Iron Age Britain (Archaeology)

Magnetic survey data presented as filled contour maps with a non-linear scale reveals the characteristic dipolar signal from iron smelting furnaces. High resolution data, from 10cm spaced surveys, can be modelled mathematically to recover the angles of inclination and declination, which can be used to estimate the last date of firing of a furnace.
The techniques are illustrated with maps of 4 furnaces from prehistoric and medieval sites in north Wales and the results are compared to conventional archaeomagnetic determinations. The potential use of these techniques to any burnt features, such as hearths or small ovens, is discussed.

""It has long been known that areas such as Cheshire, Lincolnshire and Essex were intensely exploited for salt in the Iron Age and Romano-British periods. Previous research has tended to focus on the eastern coast of Britain, with less attention being paid to other potential salt-producing areas. 

In previous studies in southern Britain, much emphasis has been placed on the distribution of salt and the ‘equipment’ used to produce and potentially transport salt - briquetage. Much less attention has been paid to the production process. 

This research project directly addresses this imbalance, by placing the emphasis on to the study of the production sites, and by creating and analysing a new dataset to contextualise sites using a holistic perspective.  The analysis of salt-production sites has redefined the archaeological terminology for salt production, and has critically evaluated how these sites have been incorporated into the archaeological record. 

The re-categorisation of the archaeological remains on a site by site basis has enabled the formation of a comprehensive dataset for the first time.  This has enabled a regional and chronological comparison of salt-production in southern Britain to be undertaken.

The  analysis has shown that despite problems of incorrect perceptions of salt production practices, inconsistent  recording and categorisation, and severe site damage by human and natural forces, it is possible, to inject concepts of ‘agency’ and ‘identity’ into these sites by exploring evidence of technological choice and use of space.

It was possible to identify distinctive ‘working areas’ containing features (hearths and brine tanks) where the main stages of salt-production were carried out.

New ‘Modes of Salt-Production’ have been created in order to compare different methods of organisation and ‘site management’ across time and space.  These modes enable a new approach about salt-production to be made set in the wider context of supply networks and specific consumer markets.   

This research has shown that there were significant regional and chronological variations in salt-production; with three main areas of activity identified in Somerset, Dorset and Kent.  The most significant chronological change was the substantial increase in salt-production during the 1st century A.D. followed by its decline in the 2nd century A.D in Kent and Dorset.  However, this was not the case in Somerset, where the dominant period of salt-production occurred between the 2nd and 4th centuries A.D. 

The identification of regional trends in the scale and organisation of production, as well as the rich diversity of sites, shows that producers adapted  to changes in the supply and consumption of salt over time.  Considerably more salt would have been required to supply the growing population in the 1st century A.D and this encouraged the creation of many new production sites.  However, the diversity in site character suggests that there was little tight control of coastal salt-production sites at that time.  It is argued that instead, focus was placed upon the exploitation of salt from inland brine springs in Cheshire and Worcestershire.  This is evidenced in the organisation, technology and creation of military supply bases close to these sites.

Instead, it is argued that the Roman invasion formalised and expanded existing supply networks from coastal salt-production sites, in addition to creating new inland networks.  This resulted in the creation of more formal ‘production and/or distribution centres.  It is also probable that the emergence of uniform salt-production sites in Somerset in the later Roman period, reflects that this area had become predominant for the supply of salt to major ‘consumer sites such as legionary fortresses and the larger towns.
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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.

This paper describes our 17th experiment (XP17), which was the first occasion on which a reasonable bloom was made. The smelt was of 7.5kg of moderately rich bog iron ore, in a low shaft furnace, resulting in a low carbon bloom of 1600g. Half the bloom was refined to a billet (642g), then to a flat bar (350g), part of which was forged to a knife. If the whole bloom had been refined, the total losses would have been more than half the original weight, resulting in three smithing hearth slags from each stage of the process. The data is used to make a preliminary calculation of the production from the sites at Bryn y Castell and Crawcwellt, where considerable numbers of smithing hearth bottoms were found.

