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

The Iron Age
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Large-scale settlement excavations are now commonplace; indeed, north-west England is the
only sizeable region where such sites remain unknown, while Wessex and the upper Thames
Valley are among the most intensively investigated. Most sites reveal evidence of circular domestic
buildings, generally between 6 and 15 m in diameter (Figure 7.2). Two main traditions exist: the
double-ring and the single-ring forms, in which the main weight of the conical roof was taken
respectively on an inner ring of posts and on the wall-head, with or without a central post.
Methods of wall construction included stake- and post-rings; ring-grooves to accommodate closely
set upright posts or planks; ring-plates; and dry-stone walls. Often only the drainage gullies around
such structures remain to mark their positions.
Not all circular buildings were dwellings, some serving other purposes including as shrines.
Various regional and temporal trends can be discerned. In southern Britain, very large roundhouses
are a feature of the earlier first millennium BC, and the average size of buildings diminished
markedly thereafter; in the north, substantial dwellings were constructed throughout the period
(Hingley 1992). The monumental brochs of Atlantic Scotland and Cornish courtyard houses,
both innovations of the Later Iron Age, represent variations on this theme. Rectangular buildings
of sill-beam construction are found on many Late Iron Age sites in south-east England, while
earlier examples occasionally occur, like the well-preserved wattle and plank-built structures recently
excavated at Goldcliff (Gwent). Another structural type found in south-west England and in
Scotland is the souterrain: probably primarily for underground storage, these tunnel-like structures
may also have had ritual functions.
Enclosed farmsteads occupied by single households were the dominant settlement type in
most of Britain. These can be rectilinear, curvilinear or irregular in plan, and enclose between 0.2
ha and more than 1 ha (Figure 7.3). In northern England, small sub-rectangular or D-shaped
enclosures like West Brandon (Co. Durham) are characteristic, whereas oval and curvilinear
settlements predominate in southern and eastern Scotland. Many settlements in Wales and southwest
England have widely spaced multiple embankments—as at Collfryn (Powys)—sometimes
accompanied by funnel entrances, a feature shared with the banjo enclosures of Wessex. Such
features presumably relate to the needs of animal husbandry, but few such details show clear
links to their inhabitants’ subsistence base. The small, sub-rectangular enclosure at Fisherwick
(Staffordshire), for example, was set in a largely pastoral landscape: identical looking sites elsewhere
practised mixed farming.
Many habitation sites passed through both enclosed and open phases, including Bishopstone
(Sussex) and Winnall Down (Hampshire), which oscillated between the two. At Dryburn Bridge
in East Lothian, a Late Bronze Age palisaded enclosure was succeeded by an unenclosed Iron
Age settlement; while at Thorpe Thewles (Cleveland), the enclosed farmstead was superseded by
a larger open settlement during the Later Iron Age (Figure 7.4). In some areas, unenclosed
settlements were apparently the principal type, as in Scotland north of the Forth, but even in
regions where enclosures predominate, open settlements were probably far more common than
now appears the case, due to the difficulties of recognizing them as cropmarks. Their size and
form varied considerably from individual houses scattered amongst fields, like Kilphedir
(Sutherland), or rows of buildings, as at Douglasmuir (Angus) and Roxby (North Yorkshire), to
looser aggregations of households each set within their own compound, such as Dalton Parlours
(West Yorkshire) or Dragonby (Lincolnshire).
Aggregated settlements were common in eastern England during the Later Iron Age. Such
sites pose problems: How many buildings were standing at once? What proportion were residential?
What size of household inhabited each dwelling? At some sites like Little Waltham (Essex),
frequent rebuilding has created a palimpsest of remains that may exaggerate the actual size of
the community at any one time. At Fengate (Cambridgeshire), many buildings were probably