An examination of the archaeology of Britain in the 5000 years preceding the Roman conquest of AD43. The course will focus on the agricultural societies of later prehistory. Issues discussed in detail include the importance of monuments in the Neolithic, the development of elaborately defended settlements in the Iron Age, the changing emphasis on death, the role of exchange on a local and national scale and the importance of regional differences in the settlement record. METHODS OF TEACHING: 10 weekly 1 hour lectures, 2 x 1 hour seminars/tutorials. METHODS OF ASSESSMENT: For Study Abroad and Erasmus students, coursework (100%).

Aims

To introduce students to the main themes and developments of British Prehistory, from the introduction of agriculture to the coming of the Romans.

Objectives

By the end of the module students will have:

1. Knowledge of the key developments in British Prehistory (e.g. the establishment of agriculture and settled life, the beginnings of social differentiation, the definition of regional groups).
2. Knowledge of selected key sites and regions.
3. An understanding of continuing problems in the study of British Prehistory.
4. Knowledge of the chronology of British Prehistory, and the key terms used to divide it (e.g. Neolithic, Bronze Age).

A series of  weekly Lectures and you will each attend two seminars during the module, on a Monday at 1.10

One essay (50%) and one examination (50%).

Highlighted in Bold are three recommended texts.

General introductory studies:

Bradley, R 2007 The prehistory of Britain and Ireland. Cambridge University Press.

Burgess, C 1980 The Age of Stonehenge. Dent.

Clarke, DV, Foxon, A and Cowie, T 1985Symbols of power at the time of Stonehenge. HMSO.

Cooney, G 2000 Landscapes of Neolithic Ireland. Routledge.

Cunliffe, B 1995 English Heritage Book of Iron Age Britain. Batsford.

Edmonds, M 1999 Ancestral Geographies of the Neolithic. Routledge.

Edwards, K J and Ralston, I B M 1997 Scotland: Environment and Archaeology, 8000BC–AD1000. John Wiley.

Evans, J G E 1999 Land and Archaeology. Tempus.

Hayes, A 1993 Archaeology of the British Isles. Batsford.

Hunter, J and Ralston, I B M (eds) 2009 The Archaeology of Britain (second edition). Routledge.

Jones, M 1986 Englandbefore Domesday. Batsford.

Kristiansen, K 1998 EuropeBefore History. Cambridge University Press.

Lynch, F, Aldhouse Green, S and Davies, J L 2000 Prehistoric Wales. Stroud: Sutton.

Megaw, V and Simpson, D (eds) 1980 Introduction to British Prehistory. Leicester University Press.

Parker Pearson M 1993 English Heritage Book of Bronze Age Britain. Batsford.

Pollard, J (ed) 2008 Prehistoric Britain. Blackwell.

Pryor, F 2003 BritainBC: Life in Britain and Ireland before the Romans. London: Harper Collins.

Rackham, O 1986 (1995, 2003). The History of the Countryside. London: Dent

Simmons, I 2001 An Environmental History of Great Britain: From 10,000 years Ago to the Present. Edinburgh University Press.

Simmons, I and Tooley, M (eds) 1981 The Environment in British Prehistory. Duckworth.

Regional and general studies:

Armit, I 1997 Celtic Scotland. Batsford.

Armit, I 2001 Towers in the North: the Brochs of Scotland. Tempus.

Barber, M 2003 Bronze and the Bronze Age. Tempus.

Barber, M, Field, D and Topping, P 1999 Neolithic Flint Mines in England. English Heritage.

Barnatt, J 1989 Stone Circles of Britain: Taxonomic and Distributional Analyses. Brit Archaeol Rep Brit Ser 215.

Bayliss, A and Whittle, A (eds) 2007 Histories of the dead: building chronologies for five southern British long barrows. Cambridge Arch J 17.1, supplement.

Bell, M and Walker, M J C 1992 Late Quaternary Environmental Change: Physical and Human Perspectives. Longman.

Bradley, R 1990 The Passage of Arms: an Archaeological Analysis of Prehistoric Hoards and Votive Deposits. Cambridge University Press.

Bradley, R 1993 Altering the Earth. Edinburgh: Soc Antiq Scot.

Bradley, R 1998 The Significance of Monuments. Routledge.

Bradley, R and Edmonds M 1993 Interpreting the Axe Trade. Cambridge University Press.

Bradley, R and Gardiner, J 1984 Neolithic Studies: a Review of some Current Research. BAR Brit Ser 133. 