This document presents the collated results of a three-year programme of excavation and post-excavation assessment at Ham Hill, Stoke-sub-Hamdon, Somerset by the Cambridge Archaeological Unit of the University of Cambridge and the Department of Archaeology at Cardiff University. An Update Project Design (UPD), issued in conjunction with this Post Excavation Assessment (PXA), provides an in-depth statement of potential and research programme.

Second report on excavations at Britain's largest hillfort. Excavations revealed a complex sequence of Iron Age rampart construction overlying features dated to the Neolithic, along with the interior and entrance to a large rectangular enclosure. Extensive middle and late Bronze Age field systems and structures were also examined.

Full excavation of this small hillfort produced remarkable evidence for ironworking, both smelting and refining, in the late Iron Age, with a second phase of activity in the 2nd/3rd century AD. At the time the 1200kg of slag was the largest quantity recovered from any early site in Britain. The chronology is based on radio-carbon dates and a suite of archaeomagnetic determinations

This report records the evaluation and excavation of one of several sites within the village of Sedgeford being studied by Sedgeford Historical and Archaeological Research Project (SHARP);It details the findings of evaluation test pitting and area excavations undertaken during the summer months of 1996 to 2000 at West Hall Paddock, Sedgeford, Norfolk (NGR: TF 707364).

Danebury is one of the more extensively excavated hillforts in Britain and the nearly 500 iron objects found are one of the largest assemblages from a single Iron Age site in Britain. Both currency bars and pieces of bulk iron, in the form of billets, were imported to the site. Fragments of cut currency bars show that they were being worked at Danebury. The possible sources of the different types of iron, and the objects made from them, are discussed in detail.

This is an interim report produced as part of the AHRC-funded, joint British Museum/University of Leicester 'Hoarding in Iron Age and Roman Britain' project. The idea was to use published, unpublished and HER data to conduct several specific county-based case studies. These were intended to 'get a feel' for the extent and quality of data available, with some (very) preliminary analysis of emerging patterns. They will be superseded in due course by more detailed, GIS-based analyses integrated with more detailed investigation of the hoard contents themselves.

This paper is intended to demonstrate the need for detailed studies of the everyday activities of women in prehistory and explore how these activities may have allowed women to accumulate power and influence of their own. This is a point that can likely be applied to all areas of prehistory however the focus of this paper specifically relates to Iron Age studies. This is a very broad subject area and it needs to be emphasised that the evidence presented is intended to demonstrate a lack in Iron Age studies in general, hence the use of the very broad term ‘Iron Age society’ which is not used in reference to any singular society, region or group. By drawing on studies of the western Apache and presenting several key points about the role of women in Apache society, a tentative hypothesis can be made about the possible roles held by women in Iron Age society. This is not to suggest that a direct parallel can be made between the two cultures, but rather to point out that there are forms of power and worth which may have been held by women in prehistory which have yet to be fully considered. Further to this the archaeological evidence from Iron Age Britain will be considered and its interpretation will hopefully be furthered.

Physical anthropogenic boundaries are archaeologically identifiable in Britain from the early Neolithic
onwards and rites associated with these features are often observed. It is possible to identify
common practises associating boundaries with agricultural productivity and social transition in
the Iron Age. For the societies performing these practises, the physical boundary is
subordinate to the social boundary it represents. The study of boundaries can provide valuable
insights into to the lives and relationships of the individuals and communities that created and
maintained them. Earthwork boundaries surrounding small agricultural settlements are
common in the Iron Age of lowland eastern Britain. Close study reveals that two settlements
are rarely alike and it is differences in boundary rites that often distinguish one from another.
By identifying the boundary rites at these settlements it should be possible to provide a greater
depth of understanding of Iron Age societies. Since commercial units excavate most of these
enclosures, it is on their methods and quality of interpretation that this understanding relies.
Sedentary communities are often seen as de-ritualised because they appear to have achieved a
functional, economically viable life-style (Brück 1999a, 323). The identification of boundary
rites at Iron Age enclosures may help to further reincorporate ritual with settled domesticity.

