In contrast to Continental Europe, where the Iron Age is abundantly represented by funerary remains as well as by hill-forts and major centres, the British Iron Age is mainly represented by its settlement sites, and especially by houses of circular ground-plan, apparently in marked contrast to the Central and Northern European tradition of rectangular houses. In lowland Britain the evidence for timber round-houses comprises the footprint of post-holes or foundation trenches; in the Atlantic north and west, the remains of monumental stone-built houses survive as upstanding ruins, testimony to the building skills of Iron Age engineers and masons. D. W. Harding's fully illustrated study explores not just the architectural aspects of round-houses, but more importantly their role in the social, economic and ritual structure of their communities, and their significance as symbols of Iron Age society in the face of Romanization.

A fully illustrated study of Iron Age round-houses, which explores not just their architectural aspects but more importantly their role in the social, economic and ritual structure of their communities, and their significance as symbols of Iron Age society in the face of Romanization.

This is a fully illustrated study of Iron Age round-houses, which explores not just their architectural aspects but more importantly their role in the social, economic and ritual structure of their communities, and their significance as symbols of Iron Age society in the face of Romanization.

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.

The Cambridge Prehistory of the Bronze and Iron Age Mediterranean offers new insights into the material and social practices of many different Mediterranean peoples during the Bronze and Iron Ages, presenting in particular those features that both connect and distinguish them. Contributors discuss in depth a range of topics that motivate and structure Mediterranean archaeology today, including insularity and connectivity; mobility, migration, and colonization; hybridization and cultural encounters; materiality, memory, and identity; community and household; life and death; and ritual and ideology. The volume's broad coverage of different approaches and contemporary archaeological practices will help practitioners of Mediterranean archaeology to move the subject forward in new and dynamic ways. Together, the essays in this volume shed new light on the people, ideas, and materials that make up the world of Mediterranean archaeology today, beyond the borders that separate Europe, Africa, and the Middle East.

The art of metal casting was imported into Indonesia, but its peoples mastered the secrets of metallurgy, and applied these, in ways often original and unique, to create their own distinctive civilisation of the Bronze-Iron Age. In this handbook, which is a sequal to my The Stone Age of Indo nesia, I have endeavoured to assemble a comprehensive picture of the Indonesian Bronze-Iron Age from the results of excavations, innumerable stray finds in museums, and various studies scattered among numerous scientific journals and periodicals (often difficult to obtain). The resulting picture can, of course, be a tentative one only, valid until many more scientific excavations have taken place. I have added a bibliography, as complete as it was possible to assemble. The completion of this summary of the Prehistory of Indonesia has been assisted by a grant-in-aid from the Wenner Gren Foundation "The Viking Fund", New York. I am grateful to Mr. Basoeki and Mr. Soebokastowo for the drawings of Figures 1, 11, 12, 13, 22 and 16, 23, 24, 25 respectively. Figures 2-10 and 15 were drawn by the well-known artist, the late Mas Pirngadie, and are here published for the first time, with the generous permission of the Board of Directors of the "Bataviaasch Genootschap van Kunsten en Wetenschappen", Djakarta. I am deeply grateful to my brother-in-law, Mr. J. H. Reiseger of Kempston, Bedfordshire, for so willingly undertaking the translation of the Dutch text into English.