Food, Sex and Death: Cosmologies in the British Iron Age ... · Food, Sex and Death: Cosmologies in...

Cambridge Archaeological Journal 9:1 (1999), pp. 43-69

Food, Sex and Death: Cosmologies in the British Iron Agewith Particular Reference to East Yorkshire

Mike Parker Pearson

The British Iron Age had an enduring set of traditions involving the east-west axis of thesun's path, the sunwise progression of movement and the classification of animals.Although these traditions were manifested regionally in slightly different ways and weremodified, contested and restructured during the Iron Age, they provide us with a key tounlock aspects of the symbolism and practices of daily life. The significance of westerlyorientations and of pigs in embodying and expressing associations of high status and othersocial differences were principal features of a strongly hierarchical society whose socialdifferences were otherwise largely muted in terms of material culture distinctions. Thecemeteries of East Yorkshire provide a detailed insight into the ordering of these socialdifferences which were, even then, only rarely expressed through grave goods and mortu-ary elaboration. The burials of the Yorkshire elite are suggestive of a conception of sacredleadership or kingship, which included the symbolic spearing of certain individuals.Animal offerings were used in the structuring of social differences, with pig portions and

sheep bones marking the dead of elite and commoner groups respectively.

The reconstruction of prehistoric cosmologies andattitudes to the body is an area of research which hasbenefited considerably from structuralist and post-structuralist theoretical perspectives. This case studyis an attempt to identify the underlying rules whichstructured human experience during the pre-RomanIron Age of the British Isles, by applying these theo-retical approaches to evidence which is largely ar-chaeological in its origin. The act of decodingprehistoric material remains relies to a large extenton the accessibility of different forms of materialexpression; in this case, architecture and settlementlayout, human burials, animal burials, artistic depic-tions, portable artefacts, and their spatial, contextualand topographical inter-relationships.

Orientation — facing east in life and death

Our entry point to understanding the British IronAge is to appreciate how people were oriented in

their daily lives and how, through the 'natural sym-bolism' of their bodies, they classified and acted inthe world. We approach this problem by examiningthe use of space in terms of house, compound andcemetery organization, particularly in the provisionof gateways and doorways (Parker Pearson &Richards 1994b), thereby understanding the orienta-tions of people's movements in relation to the builtspaces of house and tomb.

Throughout Britain, the roundhouses whichcharacterize the Iron Age share a consistent set oforientations, with few exceptions, during the periodfrom the Late Bronze Age after c. 900 BC until the firstcentury AD (Parker Pearson 1996). The majority ofhouse entrances are orientated towards the east and

- southeast (Fig. 1), not so as to provide optimal sun-light or shelter from the wind but so that their door-ways might be aligned on sunrise at the equinoxesor at midwinter (Oswald 1997). Most of the excep-tions plotted by Oswald fall somewhere between

43

Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 54.39.106.173, on 04 Jun 2020 at 17:33:03, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959774300015201

https://www.cambridge.org/core

https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms

https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959774300015201

Cosmologies in the British Iron Age

Figure 1. Orientations of British Iron Age roundhouses. (From Oswald 1997, withpermission from the author and Oxbow Books.)

due east and southeast. This concern with thedirectionality of entrances is also found in the gate-ways to the settlement compounds and enclosures.The majority of these face broadly east or broadlywest, or both. In southern Britain, the largest enclo-sures, 'hillforts', usually have two entrances, onefacing east and the other west. Most inhumationburials were laid out with the corpse facing east(Whimster 1981), the same direction as the entrancesof houses and settlements. Of course, the under-representation of burials throughout the British IronAge restricts the geographical scope of this generali-zation to areas such as East Yorkshire, the Southwestand Wessex where more than the occasional inhu-mation has been found.

The Iron Age individual, standing in the door-way of a house and looking out, was oriented (liter-ally 'facing east'). The east was forwards, the northleft, the south right and the west behind (ParkerPearson 1996).1 Why there was a difference betweenselection of due east and southeast is unclear. Did itresult from regional or chronological differences, orwas it dependent on the time of year of construc-tion?

The archaeological origins of this orientationalconcern with the east and southeast can be tracedback to the Later Bronze Age. The large circularmonument at Thwing on the Yorkshire Wolds con-tains, at its centre, a large circular post structure

thought to be a roofedbuilding but which mightpossibly be just a timberring in association with adeposit of animal bonesderived from feasting(Manby 1986; GrahamMounteney pers. comm.).The outer enclosure andthe inner structure areboth orientated on an axisfacing towards the south-east.2 Associated metal-work apparently dates tothe thirteenth-eleventhcenturies BC, placing theconstruction of this re-markable building manycenturies before the wide-spread adoption of theeasterly/southeasterlyaxis in roundhouses.Other examples of 'ring-forts' like Thwing are

found in the Thames estuary at Mucking North andSouth Rings, Highstead and Springfield Lyons(Champion 1980; Buckley & Hedges 1988). In sev-eral of these cases, dating to around 900 BC, the mainentrance of both buildings and enclosures faces dueeast. Such complexes can be interpreted as residencesbut they may also or instead have functioned assacred structures. In this vein it is worth consideringthe growing permanence and monumentality ofthe domestic roundhouse from the Middle BronzeAge onwards, perhaps providing a new focus forsocial activities within the house rather than out-side it. We may speculate that these increasinglysolid and longer-lasting buildings became increas-ingly the residences not only of the living but also ofthe ancestors. Where ground plans of other LaterBronze Age houses have been recovered, theirorientations are mainly towards the south-south-west. Whether this was to maximize sunlightwithin the house and minimize the impact of west-erly and easterly winds, or whether it embodiedcosmological logics beyond practical reasoning, isnot established.

Westward orientations and social difference

It is likely that, within Britain, there were regionalvariations in this 'orienting of the body', and I havesuggested that 'west' was an inauspicious, death-

44




https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959774300015201

Mike Parker Pearson

Broch entrance orientations

Degrees

Figure 2. Broch entrance orientations in Scotland. (From Parker Pearson et al. 2996with permission from Antiquity).

linked direction in the IronAge of Wessex andsouthern England (ParkerPearson 1996; see alsoGwilt 1997,164-5). I nowbelieve, however, that theevidence can be better un-derstood within the su-pra-regional perspectivethat broadly west-facinghouses were also demon-strations of social differ-ence, perhaps residencesof local elites or of othersegregated groups in Iron

"Age society. The effect ofthis reversal is not to as-sociate this differentialstatus with west/behindbut, in fact, to link such personages with the propi-tious east/front since they would occupy the east ofthe house and be approached by others through thedoor from the west.

This cosmological grid is not without its subtle-ties and anomalies. In addition to the majority ofeastward-looking doorways, there is a small but sig-nificant proportion of broadly west-facing entrances.The wetland settlement of Glastonbury lake villagedeparts from the norm of east-facing houses in hav-ing not only a wide range of doorway orientationsbut also a number of west-facing doorways at itscore (Coles & Minnitt 1995, figs. 4.9-4.12). It mayhave been just a normal settlement, but its range ofartefacts and its border location render its identifica-tion as a normal settlement uncertain (Coles &Minnitt 1995,207). In similar vein, more than half ofthe inhabited stone round towers (brochs) of west-ern and northern Scotland have a westerly-facingdoorway (Fig. 2), in contrast to most of the ordinaryroundhouses of that region (Parker Pearson et al1996). These broch towers, requiring considerablelabour mobilization in their construction, may beconsidered to have been the dwellings of local over-lords which were placed in boundary zones betweenroundhouse communities (Parker Pearson & Sharpies1999). Conversely, the fact that many brochs faceeast is probably a measure of how the association oforientation and status was not a cultural absolute The majority of non-hillfort enclosure entranceswithin the Atlantic Scottish Iron Age, let alone the - face east or southeast whereas hillfort entranceswhole of Britain, but was subject to local and contex- tend to face both east and west (Hill 1996, figs. 8.9 &tual interpretation. The distinction of eastern and 8.10). Indeed, hillforts commonly comprise both anwestern entrances and their status associations is eastern and a western entrance within theiralso recognizable in the Wessex Iron Age (Fig. 3). earthworks.

Elaborate Entrances

Unelaborate Entrances

Figure 3. Orientations of 75 hillfort and 139 non~hillfort entrances in Iron Age southern Britain. (FromHill 1996 with permission from the author and SheffieldAcademic Press.)

45




https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959774300015201


• La Tene square barrowo roundhousea four-post structure

500 metres

Figure 4. A plan of the Iron Age settlement and cemetery at Wetwang Slack. The southwest-facing house is located inthe centre of the excavated area, about 200 m northeast of the east end of the main cemetery area and is surrounded byfour-posters'. (From Dent 1983 with permission from the author and the East Riding Archaeological Society.)

Another potential association of a westerly en-trance with a high-status roundhouse is at the IronAge settlement and cemetery at Wetwang Slack ineast Yorkshire (Dent 1983, fig. 3), where one build-ing, isolated in the central area where the four-post-ers (putative granaries) are located, has its doorwayto the southwest, in contrast to the easterly doors ofthe other houses (Fig. 4). There are further indica-tions that west-facing doorways may also havemarked other kinds of difference by which groupsother than the elites may have expressed their iden-tities. For example, the Hebridean wheelhouses ofCnip (Armit 1996, 136-43), Allasdale (Young 1953)and Clettraval (Scott 1948) all face westwards.Whereas Cnip may have been differentiated for itsassociations with metalworking (Armit & Dunwell1992), the reasons for the others' orientations are notapparent.

There are regions such as North Wales wherethere seems to have been no such concern with es-tablishing east-facing doorways (Oswald 1997). Re-gional groups often subvert or oppose dominantbelief systems as a means of expressing their au-tonomy and exclusion. Thus we should not be sur-prised that there are not only specific settlements,such as Glastonbury, but also particular regions, suchas North Wales, where the emphasis on easterly ori-entation is lacking. Equally, we must also be pre-pared to accept that the use of broadly west-facingdoorways will have been subject to regional vagar-ies and local resistances. Structuring principles suchas cosmological orientation are also honoured in thebreach and we should not expect our model to bewithout its anomalies and differences.

