The Earlier Iron Age (c. 800-400 BC) has often eluded attention in British Iron Age studies. Traditionally, we have been enticed by the wealth of material from the later part of the millennium and by developments in southern England in particular, culminating in the arrival of the Romans. The result has been a chronological and geographical imbalance, with the Earlier Iron Age often characterised more by what it lacks than what it comprises: for Bronze Age studies it lacks large quantities of bronze, whilst from the perspective of the Later Iron Age it lacks elaborate enclosure. In contrast, the same period on mainland Europe yields a wealth of burial evidence with links to Mediterranean communities and so has not suffered in quite the same way. Gradual acceptance of this problem over the past decade, along with the corpus of new discoveries produced by developer-funded archaeology, now provides us with an opportunity to create a more balanced picture of the Iron Age in Britain as a whole. The twenty-six papers in the book seek to establish what we now know (and do not know) about Earlier Iron Age communities in Britain and their neighbours on the Continent. The authors engage with a variety of current research themes, seeking to characterise the Earlier Iron Age via the topics of landscape, environment, and agriculture; material culture and everyday life; architecture, settlement, and social organisation; and with the issue of transition - looking at how communities of the Late Bronze Age transform into those of the Earlier Iron Age, and how we understand the social changes of the later first millennium BC. Geographically, the book brings together recent research from regional studies covering the full length of Britain, as well as taking us over to Ireland, across the Channel to France, and then over the North Sea to Denmark, the Low Countries, and beyond.

Over the years, there has been a major shift in Iron Age studies. This volume contains thirty-one papers, which covers the Later Iron Age that is taken to be circa 400/300 BC until the Roman Conquest.

This booklet is a working paper which lays out an overall framework for the improvement of archaeological research strategies at a regional level in Britain. A key concern is to address the fact that much of the archaeological work which takes place in Britain today is brought about as the result of urban development. The paper is directed primarily at problems related to the study of the pre-Roman Iron Age, but many of the points in the paper are applicable to other periods. The paper identifies five areas which are central to future research on the British Iron Age: chronological frameworks, settlement patterns and landscape history, material culture studies, regionality, and the nature of socio-economic changes during the period.

Cunobelin, Shakespeare's Cymbeline, ruled much of south-east Britain in the years before Claudius' legions arrived, creating the Roman province of Britannia. But what do we know of him and his rule, and that of competing dynasties in south-east Britain? This book examines the background to these, the first individuals in British history. It explores the way in which rulers bolstered their power through the use of imagery on coins, myths, language and material culture. After the visit of Caesar in 55 and 54 BC, the shadow of Rome played a fundamental role in this process. Combining the archaeological, literary and numismatic evidence, John Creighton paints a vivid picture of how people in late Iron Age Britain reacted to the changing world around them.

Alternative Iron Ages examines Iron Age social formations that sit outside traditional paradigms, developing methods for archaeological characterisation of alternative models of society. In so doing it contributes to the debates concerning the construction and resistance of inequality taking place in archaeology, anthropology and sociology. In recent years, Iron Age research on Western Europe has moved towards new forms of understanding social structures. Yet these alternative social organisations continue to be considered as basic human social formations, which frequently imply marginality and primitivism. In this context, the grand narrative of the European Iron Age continues to be defined by cultural foci, which hide the great regional variety in an artificially homogenous area. This book challenges the traditional classical evolutionist narratives by exploring concepts such as non-triangular societies, heterarchy and segmentarity across regional case studies to test and propose alternative social models for Iron Age social formations. Constructing new social theory both archaeologically based and supported by sociological and anthropological theory, the book is perfect for those looking to examine and understand life in the European Iron Age. We are so grateful to the research project titled "Paisajes rurales antiguos del Noroeste peninsular: formas de dominacion romana y explotacion de recursos" [Ancient rural landscapes in Northwestern Iberia: Roman dominion and resource exploitation] (HAR2015-64632-P; MINECO/FEDER), directed from the Instituto de Historia (CSIC) and also to the Fundaçao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia [Foundation for Science and Technology] postdoctoral project: SFRH-BPD-102407-2014.

The story of the origins of the British and the Irish peoples, from the end of the last Ice Age around 10,000BC to the eve of the Norman Conquest - who they were, where they came from, and how they related to one another.

An atlas of English archaeology covering the period from the middle Bronze Age (c. 1500 BC) to Domesday Book (AD 1086), encompassing the Bronze and Iron Ages, the Roman period, and the early medieval (Anglo-Saxon) age.