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

The Iron Age
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and the Welsh Marches, where
resources would have come under
pressure sooner than in predominantly
lowland regions. The
adoption of iron technology may
also have been disruptive,
undermining the position of the
elites who dominated Later Bronze
Age society through control of longdistance
exchange. In such
conditions, larger communities
coalesced and competed for the best
agricultural land. The territorial
control needed to support such
communities itself became a
significant means of achieving status
and power. Given the regional
differences in hillfort construction,
it is, however, clear that no single
explanation suffices and that diverse local factors were important.
Figure 7.11 Inscribed Iron Age coins: A. gold stater of Tasciovanus. The
helmeted horseman on the reverse is brandishing a war trumpet; B. brass coin
of Cunobelinus. Beneath the boar on the reverse is the name of his father,
Tasciovanus, clearly inscribed; C. bronze coin of Cunobelinus, depicting a boat
on the obverse and a winged Victory on the reverse.
From c.400 BC, the climate started to improve, and by the end of the Iron Age was probably
similar to today. This must have been significant for the agricultural changes of the Later Iron
Age, when many parts of Britain saw widespread expansion of settlement onto heavier, damper
soils at the expense of forest and marginal land (Haselgrove 1989). Agricultural intensification is
attested by greater use of manuring and crop rotation to maintain soil fertility; ditches for drainage;
and by the switch to cereal crops suitable for heavier soils. The dramatic increase in the number
of Later Iron Age settlements almost certainly indicates a rising population, although whether as
a cause or a consequence of agricultural developments is unclear.
In Wessex, the developed hillforts exerted ever greater dominance over their surrounding
territories. Elsewhere, widespread forest clearance and colonization of marginal environments
suggest demographic pressure, for which other signs include episodes of hillfort construction in
Essex and the Welsh Marches and increased settlement aggregation in eastern England. These
pressures were gradually alleviated by rising agricultural production. In many cases, the colonization
of new land was accompanied by the laying out of extensive field systems, like the brickwork
fields of Nottinghamshire and South Yorkshire (although their dating is contentious) and the coaxial
field systems of East Anglia, or by a large-scale landscape reorganization, as in the Trent
Valley.
This expansion into thinly settled areas can be linked with increasing specialization of
production, seen in the first large-scale exploitation of iron resources in the Weald, the East
Midlands and the Vale of York, and in the growth of textile production, glass and shale-working
and pottery manufacture in marginal areas like the Somerset Levels and the Isle of Purbeck
(Dorset). By the end of the Iron Age, many of these had become full-time specialist enterprises.
Settlers in these agriculturally unpromising environments may have developed products for
exchange to offset this disadvantage. Another possibility is that such activities were deliberately
peripherally located because the external contacts they encouraged were regarded as a threat to
the social order (Sharples 1991). Such groups frequently appear more innovative than others,
possibly because they lacked the deep-rooted social relationships that characterized alreadypopulous
areas.