Legacy of the Iron Age

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Search for and follow hostile history on Spotify, Apple podcasts, Amazon Music, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts for a long time Iine age Britain has been misunderstood. In the past This centuries long period of British pre history, just before the Roman conquest has been portrayed as a shadowy world Dominated by warriors in blue paint A land of so called barbarians, living rudimentary lives on the edge of the known world. But we now know that that's not quite right Cross Britain. Objects have been pulled from rivers and earth that tell a different story obbjects so intricate and so deliberate crafted by highly sophisticated pre Roman societies E with their own traditions. their own beliefs It is archeology that has started to shine an incredible light on who these Iron Age Britons actually were and how they lived. New discoveries are being unearthed and revealed to the world for the first time in more than two thousand years We are in a golden age for Iron age archaeology. It is archeology That is revealing a world of striking elites, both men and women C compleomplex settlements, beautiful metalwork, long distance trade and of profound beliefs that shaped entire landscapes It's this archaeology Thats we're going to delve into today Welcome to the Ancients. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host And this is an introduction to the exciting yet still very mysterious world of Iron Age Britain. Our guest is Durham University's Professor Tom Moore One of the leading experts on Iron Age Britain. Tom, it is such a pleasure to have you on the podcast. Lovely to see again Triston. It's been too long since we last chatted. We chatted all things that amazing discovery, the Mels and Be horde, which I gather it's going on display very, very soon There's going to be the first exhibition in the Yorkshire Museum on the fifteenth of M So excited to kind of see that public's reaction to it. And so people onstandand themselves and be horered, we did a whole film on it with you and other key people involved in the project. But This is one of the largest, the most significant Ion Age discoveries in the North of England in recent years Yeah, I mean, one of the largest. disiscoveries for the Iron Age the whole of Britain, I would say, P probably the largest hord of Iron Age metalwork ever encountered in a huge number of artifacts, particularly really exciting bits of vehicles chariots, but also possibly wagons which we haven't seen before, which sounds a bit nerdy, but it's really interesting for IronA specialists because we've never seen fourull with wagons in Britain before, so very exciting. Well, nerdy is what we want beyond the entrance of D anyuay. We're going to be doing much more of that nitty gritty detail in IronAge Britain But of course, on E Brent It's a large topic, so we're going to the hop from topic to topic within our Nger during our chat and seeing how much we can get through But first off, with the background. When someone says Iron Age Britain today How large a period of time are we talking about? So the Iron Age starts around about eight hundred BC. know It depends when you define the Iron Age all the way through to the Roman conquest really. So AD forty three in the southeast of England Obviously slightly later in Northern England and then parts of Scotland. never conquered by Rome That's a little bit of an artificial cutoff for the end of it because of course that, you know that's just the conquest but actually much of I and age life in many parts of Britain carries on. period into the Rome period, but that's what we define as the Ironge. It's a huge period, isn't it? It's like from today all the way back to the time of the Crusades. So When talking about R and Age Britain, I guess we're going to need to get our head around straight away that there's a lot of development, a lot of evolution that you can see in these societies over that period. Definitely. and in the past sometimes we've kind of tended to kind of think of ron age life and society and settlement as all being One thing But like you say, there's a huge change between the end of the Bronze Age, the late Bonze Age all the way through to the Roman period And also it's worth remembering there thiss huge diversity just in Britain terms of the way people lived, the societies they lived in, the settlements they lived in. So sometimes it's quite hard to kind of just generalize and say, this is what the Iiron age was like. There used to be a tendency to think with the coming of Rome, That was the coming of civilization as it was. And what was In Britain before, it was mysterious, but it was the land of backward barbarians almost Yeah, definitely. that was the kind of the old way of looking at it. I mean, much of What was happening in the late Iron age was a precursor. in the Roman Empire. mean if we think about how farming was in the late Iron age, Most of those developments had already happened under on age societies. It wasn't Rome brought innovations of Urbanism, for instance, but much of the rest of society was already highly developed and complex before Rome over turned out. And this is where archaeology really shines a light on Ironge Britain unlike anything else. Yes, because of course, you've got to remember that Ironge societies idn't leave any written records Interestingly, you know, some of them in the very late Iron age could probably read and write Latin, but there's very few people. And the only written evidence we have is a few sources from Greek and Roman writers, which suffer from their own problems of propaganda and so on. So it's only archaeology that can really tell us about onA societies. What I have here I want to bring this because it was discovered deep in an attic quite recently, but it's a history book From I think it's the eighteen fifties or eighteen forties, so it's quite artifact in itself But it has like the first page kind of gives you an insight into how they viewed the Iron age back then and how different and we can like dissect it all and going through the archaeology today But it's interesting how like that this book No four kids moreore than one hundred and fifty years ago, it starts Basically with the Romans and a quick explanation of what was there before, what they thought And so it starts, it talks about Caesar's arrival in Britain and talks about the people of Britain its inhabitants who were then thinly scattered over the island were not civilized at all. They resembled barbarians, barbarous tribes In old tombs or fields of battle, specimens of their arms and tools are still dug up These consist of spear and arrowheads, hatchets, and knives, ingeniously made of flint They were not acquainted with the use of lime and building, but lived mostly in subterranean dwellings, covered with large slabs of stone With the same rude material they erected many remarkable monuments, which astonish and confuse the modern architects, such are the dreridic circles of Stonehenge and other places, consisting of huge upright masses of rock surounted by transverse blocks of immense size It kind of goes on and on. It's like the soil was poorly cultivated, and many districts which are now fruitful cornfields were then barren, wastte or impassable morasses It would seem at the present day but a poor boast for a powerful and civilized empire like Rome to gain victories over such tribes. Immediate thoughts on that, T