Internet Archaeology 48: Iron Age Settlement in Wales

During the Iron Age the Atlantic zone of Wales exhibited similar traits to other areas along the western seaboard of Europe, most notably a large number of small, enclosed or defended settlements and a poverty of recoverable material culture. This has led some authorities to regard the area as marginal and somewhat backward compared with economic and social developments along the Welsh borders, England and continental Europe. This short article reviews the evidence for settlement, with an emphasis on west Wales, highlighting both the similarities and differences that existed along the Atlantic Coast and demonstrating that the vibrant Iron Age communities of the area were part of but different from the shared culture of north-west Europe in the late first millennium.

The Iron Age roughly spans the centuries between c. 800 BC and the beginning of the Roman conquest of Wales in AD 74. It is distinguished by the impressive numbers of surviving hillforts and settlements present in the archaeological record. However, archaeological excavations have been few and far between and the material culture for the Iron Age in Wales is correspondingly sparse. What there is, largely recovered from deliberately deposited hoards, is exotic and unusual rather than domestic and every day. To understand the Iron Age in Wales we must largely look to analogies and comparisons drawn from elsewhere, and to our well-preserved and extensive surviving Iron Age settlement evidence.

Historical excavation of hillforts, largely pre-1970, is reviewed critically through selected cases from across Wales, illustrating a range of issues arising from variable strategies and procedures, and highlighting frailties in our accumulated evidence for the form of ramparts and entrances, as well as the arrangement of internal structures. It is contended that, wherever possible, future excavations should be expansive, addressing well-preserved sites, and accepting that this must also mean expensive. Early excavators were often heavy-handed, being concerned as much, or more, with recovering datable objects as with careful recording of structures or stratigraphy, and there is a danger of placing unwarranted trust in the alleged contexts of artefacts, so generating factoids. This can be true too of radiocarbon dates, some having been falsely presented as crucial to chronology. There is also cause to be critical of most surface surveys of hillforts, which, if conducted thoroughly, can be as vital to understanding as many an excavation, but often lack essential detail, as much of underlying landform as of artificial elements. All told, it is inescapable that study of hillforts in Wales remains immature.

Hillforts and defended enclosures are among the earliest and most enduring landmarks in the landscape of the Welsh borderland region and are vital to our understanding of its social and economic history for a millennium and a half, from the Late Bronze Age through to the early post-Roman period. Since the modern political map clearly is of no significance for this period, this review — which stems from recent survey and assessment work on hillforts and defended enclosures in central and north-east Wales — takes the opportunity to look across the border and see what is happening in the adjacent areas of England at this time.

Editorial for Internet Archaeology Issue 48