexes of large circular enclosures of varying sizes, often containingsmaller circular enclosures (Fig. 8). Both Navan and Dun Ailinne were fociof some kind in the Late Bronze Age, and Navan has in close proximityat least two lakes which were the location for the ritual deposition of IronAge metal work and human remains (Cooney and Grogan, 1991). Excavations at small focal enclosures at all three sites have provided evidence forcircular structures of timber posts, which may not have been roofed. Themost spectacular is the "40-m structure" at Navan (Lynn, 1986, 1992;Robertson, 1992), with sue rings of timber posts and

alarge central oakpost as much as 13 m tall. This structure was systematically filled inwithstones soon after construction, the exterior deliberately burned and thecairn subsequently covered with a 2.5-m-thick layer of turfs.All these site

complexes appear to have had a ceremonial function, with little evidenceof settlement and other activities. They are referred to as the former centers of local kings in later oral histories and myths (Raftery, 1994).

Social OrganizationThe interpretation of hillforts and that of PRIA social organizationhave always been inextricably intertwined and have been the subject of in

creasing debate in recent years (Haselgrove, 1994). In general there hasbeen a shift from applying generalized notions of a "Celtic" or "Iron Age



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society" to specific interpretations of particular IronAge social forms.Thishas been accompanied by more reluctance to assume that PRIA socialforms were hierarchies and by explorations of heterarchical forms of organization Armit, 992;Ehrenreich, 991;Hingley,1984,1993;Hill, 1995a;Woolf, 1993a). Along with this has been an emphasis on the household asa basic unit of production and on the spatial organization of society asintegral to its constitution (Ferrell, 1995; Foster, 1989a, b; Hingley, 1984,1993;Hill, 1995a,c).Traditional models have taken generalized assumptions of a warriorbased, hierarchical "Celtic" social form from classical writings andMedievalIrish heroic literature and applied them to the PRIA. This use of such ananalogy has, however, been much debated. The most elegant and explicituses of such an approach are those where thiswas combined with key elements of processual social archaeology (e.g., Clarke, 1972; Cunliffe,1984a, b). Cunliffe's 1984 interpretation of hillforts clearly fits the "Celtic"approach with social evolutionary notions of the "chiefdom." Other elements of this approach are also contained in the different applications ofcore-periphery theory (e.g., Cunliffe, 1984c, 1988; Nash, 1984). These coreperiphery approaches rarely explicitly articulate the structuralMarxist basisof the approach. They do see society as actually or potentially hierarchicallyorganized around the competitive relations between lineages or clan groups(Haselgrove, 1982; Millett, 1990a).More recent approaches have moved away from these generalizingstandpoints. Sharpies (1991b) interpreted change through theWessex Iron

Age by focusing on the changing emphasis on the individual versus thecommunity. Other recent approaches have explored essentially Marxistanalyses of exchange and production (e.g., Gosden, 1989) and, in somecases, have sought to understand specific PRIA communities through theconceptual tool of "the mode of production" (Hingley, 1984; Hill, 1995a, c;Ferrell, 1995). At the same time Barrett's (1989; see also 1994) discussionsof the Late Bronze Age and Early PRIA have been important stages indeveloping an archaeology of social discourse.These recent approaches recognize thatno single form ofBritish PRIAexisted. Rather the archaeological evidence demonstrates real differencesin the ways communities were organized and the material resources ofpower drawn on in their constitution. While variations around the household mode of production, with little degree of stratification between households, may be applicable formuch of the period, the nature, size, and waysinwhich the household was symbolized varied considerably. In other situations, though, different interpretations are necessary. The LPRIA in thesoutheast of England has clear evidence for marked social inequalities in



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74 Hillwhat might be regarded as a "complex chiefdom," ifnot in some degreea class-divided society.

