Changing Perspectives on the First Millennium BC: Proceedings of the Iron Age Research Student Seminar 2006(Cardiff Studies in Archaeology)

These fifteen papers came out of the eighth annual meeting of the Iron Age Research Student Seminar (IARSS) and are loosely grouped into three topics: settlement studies, deposition and material culture, and experimental archaeology. Most of the studies are re-examinings of well known data sets, such as hillforts, small enclosures and bone assemblages, both human and animal. They are mainly focused on the British Iron Age - one of the most heterogeneous and regionally distinctive periods in British prehistory. Material culture is highly variable, as are settlement patterns, and even chronology is of an entirely local character, being reliant on typological sequences from each region's specific archaeological record. The book ends with the recounting of a trip to the Iron Age village at St. Fagan's, Cardiff - a practical foray into the Iron Age day-to-day.

Table of Contents:
New perspectives in later prehistory (Oliver Davis, Niall Sharples and Kate Waddington) Settlement Studies Black earth, bone and bits of old pot: the Pewsey middens - recent work by the University of Sheffield (Andy Tullett) The pairing of hillforts: conflict, complementary, coincidence or complex? (Steven Toase) Twin freaks? Paired enclosures in the Early Iron Age of Wessex (Oliver Davis) Exploring ‘everyday’ places in the Iron Age landscape of the Outer Hebrides (Rebecca Rennell) Enclosure boundaries and settlement individuality in the Iron Age (Gareth Rees) Deposition and Material Culture Associated bone groups: one archaeologist’s rubbish is another’s ritual deposition (James Morris) Patterns in the modification of animal and human bones in Iron Age Wessex: revisiting the excarnation debate (Richard Madgwick) Bodies of difference in Iron Age southern England (Mike Lally) A bioarchaeological analysis of violence in Iron Age females: a perspective from Dorset, England (fourth century BC to the first century AD) (Rebecca Redfern) Topographies of accumulation at Late Bronze Age Potterne (Kate Waddington) Reclaiming the Early Iron Age in eastern England (Matt Brudenell) The Channel Islands: an archipelago of the Atlantic later Bronze Age (Paul Driscoll) Some exotic evidence amidst Irish late prehistoric burials (Tiernan McGarry) Experimental Archaeology A Celtic village? Practice and changing interpretations at an Iron Age village reconstruction (Owain Rhys)

About the Author :
Niall Sharples is a Professor at Cardiff University. He has excavated widely throughout the British Isles but most noticeably in the Western Isles of Scotland and the south west of England. His research interests are focussed on the later prehistory of Britain and the prehistoric and historic settlement of the Scottish Islands.

Review :
[a] significant and well-produced volume' -- Richard Hingley British Archaeology, 2008