Introduction

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Niall Sharples
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Human Society ◽  
Historical Sources ◽  
Animal Products ◽  
Central Places ◽  
North West ◽  
Late Iron Age ◽  
Long Time ◽  
First Millennium ◽  
Surrounding Landscape

This book covers the first millennium BC in central southern Britain, or Wessex, a period and an area of considerable importance in understanding the evolution of human society in north-west Europe. Wessex is one of the most intensively studied areas in European prehistory and has a rich and varied archaeological record that provides a finely textured view of a past society that is just beyond the reach of the historical sources. This book was begun a long time ago and has emerged due to a number of different stimuli. My first significant involvement with Wessex was as a result of my employment as Director of the English Heritage excavations at Maiden Castle in Dorset. During this period I lived in Dorset and became very familiar with the archaeology of this county and the neighbouring county of Wiltshire. The excavations were written up promptly (Sharples 1991a, 1991c) and I was also able to produce a couple of short papers (Sharples 1990b, 1991b) on related issues. These papers were part of a series of publications that came to define a new archaeological understanding of the Wrst millennium BC. They provide a context for the creation of this book that is worth exploring. In the middle of the 1980s, understanding of the Iron Age of Wessex was dominated by the views of Professor Cunlifie, which were widely disseminated in a range of publications, but most comprehensively in his book Iron Age Communities in Britain (Cunlifie 1991, 2005). He presented a picture of Iron Age society where dominant elites lived within hillforts and each hillfort controlled a clearly defined territory. These permanently occupied settlements acted as central places that absorbed cereals and animal products from dependent communities in the surrounding landscape and exchanged these basic foodstuffs for materials not available in the region. The communities in hillforts controlled contact with neighbouring territories and were closely tied to ports, through which Continental trade was channelled. As the Iron Age progressed, the territories become larger and the hillforts become fewer until distinct tribal units ruled by kings become recognizable in the Late Iron Age.

Formation and Land-Use History of Celtic Fields in North-West Europe – an Interdisciplinary Case Study at Zeijen, the Netherlands

2003 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 141-173 ◽  
Author(s):  
Theo Spek ◽  
Willy Groenman-van Waateringe ◽  
Maja Kooistra ◽  
Lideweij Bakker
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
The Netherlands ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Roman Period ◽  
Soil Tillage ◽  
North West ◽  
Late Iron Age ◽  
History Of

Celtic field research has so far been strongly focused on prospection and mapping. As a result of this there is a serious lack of knowledge of formation and land-use processes of these fields. This article describes a methodological case study in The Netherlands that may be applied to other European Celtic fields in the future. By interdisciplinary use of pedological, palynological and micromorphological research methods the authors were able to discern five development stages in the history of the field, dating from the late Bronze Age to the early Roman Period. There are strong indications that the earthen ridges, very typical for Celtic fields in the sandy landscapes of north-west Europe, were only formed in the later stages of Celtic field agriculture (late Iron Age and early Roman period). They were the result of a determined raising of the surface by large-scale transportation of soil material from the surroundings of the fields. Mainly the ridges were intensively cultivated and manured in the later stages of Celtic field cultivation. In the late Iron Age a remarkable shift in Celtic field agriculture took place from an extensive system with long fallow periods, a low level of manuring and extensive soil tillage to a more intensive system with shorter fallow periods, a more intensive soil tillage and a higher manuring intensity. There are also strong indications that rye (Secale cereale) was the main crop in the final stage of Celtic field agriculture.

scholarly journals Rural Life, Roman Ways? Examination of Late Iron Age to Late Romano-British Burial Practice and Mobility at Dog Hole Cave, Cumbria

Britannia ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 51 ◽  
pp. 83-116
Author(s):  
Hannah J. O'Regan ◽  
Keith Bland ◽  
Jane Evans ◽  
Matilda Holmes ◽  
Kirsty McLeod ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Isotope Analysis ◽  
Local Area ◽  
Older Individuals ◽  
North West ◽  
Human Osteology ◽  
Late Iron Age ◽  
Burial Practice ◽  
Late Roman Period

ABSTRACTThe scarcity of Romano-British human remains from north-west England has hindered understanding of burial practice in this region. Here, we report on the excavation of human and non-human animal remains1 and material culture from Dog Hole Cave, Haverbrack. Foetal and neonatal infants had been interred alongside a horse burial and puppies, lambs, calves and piglets in the very latest Iron Age to early Romano-British period, while the mid- to late Roman period is characterised by burials of older individuals with copper-alloy jewellery and beads. This material culture is more characteristic of urban sites, while isotope analysis indicates that the later individuals were largely from the local area. We discuss these results in terms of burial ritual in Cumbria and rural acculturation. Supplementary material is available online (https://doi.org/10.1017/S0068113X20000136), and contains further information about the site and excavations, small finds, zooarchaeology, human osteology, site taphonomy, the palaeoenvironment, isotope methods and analysis, and finds listed in Benson and Bland 1963.

