Iron Age Saunas of Northern Portugal: State of the Art and Research Perspectives

Special buildings used as saunas have been found in certain large hillforts in the north of Portugal and in the Cantabrian coastal area of Asturias and Galicia in Spain. The principal aim of this study is to highlight the importance of these buildings in the archaeology and art of the European Iron Age, where they are very rarely mentioned. Two approaches are developed: in Parts 1 and 2, we explain the structure of the buildings, their function, and the current debate surrounding their dating. In Parts 3 and 4, further analyses are developed on their position in the landscape, associating the saunas with the public life of the hillforts, and on the decorative structure of the pedras formosas (‘beautiful stones’) found in some of them, and their relation to certain artistic trends in so‐called Celtic art.     

STABLE ISOTOPE INVESTIGATIONS OF THE DANEBURY HILLFORT PIT BURIALS

Carbon and nitrogen isotope analyses were performed on human and animal bones recovered from pits within Danebury Iron Age hillfort. All results are within the range expected for European Holocene specimens and are similar to those from other Iron Age sites in central southern Britain. Our results indicate that the human diet included a significant amount of animal protein (meat and/or dairy products) consumed on a regular basis, but do not preclude a diet based heavily on cereal consumption. In comparison with the extensive heterogeneity visible in the animal isotope values, the homogeneity of the human values is rather striking. This may be a reflection of the much slower turnover rate of adult human collagen and may also indicate that the humans consumed a much greater variety of food than the fauna (thus averaging many isotopic sources). This is consistent with the role of hillforts as central places and locations for food distribution and exchange.     

Order in movement: a GIS approach to accessibility

The aim of this paper is to extend the range of current analytical procedures that archaeologists use to understand movement. In particular, how a landscape becomes ordered by simply defining a destination. More specifically, this study proposes the derivation of a focal mobility network, i.e. the network of most likely paths towards a given destination, and explores several of its applications within a landscape archaeology framework. The suggested extensions are based on existing standard procedures within most GIS. A series of synthetic control surfaces and an archaeological study focused around Iron Age hillforts in Galicia (NW Spain) are used as case studies to illustrate different analytical possibilities.     

On the Constitution and Transformation of Philistine Identity

Recent discussion of the formation and alteration of Philistine identity in the Levantine Iron Age continues to reference primarily pottery styles and dietary practices. Such traditional narratives propose that the Philistines comprised one group of the ‘Sea Peoples’ and that the cultural boundary markers that distinguished their society in the Iron Age I (twelfth–eleventh century BC) diminished in importance and disappeared suddenly in the early Iron Age IIA (tenth century BC), with the ascendancy of the Judahite kingdom. Based on data from the Levant (especially Philistia), the Aegean and Cyprus, we argue for a more complex understanding of the Philistines who came to the region with an identity that drew on, and continued to engage with, a broad range of foreign artefact styles and cultural practices with non‐Levantine connections. Concurrently they incorporated local cultural attributes, at least until the late ninth century BC, a feature that we argue was unrelated to the supposed tenth century expansion of the Judahite kingdom.     

Pollen analytical investigations at Crosby Warren, Lincolnshire, in the Vicinity of the iron age and Romano-British settlement of Dragonby

Open-cast ironstone mining at Crosby Warren, near Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire exposed an extensive section through “cover sand” deposits. revealing buried podzol soils and peat layers. Stratigraphic studies, pollen analysis and radiocarbon dating have been carried out on three representative profiles. From these investigations it would appear that the “cover sands” in this area were stabilized under mixed oak woodland by c. 300 BC. After c. 100 BC woodland clearance and farming activities have been distinguished. Local alterations in land-use may be linked with cultural developments at the nearby Iron Age and Romano-British settlement of Dragonby. It is suggested that the impact of man upon the vegetation during Iron Age and Romano-British times probably facilitated podzolization and sand blowing.     

NEW EVIDENCE FOR IRON AGE BURIAL AND PROPITIATION PRACTICES IN SOUTHERN BRITAIN

It has been 30 years since the first scheme that categorized fragmentary Iron Age human remains in southern Britain ( Wilson 1981 ), and nearly 20 years since Cunliffe's paper ‘Pits, Preconceptions and Propitiation’ was published ( Cunliffe 1992 ). This study integrates the osteological, forensic and field evidence to identify archaeological signatures from three interrelated areas. The results show different depositional trends for five sites in Hampshire, and that the hillforts studied – Danebury (Hampshire) and Maiden Castle (Dorset) – demonstrate yet another pattern. Three main depositional practices were observed; intentional exposure, propitiatory deposits, and intentional practices, in which the body was kept whole in death, ran in parallel with each another.     