This report describes and summarises the results of a project undertaken on North and South Uist in 2012–13 by RCAHMS in partnership with the Comhairle nan Eilean Siar (Western Isles Council) archaeology service (CES). Brief accounts of this project have previously appeared in Discovery and Excavation in Scotland (2013, 205; 2014, 196). The project was undertaken with the primary aims of (a) revising the existing archaeological records for two areas of the Uists, bringing interpretations and descriptions up-to-date; (b) identifying and recording previously unidentified sites; and (c) to enhance the corpus of measured surveys for these areas of the Uists. The highlight of the results was the discovery of a chambered cairn at Hogha Gearraidh and of four prehistoric houses, including a wheelhouse, at Uisinis.

This book forms the basis of a research project seeking
to revaluate the role of the Atlantic cultural domain
in the history of European Protohistoric societies. Its
role is often underestimated as the Atlantic domain has
always been considered with prejudice as being on the
periphery, or even as being backward in relation to
other European cultural entities (cf World system model
applied to Protohistory). I intend to take on this revaluation
based on material witnesses left by the elite of
Atlantic Gaul during the Late Bronze Age and the Early
Iron Age. In this context, the elite can be defined as the
dominant social group, conscious of its distinction and
with an objective of maintaining its prevalence. The
choice of studying the vestiges left by the elite illustrates
the need to sample plethoric information and the results
of the recent development of preventive archaeology in
a coherent manner. Besides the elite being an echo of
important historical evolution, they also generated
easily identifiable vestiges, which are better documented
than others. For the considered timescale, the vestiges
are mainly metallic objects from non funerary deposits,
as tombs are rare and high status settlements have yet
to be excavated.
The geographical area of our investigation, Atlantic
Gaul imposes itself for several reasons: the cultures are in
a pivotal situation within the framework of the Atlantic
cultural domain and therefore represent the said domain
in its entirety; the material is abundant and easily accessible,
but often underexploited or even unpublished
The unavoidable prologue to this research is to establish
a precise relative and absolute chronology for the
metalwork, founded on a detailed knowledge of morphotypology.
This entails not only knowing and situating
the evolution of Atlantic productions within the given
timescale, but above all to define the dynamics of each
element present in non funerary metal deposits. Before
advancing any further, a fundamental preoccupation
for the historian and the archaeologist is to evaluate how
characteristic the corpus is and to identify any fluctuations
in the data such as hiatuses or important contractions,
which could lead to misinterpretation. Until now
the metal deposits of Atlantic Gaul dating to the Late
Bronze Age and the beginning of the Early Iron Age
have been considered as implicitly forming a continuous
chronological sequence with a gradual rise in the
number and the size of deposits. The typo-chronological
history of metal objects would therefore be globally represented as a whole with the evident discontinuities being
attributed to functional, technical, morphological or
stylistic changes. These supposed fluctuations have given
rise to interpretations involving profound socio-economic
mutations or foreign influences mainly from central
Europe. These theories, rarely formulated as such, have
never been really discussed. The objective of this book is
to refine and to redefine the chronology of metal productions
observed for several decades in order to propose a
more pertinent interregional chronology, by comparing
a new typo-chronological system with other Atlantic
sequences from Andalusia to Scotland.
As the current relative chronology of the Late Bronze
Age and Early Iron Age is founded on complex layers
of research built up from the beginning of the 1960s,
I have firstly retraced the steps of this research in order
to underline that contrary to assertions made in many papers, the chronological systems developed by English
and German academics does not concord perfectly with
the chronology initiated in France by Jacques Briard.
This misunderstanding is particularly evident for the
beginning of the Late Bronze Age.
In order to refine the typo-chronology, I subsequently
relied on the most widespread of metal productions
and also the most sensitive to evolution. These include
weapons, in particular swords and their chapes, but spear
shafts and spearheads have also provided quality material.
The relative chronology of these Atlantic deposits
