Earlier Iron Age Flashcards
1
Q
Late Bronze Age linear boundaries
A
- Parts of Britain including Salisbury Plain, Cranborne Chase, Avebury and Yorkshire Wolds, large systems of banks and ditches constructed and used during the LBA and early Iron Age
- Sometimes single earthworks, sometimes multiple banks and ditches
- Linear boundaries on Wolds often followed watershed ridges across the rolling countryside with dry valleys on either side
- Linears may have followed pre-existing but unmarked trackways used by generations of people and animals
- Some linear boundaries converge on Iron Age hillforts
- Dorchester on Thames - people killed and thrown in the ditch, maybe to mark territory?
- Some linear boundaries converged at massive midden sites such as East Chisenbury
2
Q
Danebury Hillfort
A
- Iron Age Hillfort associated with a late Bronze Age hoard and a series of linear boundaries
- Developed as an enclosure with a series of ritual pits within it in the early Iron Age
3
Q
Dinorben Hillfort
A
-Late Bronze Age hoard at Dinorben was found at the foot of the cliffs on W side of the hillfort and is a collection of horse equipment including harness fittings
4
Q
East Chisenbury
A
- Large midden site where series of linear boundaries converge
- Similar to a series of sites across southern Britain that developed during the 10th-7th c BC, spanning LBA-EIA transition
- midden up to 2m thick and covered 3 ha
- Underneath were hearths, postholes and pits from short-lived but repeated occupation over 100 years
5
Q
Llanmaes
A
- Vale of Glamorgan, Wales
- Midden site which began forming in 8th-6th c BC and continued until 2nd-1st c BC
- Midden material accumulated in natural hollows and cracks in underlying limestone and in pits
- Roundhouse structures in early phases - one large, well-preserved example featured a cache of Mesolithic flints and a great white shark tooth in a posthole
- Disarticulated human bone found in midden deposits
- Contained majority front right leg of pigs - unusual
- Egalitarian - everyone bringing the same bit? Champion’s portion? Symbolic significance?
- Large feast 0 some people came from some distance away
6
Q
Llyn Fawr
A
- South Welsh hoard of early Iron Age objects deliberately deposited in a small lake, in a dramatic landscape location at the foot of a prominent scarp edge
- Bronze and Iron objects include weapons, tools, cauldrons and decorative harness fittings
- Some are earliest Iron artefacts known from Britain, dating to 850-800 BC
- Includes iron copies of bronze artefact forms
7
Q
Iron smelting
A
- In Europe, may have originated in Anatolia around 1200 BC and in Egypt around 1100 BC
- Iron objects start appearing in Britain 800 c BC during Llyn Fawr period
8
Q
Iron Ore
A
- Much ore used in Britain was bog iron, impure iron deposits from wetlands, formed by oxidation of iron carried in solution by water
- Slag formed as waste product
- Bloom first product, which must be consolidated and worked with a hammer to produce wrought Iron
9
Q
Flag Fen
A
- Iron Age deposits include pottery and metalwork, including a set of shears in its wooden case
- Must Farm - 9 waterlogged dugout canoes, some with carved decoration
- Objects associated with a palaeochannel- stake built fish weir, fish baskets and bronze artefacts deposited within
- LBA-EIA riverside settlement surrounded by a palisade and walkway of ash posts
- Two complete round houses and parts of 2 others excavated, on stilts, with woven reed bundle floors and thatch and turf roofs
- Thought to have burnt down
- Evidenced by charred grain residues and spalling on pottery
10
Q
Sutton Common
A
- EIA ‘marsh fort’, consisting of two slightly raised ‘islands’ in S Yorks
- Lots of waterlogged well perserved wood surviving in enclosure ditches, including fragments of worked timbers and the remains of timber palisades
- Produced one of the most complete notched prehistoric ladders in Britain
- Plant and beetle remains provide palaeo-environmental information
- 150 four post granary structures and a large timber gateway structure
- Human skulls in ditch terminals
- 12 small enclosure gullies with cremated human and animal remains dated to 400-200 BC- the first IA burials in S Yorks
- Natural resources and fauna abundant in Sutton Common
- Wetlands may also have had some spiritual and cosmological meanings or have been settings for ceremonies and offerings
11
Q
Danebury Hillfort
A
- Hampshire
- Several main phases of settlement, with roundhouses, some 4 post granary structures and a dense cluster of storage pits and in later occupation, more roundhouses, and 4 posters
- Also possible later square shrines near centre of hillfort
12
Q
Iron Age pit deposits
A
- Grain storage pits in southern England often location for special deposits after their use, as at Danebury hillfort
- Deposits include pottery, often complete or near whole vessels, querns, animal and human burials, and deposits of selected animal and human remains, including cattle, horses, pigs and dogs
- Meteorite from Danebury
13
Q
Danebury Pit Deposits
A
- Include a horse’s leg, a dog and most of a cow, alongside some partial and complete human skeletons, and odd groups of butchered animal remains
- Some storage pits at Danebury had relatively straight sides, while others were notably ‘bell-shaped’
- Remains of 300+ people found at Danebury, mostly male from the ones that can be sexed
- Several skulls had severe head wounds - war trophies?
14
Q
Hambledon Hill, Dorset
A
- Extremely large hillfort, on the edge of Cranborne Chase, commanding extensive views out across the Vale of Pewsey
- Earlier Neolithic causewayed enclosure on the site, and Neolithic long barrows
- Rather than re-occupy Hambledon Hill, a site on the opposite side of the narrow valley, Hod Hill, Dorset, was a centre of resistance to the Romans buy the Durotriges
15
Q
Maiden Castle
A
-One of Britain’s biggest and ‘developed’ hillforts, the result of centuries of modification, with a LBA/EIA enclosure the first main phase