Yes. Well, obviously archaeology has changed. I mean when you look at something like that, obviously it's written in a time before archaeology was really a full discipline and really understood that. So you could see from that little quote you read there that there's a sort of conflation of flints and neeolithic and with the Iron Age. reallyally they haven't got that understanding of deep time that we now understand in the Iron age and of course. when we think about the sources they were using, like Julius Cesar's account of the conquest or his invasions of Britain know That's what they're using to understand periods like the Iron Age. Achaeology now in the you know since throughout the twentieth century and now allows us to have a much better understanding of those societies. Better understanding, better dating, more insights into how they lived. St presumably many mysteries still abound, but we are learning through new discoveries in the north and south of Britain more about how they lived and ye how sophisticated they were, how they communicated, exchangeed with each other and so much more. Yeah, I mean, it's really exciting time Friday studies, as you say I mean, know they're exciting discoveries, N not least Mels andb, but also huge advances in scientific analysis. So ancient DNA studies, telling us about relationships between people, perhaps where they came from, isotope studies, also telling us about diet and also perhaps the origins of individuals. And I have to say, and it sort of perhaps doesn't grab the headlines so much, but also we develop led archeology. So you most people perhaps don't realize that over ninety percent of archaeology in Britain happens before development for road schemes and building And that's constantly providing new INA settlements so that we can chart of houses they live in, the settlements they live in, and even perhaps the increase in numbers of settlements over time. So it's a really exciting time to be able to bring all that together to try and sort of understand INish societies as a whole. So we'll get to these settlements very quickly and keywords like roundhouses, hill fors and so on But first of all The arrival of the Iron Age in Britain, what should we be thinking? So in terms of people think of the iron age and we think of iron, obviously as being defining that in many ways Iron doesn't necessarily define the Iron age. The late Bronze Age ends with the kind of people might know that in the Bonze Age and particularly the late Bronze Age there's large hoarding of bronze objects and then depositing them in wet places or in hoordes on land And that ceases around eight hundred seven hundred BC, which is kind of the end of the Bronze Age. But iron technology doesn't come in In fact, iron technology is actually there's some evidence that it's been around for a few hundred years before the end of the bronze Age C confusingly. So there is iron technology in the Okay. Yes, oddly, but yes, or at least hints at it. So there's a site in Berkshire which has smithing. so that's when you're smithing objects, so you're not actually smelting the ol that dates from about nine hundred BC So very early when we're firmly in the Bronze Age, iron technology then smellting, so that's actually taking the ore, doesn't happen untill about. mayaybe a hundred seven hundred BC But actually the iron technology, when we get it, for example, traded in ingots, for instance, doesn't really happen tntil about four hundred BC So Iiron technology kind of is there in the background and emerges through the early part of the Iron age. Okay. If you see what I mean? So it's a little bit. Now in the past, people used to think that there was these people were called the Celts who brought iron technology orr perhaps brought Celtic art We know from particularly things like DNA studies, that's certainly not true. The influx of peoples is more perhaps in the Bronze Age than it is in the Iron age. So the so called the Beaker people. So that's when we have we can see more evidence of an influx of people coming from the continent. So in terms of how the Iron age adopts, it's more of an insular development and perhaps a relationship between changes in The economy society and ritual in the end of the Bronze Age and new technology coming in. So the idea that there is a new group of people coming in is not the case. It's more a change in society To add to the complexity there, it's also worth remembering that there is Almost certainly a change in the climate between about eight hundred and four hundred BC, so it gets a bit colder and wetter all of these things are happening concurrent with each other and societies are changing. That's why when you say when does the Iron age start? it sounds like a really easy question. but actually it's not quite so easy. Well at a time when Britain gets a bit more miserable then it sounds like it the clate as well. As an archaeologist, I would never say it gets miserable. it just changes. But it's interesting that gradual process, which I'm hearing again and again now with so many ancient episodes new technology comes in, how long it takes, peoplee over generations realizing or being able to get their hands on you these new tools, this new metal that they now realize in their new settlements is more Valeable is more useful than let's say bronze and so on Yes. I mean, one of thing you've got to think about with Ion technology compared to bronze' a very different kind of technology. So with bronze objects you're casting them. Iine has to be smeltaged and then smith, you know, there's a different process though, they're not the same technological process Also It's worth thinking that people don't necessarily see the advantages of iron perhaps even need the advantagees of Iine. if you built an entire economy on Bronms working and traaining bronze or the materials like tin and copper to make bronze And you build a whole society on that. I teechnology is not necessarily something you want or need to adopt straight away. So we can be a little bit kind of assuming that As soon as people find iron technology It's better that it's Actually when you first make iron, it's not necessarily better than bronze for the things you need it to do. So there is a long period where people are playing with that technology, they're imitating it. So there's a wonderful site in Wales where you've got an import of a sword, which is made from iron from the continent and then they're all js M in I, but copying bronze type. So people are clearly kind of playing around with this technology, but perhaps not seeing the advantages of it or needing the advantages straight away. Well, let's have a look at the backbone almost of iron age society and how these people lived Is it fair that this time? I mean, agriculture That's at the forefront of here For people living in I and age Britain an everyday figure They're living in an agricultural type of settlement? Yes. I mean throughout the Iron age, almost everybody is a farmer, even right into the late Iron age, you know that we don't have really specialists perhaps until the very end of the Iron age. Most people are farming most of the time. And they' most subsistence farmmsers in other words, you know growing enough them and their families, you perhaps a little bit of surplus, but they're not creating for know, a broader economy. And what's the everyday settlement of one of these iron age farmers. I know it's a huge period. it's several centuries But there is one type of