British Iron Age

[citation needed] At a minimum, "Celtic" is a linguistic term without an implication of a lasting cultural unity connecting Gaul with the British Isles throughout the Iron Age.

[4] Although the name "Pretanic Isles" had been known since the voyage of Pytheas, and "Britannia" was in use by Strabo and Pliny, Ptolemy used the earlier "Albion", which is known to have been used as early as the Massaliote Periplus.

The following scheme summarises a comparative chart presented in a 2005 book by Barry Cunliffe,[7] but British artefacts were much later in adopting Continental styles such as the La Tène style of Celtic art: The Iron Age has been further subdivided with the "Late Iron Age" in Britain showing developments of new types of pottery, possibly influenced by Roman or Gaulish cultures.

Attempts to understand the human behaviour of the period have traditionally focused on the geographic position of the islands and their landscape, along with the channels of influence coming from Continental Europe.

The central organisation to undertake that had been present since the Neolithic period but became targeted at economic and social goals, such as taming the landscape, rather than the building of large ceremonial structures like Stonehenge.

New weapon types appeared with clear parallels to those on the Continent, such as the Carp's tongue sword, complex examples of which are found all over Atlantic Europe.

On the other hand, they may have been occupied only intermittently, as it is difficult to reconcile permanently-occupied hill forts with the lowland farmsteads and their roundhouses found during the 20th century, such as at Little Woodbury and Rispain Camp.

Linguistic evidence inferred from the surviving Celtic languages in Northern and Western Great Britain at first appeared to support the idea, and the changes in material culture that archaeologists observed during later prehistory were routinely ascribed to a new wave of invaders.

Examples of events that could be labelled "invasions" include the arrival in Southern Britain of the Belgae from the end of the 2nd century BC, as described in Caesar's Commentaries on the Gallic War.

[citation needed] That interpretation depends on the view that warfare and social strife increased in the Late Iron Age, which seems to be fairly well attested in the archaeological record for Southern Britain at least.

Early in the Iron Age, the widespread Wessex pottery of Southern Britain, such as the type style from All Cannings Cross, may suggest a consolidated socio-economic group in the region.

Disused grain storage pits and the ends of ditches have also produced what appear to be deliberately-placed deposits, including a preference for burials of horses, dogs and ravens.

Great Britain appears to have been the seat of the Druidic religion, and Tacitus's account of the later raid on Anglesey led by Suetonius Paulinus gives some indication of its nature.

No archaeological evidence survives of Druidry, but a number of burials made with ritual trappings and found in Kent may suggest a religious character to the subjects.

Gildas mentions "those diabolical idols of my country, which almost surpassed in number those of Egypt, and of which we still see some mouldering away within or without the deserted temples, with stiff and deformed features as was customary".

The Hayling Island example was a circular wooden building set within a rectangular precinct and was rebuilt in stone as a Romano-British temple in the 1st century AD to the same plan.

Early in the period, Hallstatt slashing swords and daggers were a significant import, but by the mid-6th century[clarify], the volume of goods arriving seems to have declined, possibly from more profitable trade centres appearing in the Mediterranean.

There also appears to have been a collapse in the bronze trade during the early Iron Age, which can be viewed in three ways: With regard to animal husbandry, cattle represented a significant investment in pre-Roman Britain, as they could be used as a source of portable wealth and to provide useful domestic by-products such as milk, cheese and leather.

The British tribal kings also adopted the continental habit of putting their names on the coins they had minted, with such examples as Tasciovanus from Verulamium and Cunobelinos from Camulodunum identifying regional differentiation.

[28] The expansion of the economy throughout the period, but especially in the later Iron Age, is in large part a reflection of key changes in the expression of social and economic status.

From the late 2nd century BC onwards, South-Central Britain was indirectly linked into Roman trading networks via Brittany and the Atlantic seaways to south-western Gaul.

However, recent work suggests that their presence there may have occurred from a kind of political and social patronage that was paid by the northern Gaulish groups in exchange for obtaining aid from their British counterparts in their warfare with the Romans on the Continent.

[32] Strabo, writing in the early 1st century AD, lists ivory chains and necklaces, amber gems, glass vessels and other petty wares as articles imported to Britain, and he recorded the island's exports as grain, cattle, gold, silver, iron, hides, slaves and hunting dogs.

[33] That trade probably thrived as a result of political links and client kingship relationships that developed between groups in South-Eastern Britain and the Roman world.

For example, the Romano-Celtic shrine in Hayling Island, Hampshire was constructed in the AD 60 to 70s,[35] and Agricola was then still campaigning in Northern Britain (mostly in what is now Scotland), and on top of an Iron Age ritual site.

Rectilinear stone structures, indicative of a change in housing to the Roman style are visible from the mid-to-late 1st century AD at Brixworth and Quinton.