can be divided into four stages, themselves divided into
eight horizons, six for the Late Bronze Age and two for
the beginning of the Early Iron Age.
The two horizons (Saint-Just-en-Chaussée and
Chailloué) of the “Bronze final atlantique 1” (BF1a)
are difficult to define as the hoards are not very diversified
and are not well known, especially those for the
earliest horizon. Their correlation with the chronology
of British (Appleby and Penard horizons) and Ibero-
Atlantic (Isla de Cheta and Covaleda horizons) hoards
is possible, however parallels are difficult to establish
precisely with continental metalwork horizons.
The following horizons (Rédéné and Boutigny)
dating from the “Bronze final atlantique 2” (BFa2)
are not as problematic as they have been defined using
a larger range of metalwork productions. They can be
compared to the typo-chronological horizons defined by
the Nettleham and Wilburton hoards of the British Isles,
by the Huerta de Arriba and San Andrés de Hío hoards
of West Iberia and the Hallstatt A2 and Hallstatt B1
periods of Central Europe.
The “Bronze final atlantique 3” (BFa 3) is novel as
even though the older horizon of Longueville is not well
known in Atlantic Gaul, the following Vénat horizon
seems overrepresented. The Longueville horizon could
have been seen as artificial, if it wasn’t so well documented
elsewhere in the Atlantic domain with the Broadward
and Baiões hoards, being the most representative examples
from the British Isles and the Atlantic Iberian Peninsula.
Contrary to this, the Vénat horizon doesn’t seem as well
represented on the Iberian Peninsula (Carvalhal horizon)
or in the British Isles (excepting the Watford horizon in
the South East). These horizons are equivalent to the
continental Hallstatt B2 and B3 periods.
The first stage of the “1er âge du Fer atlantique »
(1er Fer a. 1) suffers from poor documentation as hoards
are rare and much less diversified. Little is known of
the older Verberie horizon in comparison to the better
documented Brandivy horizon. In this situation it
becomes difficult to establish parallels with the British
Isles (Ebberston and Llyn Fawr horizons) and notably
with the Iberian Peninsula. The diffusion of atlantic
swords and chapes in continental Europe does however
facilitate correlation with the Hallstatt C0 (Wehringen
horizon) and the Hallstatt C1-2.
With reliable radiocarbon dates relating to metal
objects from Atlantic Gaul being rare and in the absence
of dendrodates, I had no choice but to refer to the absolute
chronology from other regions -the British Isles and
Central Europe- to position my relative chronology
within the given timescale. The BFa 1 can thus be
approximately positioned between 1275 and 1125, the
BFa 2 between 1125 and 950, the BFa 3 between 950
and 800, the 1er Fer a. 1 between 800 and 625 BC.
In the light of this research, I undertook firstly to
map the metal hoards and then to statistically analyse
the documentation within this new chronological
framework. This entailed bringing together dispersed
documentation on metal hoards (comprising of at least
two objects, from a non funerary land context) documented
in Gaul since the 17th century. The 355 hoards
have provided 18779 elements, of which just over half
are preserved or illustrated.
We must of course take into consideration that the
metal hoards found in non-watery locations provide
only part of the evolutionary record of objects, not only
from one region to another but also on the scale of all of
Atlantic Gaul. The most significant hiatus corresponds to
the early BFa 3 (Longueville horizon) and to the early
1er Fer a. 1 (Verberie horizon). The early BFa 1 (Saint-
Just-en-Chaussée horizon) also indicates a contraction
in the documentation. The emphasis of these “phantom”
horizons in Gaul is based on the evolution of metal objects
in the Atlantic domain as a whole and would have been
impossible to define using only a quantitative approach
and the much used method of serializing coherent object
groups. These results highlight the desynchronization
of the process of how Atlantic hoards are constituted: a
chronological horizon extensively documented in Atlantic
Gaul can be rarely attested or even non-existent elsewhere
and vice-versa. The origin of the pulsations in the practise
of hoarding remains however a real problem that is not
down to just one simple cause or hypothesis.
To conclude, only observations on an international
scale can deliver the key to the chronology of the
Late Bronze Age and the beginning of the Early Iron
Age in the Atlantic domain and highlight the typochronological
horizons for which Atlantic Gaul has not
yet supplied sufficient metal hoards. It is essential to
take into consideration all of these aspects within the
perspective of a greater understanding of the dynamics
of how Atlantic elite material cultures were developed
and what they can cover from a historical aspect.