Pigs and social status

Along with facing west, a further commonly usedmark of social difference throughout the British IronAge may have been the totemic significance of thepig as a high-status feasting food. The treatment ofpig remains appears to have varied considerablythroughout Britain but it has regional manifestationswhich indicate variations on a common theme of thepig as status symbol. In the Scottish brochs, not onlyare pigs more frequent components of the mammalbone assemblages (18-40 per cent) than in the con-temporary wheelhouses (6-16 per cent) but the brochof Dun Vulan has greater proportions of front limbsthan other body parts, suggesting that front leg jointsof pork were brought to the broch from other com-munities (Mulville, in Parker Pearson & Sharpies1999). The emphasis on pigs in the Dun Vulan as-semblage is all the more striking given the virtualabsence of woodland in the Outer Hebrides at thattime — with woodland foraging unavailable, thepigs would have to have been fed on high-valuefoodstuffs so that their raising was itself an act ofconspicuous consumption. In southeast Britain inthe Late Iron Age, there are increasing proportionsof pig bones (20-50 per cent) in certain settlementssuch as Skeleton Green (Ashdown & Evans 1981),emulating the Gaulish elite and probably associatedwith the acculturated 'gallicized' elites in Britain(King 1991, 16). Special deposits of articulated orsemi-articulated pig skeletons are found in pits withinthe western portions of settlements or within west-facing enclosures (Parker Pearson 1996,127-8). Simi-lar pig deposits are also common within the hillfort

46




https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959774300015201

Mike Parker Pearson

of Danebury (Wait 1985, 150) and are known fromthe hillforts of Balksbury (Maltby 1996, 23) andWinklebury, and the north-south oriented enclosureat Bishopstone (Wait 1985). Pig bones form a majorproportion of the mammal bone assemblage fromthe hillfort of Croft Ambrey (Whitehouse & White-house 1974,216). At the Middle Iron Age settlementof Groundwell Farm in Wessex, pig bones occur insimilar numbers to sheep/goat (Coy, in Gingell 1982,68); this settlement is anomalous because its enclo-sure entrance and house doorways face south andnot east or west.

There has been a tendency to explain the vary-ing quantities of pig remains on different sites asindicative of the availability of suitable woodland

-for pannage (Maltby 1994, 9; 1996, 20-21), yet theDun Vulan assemblage indicates that the rearing ofpigs was socially rather than ecologically determined.Similarly, the presence of neo-natal pig skeletonswithin settlements has been taken as evidence thatpigs were bred at these sites though these depositsmay be interpreted as votive depositions rather thanburial of farmyard casualties. In summary, the pigassemblages from settlements suggest a series of as-sociations with elite residences, enclosures with west-facing entrances, and the western parts of settlements.Similar status associations for the pig can be foundboth in funerary depositions and in iconographicdepictions. Pig bones are found as accompanimentsto Iron Age burials in certain parts of Britain. In thepresumed territory of the Durotriges in southernBritain during the Late Iron Age, pig bones are foundonly in inhumations where the corpse's head lies tothe west whereas cattle and sheep are found only ineastward-orientated graves (Whimster 1981,57). Theiconographic contexts of boars, though presumablywild, also serve to highlight totemic differences be-tween these and other animals. Motifs of boars arerestricted to weaponry and war-gear (such as thecarnyx or war trumpet; Fig. 5) whereas cattle arerepresented largely on cauldrons and firedogs, a dis-tinction also found in continental Europe (Green1992).3 The pig, contrary to its treatment in Judaeo-Christian ideology as a dirty and polluting animal,appears to have had a very different status withinBritish and Gaulish Iron Age society. Apart from thedog/wolf, it was the only domesticate which had anexact parallel surviving as a dangerous wild animalin western Europe at that time, and thus its placewithin both realms may have given it a very specialstatus, which was enhanced by its culinary potentialas a prime meat-bearing animal. Its position of supe-riority to cattle and sheep/goats in the hierarchy of

Figure.5. The boar symbolism of the carnyx (wartrumpet) as represented on the Gundestrup cauldronand the two examples from Britain. (From Cunlijfe 1995,drawn by Alison Wilkins, with permission from theauthor and Batsford.)

totemic associations for domestic animals mirrorssimilar distinctions between high-status and ordi-nary settlements, and between elites and common-ers.

Sunwise paths and the ordering of daily life

The axial symmetry of roundhouses has been recog-nized for some time from the organization of theirwall timbers and roof supports (Guilbert 1982; Reid1989). It is further manifested in the Outer Hebri-dean wheelhouses (stone-built roundhouses withroofs supported on a series of radial stone piers,forming bays around the outer part of the house) bythe design of the horseshoe-shaped fireplace and bythe placing of special deposits of animal bones and/or pottery in the area opposite the doorway(Campbell 1991; Parker Pearson & Sharpies 1999).The organization of activities within Iron Age housescan be reconstructed from a number of fortuitouscases from different parts of Britain. The best evi-dence comes from the Outer Hebridean wheelhousesof Scotland, the floors of which were sunk into thesurrounding sand and thus were wholly preserved.Even though many of these were excavated over 40years ago, their excavators were not oblivious to thepatterning on floors and interpreted the differential

47




https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959774300015201


Figure 6. The plan of the interior of the Sollas wheelhouse. (From Campbell 1991 withpennissionfrom the author and the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.)

distribution of peat ash, pottery fragments, animalbones, quern stones, bone tools and even variationsin sherd size in terms of differential use of spacewithin the wheelhouse (Young & Richardson I960,140-41; Fairhurst 1971, 79-80). More recent assess-ment of these results has established that activitieswere split between the two halves of the house, tothe left and right sides of the east-facing door(Campbell 1991; Parker Pearson & Sharpies 1999).The left side of the house is characterized by arte-facts and deposits relating to corn grinding, weav-ing, potting, ceramic storage and cooking debris.

floors. In contrast, theright side of the house iscleaner, there are fewertools, and the bays aremore likely to be demar-cated by stone kerbs.Within the Sollas wheel-house (Campbell 1991),these northern bays havelarge, shallow hollowssuggestive of sleepingplaces, features which areabsent on the south side(Fig. 6). The northern halfof the east-facing househas a stone-flagged floorin certain brochs (for ex-ample, Hedges 1987; BallinSmith 1994). This drierarea is most likely to havebeen used mainly for stor-age and for sleeping.

In certain cases, well-preserved Early Iron Agehouse remains in south-ern England allow simi-lar analysis of interiororganization. Fitzpatrick'sspatial analysis of arte-facts in the post settingsof a roundhouse at Dun-ston Park, Thatcham, il-lustrates a south-northdivision of activities simi-lar to that found in theHebridean wheelhouses(1994). Very similar pat-terns can be identified inroundhouses at Long-

bridge Deverill Cow Down (Hawkes 1994) andBancroft, Milton Keynes (Williams & Zeepvat 1994).One of the houses at Longbridge Deverill (House II:3), had burnt down and its floor survived intact. Thedeposits seem to have built up during the house'soccupation rather than being specially placed priorto destruction. The majority of the pottery was con-centrated in the southeastern and southern sides ofthe roundhouse, as well as in postholes of the struc-tural timbers, especially around the southeastentranceway. Spindle whorls, bone gouges and chalk'loomweights' (more probably 'firebricks'; Poole, inCunliffe 1996) were clustered in the southwest/westThis zone may be further typified by the presence of

small niches within the walls and by simple earth side of the house. The northern side of the house, by

48




https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959774300015201

Mike Parker Pearson

Time Time

Time Time

Figure 7. Interpretations of the use of space in British Iron Age roundhouses: (a) Fitzpatrick's sunwise scheme(Fitzpatrick 1994); (b) an extension of Fitzpatrick's scheme in the light of wheelhouse layout; (c) the sunwise pattern ofmovement within the house, including the metaphor of the human life cycle round the house; (d) the organization ofseniority around the central hearth. (From Parker Pearson & Sharpies 1999, drawn by Adrian Chadwick withpermission from Sheffield Academic Press.)

contrast, is almost devoid of finds, except for onecluster of ceramics at the northern edge, pressed upagainst the back of the wall.

As noted above, roundhouse doorway orienta-tions were dictated more by symbolic concerns thanmatters of wind direction, maximal sunlight pen-etration and comfort (Oswald 1997; Parker Pearson1996; Parker Pearson & Richards 1994a, 47-54). Thelocation of doors, facing primarily towards the di-

rections of sunrise at the equinoxes and the midwin-ter solstice, indicates that the passage of the sun wasan important organizing principle in Iron Age dailyand annual routines. Fitzpatrick has made the im-portant observation that the division of diurnal ac-tivities within the roundhouse mimics the movementof the sun, with the tasks of the daytime carried outin the south and the activities of night-time in thenorth (1994): food preparation in the southern half

49




https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959774300015201


Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sept Oct

-WET-DARK

— D R Y -LIGHT

ETHNO-HISTORICALLY INFERRED

Harvest Drying StackingCrop cleaning, parching Com grinding, ploughing, sowing

Collect seaweed Spread seaweed, dung and midden on fields

Peat cutting, drying, stacking

Salt fish Fresh fish, drying, smoking, storing in stacks

Animals in the in-fields and settlement Animals graze the pastures

ARCHAEOLOGICALLY INFERRED

Culling Culling

Fresh meat Dry and salt meat

Make pottery Fire

Carding Spinning

FOLK CUSTOMS

Samain

pottery

Weaving

Imbolc

Spirits of the dead FertilityFire festival ChildbirthYear begins Ewes lactatingContact with Otherworld Baking

Purifying the house

Culling

Fresh meat Dry and salt meat

Dig clay Drying clay

Shearing Cleaning and drying

" Beltane

Fire and purificationSex and fertilityRekindle the hearthSunwise fire danceGreen man

Lughnasa

Stock rearing and harvestFeasts, gatherings, racesMarriage of Lug and the earthSunwise fire danceLoaves

DEATH BIRTH PUBERTY MARRIAGETRANSFORMATION CUTTING EXCHANGE

FERTILIZE: DRYING INSIDE FLOURISH: DRYING OUTSIDE

Figure 8. A reconstruction of the annual cycle o/Hebridean Iron Age agricultural anddomestic activities. (From Parker Pearson & Sharpies 1999 with permission fromSheffield Academic Press.)

1953), the sunwise princi-ple was adhered to; the in-ternal activities were simplyrotated with the entranceso that the food prepara-tion area was on the northside and the sleeping areaon the south side.4

The principal axis ofthe house may have articu-lated the expression ofhousehold seniority withinthe house, with the headof the household's place atthe fireside positioned soas to look across the fire-place and directly towardsthe door (Parker Pearson &Sharpies 1999). Alterna-tively, this axis served to di-vide those seated aroundthe central fireplace intonorth and south groups. Thefloor of the well-excavatedSollas wheelhouse, how-ever, revealed sitting hol-lows extending uniformlyaround the west, south andnorth sides of the hearthwith no apparent divisionby the central east-westaxis. A third alternative in-terpretation is that senior-ity was arranged aroundthe hearth in a sunwise pro-gression, with the youngeston the left inside the doorand the oldest on the right.This model might dovetailwith the first in that those

by day and sleeping in the northern half by night(Fig. 7). There is a further clue to the organization ofmovement within the house from the organizationof features within the wheelhouses of A'CheardachBheag and Sollas (Fairhurst 1971; Campbell 1991). Inboth cases, after entry through the door, stone kerbsguide access to the left, passing sunwise around thefire. Fitzpatrick's notion of time as sunwise progres-sion is also complemented by sunwise movement.This sunwise movement is also built into the archi-tecture of the brochs, in which the intra-mural stairsalways ascend on a sunwise path. Even where round-houses had doors to the west (Scott 1948; Young

in mid-life rather than old age may have been house-hold heads and thus have sat astride the principal axis.

