THE COMPOSITION OF IRON AGE STRUCK 'BRONZE'COINAGE IN EASTERN ENGLAND

EDXRF was used to analyse the composition of 88 Iron Age copper and copper alloy coins excavated from the site of a pre-Roman shrine and Roman temple at Harlow, Essex. Most of the coins are local to the Essex-Hertfordshire region, with a few of Kentish origin. The earliest struck base metal issues were struck from almost pure copper, but from the late first century BC, their composition shows more variety. Particularly interesting are a group of types belonging to the Romanizing phase of Tasciovanus'coinage, which were struck in brass and possibly represent a distinct denomination. Roman coinage and other metalwork imports from the Roman world presumably provided the initial impetus, and the ultimate source of the brass. However, this experiment was relatively short lived. Cunobelinus, who ruled eastern England during the earlier first century AD, mainly employed bronze to strike his abundant base metal coinage. The products of his Colchester mint reveal a consistently different composition from those struck at his unlocated second mint in the Hertfordshire area, although the precise alloy does vary, sometimes within the same type. This suggests that unlike gold and silver issues, the source and purity of the metal used for minting base metal coinage was not always critical.     

USING AND ABANDONING ROUNDHOUSES: A REINTERPRETATION OF THE EVIDENCE FROM LATE BRONZE AGE–EARLY IRON AGE SOUTHERN ENGLAND

Summary.   It has recently been demonstrated that a number of roundhouses of the early first millennium BC in southern England show a concentration of finds in the southern half of the building. It has thus been argued that this area was used for domestic activities such as food preparation, an idea which has formed the basis for discussion of later prehistoric 'cosmologies'. However, reconsideration of the evidence suggests that this finds patterning does not relate to the everyday use of the buildings, being more likely to derive from a particular set of house abandonment practices. Furthermore, evidence can be identified for the location of domestic activities within contemporary roundhouses that appears to contradict the established model.     

THE IRON AGE URNFIELD TRADITION OF SOUTHWESTERN JUTLAND,DENMARK

This study examines two urnfields, their development, burial rituals, grave goods and the cremated remains in a renewed analysis of the Danish Urnfield Tradition. The osteological investigation reveals a very high proportion of children's graves in these communal burial sites. Individual expression and demonstration of status are muted in burial rituals adhering to strict norms, although differences between age categories show through variations in the size of a burial monument. The use of CT scans and a detailed analysis of all artefacts provide evidence of the ritualized breaking of urns and the retrieval of bones from graves. Such retrieval of bones together with the layout and development of urnfields demonstrate the importance placed on the ancestors in the Early Pre-Roman Iron Age. The inconspicuous burials, together with the incorporation of all age categories, suggest that the focus of these burial communities is on a relational rather than individual identity.     

GONE, BUT STILL RESPECTED: SOME EVIDENCE FOR IRON AGE HOUSE PLATFORMS IN LOWLAND ENGLAND

Summary. This paper considers the apparent absence of house or settlement platforms in Iron Age lowland England. It demands that lowland sites be interpreted using criteria derived from suitable (lowland) contexts. The dangers of using upland-derived explanatory models are illustrated with selected examples. The Cat's Water subsite, Fengate, Peterborough provides examples of probable house-platforms, protected from plough-damage by alluvium; these, in turn, are used to provide criteria to recognise similar features on poorly preserved sites. Comparisons are drawn with recently excavated sites in the Netherlands. The paper concludes with some general observations on the nature of once-wet sites and the dangers inherent in their interpretation.     

BRONZE AGE BARROWS ON THE HEATHLANDS OF SOUTHERN ENGLAND: CONSTRUCTION, FORMS AND INTERPRETATIONS

The Bronze Age barrows on the downs of southern England have been investigated and discussed for nearly 200 years, but much less attention has been paid to similar structures in the areas of heathland beyond the chalk and river gravels. They were built in a phase of expansion towards the end of the Early Bronze Age, and more were constructed during the Middle Bronze Age. They have a number of distinctive characteristics. This paper considers the interpretation of these monuments and their wider significance in relation to the pattern of settlement. It also discusses the origins of field systems in lowland England.     

BODIES,BURIALS AND AGEING: ACCESSING THE TEMPORALITY OF OLD AGE IN PREHISTORIC SOCIETIES

There has been little attempt within archaeology to understand the social meanings specifically attached to old age, or the implications of the social construction of old age for the reconstruction of prehistoric social formations. This stems partly from the low social value placed upon the elderly in modern societies, which makes us tend to view them as irrelevant, and partly from the difficulty of accurately ageing the skeletons of older individuals, which can make them appear invisible in the archaeological record. A case study from the Traisental of Lower Austria is used to illustrate how the changing meanings of old age are recoverable from archaeological cemetery assemblages. Analysis of material culture patterning is combined with assessment of different forms of bodily degeneration to identify changes over time in the way that old age was socially recognized and the possibility that different kinds of bodily infirmity had very different social implications.     