British Archaeology 2011 The first invaders: what happened when archaeologists dated the Neolithic.  July-August 2011, 14–21.

Brück, J 1999 Houses, lifestyles and deposition on Middle Bronze Age settlements in Southern England. Proc Prehist Soc 65, 145-166.

Brück, J 2002 Bronze Age Landscapes: Tradition and Transformation. Oxbow.

Burgess, C 1988 Britain at the time of the Rhine-Swiss group. In P Brun and C Mordant (eds), Le groupe Rhin-Suisse-France orientale et la notion de civilisation des Champs d'Urnes, 559-72.

Carr, G and Stoddart, S 2002 Celts from Antiquity. Antiquity Publications.

Chambers, F M (ed) 1993 Climate Change and Human Impact on the Landscape. Chapman and Hall.

Clarke, D V and Sharples, N M 1985 Settlements and subsistence in the third millenium BC. In C Renfrew (ed), 54-82.

Chippindale, C 1983 StonehengeComplete. Thames and Hudson.

Cunliffe, B 1991(2005)Iron Age Communities in Britain (3rd ed). Routledge.

Cunliffe, B 2003 Danebury Hillfort. Tempus.

Current Archaeology 2011 Gathering time: the second radiocarbon revolution. October 2011, 12–19.

Darvill, T 2006 Stonehenge: the Biography of a Landscape. Tempus.

Darvill, T and Thomas, J 1996 Neolithic Houses in Northwest Europe and Beyond. Oxbow.

Dent, J M 1982 Cemeteries and settlement patterns of the Iron Age on the Yorkshire Wolds. Proc Prehist Soc 48, 437-458.

Edmonds, M 1993 Interpreting causewayed enclosures in the past and present, in C Tilley (ed) Interpretive Archaeology, 99-142. Berg.

Edmonds, M 1995 Stone Tools and Society. Batsford.

Edmonds, M 1999 Ancestral Geographies of the Neolithic. Routledge.

Edmonds, M and Richards, C 1998 Understanding the Neolithic. Cruithne Press.

Fairbairn, A S 2000 Plants in Neolithic Britain and Beyond. Oxbow.

Field, D 2006 Earthen long barrows. Tempus.

Fischer, A (ed) 1995 Proceedings of the Man, Sea and the Mesolithic conference, Horsholm. Oxbow.

Fleming, A 1988 The Dartmoor Reaves. Batsford.

Gibson, A M and Simpson D 1998 Prehistoric Ritual and Religion. Sutton.

Gwilt, A and Haselgrove, C 1997 Reconstructing Iron Age Societies. Oxbow.

Harding, J 2003 Henge Monuments of the British Isles. Tempus.

Hingley, R 1995. The Iron Age in Atlantic Scotland: Searching for the meaning of the substantial roundhouse. In J D Hill and C Cumberpatch (eds) Different Iron Ages: Studies in the Iron Age in Temperate Europe. BAR Int Ser 602. 185-194.

Hingley, R 1992 Society in Scotland from 700BC to AD200. Proc Soc Antiq Scot 122. 7-53.

Jay, M and Richards, M P 2007 British Iron Age diet: Stable isotopes and other evidence. Proc Prehist Soc 73, 169-190.

Loveday, R 2006 Inscribed across the landscape: the cursus enigma. Tempus.

Macready, S and Thompson F (eds) 1984 Cross-Channel Trade between Gaul and Britain in the pre-Roman Iron Age. London, Soc Antiquaries.

McOmish, D, Field, D and Brown, G 2001 The Field Archaeology of the Salisbury Plain Training Area. English Heritage.

Mercer R and Healy, F 2008 Hambledon Hill, Dorset, England. English Heritage.

Milles, A, Williams, D and Gardner, N 1989 The Beginnings of Agriculture. Brit Archaeol Rep. Int Ser 496.

Needham, S 2000 Power Pulses across a cultural divide: Cosmologically driven acquisition between Armorica and Wessex. Proc Prehist Soc 66, 151-208

Oswald, A, Dyer, C and Barber, M 2001 The Creation of Monuments: Neolithic Causewayed Enclosures in the British Isles. English Heritage.

Parker Pearson, M (ed) 2003 Food, Culture and Identity in the Neolithic and Early Bronze Age. Oxford: Archaeopress.

Parker Pearson, M 1999 The Archaeology of Death and Burial. Stroud: Sutton Publishing.