The notion of sunwise passage embedded inthe routines, of daily life within the house was prob-ably employed at broader temporal and spatialscales.5 Some of the hillforts, enclosures and opensettlements in southern Britain, such as Danebury(Cunliffe 1996), Winnall Down (Fasham 1985) andEaston Lane (Fasham et al. 1989), may have beenorganized as macrocosmic versions of the house in-terior (Giles & Parker Pearson in press). The same ispossible for the broader landscape, as hinted at inthe accounts of land boundaries described in sunwise

50




https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959774300015201

Mike Parker Pearson

PloughingSow barley, oats, legumes

Calving/lambingTranshumance

progression in the land charters andtribal hideages of the post-Roman pe-riod, along with other documentarysources (Dodgshon 1985). On the tem-poral scale, the organization of theagricultural year, commencing in No-vember with food preparation, weav-ing, grinding and potting, andcontinuing through to drying andstorage after the summer harvest(Figs. 8 & 9), may similarly have mir-rored the routines of the diurnal cy-cle (Parker Pearson & Sharpies 1999;Giles & Parker Pearson in press). Asmentioned above, the passage of a

"human life may also have beentracked sunwise around the housefrom birth to old age and death (Fig.7). Thus the doorway was the liminalspace not only between inside andout but also between life and deathon its two sides. The liminality ofdoorways and of entranceways mayexplain the use of enclosure entrancesfor furnaces and deposits associatedwith metalworking. It is notable that hillfort andnon-hillfort enclosures like Gussage All Saints (Wain-wright 1979), Maiden Castle (Sharpies 1991,100) andCollfryn (Britnell 1989) have metalworking residueswithin the enclosure entranceway, whilst" the depo-sition of currency bars is similarly focused on en-trances and enclosure boundaries (Hingley 1990b;1997; Parker Pearson et al. in press; Giles & ParkerPearson in press).

The fascinating Iron Age settlements and cem-eteries of East Yorkshire tell us much about the liv-ing and the dead. The organization of daily life inthe Iron Age of East Yorkshire probably conformedto the broad themes demonstrated above for otherparts of Britain. The house plans from the Gartonand Wetwang settlements conform in shape and ori-entation to those from elsewhere yet the absence ofpreserved house floor surfaces permits us only tosurmise that they followed the sunwise path withinits various spatial and temporal scales as describedabove. Despite the paucity of settlement evidence,the region is of crucial importance for the recon-

HaymakingHarvestWeeding

Pluck fleecesTranshumance

Wetlands and seashore

WoodlandsMake straw

Gather berries and nutsCommunal labour

December 22PloughingManuring

Sow emmer, speltAnimals penned/byres?

Figure 9. Cosmologicalreferents hypothesized for farming activities inthe British Iron Age. (From Fitzpatrick 1997, drawn by Linda Colemanwith permission from the author and Oxbow Books.)

Dividing the living from the dead

The burial record for the British Iron Age is veryfragmentary and many regions have few remains.East Yorkshire is one area where bodies were notburned or exposed but were buried in a grave pitsurrounded by a ditched enclosure. This particularstyle of burial, in a square-ditched earthen barrow,is almost exclusively restricted (within Britain) toEast Yorkshire region (Brewster 1982; Dent 1982)and has been considered to represent a culture group,the Arras culture (Stead 1979). The small but distinctfunerary features have shown up either as earthworksor, after destruction by ploughing, as cropmarks. Incontrast to the circular form of the house, these en-closures are nearly all square, forming a categori-cally distinct architecture similar to the temples/shrines of Britain and to the houses of continentalEurope. Perhaps the abodes of the dead were meta-phorically linked to sacred enclosures and to thedomain of the others who lived across the sea.

The liminal placing of the dead within the land-struction of Iron Age cosmology. Its archaeologi- scape is embodied partly through their relationshipcally visible funerary practices, under-represented - with water. The majority of East Yorkshire Iron Agethroughout the rest of Britain, provide a specific re- barrow cemeteries are placed close to seasonal watergional perspective on orientational and animal sym- sources, either streams or sinkholes (Bevan 1999).bolism within the funerary domain of a specific group Such locations imply a liminal placement on theof communities. interface between the life world and the watery

51




https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959774300015201


underworld. This liminality is further expressed bythe regular association of burial areas with bound-ary earthworks of Iron Age or Late Bronze Age date(Bevan 1999), as at Danes' Graves which lies at theintersection of numerous linear earthworks (Fig. 10).In the case of Wetwang Slack, the cemetery wassqueezed against a linear ditch and droveway whichbisected the valley fields along the line of a stream.

Further distinctions between the realms of theliving and the dead appear to have been inscribed in

the choice of species and selection of body parts of theanimals which occasionally were buried with the hu-man dead. Pigs and sheep, generally as single bones orsmall portions, often accompanied the buried remainsof the dead. In Yorkshire, in contrast to Wessex, theseofferings never included the remains of cattle, thoughcattle bones are frequently found in pits and featuresassociated with houses. Of course, pig and sheep bonesare also found in domestic contexts but their deliberateinclusion in burials is in stark contrast to the placed

1

. . . - - • - '

Figure 10. The location of the Danes' Graves Iron Age cemetery at the intersection of numerous linear earthworks.(From Dent 1982 with permission from the author and the Prehistoric Society.)

52




https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959774300015201

Mike Parker Pearson

deposits of cattle skulls and articulated body parts of may portray a relationship between server/providercattle in settlement contexts. The only cases of cattlebones in burials are two complete animals, in human-style graves but without human corpses, at GartonSlack; this suggests treatment as metaphorical humansand not as funerary accompaniments. The portrayal ofcattle in British Iron Age art (Green 1992)6 is a furthercorroboration of their symbolic association with thedomestic setting; images of cattle are found on fire-dogs, key elements of the central hearth. In contrast,wild boar (the other frequently depicted animal) occuras motifs on swords, spears, 'standards', carnyxes (wartrumpets) and armour.

There is another possible dimension of segre-gation between living and dead.7 It would seem thatthe rear (of both sheep and pigs) was reserved forthe living. Pig bones placed in graves are alwaysfrontal parts (head, ribs and front legs), perhaps por-tions of pork. Sheep bones selected for inclusionwith the dead are almost invariably left humeri.8 Thepreference for the left side of sheep may coincidewith the preference for laying the corpse on its leftside. Burials lying on their left sides are four times asprevalent as burials on their right sides. It is difficultto be certain but we might speculate that the left-hand side was considered inauspicious and perhapsassociated with death. The large number of right-sided burials, however, gives cause for caution.

Cosmology and body position

The dominant burial rite in EastYorkshire involves the placementof the corpse in a crouched orcontracted position on its leftside, facing east with the head tothe north and feet to the south.Other variations are rotationsand/or reflections of this basicposition, or east-west extendedpositions (which may be late inthe sequence). Some of the north-south crouched burials havegrave goods, largely restricted toa brooch, a clay pot or a sheep'sleft humerus. The positioning ofthese modest grave goods some-times marks gender distinctions(Fig. 11). Men were buried witha pot and/or a sheep humerus attheir feet whilst in women's Figure 11. Gender distinctions in the placing of pots and/or sheep humerigraves they were placed in the within graves. (Adapted from Stead 1991 with permission from the author andarea of the head and hands.9 This English Heritage.)

and served/provided, with women and some of themen represented as the providers of sustenance.

The types of grave goods accompanying east-west and north-south graves are mutually exclu-sive. Whilst pots, brooches and sheep bones areabsent, the east-west graves may contain swords,spears, knives, sickles, ornaments and tools, as wellas pig bones.10 These graves are considered to be latein the sequence, perhaps dating to the first centuriesBC-AD. Where the individual lies with his/her headat the east end of the grave, he/she is provided withthe left side of the pig. When the head is at the westend of the grave, they are accompanied by the rightside of pig (Fig. 12). I can find no key to unlock themeaning of this careful distinction. There is no corre-lation with sex, grave goods, age, body positioningor spatial location in the cemetery. It is a totemicindicator which could relate to lineage or moietyaffiliations. It illustrates very clearly, however, thatbinary oppositions were in operation, combining ori-entational cosmology with left and right symbolism.

Rethinking status: from grave goods to animalportions

'The Iron Age chieftains of East Yorkshire and manyof lower rank, to which the chariots obviously be-long, were wealthy by the standards of their dayand some must have had considerable politicalpower.' (Brewster 1976,110).

53




https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959774300015201


Figure 12. Possible moiety distinctions in the placing of leftfrontal pig bones in east-aligned graves and right frontal bonesin west-aligned graves. (Adapted from Stead 1991 withpermission from the author and English Heritage.)

Some time before New Archaeological interpreta-tions of the social dimensions of mortuary behav-iour had been adopted by British archaeologists(Chapman et al. 1981), the East Yorkshire burialswere considered as evidence of a chiefdom, or atleast a ranked society. The presence of carts (alsodescribed as chariots) has been taken to indicate thetop level of this hierarchical order. Of the many hun-dreds of Iron Age burials from the region, no more

vidual status or whether it might have- hadother meanings, perhaps associated withcommunality, pollution or social deviancy. Itis possible that most burials involved the useof a cart, perhaps to convey the deceased tothe grave, but that in most cases the cart wasnot deposited with the body. It might wellhave been so deposited, for example, becauseit had become tainted or polluted by a danger-ous or unfortunate death. Alternatively, it mayhave acquired a 'sacred pollution' if it wasassociated with a good or auspicious death.As will become clear, the association of theseburials with pig bones and with unusuallyfine items argues for their identification asgraves of the elite.

The spatial organization of burials is di-vided into three: large cemeteries which areoften linear, small clusters and individualgraves. Cart/chariot burials, probably datingfrom the third century BC, are found in allcategories. Were carts, in any case, rare statusitems? Excavations of Iron Age settlements inother parts of Britain regularly uncover piecesof cart and harness fittings and they seem tohave been relatively common features in Brit-ish Iron Age communities though probablyrestricted to local elites (Cunliffe 1991, 492).11

Their inclusion in graves only in East York-shire highlights the rarity of this rite ratherthan the rarity of the carts, though their lim-ited numbers point to a high-status associa-tion. In any case, their deposition may havebeen limited to a relatively short period withinthe Iron Age in the third century BC on thebasis of art style associations for five of them.12

Cart burials at Kirkburn and Garton Sta-tion (Fig. 13), in which the corpse is laid north-south with the head facing east, are associatedwith bones of pig which are not only veryspecific parts of the animal but are placed invery specific positions around the corpse. They

are always front parts — the skull and front legs —and are split into left and right portions. The leftportion is always placed on the north end of thebody and the right portion on the south end. Whatwe see in this placing of bodies and bones is a mate-rial construction of the cosmological grid in whichleft is equated with north and right with south. Con-versely, the sole female chariot grave, where thepositions are reversed, has right with north and leftwith south. This reversal may relate to thethan 14 were accompanied by carts. We must con-

sider whether the cart is truly a mark of high indi- oppositional gender-signalling in the burials with

54




https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959774300015201

Mike Parker Pearson

Figure 13. A cart burial with pig bones; the frontal left portion is by the head (north) and the frontal right portion isb the abdomen (south). (Adapted from Stead 1991 with permission from the author and English Heritage.)

