The Later Prehistory of North-West Europe provides a unique, up-to-date, and easily accessible synthesis of the later prehistoric archaeology of north-west Europe, transcending political and language barriers that can hinder understanding. By surveying changes in social forms, landscape organization, monument types, and ritual practices over six millennia, the volume reassesses the prehistory of north-west Europe from the late Mesolithic to the end of the pre-Roman Iron Age. It explores how far common patterns of social development are apparent across north-west Europe, and whether there were periods when local differences were emphasized instead. In relation to this, it also examines changes through time in the main axes of contact between the various regions of continental Europe, Britain, and Ireland. Key to the volume's broad scope is its focus on the vast mass of new evidence provided by recent development-led excavations. The authors collate data that has been gathered on thousands of sites across Britain, Ireland, northern France, the Low Countries, western Germany, and Denmark, using sources including unpublished 'grey literature' reports. The results challenge many aspects of previous narratives of later prehistory, allowing the volume to present a distinctively fresh perspective.

The Later Prehistory of North-West Europe: The Evidence of Development-led Fieldwork

History

Bradley, Richard

Webley, Leo

Haselgrove, Colin

Vander Linden, Marc

Ancient Civilizations

Oxford University Press

The excavations at Fairfield Park revealed a later Bronze Age hilltop enclosure and an extensive early Iron Age settlement. As one of the first large-scale excavations of an early Iron Age settlement in eastern England, the site makes a significant contribution to our understanding of the later prehistory of the region. In particular, the evidence sheds much light on issues of the organisation of settlement space and practices of ritual deposition. The settlement dates to around the 5th-4th centuries BC, and incorporated enclosures, roundhouses and numerous storage pits. The large artefact assemblages included high status metalwork, pottery with unique forms of decoration, and a set of 49 bone weaving tools from a single pit. Human remains and animal burials had been placed in several other pits. Good environmental evidence was also obtained.

Fairfield Park, Stotfold, Bedfordshire: Later Prehistoric Settlement in the Eastern Chilterns (Bedfordshire Archaeology Monograph)

TIMBY, Jane R.

Wilson, Martin

Europe

Oxford Archaeology

Taking its inspiration from Cyril Fox's groundbreaking 1923 study of its namesake, and with its first volume issued to mark the 85th anniversary of his book, this series is dedicated to the archaeology of Cambridge's hinterland. In recent years an enormous amount of fieldwork has occured within the City's environs, to the point that it must now rank as one of the most intensively investigated landscapes in southern England. This volume reports the 2002/03 Hutchinson Site excavations beside Addenbrooke's Hospital. While primarily concerned with its Iron Age/Roman Conquest-Period dynamics, there was also significant later Bronze Age and Middle Saxon occupation. The site's sequence both informs, and is informed by, the results of an evaluation survey extending over 200ha west to the River Cam, which led to the recovery of some 15 new sites. Thereafter, three other landscape evaluation case-studies are presented, drawn both from the County's southern chalklands and also its western and northern clays. Seeing comparable site-discovery rates, this enormous increase in known site densities has fundamental implications for understandings of early land-use and settlement/population levels, and allows archaeologists to appreciate for the first time what is, in effect, the past fabric of the land . The case is made that such grand-scale surveys should be considered as 'stand-alone' programmes of investigation in their own right.

Borderlands: The Archaeology of Addenbrooke's Environs, South Cambridge (New Archaeologies of the Cambridge Region)

Evans, Christopher

MacKay, Duncan

Cambridge Archaeological Unit

The Social Context of Technology explores non-ferrous metalworking in Britain and Ireland during the Bronze and Iron Ages (c. 2500 BC to 1st century AD). Bronze-working dominates the evidence, though the crafting of other non-ferrous metals - including gold, silver, tin and lead - is also considered. Metalwork has long played a central role in accounts of European later prehistory. Metals were important for making functional tools, and elaborate decorated objects that were symbols of prestige. Metalwork could be treated in special or ritualised ways, by being accumulated in large hoards or placed in rivers or bogs. But who made these objects? Prehistoric smiths have been portrayed by some as prosaic technicians, and by others as mystical figures akin to magicians. They have been seen both as independent, travelling 'entrepreneurs', and as the dependents of elite patrons. Hitherto, these competing models have not been tested through a comprehensive assessment of the archaeological evidence for metalworking. This volume fills that gap, with analysis focused on metalworking tools and waste, such as crucibles, moulds, casting debris and smithing implements. The find contexts of these objects are examined, both to identify places where metalworking occurred, and to investigate the cultural practices behind the deposition of metalworking debris. The key questions are: what was the social context of this craft, and what was its ideological significance? How did this vary regionally and change over time? As well as elucidating a key aspect of later prehistoric life in Britain and Ireland, this important examination by leading scholars contributes to broader debates on material culture and the social role of craft.

The Social Context of Technology: Non-ferrous Metalworking in Later Prehistoric Britain and Ireland (Prehistoric Society Research Papers)

Brück, Joanna

Adams, Sophia

Oxbow Books

An investigation into the nature and workings of the household in one part of northern Europe (in Western Denmark), focusing on the Early Iron Age (c 500 BC-AD 200), considering the household unit and its internal social relations. It includes an introduction to the geographical and archaeological context and the dataset, chapters on the nature of the household group and its relationship to the wider community, analysis of the structure and use of space within the Early Iron Age farmstead, the architecture of the longhouse, and the domestic space outside the house and depositional practices.

Iron Age Households: Structure and Practice in Western Denmark, 500BC-AD200 (Jutland Archaeological Society Publications)

Aarhus University Press

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