This project follows a rationale of inquiry based geophysics for implementing new prospective methods based on developing trends in research. Upland sites, especially hillforts, are the hallmark of the Iron Age, but their remote locations and difficult conditions have curtailed extensive excavation in the recent past. By understanding potential targets and their value to research agendas archaeogeophysics has the potential to rapidly develop the understanding of prehistoric enclosures and habitation patterns. Electromagnetic induction (EMI) devices are ideal for survey in upland environments as they do not rely on probes or contact with soil. This study compares the outputs of surveys carried out with an EMI device, the CMD Mini-Explorer, against a dual fluxgate gradiometer. Topsoil susceptibility measured with a coincidental loop is also compared.

Following Wheeler’s excavations at Maiden Castle, the multivallate hillforts of Wessex came to be seen as
responses to a specific form of warfare based around the massed use of slings. As part of the wider post-processual
‘rethink’ of the British Iron Age during the late 1980s and 1990s, this traditional ‘military’ interpretation of
hillforts was increasingly subject to criticism. Apparent weaknesses in hillfort design were identified and many of
the most distinctive features of these sites (depth of enclosure, complexity of entrance arrangements, etc) were
reinterpreted as symbols of social isolation. Yet this ‘pacification’ of hillforts is in many ways as unsatisfactory as
the traditional vision. Both camps have tended to view warfare as a detached, functional, and disembedded
activity which can be analysed in terms of essentially timeless concepts of military efficiency. Consideration of the
use of analogous structures in the ethnographic record suggests that, far from being mutually exclusive, the
military and symbolic dimensions are both essential to a more nuanced understanding of the wider social role of
hillforts in Britain and beyond.

This volume presents the results from the excavation and scientific analysis between 2005 and 2014 of seventeen Iron Age cauldrons discovered in a large pit on farmland in the parish of Chiseldon, Wiltshire, and consequently acquired by the British Museum.

For at least three hundred years the linear earthwork now known as the Bedwyn Dyke was held to be a part of the Wansdyke system. It was not until 1960 that the Wansdyke was finally established by Fox and Fox as terminating at New Buildings to the west of Savernake Forest. From this point forward the nature of the Bedwyn Dyke was divorced from studies relating the Wansdyke. Since this time the Bedwyn Dyke has been mentioned only in relation to the study of other features in the area and no critical reassessment has been carried out. This paper charts the historiography of the east end of Wansdyke to examine how the concept of an extended Wansdyke frontier became established and was perpetuated for so long.

Later Prehistoric Settlement in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly reports on the excavation between 1996 and 2014 of five later prehistoric and Roman period settlements. Three of the mainland sites – Killigrew, Nancemere and Higher Besore – are located in central Cornwall, near Truro, with the fourth, at Porthleven, situated on the south coast in west Cornwall. The fifth settlement, Porth Killier, is on the island of St Agnes on the Isles of Scilly. All the sites were multi-phased, revealing both similar and contrasting patterns of occupation stretching from the Bronze Age into the Iron Age and beyond. Despite having broadly comparable chronological sequences, there are considerable differences in both the tempo and intensity of occupation, and significant contrasts in practices associated with them. Significantly, all four mainland sequences culminate with an enclosed settlement in the Late Iron Age and especially during the Roman period, a time of significant economic and social change following the conquest. During this period there continued to be differences in the character of occupation. Notably two of the enclosures seem to have been strongly associated with industrial activities, including metalworking at Killigrew, suggesting that the working of iron may have been a controlled or ritualized activity undertaken within a dedicated space. The volume presents the results from each of the five settlement sites, before reviewing the key themes which have emerged from the investigations.