55




https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959774300015201


sheep humeri and/or pots. More cart burials areknown at Wetwang but there are no published de-tails of the animal bones.

Since pig bones are associated with graves con-taining carts, weaponry and ornamented artefacts,whilst sheep bones are found in the simpler burials,we appear to have two species being used as statusmarkers.13 In structuralist terms, this opposition formsa totemic system in which the human relationshipbetween rulers and ruled is mirrored by the ceremo-nial distinction between pigs and sheep. A similarlytotemic classification of food offerings and gravegoods is found in Roman Iron Age Denmark (ParkerPearson 1993,221), where sheep are found in simpleburials and cattle, pigs, birds and fish are placed inlavish ones. We may conclude that animal bones,rather than grave goods, are the key indicators ofelite or commoner ascription in the burials of theYorkshire Iron Age. The implication of this observa-tion is that many high-status burials are not markedby grave goods, other than pig bones.

Carts, deviancy and royalty

The carts and associated grave goods, which includeelaborately decorated sword scabbards, a decoratedbronze container and a mirror, and a chainmail suit,are not everyday items and indicate either that thepersons thus commemorated were of noble rank orthat their death required the sacrifice of the commu-nity's most precious material goods. In this light, itis interesting that the chainmail suit is one of theearliest known examples of its kind in the world. Itwas, interestingly, laid over the body upside-downand back-to-front as was one of the swords from anassociated grave. It is harder to ascertain whetherthe wooden carts received similar treatment, sincethey were not well preserved. The remains of onesuggested that it might have been interred upside-down (Stead 1991, fig. 48b) and the carts generallywere placed with the yoke and pole to the north, thedirection of the head. This might be construed asback-to-front since we should expect the feet to beforward on a cart. Similarly, we could add that thehorse bridles placed in the cart burials are placedbehind (west of) the corpse rather than in front.

Some of the other graves in the cart grave cem-eteries are unusual in that seven are placed withincircular enclosures with distinct entrances, likehouses but west-facing, and enclose the graves ofmales or individual horses. These male burials areespecially unusual because they include multiplespearheads (up to 14 in one grave) which were thrust

into the body whilst it lay in the grave (Stead 1991,33). A further deviant burial was found at GartonSlack where a young man and a pregnant womanwere buried with their arms apparently pinned to-gether with a wooden stake. The burial pit was cutin the form of a cart grave (Brewster 1976, 115). Itseems likely that the speared individuals were al-ready dead when speared and so this secondary'killing' may have served to mark death as the trans-gression of the body's boundaries. To this catalogueof oddities we can add two graves of young women,one with a newborn child and the other with aneight-month old foetus. The double death of motherand baby during childbirth is universally inauspi-cious, shocking and dangerous. Thus some of theseburials at Garton Station and Kirkburn, in close prox-imity to the cart graves, are characterized by inver-sion and by catastrophic breaching of the body'sboundaries. It is also notable that one of the bodiesin the Garton, Kirkburn and Wetwang cart burials isaged c. 35-45 whilst the rest were probably in theirtwenties, suggesting that these deaths may have beenunexpected and tragic events for their communities.

Rather than necessarily identifying the spearedmen and the cart graves as simply those of an IronAge aristocracy, we might be better advised to con-sider them as the result of dangerous, polluting anddestabilizing deaths which threatened the well-being of the community at large. That is not to saythat they were not of superior rank to others whilstalive — the existence of elite goods would presumethe existence of an elite in any case — but that thearchaeological evidence of their bodily treatmentshould be considered first before any evaluation oftheir status. These burials might have resulted frombad deaths of commoners within the community,requiring special inversion rituals and sacrifices ofelite items to assuage the pollution. A preferred pos-sibility, however, is that they are indeed the gravesof elites but that the manner of their burial indicatesa concern with rites of reversal and, for the spearedmen, the metaphorical killing of royalty. ThisFrazerian symbolism of regicide (Frazer 1911,9-119)

, may be seen as a means of effectively and rapidlyseparating the individual monarch from the eternaland immortal sacred kingship (Metcalf & Huntington1991,162-88).

There are several pieces of evidence whichstrongly suggest that the traditional explanation ofcart burials as those of dominant, if not royal, groupsis correct. First, some of the artefacts in these gravesare scarce and unusual, such as the chainmail coat inGrave 5 at Kirkburn. It might have belonged to the

56




https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959774300015201

Mike Parker Pearson

man in the grave or might equally have been a spe-cial item discarded by a mourner. The female cartburial at Garton Slack was provided with similarlyrare and elaborate artefacts, namely a mirror and abronze canister. Other special artefacts in cart buri-als are swords with ornamented metal scabbards.Another indication of royal status is that west-facingsquare enclosures are found in association with theseburials at Garton Station. As noted above, this re-versed orientation can be considered to have beenassociated with difference and high status.

We must conclude that the cart burials are-high-status burials but they are often associated with in-auspicious, even dangerous and polluting graves.Cart burials seem to have occurred early in the se-quence (c. 300-200 BC) and may have been used lateras foci for 'bad deaths', perhaps to contain theirpollution by association with the graves of seniorancestors. Of course, as representatives of a sacredkingship, their own deaths would also have beenconsidered especially inauspicious, dangerous andeven polluting.

Cemetery groupings, kinship and body treatment

The spatial organization of the large linear cemeter-ies of East Yorkshire can be studied in some detail.Many of the larger cemeteries are linear and somecan be seen to be formed of clusters of graves (Figs.14 & 15). From dating of brooches, the north-southlinear cemetery at Rudston appears to conform tothis pattern, having grown from a series of pointsalong its length and not developed progressively inone direction or another. This suggests a series ofclusters which, over time, have spilled over into eachother. Whilst male and female graves are evenlydistributed along the length of this cemetery, there isa greater frequency of female graves towards theWest.

There are indications that these clusters formeddiscrete social groupings. Burials with pig bones atthe Rudston and Burton Fleming cemeteries are inclusters separated from those with sheep bones. Cer-tain clusters are distinguished from others by theirtomb architecture, characterized by small conjoiningsemi-detached grave ditches, in contrast to the free-standing square barrows of the rest of the cemetery.A further form of clustering is revealed by the differ-ential treatment of the corpse. Body position can beclassified as flexed, crouched or contracted (tightlycrouched as if bound). The contracted burials are notrandomly distributed in the cemetery but are verycommon in some parts and absent in others.

R U D S T O N commoner*® *̂

R135-189la elite

O

D) commonerI

R115-134 ) 0

100m commoner

R68-114

commoner Q*.

commoner

- O£D 8 R 26

• . *Q I eliteR 26-44

R 45-67 £ ."commoner £ jj

C

commoner

R1-25

Figure 14. The linear cemetery at Rudston, divided intoelite (marked by conjoining barrows) and commonerlineages. (Adapted from Stead 1991 with permissionfrom the author and English Heritage.)

The compartmentalization of these linear cem-eteries finds an echo in the construction of theregion's Iron Age linear ditches, which recent exca-vations have found to have been built in different-segments (Julian Henderson pers. comm.). The cem-eteries form spatial maps of kinship organization inwhich each cluster is a lineage of either elite or com-moners (though many of the Early Iron Age elitelineage clusters are located away from the commoners'

57




https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959774300015201


cemeteries (S. Stead, inStead 1991). It is also worthnoting that the traits aretwice as commonly sharedbetween adjacent males asfemales. It appears thatmale kin are buried to-gether in the same cluster.In contrast, women wouldseem not to be buried withthose to whom they are ge-netically related. Thissuggests that a virilocalpattern of burial was in op-eration, with most of thewomen in each clusterhaving originated in othercommunities. This, in turn,suggests a patrilineal de-scent system. We shouldexercise caution, however,in interpreting such non-metric traits as necessarilygenetically heritable; thespatial clusterings are per-haps best considered sepa-rately from the non-metricdata.

Conclusion

Death is a moment whenour attitudes to the bodyare presented most clearlyand prominently, often inways which are very dif-ferent to body treatmentin everyday life. The bodyof the corpse becomes thefocus of ritual and mourn-ing. Mourners also adoptposes, positions and styles

Figure 15. The linear cemetery at Carnaby, composed of discrete clusters. (From of movement which mayWhimster 1981 with permission from the author and British Archaeological Reports.) be highly formalized and

controlled, or alternativelyfrenzied and stricken. The corpse may be manipu-lated, orientated, sat up, laid down, dressed, un-dressed, washed, provided with gifts and even fed.It may be consumed, burnt, buried, excarnated, helddown with stones, dug up, displayed, hidden, placedunder the house floors of the living or taken as far

cemeteries). At Burton Fleming each lineage clusteris marked by a core of orthodox north-south burialswhich are fringed by unorthodox burials (i.e. rotatedor reflected body positions: Fig. 16).

The inference that these clusters represent kingroups is corroborated by the osteological evidencefor non-metric traits. Most of these are similarly clus- away as possible. In most societies, if not all, thetered in parts of the Rudston and Burton Fleming corpse is an embodiment of the pollution, spiritual

58




https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959774300015201

Mike Parker Pearson

and material, which threatens toengulf the mourners and whichmust be mediated, controlledand overcome.

The human body is perhapsthe ultimate natural symbol, pro-viding a basis for simple con-cepts such as up/down, back/front, left/right, in/out, andclean/dirty. The treatment of aninert corpse provides a settingwhere such symbolism is mobi-lized on the body of the dead, onthe bodies of the mourners andeven on the bodies of animalswhich may be slaughtered or sac-rificed in the rites.

Remains of the dead are animportant form of evidence forarchaeologists investigating an-cient attitudes to the body. Notonly do we find how the corpsewas eventually left to rest butwe may also find traces of howthe mourners acted in pro-visioning the corpse and in lay-ing it to rest. Social relationshipsbetween and among the livingare given representation in theWay that the corpse is treated.Differences between women andmen, children and adults, livingand dead, and between kingroups, status groups and othertotemic groupings may all bemanifested in the wide varietyof ways in which the body of thedead is treated. The use of ani-mal bodies may also be signifi-cant in the same vein. Differentspecies or sexes of animals, ordifferent parts of their bodies,may have significant totemic

Figure 16. Two lineage groups atBurton Fleming, defined by theircores of orthodox graves (3-6, 8 &U-13,16-18) and their fringe ofunorthodox burials, f N/S facingE; iS/N facing E; 1 N/S facing W;J S/Nfacing W. (AdaptedfromStead 1991 with permission fromthe author and English Heritage.)

BURTON FLEMING

59




https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959774300015201


symbolism. The different parts of an animal con-sumed at a funerary feast may represent differentsocial relationships and statuses among the mourn-ers. The funeral is a moment when individuals mustrepair the torn fabric of community and engage inthe political struggle to re-create society.