settlement that you tend to associate with an iron age farm. There are, you know, a lot of people that lived in small farmeads. I mean, I would hesitate to say as we say, the Iron Age is a long period and incredibly diverse. I mean, one of the things we are very aware of now is the diversity of the kind of settlements you lived in. I you can contrast it from the big stone Bcks of Northern and Western Scotland down to the courtyard house settlements of Cornwall, to the unenclosed settlements. So these are scatters of roundhouses that you find in the East Midlands. Theyown probably buried artificial island? Yes, occasionally you know, they're less common in the British shrine age, certainly. But crowns, yes. So there's a huge diversity Perhaps most people would think Iron age hill fors. And we kind of think hill forortts are the typical Iron age settlement. But even then, hill fors are incredibly varied. So that's interesting. I would have actually thought straightway get to the Hillfolks in a bit, but the roundhouse, like surely a small farming settlement from the roundhouse. I mean, you mentioned Brocks and all these things I mean, they're kiding they're always round Well, the roundhouse is the kind of standard structure that people live in throughout the Iron age, although they themselves are also incredibly diverse from You know, quite monumental structures, I mean, that we see in the late Bonze Age and earlyronge's really big timber built roundhouses to smaller structures such as stone walled roundhouses in Northern England in the later period, so but yes, the round houses the kind of standard structure. I mean, that is in itself interesting as why there's that kind of tendency to build round houses, which tells us something about how those households worked. for instance, perhaps even about the way they understood their space in a kind of more symol way. So what do we know about the function of roundhouses and was like the house of an everyday person in the Iron age? So I mean it was the main habitation for probably a household as communal living. There's very little evidence that they were divided into sort of different rooms or spaces like that So and it's where Most of the activities would have taken place within perhaps the doorways through the lights, you know so that's where everything is going on. One of the interesting things that's always been fascinating, if somewhat controversial is this sort of orientation of the doors of houses because they faced east or southeast a lot of the times. there's big discussion about whether that's avoid wind direction coming from the southwest. it keeps your house less windy and cold, but also the light is coming from the east But also there's a kind of that tendency towards the southeast might be having something to do with symbolic orientation between towards the sunrise, for instance. And can we imagine these smaller settlements I've been to Buttsserrchent fararm before. I always think of that, but we'll get to the Hill forks and the larger settments in a bit, but with these kind of farmsteads, these roundhouses Generally speaking, do we think from archaeology that probably see maybe like three, four or five roundhouses in one of these settlements in like a very small tight knit community. Yes, again, you know, it's a little bit difficult to generalize, but certainly for I mean there is actually quite a change over much of particularly southern Britain fromom the early Iron age. that's a period from about eight hundred BC through to about four hundred BC where we have more unenclosed settlements. justust a scatter of roundhouses, so perhaps just a few households. So you're talking very small populations. And then as we move into the period after about four hundred BC people live in what we would call small enclosed farmsmead. So they're digging which is r their settlements. And again, those are one or two roundhouses, so small households. So most of those communities are pretty small. They're the extended households rather than There are very few sort of villages, if you like, large numbers of households together Lvestock. building of the roundhouse itself, is this where we get the word ' wattle and Dorub quite a lot? Certainly most of those would have been wattle and Dorub constructed. Yes, there are a few where we have stone footings for roundhouses, particularly in sort of Northern England, for instance, in Northumberland, But yes, most of them are kind of timber built structures It's worth remembering, I mean, particularly if I mean, if you've been to Buter, you can think of some of particularly actually the late Brone Age or early Iron Age roundhouses. These are pretty impressive structures, you know, big use of timber. They're not You know, the idea that these are kind of mud huts. is as you talk kind of earlier, this you know reference was talking about we're kind of already displacing that st. These are these these are complex structures, big structures. and of course when we're talking about Brockchs and big monumental structures in Scotland these are incredibly ly architectural building. Don't me st started on the Baroques. that's another episode in this. But hopefully we'll have some pictures, some shots of B Butt Range and F fun. We've filmed them in the past and and with Watle and Dor it's kind of the Binding together of lots lots of sticks and then the painting over with the kind of Yeah. so you're weaving you're weaving them yeah together and then covering it in clay. It's clay or yeah. and then anibal gun and stuff. Yes, I mean, we had insulation. Yes. ye Okay, so that's kind of the everyday farming assessment of the Irnge that we think of You mentioned the word hillfought So Tom, when we're talking about the British Iron Age, when should we be thinking with Hill forks and what should we be thinking So again, Hillforts is a ' one of those terms we use all the time, but actually hill forts are very varied. You know we can think of really large hill forts. people perhaps be aware of Maiden Can. Maiden Can endorsse it.. too quite small hill forts, like those in Northumberland, the Chviia Hills is covered in hell thoughts, but those are Probably only including a couple of households incredibly constructed mononuments with quite substantial ramps, but they're not big And again, another thing with Hillforts is, we think of it as the Iron Age, but we now know that Hillforts start in the late Bronze Age. So they're one of these things that continues and develops and changes and they change over time in terms of their roles as well So some of the early rongeial thoughts. So again, thinking about sort of eight hundred to six hundred BC I thinkon embark here. Probably most people are not living in that hill for. It's probably a central focus for a wider community. It's probably a storage place for food resources some surplus But they're probably not actually living there. But then we think of Danbury in the middle Iron age. So when I mean that, I mean about sort of four hundred two hundred and fifty BC. There's a lot of people living in there. And Mon Castle as well. Maabon Castle. Yeah, you know, there's a few hundred people living in in those in those hill forts. So hill fors are very varied. and I guess also you also think about the big ramparts. If you visit one of these places today, one of the stunning things is getting through those ramparts and then being in there at that open plane in the middle, For instance, if you're in Maiden Castle and