CHANGE THROUGHOUT THE PRE-ROMAN IRON AGEThis outline has so far paid little attention to the changes that transformed communities throughout the course of the PRIA. An unfortunate

legacy of the Three-Age system is a tendency to talk about "Iron Age society," etc., as distinct from "Bronze Age society," etc., so failing to recognise the differences in social organization, economy, and ritual withinthe IronAge. This static tendency isnot universal, butmany accounts whichdiscuss change tend to offer simple interpretations of increasing complexitythrough time, combined with the transforming effect of thewithdrawal andresumption of long-distance exchange (e.g., Bradley, 1984; Cunliffe, 1984b;

Haselgrove, 1982). Such accounts may be sustainable when discussing trajectories within a single region but increasingly come unstuck when extended across the British Isles in general. As regional syntheses formanyparts of Britain are still rare, and regional differences appear so strong,attempting to piece together an honest account of change throughout theperiod has proved difficult.After discussing the nature and problems ofthe current chronologies for the period, I outline what I consider to be themain changes within the period. To allow comparisons with other parts ofEurope, I have used a basic chronological division between Hallstatt andLa Tene periods. I do not discuss theRoman conquest of mainland BritainfromA.D. 43 toA.D. 84, nor its consequences on those communities incorporated into the empire or for those which found themselves beyondits frontiers (see Millett, 1990a).

ChronologySince the 1930s themainland British PRIA has been divided into threeperiodsbased on pottery ypologyFig. 1):Early (EPRIA, ca. 700-450 B.C.),Middle (MPRIA, ca. 450-100 B.C.), andLate (LPRIA, ca. 100 B.C.-A.D. 43).While this chronological scheme is both successful and easily applicable, it is important to recognize its attendant biases and problems. It couldbe argued that this tripartite division has contributed to the perceived distinctive and insular nature of the British PRIA compared to Continental



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Europe. There the Hallstatt and La Tene periodization is the standardchronology, not that of Early, Middle, and Late PRIA (Collis, 1984a; Wells,1990). The Continental chronology is essentially based on metal work typesand is applicable to British material (e.g., Stead, 1984). Such metal work,however, was rarely deposited in settlement contexts, and as there are veryfew graves in Britain, clear links between metal work chronologies andother chronologies are difficult to establish.Radiocarbon played an important role in demonstrating that EarlyPRIA ceramic formswere inuse over a much longer period than previouslyassumed, and also belonged to the Late Bronze Age (Barrett, 1980). However, radiocarbon dating has not perhaps been as extensively used as itmight have been. This is because prior to accelerator dating, itwas notfelt that radiocarbon provided the fine-enough chronological precision offered by a pottery-based chronology. This was a particular problem for thefirst half of the firstmillennium B.C., when the radiocarbon calibrationcurve ismarked by a major kink (Pearson and Stuiver, 1986). However,radiocarbon and other absolute dating techniques, such as dendrochronology (Bailie, 1988), are the only way to establish chronology over most ofBritain and Ireland. This is because the standard chronology is based onpottery, which is rare or completely absent over large areas in the westand north Britain.

Even where pottery was used in quantities, such as southern England,it is probable that pottery is relied on too heavily for dating. While a particularly refined chronology has been established forWessex by Lisa Brownand Barry Cunliffe (1984), similar detailed chronologies are not availableelsewhere. It is also becoming clear thatpottery isnot an indicator primarilyof chronology, but of ways of living, ritual practice, and social identity.Forexample, in parts of

eastern England MPRIA pot forms are not replacedby new, Continentally inspired, forms in the firstcentury B.C., as commonlyassumed, but continued inuse beyond the Roman conquest (Evans and Serjeantson, 1988; Willis, 1993, 1995). Similar processes took place in otherregions of Britain, such as southwest England (Quinnell, 1986), or havetaken place at a local level in those areas which fully adopted LPRIA pottery,with a delay of some decades between sites only a short distance apart.Where pottery is used to date sites, thishas important ramifications.A further possible confusion is the ceramic dating of the beginning ofthe IronAge to 800 B.C. by some writers, who may distinguish an EarliestIron Age, or Transition phase (ca. 800-600), before an Early Iron Age"proper." This again arises from the pottery, which reveals no clear typological break at the beginning of themetallurgical Iron Age inHallstattC (ca. 700-600 B.C.) (Barrett, 1980). Furthermore, reliable absolute datesfor early ironworking or objects inBritain and Ireland are not numerous.



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76 HillThe current chronological scheme forBritain is outlined inFig. 1, butit is clear that Iron Age specialists cannot afford to be complacent abouttheir chronologies.