The treatment of the body tells us much aboutsocial relationships in the British Iron Age. The prac-tice of square barrow burial, restricted to East York-shire, hints at a strong regional and group identity.The ways that the body is laid in the grave are linkedto lineage affiliation, class membership and cosmol-ogy. The positioning of grave goods may define gen-der and possibly moiety. Placing of animal bodyportions is particularly rich in symbolism, with pigand sheep bones embodying a totemic status dis-tinction between elite and commoners.

I have identified two main status groups on thebasis of body treatment, rather than simply by gravegoods or barrow construction. These are:

a) burials with pig portions and those which include theEarly Iron Age cart burials, the Late Iron Age ex-tended east-west graves, the childbirth deaths andthe speared men;

b) north-south burials, occasionally with sheep bones(these define the dominant rite and are commoners);

In addition we can also recognize another categorywhich is under-represented in the burial record:

c) children under about 16 years of age, presumablyexcluded because they were not considered fullysexual or socialized members of society. It is alsolikely that the entire adult population of Iron AgeYorkshire is not represented by these square barrowburials and that this is only a proportion, albeit size-able, of the total population.

Although studies of social structure based on gravegoods provision and energy expenditure have beencriticized for some time, there have been very fewanalyses which have explored body treatment anddeveloped a more contextual and sophisticated ap-proach to investigating social relationships (althoughsee Pader 1982 for an early example). This article hasattempted to explore some of the potential by link-ing treatment of the body with orientational cosmol-ogy, animal symbolism, and spatial patterning insettlement and cemetery as well as in grave goodsprovision. Not only are aspects of Iron Age cosmol-ogy recoverable from cross-contextual archaeologi-cal, approaches which deal largely or entirely withprehistoric material, but also certain prehistoriccosmologies appear to have been widespread andlong-lasting. For example, the organizing principles

of the east-west axis and the sunwise path wereadopted across Britain from southeast England tonorthwest Scotland in the centuries after c. 900 BCand were to remain, with certain regional modifica-tions and expressions, until the first millennium AD.Rather than being ephemeral 'ways of thinking' sub-ject to continuous and active change, these cosmol-ogies were durable and long-lasting, embedded inthe traditional architecture and practices of daily lifeover many generations. In conclusion, this study hasimplications for the ways that archaeologists under-stand the British Iron Age and other prehistoric soci-eties in terms of the relationship between structure(the traditions through which society is constituted)and the transformative nature of agency. I have fo-cused on structure because it is only through theprior identification of cosmological rules that wemay proceed to understand human agency in rela-tion to those rules. Secondly, the emphasis on hu-man-agency in recent accounts of British prehistory(e.g. Barrett 1994) often draws extensively on theo-ries of structuration (e.g. Giddens 1984) in whichagency is given ontological value greater than thatof structure. Not only was Giddens' theorization ex^plicitly designed for industrial and post-industrialsocieties whose workings he considers to constitutea radical break from all previous societies, but ar-chaeologists have also applied those formulations topast societies without heeding Giddens' own mis-givings about any universalizing social theory whichstands outside time and history. We need to con-sider more carefully the implications of distinguish-ing between traditional societies, in which the waysof the ancestors are revered and provide an unques-tionable basis for action, and technologically ad-vanced societies in which innovation and fashionare treasured. The archaeological record of prehis-toric Britain, and perhaps prehistory in general,would seem to indicate that cosmological traditionscould be powerful and enduring. At the same time,they were subject to local understandings andresistances. Yet what is important is that the variousmanifestations are indicative of a common under-standing which was both long-lasting and geographi-cally extensive within Britain.

Acknowledgements

The excavations by T.C.M. Brewster, Ian Stead andJohn Dent have contributed substantially to ourknowledge of East Yorkshire's Iron Age settlementsand cemeteries. In addition to their published andunpublished work, a number of unpublished papers

60




https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959774300015201

"Mike Parker Pearson

(as doctoral, masters, and undergraduate disserta-tions) have been produced by students at the Uni-versity of Sheffield, and I am very grateful to BillBevan, Ross Dean, John Dent, Ian Marsden, AngelaPiccini and Alice Pyper. This paper has benefitedfrom discussions of related papers at the Delhi WAC,Reading TAG, the Hunter Archaeological Society andseminars at the archaeology departments of Shef-field University, Reading University and the Uni-versity of Wales, Cardiff. Thanks to Richard Bradley,John Dent, Andrew Fitzpatrick, Mel Giles, RichardHingley, Simon James, Jacqui Mulville, NiallSharpies, Ian Stead and the two anonymous review-ers for their useful comments.

•Notes

1. It is intriguing that this grid of associations is foundlinguistically in Irish and Scots Gaelic, possible suc-cessors to pre-Roman languages in the British Isles.The word for 'east' also means 'front'; 'west' is equatedwith 'behind', 'left' with 'north' and 'right' with 'south'(Robinson 1986,135). Of course, we have no means ofestablishing for certain whether a language similar toGaelic was spoken in Iron Age Britain.

2. Its orientation, like that of Mucking South Ring, is nottowards the midwinter sunrise but slightly north ofthis direction.

3. Towards the end of the Iron Age both bull and boarmotifs occur on Continental-derived coinage of Ro-man extraction. It should be noted, however, that thebull motif on British coins is sufficiently abstract so asnot to be recognizable as an animal at all and we mustdoubt whether it was perceived as such.

4. It is interesting that sunwise movement is encapsu-lated in the Gaelic word deasil — 'motion towards theright, in the apparent direction of the motion of thesun'. Its linguistic opposite, 'withershins' — tradi-tionally considered the wrong way, unlucky and ill-fated — is of Icelandic and/or Germanic derivation.

5. We have no appropriate written sources for Britainbut there is an intriguing but ambiguous reference tothe Continent:

The stoic philosopher Posidonius... says:... Whena large number dine together they sit around in acircle with the most influential man in the centre...Beside him sits the host and next on either side theothers in order of distinction. Their shieldsmen standbehind them while their spearmen are seated in acircle on the opposite side and feast in common liketheir lords . . . They use a common cup, drinking alittle at a time, taking no more than a mouthful, butthey do it rather frequently. The slave serves the cupto the right, (not) to the left. That is the method ofservice. In the same way they do reverence to thegods, turning towards the right. (Athenaeus 4, 36,translated by Tierney 1960).

As Simon James points out (pers. comm.), if the slave

is in the middle and serving to his right, as seemsmost likely, then the cup passes sunwise. Turningtowards the right for the gods seems less ambiguousas a sunwise motion if one starts from facing east.

6. We can also include western European Iron Age art,in which cattle occur in addition on cauldrons.

7. Since the haunches (hip, buttock and rear legs of theanimal) are presented in Celtic mythology as the cham-pion's portion (Ross 1967, 403; Green 1992, 170-71),the frontal part represents a lesser status.

8. From Ian Stead's excavations at Burton Fleming andRudston, just three out of 37 sheep humeri were right-sided.

9. From Burton Fleming and Rudston, eight biologicallyfemale individuals have pots/bones near their headsand three have them by their feet; of the biologicallymale individuals, four have pots/bones near theirfeet, two near their heads and one by his waist.

10. Animal bones are found in only 16 per cent of east-west graves but they are always of pig.

11. By the Late Iron Age they were probably fairly com-mon; Caesar's reference to Cassivelaunus and his 4000charioteers may be exaggerated but points to theirlikely availability among local communities.

12. The three Wetwang carts and the Garton Station andKirkburn burials are third century BC but the othersare undated.

13. By ornamented artefacts I refer to the use of Celtic artmotifs on items such as the 'bean-can'.

Mike Parker PearsonDepartment of Archaeology & Prehistory

University of SheffieldSheffieldS102TN

Comments

From Miranda Aldhouse Green, SCARABResearch Centre, University of Wales College,Newport, Caerleon Campus, Newport, NP6 1YG.

Mike Parker Pearson presents a fascinating and essen-tially persuasive argument for the presence of linkagesbetween life, death and cosmology in the British IronAge, nodal points being the symbolism of the humanbody and the respective orientations of houses andgraves in relation to the sun's diurnal path. Addition-ally, it is argued that social differentiation may be em-bedded in certain recognized patterns of ritualbehaviour, including the deliberate selection of specificbody-parts of particular animals for deposition withinboth living accommodation and graves.

In general, this article reflects its author's usualcombination of meticulous academic rigour and chal-lenging interpretation. But a few somewhat dogmatic

61




https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959774300015201


statements concerning meaning strike a- discordantnote. For instance, I take issue with the unequivocalclaims for the interpretation of house-orientations asexpressive of cosmology. This may well be right but, indealing with material culture alone, it is wise not to betoo uni-directional in the identification of symbolism:the application of theoretical perspectives to archaeo-logical evidence is important in developing prismsthrough which to view the past, but they are theoreti-cal approaches and should not become 'factoids'. Nei-ther should we dismiss the possible relevance of customand practice to the organization of living-space. Totake a modern analogy, the 'normal' British house hasa front living-room and a front-facing main bedroombut there is no functional reason for this; neither is itritual in any sense other than convention.

Notwithstanding the cautionary note soundedabove, this is an exciting article which raises a numberof important and wide-ranging issues, thus makinga valuable contribution to our discourse with thematerial culture of the British Iron Age. A particularinterest, for me, lies in the discussion of possibleliminal symbolism associated, for instance, with theselection of pork as depositional material because ofthe existence of both the domestic pig and its wildcounterpart. Indeed, one could point to the omnivo-rous habits of pigs as further support for their per-ception as liminal creatures. Interestingly, some LateIron Age and Gallo-Roman iconography also sug-gests a link between pigs/boars and boundary-sym-bolism: one example is the ambiguously-genderedsow/boar figurine from Cahors; another is the hu-man/boar image from Euffigneix.

Several other issues addressed by Parker Pearsonresonate with broadly coeval iconography: reversalin handedness can be discerned in some female im-ages on Iron Age coins and Britanno-Roman sculp-ture; the under-representation of youth in Iron AgeYorkshire graves reflects special, if negative, treat-ment of people yet to attain sexual maturity; in thesubstantive assemblage of pilgrim-imagery at theGallo-Roman sanctuary of Fontes Sequanae, near Di-jon, children between nine and fourteen years old(both girls and boys) are depicted idiosyncratically,wearing 'badges' of youth and carrying pet animals,as if they were perceived as different from the rest ofthe pilgrim population. The possibility of identify-ing symbolic linkages between ritual behaviour inthe Iron Age and cult-imagery of Iron Age and Ro-man date is to me one of the research areas of cogni-tive archaeology which could profitably be exploredin future work.

From Barry Cunliffe, Institute of Archaeology, .36Beaumont Street, Oxford, OX1 2PG.