seeing the sheep and all of that. But it is the ramparts and how deep they are even today that like you can't help but Think about when you visit one of those sites Yes, and I mean, if you think of the size and the entrances as well the complex entrances, if anybody's been to Maiden Castle or Danbury have kind of getting into these things, there's a huge amount of labor expended. sites. I mean, one of the big questions for archaeologists is who's constructing them you know, so is it that there is sort of vassal peoples who are constructing them or is it the inhabitants? I think we're Most archaeologists now for the Iron Age would assume that there is kind of it's largely done by the inhabitants or as part of the community. This is not sort of Hillfoots are not necessarily at the top of a settlement hierarchy where there are lots of other people who are kind of dependent on these Because when these hill forts being built in like the midle Iron age, this is still centuries before the Romans arrived, is there very much a feeling that there's not written literature down about these people that we can't label them with the tribal names that we have later from the Romans. It's just too far back. Not very much so. I mean, I think trying to kind of identify them to the The tribal names, we can talk more about those in the late Iron age is quite problematic. These are much smaller sizeed communities than those larger entities So so no, I think that's, you know, these are not, they don't work in the same way. I mean, if you look at at Danbury, for instance, in Hampshire, the hill forort there is not the sort of Residents of elite, it's more like a large village, if you like, a large group of broundhouses and communities together, but it doesn't seem to be of any higher status really than many of the other settlements around it. And you said eles there because we I guess we can't know whether it was a king or warlord. Wh as you mentioned? if there even was one for those Yeah. I mean, that's been a big discussion in Irage studies for for forty, fifty years, really, the idea of whether there is a leak. we always assume And this comes back to sort of things like classical sources in Roman writers because Caesar describes by his society in Gaul as being elite and having kings and and droids, we kind of think that that must be how the ron age in Britain was for all of the Iron age But actually, archeologically there's very little evidence for an elite, you the things that you might think of as an elite burial practices and grave goods There would be a larger house or more rich material goods at somehone like Danbury, that doesn't exist in the archaeological record. If you look at Danby, for instance kind of things that Dameb, the kind of goods they were using, the ss of objects they were using are very similar to the smaller farm sleds we were talking about earlier. so It's very hard to distinguish any obviously. That doesn't mean it wasn't It doesn' mean there wasn't a difference in status between people. And status can be measured in things like the number of cattle you have, the number of sheep you have I think to think of it as sort of a hierarchy with a king or a chief, I think most Ironge specialists would suggest that's probably a little bit simplistit. Is it fair to say they probably had a defensive function or at least some of them would have had a defensive function againgain, you know, sort of saying, you know, you're getting into controversial topics here. I think yeah, that's what I do. No. that's right too. In terms of those ramparts, yes, the key distinction there is thinking, wereere hillfs attacked all the time? Were they meant to be defended from or to deter or to impress people, I guess. Yeah. I think both those things. I mean, we know that some hillfults had violence take place at them Brree, for instance in Somerset, Breeden Hill. in South Worcestershire, you know, there's evidence of We might call massacres, you know, people were killed at hill forts and they probably were attacked from time to time. I think know we kind of get away from that Those ramparts also, as you just intimated, have a function justust showing the amount of labor that you can consume. It is a demonstration of your power. But it's also a demonstration of how important your community is, perhaps So You know, the idea that they're always fighting from Hillforts is perhaps Fair enough, I always think back to Maen Castle and hearing from Dr. Mars Russell how back then actually with the chalk beneath the grass You don't realize it but back then gleaming white would have been visible for miles around. and you know that is a statement in yourself. So just remembering that and also what mentioned earlier with the roundhouses and the color that would have been visible, you know Yes, okay, chalk is white, but it's not just black and white almost in the Ars back then, you know, full of technic color full of wanting to impress and stand out whether it's with the monumental hill forts or with probably an everyday roundhouse. Yes, definitely. I mean I think you know I mean, if you want to talk about color in the Iron age, you perhaps want to talk about some of the objects they're using in the middle and late Iron Age, which are of course You know, some of them bronze, shining bronze and then adned with glass and coral and so on, you know as we were mentioning with Melsonb and so on, so mean Colour is definitely used to intate various different identities and attitudes. So yeah, I think it's good to kind of remind people that the Iron Age is not a blacken world or a green and brown world completely. Well let's move on then to this other key type assessment and one that I know you've done a lot of work around that seems so tied to the latest story of Britain's Ironge So what are these things called opida Right. So O but are these range of monuments that emerge at the very end of the Iron Age really? So But the end towards the end of the first century BC We call themopata because that's a term that was used on the continent. ularically by Julia Cesar to refer to sites he encountered goal And The things that we see in Britain emerge around the same tyightes that these sites in Gaul. So we've kind of transferred the term and it means From Latin you can translate it as enclosed settlement or town The confusing thing for the British science is they are not towns, not towns as we would understand it. So the classic Oidder in Britain, places like Cameladine and ern Culture.s Cochester. Yeah.'s Cochester. Yeah. underally an IH center underneath Colchter underneath the medieval and Roman town is an INH center also underneath modern Cent Alorbans It's likeite near Melsonby, Stanock These are the sort of classic operida. They're characterized by these huge enormous ramparts. I mean, one of the things you know we talked about hill fororts, but these things have huge Earthworks For many of them like Colchester, confusingly these earthworks don't define a nice enclosed area like our hillforts like Danbury. They often define huge areas of landscape. So I worked at Bagendon, for instance, encompasses about two hundred hectares. Wow. You can quite yeah, to get people's heads around that, you can quite easily plonk a Roman town within that quite happily and still have space but they don't define a nice sort of enclosed area. So One of the things that we've been working on I've been interested in is how do they What are they doing? How do they use that space? So