Iron Age Manufacturing: Production of Needed and Desired Goods

Gussage All Saints, Dorset, a typical excavation with plenty of posthole evidence, which produced little structural understanding

Sketch Plan of the Late Iron Age building at Gussage all Saints.

Most buildings are missed because archaeologists are looking for specific things; at Gussage All Saints, Geoff Wainwright was looking for roundhouses, so he missed the main late Iron Age structure. It. The Gussage All Saints building belongs to a class of annular roofed structures with ancient antecedents and has a massive timber outer wall set in a trench, topped by an annular roof. It is defensive in character, and in common with structures of this type, it’s not clear how the central space was treated. It could have been open, but it’s also the ideal place for the stairs.

Most Iron Age communities produced their own basic ceramics for food preparation and storage, textiles for clothing, and everyday implements of wood, bone, and antler. Many smelted local ore to make iron. In some regions where high-quality ore was abundant, larger-scale, specialized production developed early, as in parts of Schleswig-Holstein in northern Germany.

Since the constituents of bronze, copper and tin, are available in only very limited locations, for communities to have access to bronze to make personal ornaments, the metal had to be brought in from outside. Bronze objects are abundant in graves throughout the continent, showing that most communities had means for acquiring the metal, through the network of connected settlements. Molds for casting ornaments are relatively common on settlement sites, and their presence indicates that in many communities, someone knew the techniques of casting the metal. The molds were most often made of sandstone, and they may have been crafted by specialists and acquired by many communities for their own use.

The scale of iron production grew substantially during the Iron Age. By around 500 or 400 BC (it varied by region), iron had replaced bronze for tools, and by the time of the oppida in the final two centuries BC, very large quantities were being produced. Sizable numbers of iron implements are found at sites such as Manching and Stradonice, and extensive slag heaps attest to major production at many sites, including Kelheim on the Danube River in Bavaria. Metallographic analyses show that from the beginning of the Iron Age, some blacksmiths had learned how to make steel blades by alloying carbon with iron. By the final two centuries BC, a large proportion of the cutting tools were being produced of high-quality steel.

Until the time of the oppida, almost all pottery in western and northern Europe was handmade. Limited use of the wheel is evident at some Early Iron Age centers, but the technology was not further developed at that time. Only during the last two centuries BC do we find substantial proportions of pottery made on the fast-turning wheel, both on the continent and in southern Britain. This change indicates that pottery production shifted from a domestic craft to a highly specialized one, probably practiced by full-time potters. The fine, wheel-turned ceramics supplied not only the inhabitants of the centers, but also people in the smaller settlements in the countryside.

Recent excavations at many small settlements have produced important evidence that economic processes that had been believed to be largely restricted to the oppida, such as making pottery on the wheel and minting coins, were in fact carried out by numerous small communities. At Berching-Pollanten in southern Bavaria, a village community produced wheel-made pottery, fibulae, coins, and substantial quantities of iron, rather than depending for those goods upon the industries at the nearby oppida of Manching or Kelheim. In southern England, residents of a small farming community at Gussage All Saints cast ornate bronze ornaments for chariots and horse harness fittings. Such discoveries necessitate fundamental rethinking of ideas about how the Late Iron Age economy operated.

Parc Glyndwr

The prehistoric discoveries they have made on the banks of a long-lost lake on the Parc Glyndwr development site off Rockfield Road, Monmouth.

The latest radiocarbon dates. It looks as though the site is teeming with prehistoric remains, especially Bronze Age ones (we have found another burnt mound 50 yards away, just outside the development site) . . .

We were particularly careful with the charcoal sample from one of the slots - taking it as far from the mound as possible and inside the lower anaerobic clay; of course it's not absolute proof that it's not from the burnt mound but we are sure that the slot was cut into the surface of the mound when there was little, if any, covering soil - this is also clear in the section which would clearly show if the slot was cut from higher up. The date from inside the slot is earlier than that from the mound but with the 35 years each way I suppose that it comes out near enough the same. So far, the evidence is that the slots could be Bronze Age with not a scrap of evidence for Roman, as published by someone from Cadw, following a 10-minute visit to the site!