Concerning weight-stones of the Late Hallstatt and La Tène Periods
Metrological weights of the Late Hallstatt and the Early La Tène Period are hardly known up to now. Concerning the emergence of the Late La Tène monetary system and the connected metrology no precursors have hitherto been proven. In this paper stone objects with iron lugs, especially from the periods HaD3 and LT A, are discussed as potential balance-weights. Because of their size and mass, they could be termed pound- or mina-weights, not fine weights. This identification is supported by formal analogies with weights with lugs from the Late Bronze Age of Central Europe and Italy and with Iron Age weights with iron lugs from Italy, Spain and England. A clear clue is provided by the Late La Tène hoard from the oppidum Pohanská near Plavecké Podhradie in Moravia, where beside numerous iron tools there were also found the balance-beam of a steelyard together with such a stone weight with iron lug. The equipoised balances with markings on the beam from Hochdorf and Satricum demonstrate that the development of the principle of the steelyard with sliding weight had already begun in the 6th / 5th century B.C. Possibly the lugged weights were employed in iron trading. A definite proof for the use of Late Hallstatt and Early La Tène lugged weights as metrological weights is for the time being still pending.

This paper examines the various hoards belonging to
the Llyn Fawr phase of the British Bronze Age – for
which other scholars now prefer the term Earliest Iron
Age (e.g. Cunliffe 2005; Needham this volume) – and
provides an up-to-date list of relevant finds (Appendix
1). It will then consider the significance of the axes,
swords and razors belonging this phase, and review the
dating – 800 to around 600 BC – with reference to the
latest chronology for Hallstatt C on the Continent.
Finally, the implications of the disappearance of certain
bronze types during the Llyn Fawr phase for the adoption
of iron are briefly discussed.

Interim report on two seasons of fieldwork carried out by The Village Atlas Group of Till Valley Archaeological Society (TillVAS) with the assistance of The Archaeological Practice Ltd, Newcastle upon Tyne in order to investigate a site at Mardon Hill where an enclosure  and related features were known from crop-marks visible on aerial photographs. Full analysis of the results of excavations is ongoing and will not be completed before a final phase of excavation proposed for 2019, but the first two seasons have provided evidence for domestic occupation in roundhouses and a mixed agricultural regime managed from a defensible enclosure, with activities such as sheep and cattle husbandry, grain cultivation and milling, wool processing and pottery-making. Within the enclosure, round house structures appear to abut, but remain distinct from, a main sunken stock yard partially infilled with rubble, with other smaller stock enclosures and other segregated activity areas also apparent, or suggested. Two small raised stone platforms lying outside the sunken yards may be the remains of occupation floors or perform other functions, such as working surfaces, stack stands or threshing floors, while the function of two series of post-holes remains unknown pending a full plan of their extent and dating evidence from their fills. External to the enclosure ditch to east and west are clusters of other features, those on the east shown by investigation in 2018 to comprise linear and curvilinear ditches which appear to have performed agricultural rather than settlement-related function, although this remains uncertain.

The number of questions originally posed in relation to the origins, function and phasing of the site has increased with the results of the first two seasons of work, although some will be answered by the results of Radiocarbon dating anticipated in early 2019. The final phase of work anticipated in 2019 will explore the agglomeration of features visible as crop marks west of the ditched enclosure as well as attempting to clarify issues concerning the varied distribution of activities within the enclosure.