it's more about defining landscapes Um activities and that's probably telling us some about the change in society. So By this time, Hill forts in many parts of Britain had sort of fallen out of use. Probably somet time before Opida really kind of emerged actually So society is changing in the late first century BC. This is the first time that we can start to identify individuals who are callalling themselves kings, For instance, their minting coinage. there new types of burial rightite are emerging. so there are graves with grave goods, something we haven't really seen across the British Iron age. So society is changing and the opida are the places where those kind of manifest. And this is the time when you're starting to get interactions with Rome. So accounts like Julius Caesar, mentions of tribal names and tribal kings and so on, you mentioned the arrival of cooinage as well. This is when that becomes another interesting source, which you can then use alongside the archaeology to learn more. Definitely. and that I mean it is at theopida that we see much of the interaction with the Roman world, you know, we see imports from the Roman world sites like Colchester or even at Stanic in the north of England. One of the interesting things there is what that relationship is like and one of the things I'm really interested in because we used to somet time ago think it was about sort of if you like the Roman Empire expands and this is a place that you sort of Ionge societies are trading with. And certainly that was happening to some extent. But a lot of the items we have in some of the burials at places like Lexton at Colchester are probably more like diplomatic good. there's more of a kind of political relationship, you know, as the emmpire expands and has these kingdoms on its peripheries which it's kind of managing as a political Land a Viking Longship on island shores, scramble over the dunes of ancient Egypt and avoid the poison' cup in Renaissance Florence. Each week on Echoes of History, we uncover the epic stories that inspire Assassin's Creed. We're stepping into feudal Japan in our special series Chasing Shadows, where samurai warlords and Shinobi spies teach us the tactics and skills needed not only to survive, but to conquer. Whether you're preparing for Assassin's Creed Shadows or fascinated by history and great stories, listen to Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hit. There are new episodes every week Since the dawn of time, humanity has been at war. It has shaped the world around us. And if it somehow feels like we've been here before, it's because we have I'm David Borris. I'm a military historian, and on my new podcast, Hostile History, I take us inside history's most defining wars and rebellions. From Gangghis Khan to the war in Iran, find out how the past can explain the present. seearch for and follow hostile history on Spotify, Apple podcasts, Amazon Music, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts It' a fair to say that it's almost, I know you mentioned that there seems to be a little bit of a break between them But almost the mid Iron age, the bigger centres in Iron Age Britain at least are defined by the greatreat Hill forts activity there And then the later Iron age That's replaced with the emergence of these Opida instead, but maybe they have similarish functions I would probably say no. They don't have they have quite different functions in many ways. Many of those hill thoughts. I mean, again, you know, it depends where you are You know, in the southwest and maiden castles there's kind of slightly different organization there, but many of the hill forortts in Hampshire, for instance, and up the Welsh marches are different kinds of settlements. They're more like small villages, communities. You opp to mark a very different kind of social organization. They're probably central places for much larger the emergence of much larger groups of people Hstanic, for instance, that's probably the central place for a whole confonfederacy of people across, you know much of what is now Northern England, the people that referred to by classical writers as the Brigantes That's very different from the roles of Hillforts had on a much larger scale. So this is the emergence probably of larger social entities that we only see really towards the end of the Irge things that we can think of as much larger polities. And people going still from there like in a roundhouse farmsteads and Maybe like communal gathering places inside these earthworks that these operaters are? Yeah, that's one of the things that really interests me about the Operata because One of the things that we're seeing in that period is the movement from very, very quite localized societies based on perhaps networks of a few farmsteads exchanging material between themselves, but not perhaps you know large social entities The late Iers with the opera is the formation of those larger entities. But you've got to have places where you negotiate that You know, how do you negotiate those relationships? And the opera in those big empty space is perhaps the place you do it for assembly. And one of the things that If we can believe some of the things that people like Caesar say is that late Ionge societies is about negotiated power The elites have to kind of forge assembly. he talks about this happening in Gaul, where they have to decide as a group, a collective, you know, are we going to go to war Are we have an alliance with these people? It's the opera where those spaces happen. And you can imagine the empty areas that we have in these sites because much of the interior of them is not full of settlements, it's open where they're gathering those people together One of the things that fascinates me is that there's also the impact from the expanding Roman Empire, but you've got to also remember that this is There's been a large increase in the number of settlements over the later Iron Age. So from about three hundred BC We just see an increase pretty much everywhere of settlements across Britain people in the landscape, there's more people who've got to negotiate access to land So there has to be places where that takes place to some extent, maybe Oa or other kind of culmination of that. How do we negotiate who homes, what land? How do we negotiate between those? try of think is if it's almost the Iron age equivalent to an extent of something like Glastonbury, you know Baby you know what I mean? Lots of people in an area together, probably very smelly as well after several days there. But for an important event, of course, use ceremonial, but of course big decisions for the larger polity that they're part of. Maybe they'll see the figure at the top of you know, a king or a queen and so on there too. Yeah, I think I mean you know I like your analogy of Glastonbury, but you know, assembly places so you know, anybody's sort of looked at early medieval world you can think of assembly places there being somewhere where even if you have a king, king has to negotiate their power, they have to come and they have to have the other members of those communities come together. negotiate their authority, you know, make that decision as a collective. And again, this is a rural community. So people are most of the time in their farmstead still per perhaps seing one member to come to those assemblies, represent them, make those decisions as a collective. So this is a really exciting time because it's that idea that we have kings, but