Centralized Storage in Later Prehistoric Britain

Archaeological evidence for centralized storage facilities may provide useful information about the organization of prehistoric economies. In the background are a range of explanatory ideas. ‘Redistribution’ is a term which has been applied to the evidence from some British hillforts. Resources might be collected and then re-allocated through a permanent agency of co-ordination. They might be mobilized as tribute to elites as part of political strategy. This has been suggested for early British hillforts, and the evidence is reviewed. Much depends on the interpretation of the ‘four-poster’ structures at these sites as storehouses. A survey of these structures on British and continental sites strengthens this interpretation, and a further survey shows that, in Britain, disproportionate numbers of these structures are found at massively enclosed sites. A modified form of site catchment analysis suggests that some of the hillforts stored produce mobilized from an area which was greater than is likely to have been farmed directly from these sites. One possible inference is that resources were mobilized from subordinate settlements. It is suggested that stored grain was a critical commodity if rising populations and climatic change combined to increase the risk attached to the cereal harvest.