The Archaeology of Britain: An introduction from ... - waughfamily.ca

• 114 • Colin Haselgrove
votive finds from east-flowing rivers
like the Thames and Witham, or
come from hoards of late date. Even
small items like brooches (Figure
7.1) —useful for dating due to their
affinities with the continental
Hallstatt and La Tène cultures—do
not become common until the very
end of the period. By default,
pottery generally forms the basis of
settlement chronology, but outside
southern and eastern England and
the Scottish islands, it, too, is scarce
and shows little typological change
over several centuries. Its place was
presumably taken by organic
Figure 7.1 Selected Iron Age brooch types: 1. Early La Tène; 2. Involuted: containers which survive only in
3. Penannular; 4. Nauheim; 5. Boss-on-bow; 6. Aucissa.
exceptional conditions. Because of
soil acidity, sizeable assemblages of
animal bone are similarly missing from sites in northern and western Britain. A further contrast
with the south and east is the near-total absence of grain storage pits, common in chalk and
limestone areas, where they form a major source of artefactual and environmental data.
Based on changes in decorated pottery styles, the Iron Age to the south and east of a line
drawn from the Bristol Channel to the Humber is often sub-divided into three phases: Early
(c.800/700–300 BC), Middle (c.300–100 BC) and Late (c.100 BC-AD 43/84). To the north and
west, the period is difficult to divide into meaningful phases, except at purely local levels. It is
sufficient here to distinguish between an Earlier Iron Age, lasting until the fourth century BC,
which shares many attributes with the Later Bronze Age, and a Later Iron Age, starting c.300 BC,
when insular societies entered a new period of transition. This reached its climax in the first
century AD, after Julius Caesar’s conquest of northern France and invasions of Britain had
brought the south into direct contact with the Roman world.
THE RECENT DEVELOPMENT OF IRON AGE STUDIES
Until the 1960s, perceptions of the period were shaped by Fox’s (1932) classic division of Britain
into Highland and Lowland zones. With its poorer soils and climate, the Highland zone was
thought to have been sparsely occupied by pastoralists, in contrast to the Lowland zone which
was densely populated by mixed farmers. This latter region, nearer the Continent, was also seen
as relatively open to externally induced cultural change, unlike the conservative Highland zone
where innovations were taken up at best gradually. This emphasis on continental influence accorded
with Caesar’s mention of Belgic immigrants from northern France, whom archaeologists like
Hawkes (1960) saw as responsible for introducing coinage, cremation and wheel-made pottery in
the first century BC (during Hawkes’ Iron Age C). Earlier invaders were similarly credited with
the introduction of iron and of hillforts (Iron Age A), and with the subsequent imposition of
continental Early La Tène culture in certain regions (Iron Age B).
In the 1960s, this model was challenged as intellectual fashions changed. In a seminal study,
Hodson (1964) argued that few of the supposed invasions were represented by clear-cut