these are not kings, as you might think from the high medieval period. This is more about a negotiated power structure. Oadora peraps and why I find them exciting is that those societies are trying to work out how do you do that how do you negotiate p in a different way that hasn't really existed before. Do you think this is a good place I think we can bring in chariots here and go back to the mills and be hawed because processions we can be thinking about may be happening there, a display of power, a display of wealth you know, happening at places like Opida and of course, one of the big vehicles we associate with ourr Nade Britain is the chariot who is wagons elaborate vehicles. Certainly chariots know are something that shows sort of characteristic of the British Iron Age. I we only know them from burials really from East Yorkshire in the middle Iron age, but then in the late Iron age, we know they existed from the parts we find and even Caesar mentions how important chariots were and and warlfare for the Britons Yeah, I mean, one of the exciting things about Melsonby is the idea that we have some other vehicles as well. These four wheeled wagons, you know, which If we compare them to what's happening on the continent, where they're thought of as being sort of ceremonial vehicles, as you say, either for the funery event or for display, yes, you can imagine people kind of processing around in these vehicles, perhaps being taken to the funery right on these vehicles. Yeah, I mean, one of the other exciting things from Melson Be and we kind of get bit obsessed by the vehicles and the chariots, which are exciting, donon't get me wrong. but is the kind of is the cauldron, is the wine mixing vessel that we have there from the earlier hordard that was discovered there a large bucket for drinking beer. So there's communal feasting going on. and you can again imagine that If your authority is about trying to negotiate with other people, you feith perhs you know show to get support from those individuals, you know, that's the way powerers manifest. And in time as well It maybe even place like Yorkshire in Stanock, Do think that You know, they're bring in things like ammphora, they're bringing in Roman goods as well. they're very much adopting those those ideas, those objects, those luxuries. from beyond the borders of Britain in the Operata by the late onnge. Some of the elite, if you like, that are emerging are items from the Roman world, drinking vessels, beakers, or from Gaul as well as that's now part of the know the Roman Empire and drinking wine. So yes, they are. And I mean, that's another interesting thing because there's clearly an imitation of Roman, but also Gaelic Gallic elites, they're imitating as well at the time of conquest to imitate their kind of that their partner elites on the continent, if you like, in a different way. I mean, one of the things that's really fascinating in a sense, 's also changing identity. One of the things that you see for much of the earlier middle Iron age, it's quite hard to see the individual for most of the ron age. don't Burials are grave goods, there are exceptions like he's Georksia, but for most of the time That's the case in Britain. It's hard to see and people are not well not many people using things like broches and stuff. It's quite hard to see the individual the archeological record. Once we get to the end of the Iron A age burials and so on associated with Operita, you can start to see individuals, but also through The way they're eating we beakers and platteratters. You know, this is this is about individual drinking. It's your cup. It's your plate. know that doesn't exist before. So clearly the individual is becoming more important. So there's a change in some people's identity to to sort of express the individual identity, which is perhaps again related to power changes, you know, it's more about you And what is a let's say a high ranking indndividual of the late Iron Age What do you think, what are they supposed to be in the eyes of the community, what skills they supposed to have? what can we gather from that, you know with the surviving archaeology? What insights can we get into late down and age community from those burials and things like that? That's a really good question. The possibility is that they are to sort of negotiate You know, that community, perhaps negotiate with external groups to offer also power, I mean, in terms of support in warfare, in or to lead that group when warfare is being consulted to consult the interaction with the Roman Empire. So I think that's one of the roles that they have is that kind of they are the sort of I mean, often, you know, you can think of them as leaders, you know negotiating with the outside world, if you like. And it's not just men we should be thinking about in these positions of power in ourge Britain, is it, Tom No, so I mean, you know we've known from Roman historians like Tatus There were powerful women in Ironish Britain, Buddaka, but also Queen Carter Anandua who was in North Yorkshire. What's exciting is that archeological evidence is really kind of emphasizing that in the past, you know, historians have sort of struggled. this the Romans making a point of this because it's exceptionalw two queens and that's it. Yeah. is and they make a big thing of it because perhaps it's unusual. But actually it's probably not unusual. So there's fantastic evidence from ancient DNA evidence now of which is showing particular in southwest but also in East Yorkshire of the sort relatedness of females so that their power seems to be going through the female linine. So there might be that women sort so women stay in the same place, they have maybe more power over land men come into those communities and perhaps they do other things in societies there's also been, you know, we've known for some time If we go back to East Yorkshire burials and you mentioned chariots with chariots and wonderful grave goods Pang sllack in Yorkshire forance, we have a fantastic iron mirror enigmatic So that you know, high status grave goods, which indicate that women are getting the same kind of treatment as some men. So women, so some of those graves in East Yorkshire with chariots in them also belong to women. Yes. Oh yes Yes And they have, you know, wonderful grave goods. you know, I mean, Iron Mirror, this is a wonderful one which has this kind of what's called a beam counter, which just underplays it but is very enigmatic y object, you know, which we don't really know what it's for. So that's always hinted to us that and have status and have status. I think the DNA evidence is really exciting because it's kind of it's emphasizing that that's there's clear evidence for that and the relatedness. and also that it's not just Dorset, that it's probably happening in other parts of Britain. So So when we have the individuals at Thasus mentions like Queen Cartimandia, we shouldn't be so surprised and that perhaps we only know about them because Roman histor they came into contact with the Roman world, but there were others. Those are the high status women you know that they're interacting with, but you know that evidence from graves in East Yorkshire can also inorsseage and kind of the two main areas where we find a lot of human remains from the island. Yes, and that's of one of the kind of interestnteresting issues, the burial record from the Iron Age is incredibly varied, but it's only really in Dorset at East Yorkshire that you have