Two Burials at Malle, a Late Iron Age Settlement in the Bankeveld in the North-West Province

2002 ◽  
Vol 57 (176) ◽  
pp. 55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julius C. C. Pistorius ◽  
Maryna Steyn ◽  
Willem C. Nienaber
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
North West ◽  
The North ◽  
Late Iron Age ◽  
North West Province

The Bear in the Grave: Exploitation of Top Predator and Herbivore Resources in First Millennium Sweden—First Trends from a Long-Term Research Project

2016 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karl-Johan Lindholm ◽  
John Ljungkvist
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Main Question ◽  
Animal Products ◽  
Interregional Trade ◽  
Animal Populations ◽  
Animal Remains ◽  
First Millennium ◽  
Chronological Sequence ◽  
Middle Iron Age ◽  
Faunal Exploitation

This paper focusses on animal remains associated with archaeological contexts dated to the middle and later phases of the Scandinavian Iron Age, which corresponds to the first millennium AD. The main question to be addressed is whether this record can be used for identifying human impact on certain animal populations for modelling faunal exploitation and interregional trade. In the first part of the paper, we undertake a detailed inventory of animal finds recorded in published excavation reports, research catalogues, and in existing databases maintained primarily by the Historical Museum in Stockholm. We compare the chronological pattern identified in the burial assemblages with a chronological sequence retrieved from pitfall hunting systems located in the Scandinavian inland region. The chronologies of the animal finds from burials and the pitfall systems are then compared with dated pollen-analytical sequences retrieved in the inland region and additional archaeological assemblages, such as graves and hoards of Roman coins. In our discussion, we outline an interregional model of faunal exploitation between AD 300 and 1200, including the possible location of hunting grounds and end-distribution areas for animal products. The paper provides deeper insights into the burial record of the middle Iron Age, arguing for the need for broader interregional approaches, and focussed archaeological research in the inland regions of Scandinavia.

scholarly journals Neolithic domesticity and other prehistoric anomalies: excavations at Laigh Newton, East Ayrshire

2011 ◽  
Vol 49 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronan Toolis ◽  
Jo Bacon ◽  
Gillian McSwan ◽  
Ingrid Shearer ◽  
Torben Bjarke Ballin ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Charcoal Burning ◽  
Late Iron Age ◽  
Third Millennium ◽  
Third Millennium Bc ◽  
First Millennium

A series of archaeological evaluations and excavations at Laigh Newton in East Ayrshire revealed evidence for intermittent occupation of this valley terrace between the Mesolithic and the Late Iron Age. The plough-truncated archaeology included the remains of a rectangular building and associated features of the mid-late fourth millennium BC, a more ephemeral structure and related pits of the mid third millennium BC, a charcoal-burning pit of the mid-first millennium AD and two other rectilinear structures of indeterminate date.

A context for the Luzira Head

Antiquity ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 82 (315) ◽  
pp. 99-112 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Reid ◽  
Ceri Z. Ashley
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Lake Victoria ◽  
Formative Period ◽  
African Art ◽  
Late Iron Age ◽  
Archaeological Work ◽  
First Millennium

The Luzira head, a pottery figure discovered in a Ugandan prison compound in 1929, has remained curiously anonymous ever since. New archaeological work on the northern shores of (Lake) Victoria Nyanza has defined a formative period of political centralisation at the end of the first millennium AD. The authors show that this period of early to late Iron Age transition is where this remarkable object and related figurative material belongs. This has implications both for the formation of kingdoms in Uganda and for the story of African art more generally.

