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The Iron Age

Submitted by Seren Langley on Fri, 2009-07-03 16:36
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Tap o' Noth, Aberdeenshire The Iron Age 800 BC to 43 AD, or 2800 years ago, continues many of the features of the Late Bronze Age. Using iron for tools did not replace bronze overnight, and bronze continued being used alongside iron. Iron tools were more varied than bronze, and many modern types of tool have their origins in the Iron Age such as saws, files, chisels, axes with a hole in the middle for the handle, hammers, shears, scythes and tongs. This page explores some of the many sites associated with the Iron Age, some of the important facts about the period and ways in which we can learn about the Iron Age with archaeology.

Iron Age Sites

There are many sites from the Iron Age which are open to visitors. To explore some of these sites, visit our Iron Age Sites page.

Some Important Facts about the Iron Age

Landuse and Farming

Some Late Bronze Age activities and sites do come to an end. People stopped depositing metal tools in lakes, rivers and bogs. They also stopped building ringworks and crannogs as high status homes. Large areas of field systems went out of use. Instead, large blocks of open land were marked out by long land boundaries, either big banks and ditches, or lines of pits. Small fields were not recreated until the late Iron Age.

Burial Practice

People also stopped using cremation cemeteries. There is very little evidence for burial in the Iron Age until around 2,300 years ago. Even then, burials are common only in certain areas. There are crouched inhumations* in individual graves in stone lined cists* in the south west, where people were buried with personal grave goods like brooches and bracelets. In the East Riding of Yorkshire, there are burials that are very similar to those of eastern France and the middle Rhine. The most impressive are chariot burials, but most are burials in square mounds and with a surrounding ditch. These are sometimes called the Arras Culture burials, and may be the result of people from the continent coming to settle, although not all archaeologist would agree about this. People also revived the idea of placing cremations in graves towards the end of the Iron Age in the south east.

Use of Iron

Unlike the copper and tin used to make bronze, iron is common, and iron tools would be easier to make and own. Political leaders would find it harder to control access to tools, and it was less easy to build up power through control of weapons. Wealth instead came from increasing and controlling the growing of crops and owning of livestock. There are many enclosed farmsteads in the Iron Age with a variety of buildings inside an space enclosed by banks and ditches or wooden palisades*. In some areas farmsteads, were open without any enclosure. In eastern Britain small villages grew up instead of isolated farmsteads.

Mousa Broch

Structures and Sites

Some new kinds of site appear. At the beginning of the Iron Age, there are large middens*. These are the result of feasting on a large scale by people coming together from a wide area for festivals or fairs, exchanging cattle, making and exchanging tools etc. In the far north of Britain brochs were being built. A broch was a tall round tower house, which had a range of out buildings inside a circular defensive wall. Another new type of site was the souterrain. This was a kind of underground storage chamber reached through a long narrow passage. They may have been used for keeping dairy produce like milk and cheese cool: a kind of early fridge!

Hill forts continue into the Iron Age. Early ones often had vertical walls and two entrances. Hill forts were important for storage of food and the making of tools. Any houses in them were often small and temporary. They do not seem to have been really ‘forts’ but places were several farming families could come together for exchange and worship, perhaps something like a mix of a fair and a religious festival. Later hill forts often had sloping banks and one entrance, and were more easily defended against attack. By the late Iron Age, hill forts became places of power and showing off wealth, and warfare may be more important. They could have become places where the powerful lived.

Other Artefacts

Towards the end of the Iron Age, there was a revival of depositing very fine metalwork in wet places. There is also more evidence for horse riding and the use of chariots. There are some individual burials of warriors with weapons: spears and swords. Gold artefacts were being made again. All this seems to show the growth of a powerful upper class once more. The high quality metalwork and pottery has decoration in common with areas on the continent. It is often called ‘Celtic’ or La Tene art, a common upper class art style across parts of western Europe.

New Developments in the Iron Age

There were a lot of new developments by the end of the Iron Age. From around 2,100 years ago, we find large and wealthy sites in the south and east which acted as centres of political power and of trade. We call these ‘oppida’. We also have coastal sites acting as ports for importing luxury goods from the rest of Europe. Coins were minted for the first time in Britain. At first, coins were imported from Gaul (modern France), but the Britons soon began minting their own. The coins were made of gold, silver, bronze and a substance called potin (a type of bronze). New types of crops were being sown such as bread wheat, which were better for growing on heavy clay soils. These soils could be used as the climate was getting warmer and dryer, and ploughs now had iron tips so they could tackle harder ground. The wheat being grown was ground in to flour using new-style rotary querns rather than the traditional saddle quern. People were also making glass for the first time, for use as beads in jewellery.

Iron Age Sites

There are many sites from the Iron Age which are open to visitors. To explore some of these sites, visit our Iron Age Sites page.

Finding out about the Iron Age with Archaeology

Some of the archaeological subjects which study the Iron Age and professional Archaeologists who work with the Iron Age include:

If you are interested in learning more about studying Iron Age Archaeology please visit the CBA’s Studying Archaeology page.

Glossary

Cist
A stone lined box in the ground, used as a grave.
Inhumation
Burial of a body without burning by laying it in a grave.
Midden
A dump of waste and rubbish, often containing animal dungs and the waste from preparing and eating meals.
Palisade
A wooden wall made of upright timbers set close together.
Torc
A metal necklace or bracelet, made into a circular shape with a gap on one side, and decorated knobs or ends.