Written for the jubliee volume of Cornish Archaeology the paper provides a survey and overview of advances in research and new discoveries in Iron Age and Romano-British settlement archaeology since 1986. The distinctive character and personality of settlement and landscape of this far south-western coastal peninsula of Britain is highlighted.

This final volume of my PhD thesis (Appendix G) is the Gazetteer, divided up into a few Iron Age and Romano-British sites from North Yorkshire; but with the majority from West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire. Many of these sites have never been published before; and are so-called 'grey literature' - the client or archive reports produced by commercial archaeological units and held in the relevant Historic Environment Records office for each county. In a few instances not even reports exist, just archive records.

This paper discusses iron production in the Iron Age and Roman periods and the Middle Ages, the main expansion based on water power which brought the Weald to national significance in the 16th and 17th centuries, and the secondary working of iron by Surrey mills in the Thames basin into the early 19th century. Finally it suggests priorities for future research.

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Burial of horses and horse-elements occurred throughout Europe during the first millennium AD. These burials are prevalent in northwest Europe and are perhaps more significant in Britain than previously realised. This article explores the position and value of the horse within Britain during this period, why the burials are likely to represent ritual deposition and what they may indicate about the culture. Both horse deposits and human-horse burials are linked to non-Christian burial and sacrificial practices of the Iron Age and Early Medieval period and are particularly associated with Anglo-Saxon and Viking Britain. Some of the traditions appear to reflect the culture described in the Icelandic Sagas, Beowulf and other legends and chronicles. Archaeologically, the human-horse burials are also linked with high status individuals and ‘warrior graves,’ while complete-horse and horse-element burials may represent ritual feasting and sacrificial rites probably linked with fertility, luck and the ancestors.

Iron Age tankards are stave-built wooden vessels completely covered or bound in copper-alloy sheet. The
distinctive copper-alloy handles of these vessels frequently display intricate ‘Celtic’ or La Tène art styles. They
are characterised by their often highly original designs, complex manufacturing processes, and variety of find
contexts. No systematic analysis of this artefact class has been undertaken since Corcoran’s (1952a) original
study was published in Volume 18 of these Proceedings. New evidence from the Portable Antiquities Scheme for
England and Wales and recent excavations have more than quadrupled the number of known examples
(139 currently). It is therefore necessary and timely to re-examine tankards, and to reintegrate them into current
debates surrounding material culture in later prehistory. Tankards originate in the later Iron Age and their use
continued throughout much of the Roman period. As such, their design was subject to varying influences over
time, both social and aesthetic. Their often highly individual form and decoration is testament to this fact and
has created challenges in developing a workable typology (Corcoran 1952a; 1952b; 1957; Spratling 1972;
Jackson 1990). A full examination of the decoration, construction, wear and repair, dating, and deposition
contexts will allow for a reassessment of the role of tankards within the social and cultural milieu of later
prehistoric and early Roman Britain.

The aim of this thesis is to examine archaeological and documentary evidence of South Wales during the Iron Age and Roman periods with the intention of better understanding the settlement, economic and socio-political structures of the Silures before and during the Roman occupation of the area.  In the first part, a study of Iron Age defended enclosures with regard to shape, defences, settlement location and internal size indicates an overall settlement structure of multiple independent groupings situated throughout South Wales.  Through the consideration of the roles of hillforts within economic, social and political interaction, these individual groupings most likely indicate a hierarchical system of decentralised clans acting independently of one another, but under a single, shared cultural identity.  The second part of this thesis analyses the impact of the Roman conquest of South Wales and the extent to which the native population was transformed by the Roman military and civil establishments.  The Roman military strategy of conquest and control over South Wales proves further the decentralised political structure of the Silures in the Iron Age.  Roman and Romano-British settlement patterns indicate a changing lifestyle influenced by the Roman occupation with a native population choosing at what degree to embrace the new culture.  Evidence suggests this change was immediate providing a new Roman way of life yet keeping much from the previous Iron Age existence.