what we call an inhumation right R. The body going into the ground and in both areas, sometimes with grave goods, so things buried with people Of course that's really useful because then you've got bodies, you can associate with grave goods, you can do things like DNA analysis, isotope analysis, and so on For much of Britain throughout much of the Iron Age, that's not what happens to the dead it's incredibly baried. what happens the day. you do have inhumation burials, in hillfults and farmsteads, for instance But often just it's obviously clearly just a small proportion of the population who live there what happened to the rest of the population is is quite a complicated story. We don't know. But I mean, you know, if you dig any Iron age site really across Britain you will often find fragments of human remains in stitches in roundhouse, post holes and so on, bits of leg bones, bits of skull So yourour dead relative b buried under the floorboard somewhere? Well, I mean that's ye maybe not quite that. But I mean there is an interesting question there because we are still sort of trying to establish what happened to the dead. For a long time, we suspected there was exaration. so other words placed in on platforms or in trees and sort of, you know left out to sort of and to be picked out by an animals and birds and so on and then the remains went into ological features It's somewhat more complicated than that because there's been some wonderful studies that show that Sometimes bodies went in the ground and then were dug up again and moved around and sometimes bodies were probably mummified, they were probably kept above ground and then deposited. So what's interesting st with there are I mean some wonderful examples of it's a skull which have holes drilled in them And so people are, you know, hanging s of bodies up. So I mean, it's really interesting because I think, you know, the attitudes towards the dead are probably much more varied fluid. And I think, you can sometimes think,, isn't that disrespectful? buthaps not? it's more about actually dead being part of the community. Well, once again and we've done ice age examples of cannibalism where actually it's actually a part of the ritual.'m not saying that for iron age stuff at all, but once again getting our mind around different ways that they honor the dead that you know, of their family and so on. And there's some bog body examples, aren't there Quite a few from I Britain. I mean, the famous one is Lindau Man, obviously. Again, the bog bodies perhaps are part of that sort of continuum, if you like. you know, the bog bodies are there. and certainly treated in special ways, wet places almost certainly have significance in the Iron age. but in a sense, the bog bodies are perhaps part of the continuum that we see in other forms which are now skeletons, if you like, not preserved, but actually part of this way of treating the dead in different ways. And one of the things that interests me is that might also relate to what you did in life Did you die in battle? Therefore you get one treatment, perhaps your you' you're in humumation perhaps somewhere on the settlement site, you know, if you died a different way, you get treated in different ways. So We're to explore a bit one particularly grim other way of dying in a bit We're going to export human sacrifice But Before we get there, you mentioned fighting in Basle. Is this a clear part of Iron age British society? becausecause in the past we always you look at the G Hill forts, you look at the ramparts, the chariots and so on and you think warrior Society How far Can we say that the people like the men of our Age Britain, that they were warrior societies, that they were expected to fight Certainly violence part of society, you know we have individuals who have Sword cuts talking about Stic earlier, you go to Stanic. there's a wonderful example with a skull with a sword cut. It is obviously a sword cut to the head b in the ditch. Yeah. And just cuts into the skull is it? Yeah. I mean and we have many examples of that I guess one of the interesting things is when we then to say about is it a warrior society So When we talked about Hill fororts, you know, it's very hard to see a warrior elite living at Hill forortts In many ways, it's hard to see a warrior elite. So we have some burials of what you might call warriors. There's a wonderful one at Mill Hill in Kent, where you have an individual buried with shield, sword And so you can say this indage is a warrior, but mostost people are not treated like that with the Iron Age. So they're actually relatively unusual So If it was a warrior society, wouldn't we find more of those? You know, if we think of East Yorkshire, there are individuals who are buried with weapons. all of those people and not most of those people. So and when we look at the evidence of trauma so violence on bodies, you know it's only about eight percent of the remains from somewone like Danbury have trauma on it Now It's just a question of what proportion you'd expect, but What I mean by that is that violence is a part of those societies, but there's a big difference from being a warrior elite. You know, I always love there's a great quote an ron age specialist who said it's in a farmers who fight You know, they are farmers most of the time who do fight. As I said before, you know, if you think of there are massacres, there's Wb there's Breed and Hill where you have violence and people who were clearly killed, probably massacred at the site. So there is interpersonal violence, but I think from the evidence we have from the human remains that I think it's unlikely that this is happening all the time. everybody. For some people, you may get status through warfare through violence, but I think this is probably not always the case and perhaps not offtten the case because you might want to think of somewhere like an operator like Stanic orsoever or somewhere similar. Cultesterday come lead me where you mentioned how the gathering of people all together. I guess Could there be a theory that maybe once in a while if they'd had a disagreement with a nearby people, the elite, they gather there in their chars, the farmers are expected to gather with their spears and slings and that's kind of the classic and then off they go for a quick fight. Yeah. I mean I think it's certainly uncertain in the late Iron age, those kind of you know, battles between groups of ron age people certainly happened and throughout the Iron age Um you know, certainly violence was part of society, there was warfare, I think. where I'm sort of distinguishing, I guess, is from the kind of assumption that status is always going through violence. I mean we were just talking about female power and that's probably more through ownership of land. And so it's probably land that's most important. So that is that difference between saying is violence part of society or is it a warrior elite? And I think That might sound like, you know, nitpicking, but actually I think it's really important to think how do you gain status? And violence is probably one way, but it's perhaps not common at all. Land a Viking Longship on island shores, scramble over the dunes of ancient Egypt and avoid the poisonous' cup in Renaissance Florence. Each week on Echoes of History, we uncover the epic stories that inspire Assassin's Creed. We're stepping into feudal Japan in our special series Chasing Shadows, where Samurai warlords and Shinobi spies teach us the tactics