Paper short abstract:

This study of 300 Iron Age sites in and around Berkshire shows how, as the Iron Age progressed, there were changes in the types of structure and artefacts deposited on these sites and how, using agency theory, it is possible to identify distinct socio-economic communities and gain insights into the political development of this region.

Paper long abstract:

Over the last five years, a team of us have been reinterpreting the Iron Age evidence in a region of Southern Britain centred on Berkshire. Based on architectural features, pottery, coin, and other evidence found on some 300 sites we were able to use agency theory to identify eight distinct communities in an area stretching from Abingdon in the north, to Basingstoke in the south, and Marlborough in the west to Heathrow in the east.

These communities included a transhumance farming community on the Berkshire Downs which in the Earliest and Early Iron Age created a series of hillforts, in the Middle Iron Age rebuilt the hillforts and colonised the southern slopes of the Downs with banjo enclosures, and in the Late Iron Age established strong political links with the Atrebates to the south. Another community, dating from the Middle Iron Age, centred on the hillfort at Caesar's Camp, Bracknell; consisted of settlements specialising in iron production, sheep rearing and textile manufacture, cereal production, pottery production, and tanning.

This paper explains how as the Iron Age progressed there were changes in the types of structure and artefacts deposited on sites and how using agency theory it is possible to identify distinct socio-economic communities and to gain insights into the political development of the region.

This work is published in

Hutt, A. Goodenough, P. and Pyne, V. 2009. Living in the Iron Age in and around Berkshire, Berkshire Archaeological Journal 78: 1-193.