On the History and Evolution of Qws: The Portrait of a First Millennium BCE Deity Explored through Community Identity

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 113-189
Author(s):  
Andrew J. Danielson
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Community Identity ◽  
Immigrant Communities ◽  
Current Collection ◽  
Late Iron Age ◽  
First Millennium ◽  
Patterns Of Behavior ◽  
Shifting Identities ◽  
A Current

Abstract This article explores the history and evolution of the deity Qws through a study of the communities affiliated with Qws, presenting also a current collection of all inscriptional references to this deity. Diachronic and spatial analyses of the references reveal nuanced insights into how Qws was understood by his adherents, as well as the patterns of behavior, linguistic practices, and identities that marked these communities. The attestations of Qws demonstrate the deity’s relative obscurity during the Late Bronze Age, a rapid rise in inscriptional popularity among persons associated with the region of Edom during the late Iron Age, and a regional perpetuation of attestation following the dissolution of the Iron Age southern Levantine polities. Furthermore, attestations of Qws among diasporic community’s present insights into the shifting identities and cultic practices of the immigrant communities affiliated with the deity.

scholarly journals Out of the Norwegian glaciers: Lendbreen—a tunic from the early first millennium AD

Antiquity ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 87 (337) ◽  
pp. 788-801 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marianne Vedeler ◽  
Lise Bender Jørgensen
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
High Quality ◽  
Late Iron Age ◽  
First Millennium

As the temperature rises each year, the assemblages of prehistoric hunters emerge from the ice. Archaeologists in Norway are now conducting regular surveys in the mountains to record the new finds. A recent example presented here consists of a whole tunic, made of warm wool and woven in diamond twill. The owner, who lived in the late Iron Age (third–fourth centuries AD), was wearing well-worn outdoor clothing, originally of high quality.

Total Landscapes (250 BC to the Early Roman Period)

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Bradley ◽  
Colin Haselgrove ◽  
Marc Vander Linden ◽  
Leo Webley
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Radiocarbon Dating ◽  
Social Complexity ◽  
First Century ◽  
Northern Europe ◽  
North West ◽  
Late Iron Age ◽  
Mediterranean World ◽  
Written Sources

By the late first century BC, most of north-west Europe had been incorporated into the Roman Empire or had fallen under its shadow. This has profoundly affected how the late Iron Age is perceived and studied. Being able to view peoples and places through written sources and coin inscriptions means that the archaeology of the period is often approached very differently to those discussed in previous chapters, with greater emphasis on historical events and causality. The chronology encourages this. Late La Tène sites on the Continent can now be dated to within a generation or so, anchored by a growing number of dendrochronological fixed points (Kaenel 2006; Durost and Lambert 2007), although similar precision is rarely attainable in northern Europe or in Ireland and northern Britain, which rely largely on radiocarbon dating. The prevailing narrative for the late Iron Age in central Europe, Gaul, and southern Britain—essentially the areas that later became part of the Roman empire—is one of increasing hierarchy, social complexity, political centralization, urbanization, and economic development. These changes are seen as bound up with increasing contact with the Mediterranean world, leading up to the Roman conquests of the first centuries BC and AD. This is contrasted with the situation in northern Britain, Ireland, and ‘Germanic’ northern Europe, which are assumed to have been more tradition-bound and resistant to change. As we shall see, recent excavations do not necessarily contradict this narrative, but they do suggest that the picture is far more complex. Not all developments can be fitted into the story of growing social complexity, whilst to assume that Roman expansion was the most important factor at work at this period is to see events through the eyes of Classical writers (Bradley 2007). It is important to understand late Iron Age societies in their own terms, rather than just as precursors to provincial Roman societies. Many influential approaches to the period—from core–periphery models to the current emphasis on the agency of client rulers (Creighton 2000)—suffer from teleology as a result of having been constructed with half an eye to explaining the pattern of Roman expansion.

What does early Christianity look like? Mortuary archaeology and conversion in Late Iron Age Scotland

2011 ◽  
Vol 33 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 39-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adrián Maldonado
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Theoretical Models ◽  
Mortuary Archaeology ◽  
Sacred Place ◽  
Burial Practices ◽  
Late Iron Age ◽  
Theoretical Approaches ◽  
First Millennium ◽  
Vexed Question ◽  
Christian Practices

The study of the inhumation cemeteries of Late Iron Age Scotland tends to revolve around the vexed question of whether or not they provide evidence for Christianity. As a result, our approach has been to look for ‘Christian’ practices (lack of grave goods, west-east orientation) that are expectations based on analogy with the more standardised Christianity of the later medieval period. As these burial practices originate in a Late Iron Age context, recent theoretical approaches from the study of late prehistory also need to be applied. It is the emergence of cemeteries that is new in the mid-first millennium AD, and this distinction is still under-theorised. Recent theoretical models seek to understand the significance of place, and how these cemeteries are actively involved in creating that place rather than using a predefined ‘sacred’ place. By tracing their role in shaping and being shaped by their landscapes, before, during and after their use for burial, we can begin to speak more clearly about how we can use mortuary archaeology to study the changes of c. AD 400–600. It is argued that the ambiguity of these sites lies not with the burials themselves, but in our expectations of Christianity and paganism in the Late Iron Age.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document