Hallstatt Britain and Ireland ca. 900 to 450 B.C.The Bronze Age-Iron Age transition inEurope has recently been reviewed, stressing the need tomove away from a view which saw the Bronzeand IronAges as discrete and separate entities (S0rensen and Thomas, 1989).Work on both sides of the transition is revealing a complex picture of changesand continuities. Iron working was not a marked technological improvementand, as in other parts of Europe, began during the Bronze Age.As inEurope generally, themajor change in the archaeological recordis the cessation of the deposition of bronze objects and scrap in hoards.

Exchange, use, and ritual deposition of bronze objects are the defining features of the European Bronze Age, which created a complex web of socialnetworks across the Continent (Champion et aL, 1984; Bradley, 1984, 1990;Barrett and Needham, 1988). In northwest Europe, including Britain,hoards and the deposition ofmetal work in rivers and bogs largely ceasedduring the Hallstatt C period ca. 700-600 B.C. (Llyn Fawr phase inBritain).At the same time iron copies of prestige bronze objects appeared for thefirst time. After this date, swords, axes, knives, and sickles were no longermade in bronze and the deposition of metal objects reduced to a trickleinBritain and Ireland (Bradley, 1990; Champion, 1989; Cooney and Grogan, 1991; Taylor, 1993; Thomas, 1989). It is the end of those social practices which centered around bronze objects and sustained the dominantsocial discourse of the Later Bronze Age, thatmarks the beginning of theIron Age rather than a break in settlement evidence or ceramics (Thomas,1989). Where there is settlement evidence before the transition, this continues.Where there is no settlement evidence, as in Ireland, that patternalso continues (Champion, 1989).A possibly more significant transition in the archaeological record tookplace during theMiddle Bronze Age, ca. 1500 B.C. (Bradley, 1991; Barrettet ai, 1991). It was then that the long emphasis on the construction anduse of communal and funerarymonuments that typified theNeolithic cameto an end. For the first time, settlements and field systems became an increasingly dominant component of the archaeological record. It was inthese changes that the physical and social landscape of PRIA Britain hadits immediate origins. The Late Bronze Age was a period of climatic deterioration, marked by an initial contraction of settlement in some areas,followed by the continued, gradual process of agricultural intensification



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and expansion that lasted into theRoman period. Burials and cremationsalmost ceased during the Late Bronze Age, while the ritual consumptionofmetal work increased. At the same time offerings of food, domestic objects, and human bones on settlement make their firstappearance (Bradley,1984; 1990; Hill, 1995b). These were to become the dominant ritual discourses, the practices and ideologies they sustained and were sustained by,formuch of the PRLA.Depositing bronze objects did not take place at the same intensitythroughout Britain, or through the course of theLate Bronze Age (Ehrenberg, 1989; Taylor, 1993). Eastern England and central Ireland had majorconcentrations of metal deposits with sustained contacts with other metal

working and consuming centers in Europe. Other regions witnessed fewhoards and a limited range of objects. During the Ewart Park phase (900700 B.C.) of the Late Bronze Age, hoard deposits reached their peak ineastern England and Ireland. Contemporary with this abundant metal workwere a number of enclosed "miniforts," at least one ofwhich has with directevidence for bronze working (Springfield Lyons, Essex) (Champion, 1994;Needham, 1992). Also contemporary were riverside sites such as Runnymede, Surrey, which were clearly involved in short and long-distance exchange. These types of settlements do not appear to have been occupiedinto the Llyn Fawr/Hallstatt C phase (700-600 B.C.) when hoarding dramatically stopped in eastern England (Taylor, 1993; Thomas, 1989; Champion, 1994). Weaponry continued to be deposited in theThames and otherrivers on a much reduced scale, even though the objects continue to showlinks with other parts of Europe (Bradley, 1990).In regions that witnessed the largest concentrations of deposits ofbronze objects in earlier centers, hoarding appears to have ceased rapidlyin the Llyn Fawr stage (Hallstatt C) (Taylor, 1993). However, in some ofthe areas that appear to have been marginal in terms of bronze depositionbefore, this phase saw an increase in the deposition of hoards (Thomas,1989). These hoards are of a different character from the preceding phaseand one included iron versions of bronze objects. In parts ofWessex theperiod ca. 800 to 600 B.C. saw the appearance of large midden sites,monumental rubbish tips (e.g., Potterne and East Chisenbury, Wiltshire)and the construction of very large round houses, often within large enclosed farmsteads (e.g., Pimperne, Dorset; Old Down Farm, Hampshire;Dunston Park, Berkshire).Hillforts were built across Britain and Ireland from as early as 1000B.C. Although geographically a widespread phenomenon, hillforts arefound in dense concentrations in a narrow regional band inmainland Britain, "the hillfort dominated zone" (Cunliffe, 1991). In certain areas therewere distinct flourishes of construction, although it is increasingly apparent