and skills needed not only to survive, but to conquer. Whether you're preparing for Assassin's Creed Shadows or fascinated by history and great stories, listen to Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hit. There are new episodes every week Since the dawn of time, humanity has been at war. It has shaped the world around us. And if it somehow feels like we've been here before, it's because we have. I'm David Boris. I'm a military historian, and on my new podcast, Hostile History, I take us inside history's most defining wars and rebellions. From Gangghis Khan to the war in Iran, find out how the past can explain the present. search for and follow hostile history on Spotify, Apple podcasts, Amazon Music, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts So let's talk about religion Does INge religion or For most of the Ironge period in Britain Is it quite invisible to see examples of ritual and religion So for much of the Iron A age, there is little in the way of temples or sanctuaries. They appear at the very end of the Iron Age, where we see belief is through things like remains buried on settlement sites, both human remains, but also animal remains, structured sometimes, so arranged in unusual ways, which are probably some kind of ritual activity offerings on settlement sites. Even the structure of the way their settlements are organized mentioning about the roundhouses orientated towards the rising sun. So the way you structure the space of your settlement is also about reflecting ritual and belief But it's not, you know, there's not a place probably where you go and do ritual for much of the Iron edge. It's in your everyday experience. And so it's But is there an importance to the natural landscape? Can we gather that? I mean I might also think of Ojects like the Batterseea shhield or the Waterloo helmet, which you can go and see in the British Museum today Do we get a sense that There is a real attachment to wooded areas to rivers and so on throughout the Iron Age. Certainly certain places in the landscape have symbolic significance. so you're right. So some of the We have less metalwork deposition in rivers than we had in the Bronze Age, but it's still happening and it's interesting. So you mentioned some of the shields of something like the Withham shield from Lincolnshire, where there are places where people go and deposit material as a great place called Fiscoton where there's a kind of platform that goes into the river, and they're clearly depositing valuable objects Proably sometimes human remains.? some of the dead and that's another enigma of what happens to some of the dead. mayaybe they go into to rivers and there are special places where that happens Again, what's interesting about some of that is those objects, you know, like Witham shhield, you know, this is perhaps again, a communal act, and it's a community coming together. The fact that you put it into a wet place, you don't bury it with your warrior is perhaps saying this is about the communal act. So let's talk about druids What do we know about druids in Iron Age Britain So we know about drruids really from Roman writers, particularly Julius Caesar mentions Drid when he's in Gaul and he mentions the fact that dids existed in Britain and they were important Archaeologically, it's very difficult see the existence of Drid. So there are exceptional burials. We have these kind of little bronze spoons which divide into quarters, which are kind of weird objects. and you know, there's a burial in Scotland which has one of them These could be kind of rither items. but actually trying to identify druids in the archaeological record is very difficult for the Iron age. see them in burials, we don't see them. so it's hard to know how significant they were Certainly for much of the Iron age and perhaps if they were significant it's only towards the late Iron Age Gosh B betweenina, can we say anything about them at all? I mean the thing with the drraids is archaeologically, it is hard to see them. so One of the burials associated with Colest are Stanway people which has my medical equipment in it P peopleople saying, I was this Is this for divination? Is that it's really hard to make that Lee. archeologically to these individuals. So and as I say, for most of Most of the Iron age for most of the time, ritual practice seems to be something that's done perhaps. by and within the community and to try to identify those ritual specialists as quite is quite difficult And as you can tell, something that's going to quite controversial really. Fair enough. I mean, one thing I would going ask though is the human sacrifice question. is archaeologically, is it more clear to see evidence of human sacrifice in Ion age remains Certainly individuals died. Violently So, you know, in terms of someome people were sacrificed, but again, you know, how and why they were killed is often quite hard to see arologically and I think we have to be a bit kind of careful of this all comes from sort of trying to take the classical sources and say, can we see that in the archaeological record? And I think that's That's always a little bit difficult to sort of interpret it with through the lens of the classical writers rather than thinking How did these people die whyy was that? and certainly you know some of those bg bodies, you know are treated in ways which suggests They were they were sacrificed why and what that means, I think is really interesting. I mean, I think I mean to give you an example, there's burial that I excavated imagined. and so it's a female burial buried in the ditch She's bur in a very unusual way, so she was placed in the ditch so that she sort of was on her knees and she fell backwards. Now, she wasn elderly female. So we can't archaeologically can't say how old but she was certainly over fifty. And we know from her isotopes that she'd come from long distance It looks, we couldn't find any evidence that she'd sort of had a throat cut, any kind of nicks on the throat or anything But the burial is kind of you might interpret it as being kind of sacrificed. she's paced in the ditch and it's very unusual. looks like she didn't wantan to go in. It's But actually if you think of her being an elderly female and the fact that she's come from long distance to the site in her childhood, she's probably something's really important in society So You know, how does her treatment in death denote something that she was sacrificed or is it denote actually something that was really She was really important members of society. So I think that's where the archaeology, you, we have to be a little bit nuanced about how we interpret it Understood You mentioned earlier Uffington and that being a prime INA center. Now when someone mentions Uffington, I do think of the beautiful white horse, the chalk horse on the side of the hill there And Iron age roots, do we believe to that White horse? Earlyon age. Early Iron age, whichich leads me to the question of horses in general in the Iron age. How symbolic, how important do we think horses became to Iron age societies Horses are really kind of intriguing when we think about the Iron Age and certainly throughout much of the Iron Age, in the middle Ironge, for instance, they're clearly treated differently. So when we're talking about Ritual Bs of horse remains are deposited on site. great know examples from Danb, know the leg of a horse. you know, so they seem to be treated in different ways than say cattle, sheep