Gordon MacDonald's suggestion that there was access to the River Wye in the Bronze Age via a large post-glacial lake may not be so dodgy as I first thought. We have a water-worn Beaker barbed & tanged arrowhead from river gravels at 24 Monnow Street and the Mesolithic camp site on what appears to be a river bank in St. James' Street, both of these sites are just above the alluvium which would apparently be the edge of such a lake. The alluvium does connect our site to the rivers and Gordon, who has studied the Wye and Severn for many years, is convinced that the remains are linked to the building of the known huge Bronze Age boats. However, perhaps I will hold fire on that for the moment as there has been rather a lot of theorising - for now. The little Neolithic hearth had a loose stone surround and contained charcoal and a flint.

Discovery of Lindow Man (1984)

In 1984 the body of a man preserved in peat was discovered in Cheshire, England. Conserved in his entirety, the body of Lindow man provided archaeologists with a wide range of information about his life and death more than 2,000 years ago.

Approximately seven hundred hundred human bodies have been discovered in the peat bogs of northern Europe, but few survive intact, primarily because of the circumstances of their discovery, usually as the result of peatcutting machinery. Peat bogs provide waterlogged, anaerobic, and antibacterial conditions that preserve human soft tissue. Bodies of men and women have been found, but no children's bodies have yet been found. Many have been dated to medieval times by their clothing and accompanying artifacts, but the most interesting and best-preserved bodies date between from 2,800 years ago (ca. 800 BC) to AD 200, from the period of the European Iron Age until the Roman Empire. The most famous of these intact bodies are the Tollund, Grauballe, and Lindow men, named after the peat bogs from which they were recovered. While some of the bog bodies were the result of accidental deaths, some are wetland burials, some are murder victims hidden in bogs, and some would have been suicide burials excluded from Christian graveyards. A few are thought to have been ritual burials and/or executions.

The conservation and analysis of these bog bodies was pioneered by Danish archaeologist Hans Helbaek, who worked on both the Tollund and Graubolle men, who were found in peat bogs in central Jutland in Denmark. Tollund man, discovered in 1950, died 2,100 years ago (ca. 100 BC). Based on the account of the Roman historian Tacitus, who wrote about the practices of the Germanic tribes of the north in his Germania, we know that "cowards, shirkers and sodomites are pressed down under a wicker hurdle into the slimy mud of a bog," while "traitors and deserters," he also noted, "are hanged on trees."

It is possible that Tollund man was a criminal or a victim of ritual sacrifice. He was naked except for a pointy leather cap, and he had been strangled by the noose around his neck before being thrown into the bog. His last meal was a gruel of barley, linseed, knotweed, dock, and camomile seeds. Graubolle man was discovered in 1952. His throat had been cut, and he had been hit on the head as well. His stomach contents comprised sixty-three varieties of seeds, such as rye, buttercup, nightshade, clover, and spelt, and he had died 2,070 years ago (ca. 70 BC).

Helbaek's analysis of food residues laid the foundations for their continued use and refinement by archaeologists. Unfortunately, techniques of preservation were not so successful in the 1950s, and only the heads of the Tollund and Graubolle men survive in museums today.

Lindow man was luckier to be unearthed later in the twentieth century- when techniques of freeze-drying had improved, and he survives as he was found, because of the work of the conservation staff of the British Museum. Lindow man, however, had one leg missing-probably because of peat-cutting machines, which destroyed another two to three bog bodies lying near his before they were turned off.

Lindow man was approximately twenty-five years old when he died from being struck on the back of the head twice, garroted, and his throat cut. Perhaps he too was a ritual sacrifice. He lived during the first and second centuries AD. He was found naked except for a fur armband. As with the other bog bodies, everything was analyzed, from the species of fur on the band and the leather of the garrotte down to his blood group, the insects and pollen in the peat surrounding his body, and the contents of his last meal. His stomach contents comprised the remains of cereals, such as emmer, wheat, barley, and oats.

The decline in wetland areas across northern Europe, and the wide use of peat-cutting machinery mean that there will be even fewer bog bodies to analyze in the future.

Further Reading Greig, J. 2001. Palynology in archaeological research. In Encyclopedia of archaeology: History and discoveries, ed. T. Murray, 988-991. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO. Stead, I., J. Bourke, and D. Brothwell, eds. 1986. Lindow man, the body in the bog. London: British Museum. Turner, R., and R. G. Scaife. 1995. Bog bodies: New discoveries and new perspectives. London: Published for the Trustees of the British Museum by British Museum Press.