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78 Hillthatmany hillforts were occupied or used before the construction of surviving ramparts. A major flourish inWessex and the Cotswolds took placebetween ca. 650 and 500 B.C. Some hillforts continued in occupation inthese areas into theMPRIA, often with increasingly elaborate defenses andchanging social role. These "developed" hillforts appear to be particularlycommon in parts ofWessex where excavations atMaiden Castle, Dorset,and Danebury, Hampshire, have done much to illustrate their nature (Cunliffe, 1984a; Sharpies, 1991a). In other areas of the country episodes ofhillfort construction or reoccupation occurred throughout the PRIA, e.g.,Welsh border and Severn Valley ca. 300-100 B.C., and this episodic naturemay conform well to Collis' (1981) crisis model of hillfort construction.

Understandings of the firsthalf of the firstmillennium B.C. look apparently contradictory depending on whether interpretations concentrateon metal work or on settlement evidence. A clear break at the end of theBronze Age is only supportable from the metal work evidence. This raisesthe questions both of the relationship between metal work and settlementand to what extent the division of prehistory into neat period boxes (orsocial systems), with distinct social, economic, and settlement organizations,is valid. It is not a case of whether the settlement or themetal work evidence provides a truer picture of social realities at this time. Rather, it isthat the evidence clearly shows us the need for dialectical explanations.One approach to this period is to see the ritual consumption of bronzeand the tradition of ritual deposits on settlements as articulating (increasingly) contradictory alternative social discourses available not just to different groups, but to the same individuals, across Britain and Ireland. TheBronze Age-Iron Age transition seen in this perspective becomes the long,but not inevitable, conflict and replacement of one dominant social discourse by another (cf. Barrett, 1989).

La TfcneBritain and Ireland ca. 450 B.C. to 100 A.D.The EPRIA and MPRIA show considerable continuity in settlementand ritual, but possible changes may be apparent that roughly coincide withtheHallstatt-La Tene transition across Europe ca. 500 to 450 B.C. On theContinent these changes are most marked inmortuary traditions and metal

work styles (Collis, 1984a; Wells, 1990). In Britain there is no change inburial practice, except for the start of "Arras culture" burials inEast Yorkshire, which follow an indigenous variation on a La Tene mortuary theme.British metal work shows the adoption of La Tene styles, and the exchangeof some continental La Tene objects, from the fifth century B.C. onward.Although British and Irishmetal working develop their own local La Tene



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styles, parallels and a few objects show continuing linkswith other partsof Europe throughout the next 500 years (Stead, 1984; Raftery, 1994). Thechange fromHallstatt toLa Tene also corresponds roughlywith the changefrom EPRIA toMPRIA ceramics in southern Britain. EPRIA ceramicswere the last manifestation of a long ceramic tradition, dating from ca.900-1000 B.C. (Barrett, 1980; Elsdon, 1989). MPRIA (400-300 B.C. onward) traditions have fewer clearly defined vessel forms and show greatersophistication and control in their firing (Elsdon, 1989; Morris, personalcommunication). What these changes in technology and vessel forms implyhas not yet been investigated. The long centuries of theMPRIA appearon the surface to show little change, especially when contrasted with theLPRIA. Contacts with other parts of Europe and within the British Islesappear to be few. Rather, emphasis appears to have been inwardly or locally focused, as in other parts of La Tene B and C Continental Europe(Bradley, 1984; Collis, 1984). The ritual and economic focus centered onthe reproduction of the household and agriculture.In comparison, the developments from ca. 100 B.C. appear to be amarked break from the MPRIA. This, the LPRIA, is chronologicallymarked by a range of new pottery forms, often copying north French or

