Iron Age Britain (Archaeology)

Draft final completed section of the South Yorkshire Archaeological Research Framework on behalf of Historic England and the South Yorkshire Archaeology Service. The final published version will be in the form of an interactive website hosted by Historic England that will feature all of the regional archaeological resource assessments and research frameworks, which should be going online in 2020. I would like to thank Andrew Lines, Jim McNeil, Zac Nellist, and Dinah Saich of the South Yorkshire Archaeology Service; for approaching me to see if I would be interested in producing this document. The comments made during and after the day workshop on the Iron Age and Roman periods by the many colleagues who attended were extremely useful, and where possible have been incorporated within this document.

In the summer of 2002 a ‘rescue’ excavation took place at Westwood, University of Warwick, after a significant late Iron Age occupation site was discovered during ground reduction for a new all-weather football pitch.

The remains of 14 roundhouses were uncovered, their spatial arrangement signifying at least two phases of occupation. The excavation produced a reasonable quantity of well-preserved pottery and animal bone, its occurrence suggesting ‘structured’ deposition (i.e. deliberately-placed with ritual nuance). A crucible found at the site has since been the subject of independent study, revealing the first evidence for late Iron Age silver-working in the Midlands. Following wide media coverage, the discoveries attracted the attention of scholars and public alike.

The excavation work was carried out for the University of Warwick (the Developer) by the university’s Centre for Life Long Learning, under the direction of Stephen Hill PhD, FSA.  It followed on from a pre-determinative evaluation and a watching brief, in accordance with advice from the archaeological planning advisor for the Local Planning Authority (Coventry City Council).

Somewhat astonishingly, the post-excavation programme of this major discovery managed to slip through the planning net. In the subsequent grant of planning consent (2003), the local planning authority placed no requirement on the developer to undertake analysis and publication of the results.

At some time after the excavation the physical archive and the documentary archive became separated and entered different repositories; the documentary archive having become much depleted. This report, prepared in 2018, presents a quantification of the surviving archive and an assessment of its research potential. An addendum has been added in 2019 which clarifies the decision of the local planning authority, the position of the developer, and the likely reason for the termination of post-excavation research.

The deposition of objects into water contexts is a custom that has permeated human tradition since prehistoric times and, in some form or another, is still being practiced today. The modern practice of dropping a coin in a fountain or well is just as much a water deposition practice as those that occurred in ancient times. Much like the nature of water itself, the deposition tradition is in a “process of transformation [that] never ceases: Water is always undergoing change, movement and progress” (Strang 2005:98). It is hypothesized that any long-standing traditional practice, not only European deposition, undergoes similar renovation and re-vitalization. Traditions are altered to suit the needs of each generation that inherits them. These subconscious but key changes are integral to the advancement of human culture and knowledge. Across prehistoric Europe, the deposition tradition was by no means annual or endemic, yet it was still an important aspect of the lives of the people.

Most of the research on water depositions in prehistoric Europe uses the term ‘wet’ or ‘water’ deposit. This terminology limits our understanding of the phenomenon by conglomerating the different contexts of rivers, lochs, bogs, wells, springs, etc. Thankfully, divisions within the term ‘water context’ are being re-analyzed for the better, and researchers of this topic are separating the distinctive types of waterscapes and attempting to identify patterns within these contexts in terms of the types of objects that
were placed into them (Bourke 1996; Yates and Bradley 2010).

Gwilt A, Lodwick M, Deacon J, Wells N, Madgwick R, Young T 2016. Ephemeral Abundance at Llanmaes: Exploring the residues and resonances of an Earliest Iron Age midden and its associated archaeological context in the Vale of Glamorgan. In J Koch, B Cunliffe (eds.) Celtic from the West 3. pp. 277-303, Oxbow.

Loomweights are considered to be the best indicator of textile production at a site. When large numbers of weights are reported, this is mainly assumed to indicate surplus production beyond self-sufficiency, and the site develops the moniker ‘textile production center’. The typical loomweights of Iron Age Britain range in shape but are generally pyramidal, triangular, and sub-rectangular. However, other parameters of loomweights can yield new insights into the textile production sequence. Namely, their large mass which contrasts with loomweiaghts of other regions and similar time periods. The average mass of Mediterranean Bronze Age loomweights range between 300-400g, whereas those in Iron Age Britain average around 2000g, raising interesting questions as to their function.

