HS2306: Iron Age Britain

School Archaeology
Department Code SHARE
Module Code HS2306
External Subject Code 100384
Number of Credits 20
Level L6
Language of Delivery English
Module Leader Professor Niall Sharples
Semester Spring Semester
Academic Year 2013/4

Outline Description of Module

The Iron Age sees the transformation of the archaeological record and the eventual emergence of Britain in the historical record. This double module is designed to provide students with a detailed understanding of the archaeology of the British Iron Age focusing particularly on the nature and causes of changes in the technology, settlements and monuments of the later first millennium BCE. It sets out the evidence for Britain as it begins to come into contact with the expanding Roman Empire.

On completion of the module a student should be able to

By the end of the module students will have:

  a.     a detailed knowledge of the Iron Age sequence in Britain and Ireland

   b.     an understanding of the changes in settlement form and landscape organisation in time and space

   c.      knowledge of technological changes and developments in subsistence practice

   d.      a broad understanding of the nature of archaeological evidence

How the module will be delivered

METHODS OF TEACHING: 20 lectures; 2 seminars; field trip.

Skills that will be practised and developed

Intellectual Skills:

1. the ability to evaluate evidence of varying quality and source

2. the ability to correlate information from lectures, seminars and independent reading

3. the ability to present their knowledge in a coherent manner in essay and exam conditions

 Discipline Specific (including practical) Skills:

The ability to demonstrate an understanding of archaeological evidence and its limitations

 Transferable Skills:

1.  the ability to write cogently and critically in an assessed essay and under examination conditions.

2. the ability to understand complex arguments and evaluate the evidence in support of them.

3. to work independently and produce work to deadlines.

How the module will be assessed

The assessed essay, examination, and non-assessed seminars, require the student to demonstrate critical analysis of the archaeological evidence for Iron Age in the British Isles

Assessment Breakdown

Type % Title Duration(hrs)
Written Assessment 50 Iron Age Britain N/A
Exam - Spring Semester 50 Iron Age Britain 1

Syllabus content

1 Popular myths;   
2 Iron Age geograohies, settlements;  
3 Iron Age geographies, territories and tribes;    
4 Chronological change;  
5 The arable economy;  
6 The pastoral economy;  
7 Technological change, metals;  
8 technological change, ceramics and stone;  
9 The cosmological house;  
10 Water boundaries and pits;  
11 Mortality and the absence of burials;  
12 Yorkshire burial practices;  
13 Case studies, Atlantic Scotland;   
14 Case studies, The Fens;  
15 Case studies, west Wales;  
16 Case studies Wessex 1;  
17 Case studies, Wessex 2  
18 Trade and exchange;  
19 Coinage;  
20 Late Iron Age oppida and burials;   
21 Ireland

Essential Reading and Resource List

Armit, I 1992 The Later prehistory of the Western Isles of Scotland. Oxford, Brit Archaeol Rep 221.

Bevan, B 1999b Northern Exposure: interpretive devolution and the Iron Ages in Britain. Leicester, Leicester Archaeology monographs 4

Creighton, J 2000 Coins and power in Late Iron Age Britain. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Cunliffe, B W 1991 Iron Age Communities in Britain, 3rd edition. London, Routeledge.

Cunliffe, B W 1995 Danebury: An Iron Age Hillfort in Hampshire. Vol 6 A hillfort community in perspective. CBA Res Rep 102

Cunliffe, B W 2000 The Danebury Environs Programme. Volumes 1 and 2. Oxford: OUCA.

Cunliffe, B W and Miles, D 1984 (eds) Aspects of the Iron Age in Central Southern Britain. Oxford, OUCA Monog 2.

Ehrenreich, R 1994 Trade, technology and the ironworking community in the Iron Age of Southern Britain. Oxford, Brit Archaeol Rep.

Fitzpatrick, A P 1997 Archaeological excavations on the route of the A27 Westhampnett bypass, West Sussex. Volume 2: the cemeteries. Salisbury, Wessex Archaeology Report 12.

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

Gwilt, A and Haselgrove, C 1997 Reconstructing Iron Age Societies. Oxford, Oxbow Monograph 71.

Harding, D W (ed) 1982 Later prehistoric settlement in South East Scotland. University of Edinburgh Occassional Paper 8.

Haselgrove, C 1987 Iron Age coinage in south-east England: the archaeological context. Brit Archaeol Rep 174.

Hill J D and Cumberpatch, C (eds) Different Iron Ages: studies on the Iron Age in temperate Europe. Oxford, Brit Archaeol Rep Int Ser 602.

Hill, J D 1995b Ritual and Rubbish in the Iron Age of Wessex: A Study in the formation of a specific archaeological record. Oxford, Brit Archaeol Rep Brit Ser 242.

Jones, M 1985 'Archaeobotany beyond Subsistence Reconstruction', in Barker, G & Gamble, C (eds) Beyond domestication in Prehistoric Europe. London, Academic Press 107-128.

Macready, S and Thompson, F H (eds) 1984 Cross-channel trade between Gaul and Britain in the pre-Roman Iron Age. London, Soc Antiq Occ Paper 4.

 (eds) Archaeology and the M3. Hampshire Field Club Mong 7

Raftery, B 1994 Pagan Celtic Ireland. London, Thames and Hudson.

Stead, I M 1991 Iron Age Cemeteries in East Yorkshire. London, Eng Heritage Monog.

Stead I M and Rigby, V 1989 Verulamium: The King Harry Lane Site. London, English Heritage Archaeol Rep 12.

van der Veen, M 1992 Crop Husbandry Regimes: An Archaeobotonical Study of Farming in northern England 1000BC-AD500. Sheffield, J R Collis Publications

Whimster, R 1981 Burial practices in Iron Age Britain. Oxford Brit Archaeol rep 90.


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