Iron Age Communities in Britain by Barry Cunliffe

I started this before having read Leonard Dutton and Paul Hill’s books on the Anglo-Saxons. But now I have finished those I felt it a necessity to get this one finished. As I have previously stated in Prehistoric Cumbria it can be a little tiresome reading endless pages of archaeological evidence in which sometimes there is no interpretation to be gained from it. With there being so little to go on sometimes the author simply has to describe what has been found, leaving the reader to draw his own conclusions. This makes Barry Cunliffe’s book on Iron Age Communities an essential piece to have for young aspiring archaeologists who are in need of reference material to support or disprove their own theories, as well as being a great spring board for alerting the reader of interesting areas they might decide to search for in more depth within other literature.

One such area of which I was alerted to was the names of some of the prominent Celts which appear as we get closer to historical records. One name in particular during the Claudian invasion is Verica, who was King of the Atrebates and is described in sources as a ‘client king of Rome’. This led me to finding the book ‘The Heirs of King Verica’ by Marin Henig, of which I am yet to read but has been added to my pre-Saxon reading list. With the written sources being so sparse I was unable to find anything outside of essays on other contemporary figures such a Cunobeline, Carractacus, Cassivellaunus etc, but with already knowing this, finding the Heirs of Verica was more than what I had hoped for.

Back to the archaeological evidence, there were three chapters that go me particularly interested. As I have mentioned in Francis Pryor’s ‘Britain BC’, Scotland and the Orkney islands are extremely interesting due to their structures made almost entirely from brick, especially in the Orkney’s where there is a lack of wood. What was interesting to learn about in Iron Age Communities was that not only were these buildings made from brick, but that they were also capable of having multiple floors, with some of the illustrations depicting three floors with the platforms made from wood. This level of technology is staggering, and unfound in other parts of Britain, making the dwellings of Scotland probably the most interesting of the entire prehistory when combining them with the amazing island homes knows as ‘Lochs’.

The everyday life of the Briton was not something I would have envisaged capturing my imagination prior to reading the book. Surprisingly when I started learning about composition of diet and the changes of the eras which can be noted through the frequency of animal bone finds then I became somewhat curious to how the livestock was maintained over winter months. Prior to winter the inhabitants would usually have a cull of some of the older animals, so as to reduce the numbers they would have to feed during the winter months. Food itself was stored in storage pits, which were small shafts that were dug, and had a lid to cover them. These would keep the food cool and act for greater preservation.

As the end of the book was approaching there was a great deal on the emergence of Hill Forts. Some of which could be dated as far back as the early iron age, and had since been amended and added to right up until the Roman occupation. Many were simple but impressive earthworks, but as the times progressed then some of the larger forts started incorporating brickwork into the outer layer. The defensive tactics of the Celts were also made apparent. The usual weak spot in the fortifications were the entrance(s), and so it is possible to see the evolution of the earthworks where alterations were made to adapt to problems. Earthworks would usually start pointing outwards or inwards around the entrance, thus creating a long corridor in which the enemy would have to travel down before reaching the settlement within; during which they would be vulnerable to missile fire from above. The impressive illustrations came into their own during these chapters, and were very much needed in helping me understand the information. Another very interesting aspect of Hill Forts is the population density within, sometimes containing as much as 300 roundhouses, and a shrine, or which interestingly the Romans simply converted when they took over, rather than destroyed.

I have mentioned little in this entry about metal working, which I think was covered in much a similar manor to Francis Pryor’s ‘Britain BC’, and so I decided to focus more on the aspects that captured my attention. In all this is a fantastically researched and compiled book, complete with some of the finest illustrations I have seen in and prehistory literature. As I have mentioned it can be a little longwinded at times reading archaeological evidence, and so I will leave you with a humorous quote from the very start of the book which touches on the complications of writing about such dark eras of history.

‘When, in 1969, I mentioned to my colleague Leo Rivet that I was thinking of writing a book on the British Iron Age, he said that it could not be done. Now that I have finished my work, I am inclined to agree with him’.