Roman originals, and a new technology, the fast potter's wheel, acrosssouthern England. In this 150 years, southern Britain enters the thresholdof history, as theRoman empire expanded intoFrance, Belgium, and Holland, failed to conquer southern England in 55 and 54 B.C., and finally,incorporated much of Britain fromA.D. 43 onward. In those parts of Britain close toFrance a series ofmarked changes in settlement, ritual,materialculture, and political organization took place, which some have seen as theemergence of a moneyed, urbanized, state level of social organization bythe eve of the Roman conquest (Champion et ai, 1984; Darvill, 1987). Culturally, this part of England became increasingly like that of neighboringareas in France and Belgium. This situation continued, ifnot intensified,after the Roman conquest, leading to discussions of the "Romanization"of Britain prior toClaudius' invasion in 43 A.D. (Haselgrove, 1984; Millett,1990a). For this part of Britain, the LPRIA is protohistoric, as Greek andLatin literary sources provide some evidence for political events, leadersand "tribal" groupings, geography, and culture.The earliest of these changes was the use of coinage. Haselgrove(1993) has outlined the development of British PRIA coinage in threemainphases. The earliest coinages were concentrated around themouth of theriverThames. Although with possible earlier antecedents, themain use and

minting of coinage started in themidsecond century B.C., with both imported northeast French gold types and local copies. The production ofcast bronze coins, "potins," began toward the end of the second century



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80 HillB.C. (Fitzpatrick, 1992b; Haselgrove, 1988, 1993). The functions of earlycoinage have been much debated, some seeing all coinage as primitive cash.However, detailed work on the circulation and deposition of coinages showsthat not all PRIA coinages were the same. Gold and potin coins, the earliest,would appear to have been used in quite narrow and specific socialrelationships (Haselgrove, 1987, 1988). During the first century B.C. gold,and increasingly silver and struck bronze, coinage was minted in large quantities in southeast England. Silver and struck bronze coinages were circulated and deposited in a quite differentmanner from gold, and probablyfulfilledmore cash-like roles. The use of coinage spread into a larger partof England stretching fromDorset to Lincolnshire, with the developmentof distinct local issues, which appear to correlate with sociopolitical groupings, or "tribes" (Fig. 9). This has allowed coinage to reconstruct the political history of southern Britain, especially with the development ofinscribed series from ca. 20 B.C. which bear rulers' names. The coinageand few literary sources might suggest a situation of fluid "tribal" groups(although other interpretations are possible), with the emergence of two

major political entities based inWest Sussex and Essex, Hertfordshire, andKent. Coin inscriptions, indirect evidence for papyrus, a few inscribed potsherds, and writing equipment testify to some degree of literacy in thesoutheast before the Roman conquest.The links between Picardy and Kent, Essex, and Hertfordshire witnessed in the coinage from the second century B.C. point to long-lastingsocial and kinship ties between the two areas. It was through these tiesthat components of a new, distinct, cultural package were learned aboutand adopted in southeast England. Important in these were changes in ritual. Cremation burial, the "Aylesford-Swarling" rite,was adopted for someof thepopulation (Whimster, 981; Stead andRigby, 1989;Haselgrove,1984, 1989).Although burialswere usuallypoorlyfurnished nd in smallcemeteries (e.g., Aylesford, Kent), a fewwere lavishly equipped and couldbe marked by small mounds ("barrows") or set within square ditched enclosures. A few of these clearly belong to what the literary sources call"kings" and their relations (Lexden, Essex; St Albans and Welwyn, Hertfordshire). These rich "Welwyn-type" burials were furnished with importedFrench or Roman luxuries, but in all burials an emphasis seems to havebeen placed on drinking. Shrines or temples following Continental modelswere also used for the first time, often acting as locations for a range ofvotive offerings (see above). Meanwhile similar ritual practices which formerly took place exclusively on settlements decreased in importance.The rich graves show the increasing importance of exchange withFrance to obtain a range of luxuries originating there or further south intheMediterranean. Imports included ceramic, metal, and glass vessels as



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JD Hill, Pre-Roman Iron Age

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