This is an enjoyable and stimulating article whichintroduces a welcome new approach to Iron Ageburial data moving us away from purely chrono-logical/artefact orientated studies. The author con-vincingly demonstrates that patterns of behaviourexist and that those patterns may be susceptible tointerpretation. Rather than concentrate on detail Iwould like to comment on method. Where ourdata sets are large enough it is possible to recog-nize patterns of behaviour and, in considering thesepatterns, we may discern structures conditionedby belief. Attempting to understand these beliefsis one of the legitimate goals of archaeology. Givena data set the first stage in the process is patternrecognition. Most of us, I suspect, would prefer tostand back from the detail to spot recurring themesand then to focus on them. This is an entirelylegitimate procedure which relies on the human mindrather than mechanical computer-led techniques.But there are dangers in this. By cherry-pickingwe run the risk of writing off all non-cherries asbackground noise, i.e. houses that do not face ourpreferred southeast direction are anomalies. Strongcongenial patterns may obscure weaker 'unwanted'patterns. In this way sought-for patterns gain alegitimacy and importance which they may neverhave had. In the background noise and anomaliesmay lie something much more interesting. In otherwords we must seek consciously to put our pre-ferred patterns into context the better to under-stand them.

Many Iron Age houses do indeed favour asoutheast orientiation but many do not. Could it bethat other factors, including simple topography, maybe dominant and only by default (when those fac-tors are not operative) were houses aligned in thedirection of the welcoming early morning sun? Simi-larly, hillforts in south-central Britain do tend to aneast-west orientation but to what extent is this afactor of the natural grain of the geology? More in-teresting are those where entrances do not conformrationally to topography.

What I am arguing is that pattern-recognitionis indeed a valuable first step, but it must be fol-lowed by rigorous testing against the totality ofthe data, lest the patterns which we find obviousand interesting obscure others that may have beenmore significant to the communities we are tryingto understand.

62




https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959774300015201

Mike Parker Pearson

From Richard Hingley, Historic Scotland,Longmore House, Edinburgh, EH9 1SH.

Parker Pearson's article is an indication of how farIron Age archaeology in Britain has come over thepast 20 years. It is now possible to build credible inter-pretations of gender, group identity, status and timeon the basis of the archaeological evidence. I find theauthor's approach stimulating and exciting. His de-fence of structure against agency runs counter to thedominant perspective in late twentieth-century pre-historic archaeology, but it does express a concernthat is held by a number of his colleagues. ParkerPearson also shows his structuralist leanings in hisfocus on binary oppositions (east-west, north-south,"elite-commoners, women-men, living-dead, etc.).

The use of settlement and burial evidence froma large area of Britain enables the author to buildsome complexity into his account, yet the rather sim-ple cosmological interpretation that he develops alsocauses a measure of concern. He suggests some vari-ation in the way in which cosmology was definedacross Britain, variation which is reflected in vary-ing archaeological evidence, yet the clockwise cos-mology based on east (life) and west (death) is felt tobe fundamental across Britain for the first millen-nium BC. I accept that the cosmological idea is auseful tool, but I also feel that later prehistoric lifemust have been more complex than this interpreta-tion would suggest.

Whose version of cosmology does this repli-cate? That of the household head or the most juniormember? That of the women or the men? I wouldsuspect that different groups within society may wellhave held varying views of the significance of theirWorld; some subtly different and some radically so.Levi-Strauss (1968, 132-41) in his work on theWinnebago, suggested that members of two distinctdescent groups had markedly different views of thesocial relevance of the same village plan, and I haveexplored an alternative interpretation of the spatialsignificance of circular architecture during later pre-history elsewhere (Hingley 1990a). Perhaps some ofthese variations in the way that people viewed thesame material reality during later prehistory partlyexplain the changes to the archaeological evidencethat occur through time.

In my rather more complex interpretation ofIron Age cosmology there would certainly be nodifficulty with the idea of having distinct later pre-historic interpretations of clockwise east-focused cos-mology in different areas of Britain. In a previous

article Parker Pearson suggested that west-facingroundhouses in Wessex could be connected in someway with death (Parker Pearson 1996), while in thearticle in this volume he suggests that in the WesternIsles west-facing houses might relate to high status. Hefurther suggests that the Atlantic Scottish evidence canbe used to inform his earlier view about Wessex andthat, perhaps, a variety of west-facing houses through-out Britain all relate to high status. I would prefer aview of cosmology which allows for a more subtle,contextually-defined interpretation. Using this ap-proach, there is, for instance, no difficulty with the ideathat the Atlantic Scottish examples exhibited some formof power relations between people while the Wessexexamples were related in some way to concepts of lifeand death. In any case, these two sets of values may insome way be connected.

Material for these variable interpretations maynot be difficult to find; for instance, what is the rel-evance of the rectangular buildings which occur insoutheastern England during later prehistory(Hingley 1989, 35)? Does the cyclical model work inthese cases, or is a Danish-style cosmology (as repre-sented by the presumably cosmological movementof the 'Chariot of the Sun': Jensen 1993, 54) morerelevant to later prehistoric societies who live in rec-tangular houses?

These comments do not detract from the valueof the work on which Parker Pearson's article is based.We might perhaps, as he has suggested, see this basiccyclical cosmological framework as a key to unlockthe symbolism and practice of daily life and seek tobuild more complex accounts which deal with vari-ability across Britain. We also need to consider changethrough time using the key of cosmology. It is alsoimportant that we consider the relationship of an-cient cosmology in this part of Europe to that ofneighbouring areas of the Continent, if we are tounderstand the evidence in more subtle terms.

From John Dent, Scottish Borders Council,Planning & Development, Council Headquarters,Newton St Boswells, Melrose, TD6 OSA.

Parker Pearson explores a number of different as-pects of life and death in tl>is article. Having longpuzzled over such matters as burial positions androundhouse orientations, I extend a cautious wel-come to these ideas for the extra dimensions whichthey provide to over-familiar material.

I have been invited to comment on this article,largely because of my interest in the Iron Age settle-

63




https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959774300015201


ments and burials of the Yorkshire Wolds wherethree sites are of particular importance to ParkerPearson's case. These are Garton Station/Kirkburn,Garton/Wetwang, both in the central Wolds to thewest of Driffield, and Rudston/Burton Fleming inthe northeastern Wolds.

Garton Station and Kirkburn constitute a singlesite which consists of a nucleated cemetery and out-lying barrows at a place where in exceptionally wetseasons a spring rises and forms one of the headwa-ters for the River Hull. These headwaters also at-tracted ritual activity in the Neolithic, Roman, andAnglian periods. Ditched Iron Age enclosures withwestern entrances, and a consistent rite involvingspeared inhumations are features which distinguishthis from other cemetery sites.

Garton/Wetwang lies to the west of this site, ina dry valley, or slack, which emanates from the mainmassif of the Yorkshire Wolds. Long-term gravelextraction along more than 1.5 kilometres of the val-ley floor led to the excavation of an extensive IronAge settlement of 80 or so round houses, and morethan 450 burials, which included four with carts orchariots. An extensive linear ditch system severalkilometres in length followed the dry valley fromthe springs at Garton Station/Kirkburn to well be-yond Garton/Wetwang, and in several places was afocus for burials.

Rudston/Burton Fleming is a large assemblageof Iron Age burials from the gravels of the GreatWold Valley and its tributary, Bell Slack. This valleysystem leads to the North Sea at Bridlington Bay.

In his discussion of 'West orientation and socialdifference', Parker Pearson refers to the large settle-ment of Garton/Wetwang. This settlement extendedalong the valley floor for at least 1.5 kilometres (somemay have been lost without record to gravel quarry-ing at the eastern end). The position of a 'villagestreet' is indicated by the position of some round-houses and post squares, by isolated square bar-rows, and by later linear features. It is quite clearthat, unlike medieval and later villages, there was noattempt to build roundhouses to face the 'street',even where they were ranged along its sides. Thedoorways in almost every case occupied the south-east quarter. A single example in which the doorfaced southwest is identified here as a probable high-status building, seemingly because of nearby postsquares (putative granaries). In fact, there are twiceas many 'granaries' at the west end of the settlement,where the roundhouses all conform to the usual ori-entation. On the other hand, a closer look at hisroundhouse reveals that it is unusual in other ways.

Roundhouse is a reasonable interpretation ofthis structure, for the penannular slot 11.5 m in di-ameter falls within the range of other structures inthe valley. Unusual is the southwestern entrance andits width of 4 m, as well as the lack of internal postholes (although many, admittedly smaller, round-houses lacked internal supports). Much of the inte-rior was occupied by a large pit up to 7 m in diameter,funnel-shaped and with its bottom resting on chalkat a depth of 3.5 m. Human bone was recoveredfrom the lowest fill of this pit. Outside the entrancewas a second large pit, about 5 m diameter and 1.5 mdeep. In the bottom of this 'ritual hollow' (the exca-vator's interpretation) a central mound of gravel hadbeen left unexcavated. These features need not havebeen contemporary but their juxtaposition on theextensive valley floor is too convenient to be acci-dental, and suggests that whether roofed or not, thecircular structure was rather special, as ParkerPearson suggests.

We are increasingly aware of the importancewhich various peoples placed on their homes andthe significance of their use and treatment. Feng Shuiwas an ancient belief before it became a middle-classfad, and 'Sunwise paths and the ordering of dailylife' suggests how Iron Age Britons may also havegiven careful consideration to the arrangement anduse of their houses. Even though at Garton/Wetwangthere is little to suggest how houses were used (sincethe floors of houses did not survive), the ideas putforward in this section are thought-provoking andneed not be restricted to prehistoric contexts. Didsuch a clockwise tradition of movement, for example,influence the design of spiral staircases, which almostinvariably turn to the right? The argument that thiswas to give defenders an advantage with their swordarm may be a retrospective view which would nothave impressed early ecclesiastical architects.

'Dividing the living from the dead' draws onthe abundant evidence from East Yorkshire wherecemeteries are frequently placed against boundaries,and sometimes close to water. The builders of longbarrows and round barrows in the Neolithic andearly Bronze Age had a preference for ridgeways at,or close to crossing points, and valley floors wherethese too were on natural routeways. Many Iron Agecemeteries are also in places where they would beseen from trackways, and many trackways were alsoboundaries marked by linear earthworks. Such buri-als could be said to occupy liminal positions, butwere not marginal in the sense of being 'remote'.Rather, many must have been prominent features ofthe landscape.

64




https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959774300015201

Mike Parker Pearson

Garton/Wetwang is actually several miles fromthe nearest water, whereas Garton Station/Kirkburnis part of an historic ritual landscape which may oweits very existence to the presence of springs. Themajority of Late Iron Age settlements known fromaerial photography (and represented by rectilinearenclosures) concentrate on the lower dip slope of theWolds around the Hull Valley. The cemeteries inthis area, particularly Arras, Garton/Wetwang andGarton Station/Kirkburn produced the richest gravegoods of the whole burial tradition, with carts/chari-ots and fine metalwork.