Pollard, J and Reynolds, A 2002 Avebury: the Biography of a Landscape. Tempus.

Pollard, T and Morrison, A (eds) 1996 The Early Prehistory of Scotland. Edinburgh University Press.

Pryor, F 1991The English Heritage Book of Flag Fen. Batsford.

Pryor, F 1998 Farmers in Prehistoric Britain. Tempus.

Pryor, F 2001a Seahenge: a Quest for Life and Death in Bronze Age Britain. Harper Collins.

Renfrew, C (ed) 1985 The Prehistory of Orkney. Edinburgh University Press.

Richards, C 1993 Monumental choreography; architecture and spatial representation in late Neolithic Orkney. In C Tilley (ed) Interpretive Archaeology, 143-178. Berg.

Richards, C 1996 Monuments as landscapes: creating the centre of the world in late Neolithic Orkney. World Archaeology 28, 190-208.

Russell, M 2002 Monuments of the British Neolithic: the Roots of Architecture. Tempus.

Serjeantson, D and Field, D (eds) 2006 Animals in the Neolithic of Britain and Europe. Oxbow.

Sharples, N 1992 English Heritage Book of Maiden Castle. Batsford.

Sharples, N 2010 Social Relations in Later Prehistory: Wessex in the First Millennium BC. Oxford University Press.

Short, J R 1991Imagined Country. Routledge.

Thomas, J 1988 Neolithic explanations: the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition in Britain and southern Scandanavia. Proc Prehist Soc 54, 59-67.

Thomas, J 1991 Rethinking the Neolithic. Cambridge University Press.

Thomas, J 1999 Understanding the Neolithic. Routledge.

Townend, S 2007 What have reconstructed roundhouses ever done for us...? Proc Prehist Soc 73. 97-111.

Whimster, R 1981 Burial Practices in Iron Age Britain. BAR Brit Ser 90.

Whittle, A 1996 Europein the Neolithic: The Creation of New Worlds. Cambridge University Press.

Whittle, A, Healy, F and Bayliss, A. 2011 Gathering Time: Dating the Early Neolithic Enclosures of Southern Britain and Ireland. Oxbow.

Whittle, A and Cummings, V (eds) 2007 Going Over: the Mesolithic-Neolithic Transition in North-west Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press/Proceedings of the British Academy 144.

Woodward, A 2000 British Barrows: A Matter of Life and Death. Tempus.

Site reports and specialist studies:

Armit, I and Ralston, I B 1997. The Iron Age, in Edwards, K J and Ralston, I B M 1997 Scotland: Environment and Archaeology, 8000BC-AD1000. John Wiley.

Barclay, A and Halpin, C 1999 Excavations at Barrow Hills, Radley, Oxfordshire vol 1: The Neolithic and Bronze Age Monument Complex. Oxford: Oxford Archaeol Unit Thames Valley Landscapes vol 11.

Barclay, G J 1997. The Neolithic. In I B M Ralston and K J Edwards (eds), Scotland: Environment and Archaeology, 8000 BC- AD 1000, 127-49. Chichester: Wiley.

Barrett, J C 1990. The monumentality of death: the character of Early Bronze Age mortuary mounds in southern Britain. World Archaeology 22, 179-189.

Barrett, J C 1996. The living, the dead and the ancestors: Neolithic and Early Bronze Age mortuary practices. In R W Preucel (ed), Contemporary Archaeology in Theory. Blackwell.

Benson, D and Whittle, A (eds) Building Memories: the Neolithic Cotswold long barrow at Ascott-under-Wychwood, Oxfordshire.

Bevan, B 1999 Land - Life - Death - Regeneration: interpreting a middle Iron Age landscape in eastern Yorkshire. In B Bevan (ed), Northern Exposure: Interpretive Devolution and the Iron Ages in Britain, 123-148. Leicester: Leicester Archaeology Monographs no 4.

Bogaard, A 2005 Garden agriculture and the nature of early farming in Europe and the Near East. World Archaeology 37, 177-96.

Bradley, R 2003 Neolithic expectations. In I  Armit, E Murphy, E Nelis and D Simpson (eds), Neolithic Settlement in Ireland and Western Britain. Oxbow Books.

Bruck, J 1995 A place for the dead: the role of human remains in Late Bronze Age Britain. Proc. Prehist Soc 61, 245-78.

Brunaux, J L 1987. The Celtic Gauls: Gods, Rites and Sanctuaries. Seaby.

