Can we Recognise a Different European Past? A Contrastive Archaeology of Later Prehistoric Settlements in Southern England

In Search of a Different Roman Period: The Finds Assemblage at the Newstead Military Complex

“…The implication that Hill and others have drawn from the identification of widespread ritual deposition is that ritual played a very important part in the survival of some of the largest artefact groups and of the best, most completely intact individual items (Hill 1992). This clearly has important implications for the way archaeologists interpret ancient material culture.…”

“…However there is no clear cut-off point between obviously ritual and obviously non-ritual deposits. Hill (1992) and Cunliffe (1992) discussing Danebury and other late Iron Age sites have interpreted this as evidence that all , or nearly all , pits originally contained offerings, only the most blatant of which have been detected by archaeologists. This may be explained by offerings having entirely perished.…”

“…Of particular interest are Richard Bradley's (1990) "The Passage of Arms" and J.D. Hill's (1992) "Can We Recognise a Different European Past?" There is no valid reason why the interpretation of Roman period behaviour should proceed under different rules to that of Europe's prehistory.…”

“…Newstead's population, both military and civilian, was ethnically Germanic and Celtic, only lightly Romanized. Hence the question implied in the title -can we identify a different Roman Period, one that is not simply a reflection of our own mind set, as Hill (1992 and has attempted to do for the Iron Age of Southern Britain?…”

Brooches and Identities in First Century AD Britain: More Than Meets The Eye?

“…To what ex tent thi s increase in brooch es is part o f the general increase in the quantity of materi al culture in c irculati on in ge neral, or a spec ifi ca lly separate phenomen on assoc iated with personal appearance in parti cular , has been ques tioned (Hase lgro ve 1997; Willis 1997), The evidence supports the latter: this is not sim ply a situ ati onal increase in brooc h numbers; rather there are changes both to the brooc hes themse lves to the contex ts from whic h they are recovered , An initial ex aminati on of the large numbers of brooches on late fi rst cen tury BC an d early first ce ntury AD settlemen t si tes might suggest that their inhabitants were losing brooc hes more freque ntly or had more brooches to lose , Casu al loss was prob ably one important way in whi c h brooches and related obj ec ts entered the archaeologi cal rec ord, Ho wever, it was not the onl y way, Detail ed researc h on site fo rmati on processes has beco me an increasingl y im portant fe ature ofIron Age archae ology ove r the las t decad e (e,g, G wilt 1997;Hill 1992Hill , 1995a geist ' (Willis 1997) has particularly emphas ised that the archaeological record is not a simple, direct prod uct of casual loss and garbage disposal. Rather , much of the material found on Iron Age se ttlements is the product of highly structured daily rubbi sh disposal and periodic ritual deposition -sacrifice (Hill 1995a).…”