BEFORE HILLFORTS

Summary. The origins of four Hampshire hillforts are examined and their relationships to linear ditch systems are defined. Comparable sites are briefly considered. From this evidence a pattern of change covering the first half of the first millennium BC can be distinguished beginning with open settlement and ending with strongly defended hillforts set in a densely occupied landscape. Reasons for the transformation are considered, the most likely being a change from communally owned land to the individual control of defined territories.     

CHARIOTS AND CONTEXT: NEW RADIOCARBON DATES FROM WETWANG AND THE CHRONOLOGY OF IRON AGE BURIALS AND BROOCHES IN EAST YORKSHIRE

This paper presents 21 new radiocarbon dates for Iron Age burials excavated at Wetwang Slack, East Yorkshire, including three chariot burials. The dates are analysed using a Bayesian approach, along with previous dates from the cemetery and from other chariot burials in the region. The model suggests that regular burial at Wetwang spanned the third and earlier second centuries cal BC, a shorter period than once thought, whilst the chariot burials all belong to a short‐lived horizon centred on 200 cal BC. The dating of brooch types present in the burials is also reassessed. Our results imply that brooches of La Tène D form appeared in Britain in the later second century cal BC, in line with Continental evidence, but reinforcing the void in the later Iron Age sequence revealed in a recent study of decorated metalwork. Both this apparent gap and the end of the classic East Yorkshire mortuary tradition may well be manifestations of the more general changes that swept across Europe at this period, ushering in the new forms of political organization and social practices that define the Late Iron Age.     

Histories of deposition: creating chronologies for the Late Bronze Age–Early Iron Age transition in Southern Britain

The Late Bronze Age–Early Iron Age midden sites of Southern Britain are amongst the richest archaeological sites in the country. The organic accumulations contain substantial quantities of animal bone, decorated ceramics, metalwork and other objects; the often deep stratigraphy allows for changes in material culture and depositional practices, food production and consumption, and shifts in social identities, to be traced through time. The well-stratified assemblages also provide useful materials for dating the deposits. This has been problematic, however, as the majority of samples produce unhelpfully broad calibrated radiocarbon dates, due to the effects of the earlier Iron Age plateau in the calibration curve, which spans c. 800–400 BC. Interpretation has relied on current understandings of the associated pottery and metalwork, which placed most midden sites somewhere between the tenth and the seventh/mid-sixth centuries cal BC (c. 1000–600/550 cal BC), but the end-date of these traditions is particularly uncertain. This article addresses this issue by presenting the results of a new dating programme for East Chisenbury in Wiltshire, southern England. Twenty-eight radiocarbon determinations were obtained and combined with the site stratigraphy in a Bayesian chronological model. The results have transformed the chronology of the site, with the end of the occupation sequence being pulled forward some one-hundred years, to the mid-to-late fifth century cal BC. These new chronologies have significant implications for our understanding of the Late Bronze Age–Early Iron Age transition and require a revision of the currently accepted chronology of post-Deverel Rimbury decorated wares in south-central England.     

Where Have All the People Gone? A Puzzle from Middle and Late Iron Age Essex

A survey of 211 Iron Age roundhouses from twenty-five settlements across Essex shows a steep Late Iron Age fall in numbers from a Middle Iron Age peak. It cannot be explained by the replacement of the roundhouse with an architectural form that left little trace in the ground because the roundhouse remained a living architectural tradition until the late Roman period in the county. Nine of these twenty-five settlements were abandoned in or before the Late Iron Age, but have next to nothing in the way of pre-conquest artefacts that could have come from houses of that date which had not survived. The fall in roundhouse numbers is interpreted as a population contraction of at least 50 % over the period c. 125–25 BC. Political upheaval may have been partly responsible. No environmental changes could be identified as contributory factors. Population retreat in the county explains the dearth of Late Iron Age settlements and the absence of large cemeteries.     

Towards the identification of dyestuffs in Early Iron Age Scandinavian peat bog textiles

A large systematic dye investigation of prehistoric Danish and Norwegian bog textiles was carried out using high performance liquid chromatography with photo diode array detection. After the selection of the most suitable protocol for dye extraction and HPLC analysis for this specific group of archaeological samples, the second part included the characterisation of the dyes detected in the whole series of the Early Iron Age textiles and the interpretation of the dyeing technology. Natural organic dyes were found from the three main categories of natural dyes, hence throwing new light on the use of biological dye sources in Early Iron Age Scandinavia. The results clearly indicate that most Scandinavian peat bog textiles originally were dyed and that already during the 1st millennium BC, the populations in Scandinavia were familiar with the dyeing technology.     

Wadi Suq and Iron Age period ceramics from Sharm, Fujairah (U.A.E.)