This may reflect the greater ease of access to theVale of York (for iron) and the continent (e.g. forcoral and glass) which the Hull Valley enjoyed in

•contrast to the relative isolation of the northeasternWolds. Even though the Rudston/Burton Flemingarea had been of exceptional ceremonial importancein earlier times, it was not accessible to small craft,unlike the River Hull, which is navigable almost toits source.

Parker Pearson's discussion of body treatment,grave goods and the significance of food provides agood deal for thought. It is worth mention here thatJean Dawes examined all the skeletal material fromGarton/Wetwang, and observed that limb bonessometimes showed unequal development, with thearm bones of one side being more robust than thoseof the other. Attracted by the possibility that thiscontrast might enable us to identify right- and left-handed individuals, we were disappointed to findthat there was no correlation with which arm hadbeen uppermost in the grave.

Although this article necessarily draws heavilyon East Yorkshire for burial evidence, the excava-tions at Garton/Wetwang in particular have dispelledthe myth that this evidence is somehow irrelevant toother areas. The use which Parker Pearson makes ofthe information may in some instances prove to bewide of the mark, but he is surely right to pursuethese intriguing avenues of inquiry, and to relate theYorkshire evidence to a wider group of people.

From Ian Ralston, Department of Archaeology,University of Edinburgh, 12 Infirmary Street,Edinburgh, EH11LT.

This is a mainline paper within the new — and ratherdiverse — paradigm (e.g. papers in Gwilt &Haselgrove 1997) which is emerging in Iron Agestudies in Britain, and to which Mike Parker Pearsonhas been a major contributor. It is a useful tourd'horizon of work already done, which is rather dis-

persed in the literature (e.g. Parker Pearson 1996),and incorporates both new insights (e.g. from ongo-ing work in the outer Hebrides) and the applicationof strands of post-processualism to data sets alreadypublished (e.g. Stead 1991). A linking theme in thevarious components of the article is the wish to ex-tract new meanings from the detection of pattern ata variety of scales in the archaeological record. Al-though some of the examples of decoding profferedseem more convincing than others, the approach clearlyhas value. Furthermore, after the ethnic schism —marked by the unwillingness in certain archaeologi-cal circles to apply the term 'Celtic' to the Iron Agerecord from Britain (cf. Megaw & Megaw 1997) —the reappearance, at least for purposes of illustra-tion, of Gaelic linguistic comparanda for certain ofthe practices noted here will be welcomed in somequarters.

A basic premise underpinning the work is theexistence of a preferential east-west orientation inthe structural record. This is certainly, as the authormaintains, sustainable for some regions and catego-ries of evidence. How generally it holds, however,remains to be more fully established: enclosed laterprehistoric sites of the central Scottish Borders andthe southern Hebrides, areas checked at random incompiling this note, both seem to be exceptions. Theauthor considers orientation and its associations at avariety of scales: within individual buildings, in termsof burial practice (including the selection of accom-panying grave goods), and in relation to the en-trance orientations of enclosures and the debrisselectively incorporated in sectors of their ditches.

In some instances, the evidence in the case-studies seems over-emphatically proposed. Thus theapparent chronological primacy of the cart burialswithin the Yorkshire cemeteries would not be uni-versally accepted, nor their attribution solely to thefourth century BC. Amongst other practices, north-south burial here interestingly seems to precede east-west, which only later became the dominant position(e.g. Stead 1991; James & Rigby 1997). Parker Pearsonnonetheless constructs an insightful and, in someaspects, compelling picture. To this writer's mind,however, the case for a widely-standardized (at leastin its basic precepts) cosmological system across IronAge Britain based ultimately on such regularitiesremains not proven, and, in fairness, Parker Pearson

- concludes by making due allowance for local vari-ability and indeed explicit resistance to a dominanttradition.

Both within Britain and beyond, other data setsand other perspectives may be marshalled both to

65




https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959774300015201


sustain or to argue against components of ParkerPearson's hypotheses. The significance of pigs in thediet of the last centuries BC, for example, is some-thing recorded not simply on British sites (e.g. Meniel1987): does a developing taste for salted or curedpork underpin in part the rise of this animal inosteoarchaeological terms? Elsewhere in Britain, newdata may sustain elements of the case (for example,the excavations now under way of square barrowsin eastern Scotland). It may equally provide chal-lenges, as for instance on the basis of a wider re-gional reading of Atlantic Scottish evidence (e.g.Gilmour & Cook 1998). At a number of points, ParkerPearson instances potential continental comparisons,and here too there is scope to pursue orientationsand their implications (e.g. Almagro-Gorbea & Gran-Aymerich 1991). There is clearly more to be extractedfrom the juxtaposition of the nominally-ritual, -ideo-logical and -domestic in revitalizing Iron Age studies.

Reply by Mike Parker Pearson

It is three years since I wrote this paper and, writtentoday, it would read ratherldifferently. Many cf thecriticisms, drafted recently,! are entirely fair and arereceived gratefully. In particular, they raise threeaspects which merit further discussion. The first iswhether architecture embodies cosmology as op-posed to custom and practice. The second is whetherthe search for structure has any place within theoriesof agency. The third is the relationship between mean-ing and practice.

Material culture is not so much a text to be'read' as a set of practices to be lived. Yet the extentto which people are knowledgeable about — andcapable of reinterpreting or resisting — the often-unacknowledged customs and traditions by whichthey live may vary considerably. When we talk ofcosmology we perhaps perceive it as 'ungroundedtheory', symbolic and esoteric knowledge about theworld which has no practical application. I havetried to use it in a rather different sense akin toBourdieu's conception of 'habitus' or Giddens' dual-ity of agency and structure, as an understanding ofthe wider world which is grounded and realizedthrough people's lived relationships especially withinthe house and its organization (Bourdieu 1977;Giddens 1984). In response to Miranda Green's criti-cism, cosmology is not ritual as opposed to customand practice — not only is ritual an aspect of custom(Lewis 1980) but cosmology is the systemization ofthought which is inherent in human action. To takeher example of the contemporary British house, I have

elsewhere summarized the work of Roderick Law-rence and Nigel Barley which argue for recognitionof the unacknowledged cosmologies which inform the'common sense' practices and customs of inhabitingour houses (Parker Pearson & Richards 1994b, 6-9).

One of the main aims of this and an earlierpaper (Parker Pearson 1996) was to demonstrate thelimited applicability of our own cultural logic, prac-tical reason or common sense for understanding howIron Age people dwelt. This entailed the recognitionthat their concepts of pragmatic utility were differ-ent to ours. A good example of the significance ofeastwards orientation over-riding 'pragmatic' con-cerns can be found in the Iron Age enclosure atHaddenham, Cambridgeshire, where the east-facingporch leads directly into the ditch of the enclosure; itmust have made access out of the house hugely in-convenient but that was not the principal concern.Once we can understand that such aspects of orien-tation and layout were so important in people's liveswe can then begin to perceive patterns and anoma-lies, mentioned by Barry Cunliffe, as relating to peo-ple's perceptions and understandings rather than toa universal pragmatic or practical reason in whichwe simply import present concerns (with weather,lighting, view and topographic siting) into the pastand thus learn nothing. The step which we have yetto take is to explore the human agency behind thediversions from custom as well as behind the con-tinuance of custom; we can only do this, however, ifwe know what that set of customary practices —structure — actually consisted of. In doing so, wecan take Iron Age archaeology through a series ofconceptual paradigms — from functionalism throughstructuralism to theories of agency — which hastaken the other social sciences nearly half a century.I am not so much defending structure against agency,as Richard Hingley suggests, but attempting to ex-plore the duality of structure and agency (Giddens'structuration) in which agency cannot exist in avacuum but relates to custom and tradition. Firstly,we must be prepared to acknowledge that the inter-relation of structure and agency may have been dif-ferent in pre-modern 'traditional' societies. Secondly,without understanding those historically specific tra-ditions, beliefs and customs, our theories of agencywill either fail or will merely impose our own par-ticular culture-bound pragmatism dressed up asphenomenological insight into Iron Age life. If wedo not understand the over-riding significance of ori-entation, for example, we might be misled into think-ing that the view from an Iron Age doorway was ofprime significance, a construct rooted in our contem-

66




https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959774300015201

Mike Parker Pearson

porary framing of the landscape as aesthetic object.I was particularly excited to read John Dent's

description of the southwest-facing roundhouse atWetwang Slack with its strange pits, human bonesand wide entrance, emphasizing this house's spe-cialness in relation to the others which face east andsoutheast. This brings me to the issues of meaningand local, situated understandings raised by Rich-ard Hingley, Ian Ralston and Miranda Green. If thelarge pit with human bone, filling the house interior,was contemporary with the house walls, then we arenot looking at a residence, let alone an elite one,despite the fact that evidence for such an elite can beclearly recognized in the funerary evidence. Rather,the associations may have been primarily with death•or, as Hingley suggests, with both death and elitestatus. My own misgivings on re-reading my paperinclude this lack of full consideration for multiplemeanings, whether successive and context-bound,perceived by different members within one commu-nity, or interpreted differently in different regions ofIron Age Britain. Agency-focused investigations mustnow explore the specific circumstances and contex-tual associations of each anomalous 'non-east-fac-ing' roundhouse, as well as regional differences indeviation from the orthodox. At the same time ourexamination of agency should attempt to account forthe traditions of house orientation and layout com-ing into existence around 900 BC, spreading through-out the British Isles but not on the continent (or doesit?), enduring for over a millennium in parts of Brit-ain, and eventually coming to an end around AD200-400 north of the Roman frontier. The geographi-cal extent and longevity of roundhouse orientationand internal organization leads us to question theextent to which meaning is entirely individually con-tingent and not subject to common understandings.Some aspects of cultural practice are non-discursiveand unacknowledged — the shaking of hands is ageographically and temporally extensive form ofgreeting but we do not often question whether itshould be or why we do it. Other practices are clearlyunderstood and recognized but are not contentiouswhereas related issues are — in Britain we drive onthe left whereas elsewhere people drive on the right;this is not a practice causing confrontation and mul-tiple understandings whereas the construction ofmore new roads is. To use Hingley's example, theWinnebago may have had different views of thevillage plan but they would have been in no doubtabout how their houses were arranged internallyaccording to custom. We have to acknowledge thatthere have been some remarkable continuities and

common understandings which survived for longperiods of prehistory despite the multiple meaningsand continuous changes around them. This was nota solipsistic world in which each individual livedtheir own private culture; were that so then the Brit-ish Iron Age would have been lived in houses of allshapes and sizes and internal arrangements. The re-markable point about certain practices is that theyendure despite individual and local resistances andexperimentations and despite the loss of formermeanings, a point nicely made by John Dent in hisreference to clockwise spiral staircases in churchesand castles many centuries after roundhouses andbrochs. Looking in the other direction, back towardsearlier prehistory, it is also worth commenting onthe peculiarly British phenomenon of circular archi-tecture from 3000 BC onwards which, transformedfrom ceremonial and funerary contexts into domes-tic forms, provided an enduring contrast to the rec-tangular architecture of continental Europe.