NORTH AND SOUTH AT THE END OF THE MYCENAEAN AGE: ASPECTS OF AN OLD PROBLEM

Summary. The end of the Mycenaean age calls for an explanation outside the immediate Aegean area. The evidence is more likely to come from changes in habit than in the importation of objects of bronze or pottery. In order to understand events it is necessary to look beyond Greek frontiers to the Danube and Balkans. Among important changes are those in fighting tactics with a return to the sword in the Aegean and new workshop practice in Europe with more bronze forging against casting. Evidence for actual arrival of people is never likely to be conclusive; various alternatives are considered.     

THE SHEPHELAH IN THE IRON AGE: A NEW LOOK ON THE SETTLEMENT OF JUDAH

Abstract

The Shephelah was densely settled in the Late Bronze Age, but most of the settlements were gradually abandoned during the transition to the Iron I period. Only a few Iron I settlements existed in the eastern part of the region (excluding the Philistine sites at the northwestern edge of the Shephelah), forming a small Canaanite enclave. During the Iron II period the region was gradually resettled, and it became part of Judah. This process lasted until the 8th century BCE, when the region reached an unparalleled demographic peak. Sennacherib's campaign brought wide-scale destruction, and the region recovered only partially before being devastated by Nebuchadnezzar. After reconstructing the region's settlement history, the article reassesses its political and demographic history in comparison to the neighbouring regions of the Judean highlands and the southern coastal plain, it is concluded that the Shephelah had a lesser role in the history of Judah than some recent studies suggest.     

REDEFINING THE NORTHERN BRITISH IRON AGE

Summary.   Unlike Southern Britain, the Iron Age in Northern Britain spans two millennia from the introduction of iron technology to the Norse settlements. Northern Britain is divided into a series of geographical and archaeological regions, including for the pre-Roman Earlier Iron Age the whole of aceramic and non-coin-using northern England. Despite a wealth of settlement evidence, the Earlier Iron Age lacks diagnostic material assemblages, even in the ceramic Atlantic regions, where radiocarbon dating is now confirming the origins of Atlantic Roundhouses in the mid-first millennium BC. External connections may have been long-distance, reflecting a complex variety of selective connections. For the Later Iron Age, interpretation based upon historical sources has inhibited a proper archaeological evaluation of the 'Picts' and of the traditional view of Dalriadic settlement in Argyll, both of which are now under review.     

SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATIONS OF THE SOPRON-KRAUT ACKER IRON AGE POTTERY WORKSHOP

Excavations at the Celtic settlement of Sopron-Krautacker (W. Hungary) make it possible to form an overall view on the local practice of pottery manufacture. Study of the soil conditions has established that the source of raw material is the nearly calcium carbonate-free upper layer of the local soil resulting from a leaching process. By the various analytical methods used (XRD, XRF spectroscopy, and thermal analysis) composition of the pottery has been determined, and it has been shown that the vessels were fired at 600–700 °C.     

THE HALLATON INGOT: SILVER IN IRON AGE BRITAIN

This article is a case study of the detailed contextual and scientific analysis of a single object, moving beyond a conventional object biography to consider flows of materials and shifts in meaning and value. The object is a simple triangular silver ingot from the Late Iron Age shrine site at Hallaton, Leicestershire, UK. Scientific analysis is used to uncover the biography of the ingot, and the raw materials from which it was created. The results suggest that the metal which eventually formed the ingot circulated through both Iron Age and Roman social networks, being reworked and transformed several times before it was deposited. Silver emerges as a material which mediated between the Mediterranean world and Iron Age communities in Britain, allowing translation and transmutation between different systems of value in conquest‐period Britain.     

GETTING SMASHED: THE DEPOSITION OF AMPHORAEAND THE DRINKING OF WINE IN GAUL DURING THE LATE IRON AGE

This paper aims to summarize current research on the chronology, provenance and deposition of Italian wine amphorae and associated material culture (ceramics and metal vessels) in Gaul from the second to the end of the first century BC. Recent studies have linked the consumption of imported wine in Gaul with the elite and/or a warrior class who organized great feasts in enclosures and sanctuaries. Instead, it will be suggested that access to wine in parts of central eastern France at least was relatively open while in some cases wine was being drunk by individuals involved in various industrial activities.     