The Wadi Suq period and Iron Age ceramics from Sharm are examined in terms of morphological, compositional and decorative features. The assemblage is typical of the second- and first-millennium BC ceramics of southeastern Arabia. The more unusual Iron Age 'imitation soft stone' ceramics are amply represented and the Sharm assemblage considerably expands upon this corpus of ceramics which has hitherto been less than abundant in the region. Comparisons with other second- and first-millennium sites suggest the tombs were largely occupied in the late Wadi Suq period, a pattern of occupation which again peaked in the Iron Age II period.     

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.     

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.     

Mythmakers of Maiden Castle: Breaking the Siege Mentality of an Iron Age Hillfort

The idea that an invading Roman army brought about the end of hillforts in south‐west Britain, using artillery fire to demoralize and defeat their enemy, is one of the most powerful narratives in British archaeology, being a constant element in both academic literature and public discourse. At the heart of the debate is the evidence recovered by Mortimer Wheeler during fieldwork conducted at Maiden Castle, in Dorset, between 1936–37. Wheeler interpreted a series of burials found in the east gate of the hillfort as a ‘war cemetery’, residue of an ultimately futile defence of the site, in the face of Roman aggression, by the local Durotriges tribe. A recent survey of hillforts in Dorset has, however, cast significant doubt on Wheeler’s hypothesis, suggesting that not only is the widely accepted battle‐theory unsupported by the archaeological evidence, but also that the Durotriges themselves were unconnected to any fortification or defence of Maiden Castle. This paper explores the conclusions of that survey, examining how the dramatic story of a siege first took shape in the late 1930s and why it became so immediately popular with the public. The problems of linking material remains to postulated historical events are outlined and the beginnings of a new model for Late Iron Age settlement at Maiden Castle are presented for the first time.     

An Iron Age ceramic sequence from the Bayt Bin Ati,al‐Ain,UAE

Rescue excavations associated with the adaptive reuse of a historic building in the Qattara Oasis revealed a 5 m stratigraphic sequence spanning the past 3000 years. The main period of occupation—roughly half the sequence—belongs to the Iron Age II and III periods (c.1100–300 BC). Evidence of agriculture and industry was found which complements our understanding of the well‐known Iron Age settlements of al‐Ain. The present paper sets out the stratigraphic sequence and presents the phased ceramic assemblage, before considering the broader implications for the archaeology of Iron Age south‐east Arabia.     

The Isle of Portland: An Iron Age Port-of-trade

The Isle of Portland (Dorset, England) was part of a trading system that involved the circulation of goods in and across the English Channel during the first century BC. This paper assesses the suitability of Portland as an Iron Age port-of-trade, focuses on the exotics found there and discusses evidence for its hill-fort, which was destroyed in the middle of the nineteenth century     

Facing two seas: Mediterranean and Atlantic contacts in the north-west of Iberia in the first millennium BC

Summary.  Despite the marginality of the region, the Later Bronze Age and Iron Age communities of the north-west of the Iberian Peninsula were engaged in active relationships with both Atlantic and Mediterranean peoples. Unlike other Atlantic regions, the area maintained direct contacts both with Mediterranean sailors and with the communities of the British Isles and north-western France simultaneously. The social relevance of these interactions and the range of imported goods transported varied throughout the first millennium BC. New evidence shows an intense involvement in Mediterranean trade from the fifth century BC onwards, while Atlantic contacts increased from the late second century BC, to reach a climax under Roman rule (first–second centuries AD).     

Beyond Elites: Reassessing Irish Iron Age Society

The past two decades have seen an expansion of archaeological activity on the island of Ireland that has transformed our knowledge and understanding of most periods in Irish prehistory and history. However, Iron Age sites and artefacts remain rare finds and are often ephemeral, particularly in the case of settlements. It is now clear that the peculiarly sparse record of the Irish Iron Age is genuinely representative of the surviving archaeology. It is also clear that this evidence does not fit the traditional ‘Celtic’ picture of warrior elites, druids and tribal hierarchies imported from other regions and later insular texts. This paper proposes an alternative model for the Irish Iron Age of the first millennium BC, one that centres on nomadism and heterarchy.     

MISPLACED MONUMENTS?: A REVIEW OF CEREMONY AND MONUMENTALITY IN FIRST MILLENNIUM CAL BC CORNWALL

Both large‐ and small‐scale ceremonial monuments are a well‐known feature of the third and second millennia cal BC. However, from the middle of the second millennium cal BC the character of the evidence changes, firstly with the appearance of widespread settlement remains, and then in the earlier first millennium cal BC with the appearance of hillforts. This paper considers the evidence from a number of newly discovered enclosures in Cornwall, which, given their similarity to much older ceremonial monument forms, have unexpectedly been found to date from the first millennium cal BC. The implications of these discoveries are discussed as well as the evidence for possible Atlantic Connections across the Irish Sea.