Despite the general notion that textiles were important facets of past societies, useful for keeping people warm to exhibiting social identities, and despite the fact that scholarship on prehistoric textile production is having a renaissance, there is still much to learn. Experimental archaeology can be used to engage with the chaîne opératoire of a technical process, enriching our ability to conceive of ways to interpret craft production from the past. Using this methodology, we can construct hypotheses and experimental parameters which aid us as we investigate the archaeological record and interpret past social attitudes and behaviours. With this methodology, we have the power to debunk past assumptions about textile production and to develop new knowledge, particularly in Iron Age Britain where there archaeological record is sparse. Without textual accounts or iconography in lieu of textile remains, archaeologists are left with very little in which to characterize textile production.

This essay argues that archaeology is a convenient tool for providing nationalist movements with role models who were also allegedly ancestors, accordingly providing the sanction of antiquity and a guide to ethnic self-and group-conceptualisation.

This article compares later Bronze Age hoards that contain objects from multiple periods with those from the Iron Age. It is demonstrated that the practice of actively collecting ancient objects is specifically Iron Age, and not shown clearly by the later Bronze Age hoard evidence. This pattern is then linked to the ethnographic record, where ancient objects are commonly thought to be closely associated with powerful supernatural human-like beings that are either feared or venerated. Foreign exotica and objects displaying intricate craftsmanship are often considered in a similar manner as ancient objects are they are also only producible outside of the current cultural context. These types of exotic objects are also attested more in the Iron Age compared to the later Bronze Age. This suggests that supernatural objects were socially employed in a different way during the Iron Age compared to the later Bronze Age.

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Between August and September 2011 Kent Archaeological Projects maintained an archaeological watching brief during ground works associated with the installation of a new 3.9km-long main water pipeline in the parish of Stockbury, approximately 8km northeast of Maidstone, Kent (Fig. 1). The watching brief and subsequent archaeological works were commission by South East Water following the production of a desk-based assessment and walkover survey report (Barrett 2011). Readers are referred to this report and Part 3.2 below for a detailed description of the archaeological and historical background of the area.
Following the assessment and walkover survey, the route, which extended westward from the A249 across mostly open farmland, was judged to be of generally low archaeological potential, probably because of the limited amount of development-related excavation that has taken place in this predominantly agricultural area. This resulted in few archaeological remains having been exposed, confirming in this case the archaeological maxim ‘absence of evidence is not evidence of absence’.
During the monitoring process, sparsely scattered remains dating to the Mid-to-Late Iron Age, the Roman Period and the Late Medieval and Post Medieval Periods were exposed and investigated along the length of the pipeline route, these including Iron Age rubbish pits and ditches, a much disturbed cluster of Roman-period urned burials, a Late Iron Age/Early Roman period trackway and Second World War trenches associated with a nearby pillbox. Several of the pits and ditches exposed and investigated contained no cultural materials and could not be dated. Many of the archaeological features mentioned above are fairly typical of upland rural East Kent sites and are not considered to be of high archaeological significance. In contrast was the exposure of two groups of Late Iron Age iron smelting furnaces on the mostly Clay-with-Flint surface of the chalk downland that characterises the Stockbury area. One of the works consisted of three smelting furnaces built in shallow, severely truncated pits, with another nearby example consisting of a deeper, better preserved single pit containing two claybuilt iron-smelting furnaces, both with the form of an inverted chimney pot. The second group was much larger, well preserved and multiphase and consisted of four intercutting sunken-floored structures, along with several smaller extensions, the complex as a whole containing at least thirteen furnaces. As in the case of the smaller group, the furnaces were clay-built and shaped like inverted chimney pots. Groups of large pits, interpreted as iron-ore quarries, were located near the two sets of furnaces, in what was almost certainly a thickly wooded area that provided the required fuel in the form of charcoal.
Potsherds associated with the remains dated the larger of the works to between c. 50 BC and c. AD 25 and the smaller to between c. 0 and c. AD 50, although the overlap period for the pottery dating and the many similarities between the two sets of furnaces suggested broad contemporaneity. It was therefore concluded that the same group of people produced iron in the area using locally occurring iron ore and fuel for a hundred years or more. The remains of the iron-smelting works were considered to be of high archaeological significance for three reasons. Firstly, the furnaces and associated materials, such as iron slag, iron ore, bloom fragments and hammerscale, were often exceptionally well preserved in situ. This, along with the many nearby quarry pits, meant that the technology of which they were part could be reconstructed in some detail. Secondly, they provided proof for a previously unknown centre of prehistoric iron production within an area that is relatively distant from, but geologically similar to, the Weald of West Kent and East Sussex (well-known for its predominantly Roman period iron industry). Thirdly, the remains provided evidence for a previously unknown intermediary or evolutionary link between Iron Age slag-pit furnaces and subsequent Roman-period tapping technology in Britain (see Appendix I for a detailed and comprehensive technical discussion of this subject).
Also considered of high archaeological significance was the evidence for the demise of the iron smelting industry sometime around the Roman conquest (AD 43) or a few decades after, along with an increase in Roman-period settlement and occupation activity, probably associated with agriculture. This may suggest that the Iron Age industry was suppressed in favour of, or was eclipsed by the expanding Wealden industry during the Early Roman period. However, the simplest and most likely explanation is that the supply of iron ore in the Stockbury area was depleted after a century or so of intensive exploitation.
Following on-site discussions with representatives from South East Water, the County Heritage Conservation Group, English Heritage and Kent Archaeological Projects it was decided that the Late Iron Age furnaces, which had been partly excavated, sampled and recorded, were of local, regional and national importance and that their unexcavated remains should be preserved in situ. It was also agreed that the large amount of sampled industrial waste from the smelting work should be subject to specialist analysis and a detailed technical report.