SEALED SILVER IN IRON AGE CISJORDAN AND THE 'INVENTION' OF COINAGE

Summary. Recent finds of hoarded silver in Cisjordan present new material for the consideration of the conceptual history of coined metals. When the fundamental concepts associated with coinage are abstracted from the various objects that express them, it is possible to see that a kind of coined metal existed in Cisjordan and other parts of the Near East prior to the traditional 'invention' of coinage by the Lydians and Greeks c. 600 BC. ¹ Both hoards and written sources indicate that seals affixed to precious metals at times qualified them in a numismatic sense by guaranteeing weights set to standards as well as controlled composition. What has been characterized as the 'invention' of coinage was rather an adaptation of these same principal concepts. The frequency and size of silver hoards from Cisjordan point to a proliferation in the 'monetary' use of silver in that region during the Iron Age and suggest a relationship to the overwhelming preference for silver coinages among the Greeks.     

PERCEIVING COMMUNITIES: EXCHANGE, LANDSCAPES AND SOCIAL NETWORKS IN THE LATER IRON AGE OF WESTERN BRITAIN

Summary.   In recent years British Iron Age studies have focused on regionality whilst critiquing the hierarchical model of Iron Age society. Despite the success of these approaches there has been little detailed replacement of previous social models with an understanding of how Iron Age societies worked. Looking at the later Iron Age of western Britain this paper combines examination of the exchange of material culture alongside study of the landscape to explore the nature of Iron Age communities. It is argued that Iron Age societies in the region used material culture to construct and maintain social relationships, while using visual landscape references allowed groups to engage in larger perceived communities.     

LONGBRIDGE DEVERILL COW DOWN, WILTSHIRE, HOUSE 3: A MAJOR ROUND HOUSE OF THE EARLY IRON AGE

Summary. The settlement complex on Longbridge Deverill Cow Down in west Wiltshire comprises two major farmsteads, with their associated trackways and field systems, which were in use from the 8th to the 2nd century BC. The excavations, between 1956 and 1960, could only sample Enclosures II and III, whose ditches turned out to be relatively late features belonging to the larger and longer lived of the two farms. However, by good fortune, the interior areas excavated contained the very well-preserved post-holes of no less than four successive great round houses, the largest up to 60 feet (18.30 m.) in diameter, with masses of surviving structural evidence, pottery and other finds. This article describes and discusses the latest and best preserved of the great houses, House 3 of the end of the 6th century, and it attempts to throw new light not just on the construction and internal lay-out of these huge structures, but also the manner in which they may have been used, domestically and ceremonially, by their inhabitants at the end of the Late Bronze and beginning of the Iron Age in Wessex.     

POST-COLLAPSE: THE RE-EMERGENCE OF POLITY IN IRON AGE BOĞAZKÖY, CENTRAL ANATOLIA

How communities reorganize after collapse is drawing increasing attention across a wide spectrum of disciplines. Iron Age Boğazköy provides an archaeological case study of urban and political regeneration after the widespread collapse of eastern Mediterranean Late Bronze Age empires in the early twelfth century BC. Recent work at Boğazköy has significantly expanded our understanding of long-term occupation in north central Anatolia. This work counters previous suggestions that Boğazköy was abandoned after the collapse of the Hittite Empire during the Early Iron Age. In this paper, we focus on the Iron Age occupations at the site to show how growth in the scale and complexity of ceramic production and trade during this period provides another line of evidence for economic and political re-emergence. Based on the increasing diversity of non-local ceramics and ceramic emulations during the Iron Age, we suggest that only in the Late Iron Age, 500–700 years after Hittite collapse, did Boğazköy re-emerge as a significant polity in central Anatolia.     

UNDER DIVINE WINGS: FORMS OF IDEOLOGICAL AND TERRITORIAL DOMINATION DURING THE IBERIAN IRON AGE

This article explores the ways in which the Iberian communities of the Iron Age developed a model of extension and legitimization for their social hierarchies. By analysing the testimonies of the ideational realm and the territorial occupation of the Iberian populations, it is argued that the representation of a winged goddess was used by certain families to legitimize the control and possession of natural resources. Thus, the contextual analysis of this goddess can explain a territorial domination established in the southern sub‐plateau of the Iberian Peninsula. A Mediterranean model of the goddess is transformed by combining traditional and foreign elements to create a unique synthesis. What draws our attention, though, is how this new being was eventually integrated into the changes that took place in local populations, which established new constructions of space and new relationships of patronage. New practices appear, such as the persistence of ancient forms of pottery and a symbolic opposition to imported objects. In the following pages, I will identify the underlying process as a territorial division conducted by certain settlements as they explored a broader spatial control. I will explore one of these territories and the ideology employed to implement this form of domination.