Burstow, G P and Holleyman, G A 1957 Late Bronze Age Settlement on Itford Hill, Sussex. Proc Prehist Soc 23, 167-212.

Callander, J G and Grant, W G 1934 A long, stalled chambered cairn or mausoleum near Midhowe, Rousay, Orkney. Proc Soc Antiq Scot 70, 407-419.

Champion, T 1980. Mass migration in Later Prehistory. InP Sorbom (ed) Transport, Technology and Social Change.

Childe, V G 1931 Skara Brae.

Cleal, R M J, Walker, K E and Montague, R 1995 Stonehengein its Landscape. London, English Heritage Archaeol Rep 10.

Cunliffe, B 1992. Pits, preconceptions and propitiation in the British Iron Age. OxfordJournal of Archaeology 11, 69-83.

Cunliffe, B W and de Jersey, P 1997 Armorica and Britain: Cross Channel Relationships in the Late First Millennium BC. Oxford: OUCA.

Cunliffe, B W and Renfrew, C 1997 (eds) Science and Stonehenge. Proc British Academy 92.

Davidson, J L and Henshall A S 1989The chambered cairns of Orkney. Edinburgh University Press.

Dent, J 1985 Three chariot burials from Wetwang, Yorkshire. Antiquity 59, 85-92.

Drewett, P 1982 Later Bronze Age downland economy and excavation at Black Patch, east Sussex. Proc Prehist Soc 48, 321-400.

Edwards, K J and Ralston, I B M 1997. Scotland: Environment and Archaeology, 8000BC-AD1000. John Wiley.

Eogan, G 1986Knowth and the passage tombs of Ireland. Thames and Huson.

Fasham, P 1985 The Prehistoric Settlement at Winnal Down, Winchester. Hampshire Field Club.

Fitzpatrick, A P 1997 Archaeological Excavation on the Route of the A27 Westhampnett Bypass, West Sussex 1992, Vol 2. The Cemeteries. Wessex Archaeology Rep no 12.

Fitzpatrick, A P 2002 The Amesbury Archer: a well-furnished Early Bronze Age burial in Southern England. Antiquity 76, 629-630.

Fitzpatrick, A P and Morris, E L (eds) 1994 The Iron Age in Wessex: Recent Work. Salisbury: Trust for Wessex Archaeology.

Gelling, P S 1985. Excavations at Skaill, Deerness. In C Renfrew (ed), The Prehistory of Orkney. Edinburgh U.P.

Gibson, A M 1994 Excavations at Sarn-y-bryn-caled Cursus Complex, Welshpool, Powys and the timber circles of Great Britain and Ireland. Proc Prehist Soc 60, 143-224.

Gibson, A 2003. What do we mean by Neolithic settlement? Some approaches, 10 years on. In I Armit, E Murphy, E. Nelis and D Simpson (eds), Neolithic Settlement in Ireland and Western Britain. Oxbow Books.

Green, M J 1995. The Celtic World. Routledge

Green, M 1998. Humans as ritual victims in the Later Prehistory of Western Europe. OxfordJournal of Archaeology 17, 169-189.

Guttmann, E 2005. Midden cultivation in prehistoric Britain: arable crops in gardens. World Archaeology 37, 224-239.

Harding, D W, Blake, I M and Reynolds, P J 1993 An Iron Age settlement in Dorset: Excavation and reconstruction. Edinburgh Dept of Archaeology.

Hedges, J 1985. The broch period. In C. Renfrew (ed) The Prehistory of Orkney. Edinburgh UP.

Hedges, J W 1987 Bu, Gurness and the Brochs of Orkney. BAR Brit Ser 164.

Hill, J D 1989. Rethinking the Iron Age. Scottish Archaeological Review 6, 16-24.

Hill, J D 1995a How should we understand Iron Age societies and hillforts? A contextual study from southern Britain. In J D Hill and C Cumberpatch, (eds), Different Iron Ages: Studies on the Iron Age in Temperate Europe. Oxford: Brit Archaeol Rep Brit Ser 242.

Hill, J D 1995b Ritual and Rubbish in the Iron Age of Wessex: a Study on the Formation of Specific Archaeological Record. Brit Archaeol Reps Brit Ser 242.

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McKinley, J 2011 Bare bones: the ‘Amesbury Archer’ and the ‘Boscombe Bowmen’. Current Archaeology XXI, no. 11, Feb 2011,12-19.

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