During archaeological monitoring near Stockbury by Kent Archaeological Projects, two Late Iron Age smelting sites were discovered (Site Code: STK SMS 11). Approximately 256 kg of technological debris and 26 soil samples were sampled from the sites. The morphological and chemical analysis of this material has revealed several points of interest. The very similar furnace and slag remains found at both sites suggest that the same technology was employed and that similar natural resources were exploited. It is possible that the same group of people were responsible for iron smelting at both sites. Analysis of bloom fragments showed that pure iron of low carbon content was produced. Evidence was also found for smithing and it is likely that blooms were refined and turned into billets on site. The chemical composition of the slags was almost identical to the sites in the Kent Tertiary Sands group as discussed in Paynter 2006. As these are close to Stockbury and share a similar geology it supports Paynter's findings that smelting sites found in the same geological areas share similar chemical compositions due to the exploitation of similar natural resources. It is argued that the remains found at Stockbury are evidence for an intermediary or evolutionary link between Iron Age slag-pit furnaces and Roman tapping technology in
Britain.

In 1892 quarry workers at Mountsorrel, Leicestershire uncovered a well containing animal bones, Romano-British ceramics and a metal plated
wooden bucket (Fig. 1). Despite the less than favourable circumstances surrounding its discovery, the bucket was promptly published and
described in some detail (von Hugel 1894). In contrast to the famed Aylesford bucket, discovered only six years prior (Evans 1890), the Mountsorrel example received limited attention. The only substantial
discussion of it, apart from von Hugel’s, was C.F.C. Hawkes (1951). He described it as a “treasure” whose “barbaric symbol-portrait has outlasted its measure of Romanization” (ibid., 197). In this respect Hawkes was right. In the 70 years since Hawkes wrote those words, and the Mountsorrel bucket was last examined in any detail, the dataset within which we can contextualise this object has grown substantially.

This paper examines the evidence for La Tène anthropomorphic artwork in the pre-Roman British Iron Age. The available
dataset for such objects displays a marked contrast, with only a handful of examples known for the period preceding
the later 2 nd century BC, and a comparative abundance for the final two centuries before the Roman conquest. Although
various influences may have contributed to this pattern, it is likely that this pattern is the result of changing self-percep-
tions among Iron Age populations in Britain. Such changes are known from elsewhere in the ethnographic literature,
and such accounts may serve as a guide to interpreting the changing pattern for La Tène anthropomorphic art in Britain

A Level 3 analytical earthwork survey at Rampier Copse, Silchester, Hampshire was undertaken by Historic England as part of the Silchester Environs Project in late 2017 and early 2018. The survey covered an area of approximately 14ha immediately outside the south-west corner of the Roman town of Calleva Atrebatum. The earliest recorded feature was a sub-circular enclosure, or small hillfort, of presumed mid to late Iron Age date, abutted by a linear earthwork of presumed late Iron Age date. Elements of the enclosure are massively enhanced and are incorporated into the outer earthwork surrounding the late Iron Age oppidum. Part of the oppidum’s inner earthwork, Roman roads, and quarrying, woodland banks and boundaries of presumed postmedieval date were also recorded.