Introduction

This book covers the first millennium BC in central southern Britain, or Wessex, a period and an area of considerable importance in understanding the evolution of human society in north-west Europe. Wessex is one of the most intensively studied areas in European prehistory and has a rich and varied archaeological record that provides a finely textured view of a past society that is just beyond the reach of the historical sources. This book was begun a long time ago and has emerged due to a number of different stimuli. My first significant involvement with Wessex was as a result of my employment as Director of the English Heritage excavations at Maiden Castle in Dorset. During this period I lived in Dorset and became very familiar with the archaeology of this county and the neighbouring county of Wiltshire. The excavations were written up promptly (Sharples 1991a, 1991c) and I was also able to produce a couple of short papers (Sharples 1990b, 1991b) on related issues. These papers were part of a series of publications that came to define a new archaeological understanding of the Wrst millennium BC. They provide a context for the creation of this book that is worth exploring. In the middle of the 1980s, understanding of the Iron Age of Wessex was dominated by the views of Professor Cunlifie, which were widely disseminated in a range of publications, but most comprehensively in his book Iron Age Communities in Britain (Cunlifie 1991, 2005). He presented a picture of Iron Age society where dominant elites lived within hillforts and each hillfort controlled a clearly defined territory. These permanently occupied settlements acted as central places that absorbed cereals and animal products from dependent communities in the surrounding landscape and exchanged these basic foodstuffs for materials not available in the region. The communities in hillforts controlled contact with neighbouring territories and were closely tied to ports, through which Continental trade was channelled. As the Iron Age progressed, the territories become larger and the hillforts become fewer until distinct tribal units ruled by kings become recognizable in the Late Iron Age.