Weapons, Wounds and War in the Iron Age

How Useful Are Osteoarchaeological Methods in Supporting Current Interpretations for Violent Death? A Review of the Data from Iron Age Burial Contexts in England

“…Previous studies have commonly evaluated violence and warfare in this period using a range of settlement and artifactual evidence (e.g. Cunliffe 1971Cunliffe , 2005Dent 1983;Haselgrove 1994;Armit 2007;James 2007 evidence, hillforts have often received the most debate and a clear divide still exists between those who believe that they were either defensive or ritual in nature. Regardless of this debate, the architecture of hillforts shows that many of them possessed numerous defensive capabilities irrespective of whether or not they were ever utilised.…”

Performing Pain, Performing Beauty: Dealing With Difficult Death in the Iron Age

“…He was interred on the heights of Acklam Wold: an impressive location, apparently distant from other burials but in keeping with a number of late Iron Age weapons burials such as North Grimston, Grimthorpe and Bugthorpe. At the time of his burial, an iron sword was dramatically bent at an acute angle of 150°and mineralized impressions of wood on the inside of the blade gave the excavator to believe that this blade had been inside its wooden scabbard at the time of this ritual 'killing' (Dent 1983). Was this the decommissioning of the sword that killed him, or his own sword, which had failed to protect him, ending its life with its master?…”

“…It has also benefitted greatly from the insights of James Thompson, and the wider work of the In Place of War project at the University of Manchester. The illustrations were produced by Joanna Wright and Marcus Abbott, redrawn from original illustrations in Dent (1983; and Stead (1991), for which kind permission was granted by the original authors. Permission for the reproduction of the photograph of the Acklam Wold skull was granted by the Hull and East Riding Museums: Hull Museum, and of Old Croghan Man's torso by the National Museum of Ireland.…”

Does Cranial Trauma Provide Evidence for Projectile Weaponry in Late Iron Age Dorset?

“…The nature of violence and martial activity in the British Iron Age receives limited attention, with research often focusing on warrior burials or the deposition of weaponry rather than the practicalities of combat (e.g. Collis 1972; Dent 1983). Recent work has addressed the interpretation of hillforts, examining how these may have been used in warfare and, crucially, how evidence for martial activities and violence is discussed within the literature (Armit 2007; Hill 1996; 2007; James 2007; Sharples 1991a).…”

“…A small number of published studies have employed bioarchaeological data on weapon injuries and fractures to discuss the presence of warfare in the Iron Age (e.g. Dent 1983; James 2007). However, such data have yet to be included as fully within an interpretation as is seen in later periods of history, for example the medieval sample from Towton (Yorkshire) (Fiorato et al .…”