References

Almagro-Gorbea, M. & J. Gran-Aymerich, 1991. El estanquemonumental de Bibracte (Mont Beuvray, Borgona). Ma-drid: Editorial Complutense.

Armit, I., 1996. The Archaeology ofSkye and the Western Isles.Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Armit, I. & A. Dunwell, 1992. Excavations at Cnip, sites 2and 3, Lewis, 1989. Proceedings of the Society of Anti-quaries of Scotland 122,137-48.

Ashdown, R. & C. Evans, 1981. Mammalian bones, inSkeleton Green: a Late Iron Age and Romano-BritishSite, by C. Partridge. London: Britannia MonographSeries, 235-41.

Ballin Smith, B., 1994. Howe: Four Millennia of Orkney Pre-history. (Monograph 9.) Edinburgh: Society of Anti-quaries of Scotland.

Barrett, J.C., 1994. Fragments from Antiquity: an Archaeologyof Social Life in Britain, 2900-1200 BC. Oxford:Blackweli.

Bevan, W., 1999. The dead can dance: the landscape con-text of square barrow cemeteries in the East York-

sh i r e Iron Age, in The Loved Body's Corruption:Archaeological Contributions to the Study of HumanMortality, eds J. Downes & T. Pollard. Glasgow:Cruithne Press, 69-93.

Bourdieu, P., 1977. Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cam-bridge: Cambridge University Press.

Brewster, T.C.M., 1976. Garton Slack. Current Archaeology51,104-16.

'Brewster, T.C.M., 1982. The Excavation of Garton andWetwang Slacks. London: National MonumentsRecord (microfiche).

Britnell, W., 1989. Collfryn hill enclosure. Proceedings of thePrehistoric Society 55,89-134.

67




https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959774300015201


Buckley, D.G. & J. Hedges, 1988. The Bronze Age and SaxonSettlement at Springfield Lyons, Essex: an Interim Re-port. (Occasional Paper 5.) Chelmsford: Essex CountyCouncil Archaeology Section.

Campbell, E., 1991. Excavations of a wheelhouse and otherIron Age structures at Sollas, North Uist, by RJ.C.Atkinson in 1957. Proceedings of the Society of Anti-quaries of Scotland 121,117-73.

Champion, T.C., 1980. Settlement and environment in LaterBronze Age Kent, in Settlement and Society in theBritish Later Bronze Age, eds. J.C. Barrett & R. Bradley.(BAR British Series 83.) Oxford: BAR, 223-46.

Champion, T.C. & J.R. Collis (eds.), 1996. The Iron Age inBritain and Ireland: Recent Trends. Sheffield: SheffieldAcademic Press.

Chapman, R., I. Kinnes & K. Randsborg, 1981. Tlte Archaeol-ogy of Death. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Coles, J.M. & S. Minnitt, 1995. Industrious and Fairly Civi-lized: the Glastonbury Lake Village. Exeter: SomersetLevels Project and Somerset County Council.

Cunliffe, B.W., 1991. Iron Age Communities in Britain. 3rdedition. London: Routledge.

Cunliffe, B.W., 1993. Danebury. London: Batsford and Eng-lish Heritage.

Cunliffe, B.W., 1995. Iron Age Britain. London: Batsfordand English Heritage.

Cunliffe, B.W., 1996. Danebury: an Iron AgeHillfort in Hamp-shire, vol. 6: A Hillfort Community in Perspective. (CBAResearch Report 102.) London: Council for BritishArchaeology.

Dent, J.S., 1982. Cemeteries and settlement patterns of theIron Age on the Yorkshire Wolds. Proceedings of thePrehistoric Society 48,437-57.

Dent, J.S., 1983. A summary of the excavations carried outin Garton Slack and Wetwang Slack, 1964-80. EastRiding Archaeologist 7,1-14.

Dodgshon, R.A., 1985. Symbolic classification and the de-velopment of early Celtic landscape, in Duality, ed.E. Lyle. Edinburgh: Traditional Cosmology Society.

Fairhurst, H., 1971. The wheelhouse site at A'CheardachBheag on Drimore machair. Glasgow ArchaeologicalJournal 2,72-110.

Fasham, PJ., 1985. The Prehistoric Settlement at WinnallDown, Winchester. (Monograph 2.) Winchester:Hampshire Field Club.

Fasham, PJ., D.E. Farwell & RJ.B. Whinney, 1989. TheArchaeological Site at Easton Lane, Winchester. (Mono-graph 6.) Winchester: Hampshire Field Club.

Fitzpatrick, A., 1994. Outside in: the structure of an EarlyIron Age house at Dunston Park, Thatcham, Berk-shire, in Fitzpatrick & Morris (eds.), 68-72.

Fitzpatrick, A., 1997. Everyday life in Iron Age Wessex, inGwilt & Haselgrove (eds.), 73-86.

Fitzpatrick, A. & E. Morris (eds.), 1994. The Iron Age inWessex: Recent Work. Salisbury: Trust for WessexArchaeology.

Frazer, J.G., 1911. The Golden Bough: a Study in Magic andReligion, part III: Vie Dying God. London: Macmillan.

Giddens, A., 1984. The Constitution of Society: Outline of the

Theory of Structuration. London: Polity.Giles, M. & M. Parker Pearson, in press. Learning to live

in the Iron Age: dwelling and praxis, in NorthernExposure: the Iron Age in Northern Britain., ed. W.Bevan. Leicester: Leicester University Press.

Gilmour, S. & M. Cook, 1998. Excavations at Dun Vulan: areinterpretation of the reappraised Iron Age. Anti-quity 72,327-37.

Gingell, C , 1982. The excavation of an Iron Age enclosureat Groundwell Farm. Wiltshire Archaeological Maga-zine 76,33-75.

Green, M., 1992. Animals in Celtic Life and Myth. London:Routledge.

Guilbert, G., 1982. Post-ring symmetry in roundhouses atMoel Y Gaer and some other sites in prehistoricBritain, in Structural Reconstruction, ed. PJ. Drury.

• (BAR British Series 110.) Oxford: BAR, 67-86.Gwilt, A., 1997. Popular practices from material culture: a

case study of the Iron Age settlement at Wakerley,in Gwilt & Haselgrove (eds.), 153-66.

Gwilt, A. & C. Haselgrove (eds.), 1997. Reconstructing IronAge Societies: New Approaches to the British Iron Age.(Oxbow Monograph 71.) Oxford: Oxbow.

Hawkes, S., 1994. Longbridge Deverill Cow Down, Wilt-shire, House 3: a major round house of the EarlyIron Age. Oxford Journal of Archaeology 13,49-69.

Hedges, J.W., 1987. Bu, Gurness and the Brochs of Orkney.(BAR British Series 163.) Oxford: BAR.

Hill, J.D., 1996. Hill-forts and the Iron Age of Wessex, inChampion & Collis (eds.), 95-116.

Hingley, R., 1989. Rural Settlement in Roman Britain. Lon-don: Seaby.

Hingley, R., 1990a. Domestic organisation and gender re-lations in Iron Age and Romano-British households,in The Social Archaeology of the House, ed. R. Samson.Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 125-48.

Hingley, R., 1990b. Iron Age 'currency bars': the archaeo-logical and social context. Archaeological Journal 147,91-117.

Hingley, R., 1997. Iron, ironworking and regeneration: astudy of the symbolic meaning of metalworking inIron Age Britain, in Gwilt & Haselgrove (eds.), 9-18.

James, S. & V. Rigby, 1997. Britain and the Celtic Iron Age.London: British Museum Press.

Jensen, J., 1993. Prehistory of Denmark. Copenhagen: Na-tional Museum of Denmark.

King, A., 1991. Food production and consumption—meat,in Roman Britain: Recent Trends, ed. R.F.J. Jones. Shef-field: Sheffield Academic Press, 15-20.

LeVi-Strauss, C , 1968. Structural Anthropology. London:Penguin.

Lewis, G., 1980. Day of Shining Red: an Essay on Under-standing Ritual. Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress.

Maltby, M., 1994. Animal exploitation in Iron Age Wessex,in Fitzpatrick & Morris (eds.), 9-10.

Maltby, M., 1996. The exploitation of animals in the IronAge: the archaeozoological evidence, in Champion& Collis (eds.), 17-27.

6 8 -




https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959774300015201

Mike Parker Pearson

Manby, T.G. 1986. Thwing: Excavation and Field Archae-ology in East Yorkshire. Unpublished interim re-port.

Megaw, R. & V. Megaw, 1997. Do the ancient Celts stilllive? An essay on identity and contextuality. StudiaCeltica 31,107-23.

Meniel, P., 1987. Chasse et elevage chez les Gaulois. Paris:Errance.

Metcalf, P. & R. Huntington, 1991. Celebrations of Death: theAnthropology of Mortuary Ritual. 2nd edition. Cam-bridge: Cambridge University Press.

Oswald, A., 1997. A doorway on the past: practical andmystic concerns in the orientation of roundhousedoorways, in Gwilt & Haselgrove (eds.), 87-95.

Pader, E-J., 1982. Symbolism, Social Relations and the Inter-pretation of Mortuary Remains. (BAR SupplementarySeries 130.) Oxford: BAR.

Parker Pearson, M., 1993. The powerful dead: archaeo-logical relationships between the living and the dead.Cambridge Archaeological Journal 3(2), 203-29.

Parker Pearson, M., 1996. Food, fertility and front doors:houses in the first millennium BC, in Champion &Collis (eds.), 117-32.

Parker Pearson, M. & C. Richards, 1994a. Architectureand order: spatial representation and archaeology,in Architecture and Order: Approaches to Social Space,eds. M. Parker Pearson & C. Richards. London:Routledge, 38-72.

Parker Pearson, M. & C. Richards, 1994b. Ordering theworld: perceptions of architecture, space and time,in Architecture and Order: Approaches to Social Space,eds. M. Parker Pearson & C. Richards. London:Routledge, 1-37.

Parker Pearson, M., N. Sharpies & J.A. Mulville, 1996.Brochs and Iron Age society: a reappraisal. Antiq-uity 70,57-67.

Parker Pearson, M. & N. Sharpies, with J. Mulville & H.Smith, 1999. Between Land and Sea: Excavations atDun Vulan. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press.

Parker Pearson, M., J.A. Mulville, N. Sharpies & H. Smith,in press. Decoding dirt and deposition: the Iron Agebroch settlement of Dun Vulan, Outer Hebrides,

Scotland, in L'Age du Fer sur la Manche: VHabitat etI'Occupation du Sol en Europe, ed. J.R. Collis. Shef-field: Sheffield Academic Press.

Reid, M.L., 1989. A room with a view: an examination ofround-houses, with particular reference to northernBritain. Oxford Journal of Archaeology 8,1-39.

Robinson, T., 1986. Stones of Aran: pilgrimage. Harmonds-worth: Penguin.

Ross, A., 1967. Pagan Celtic Britain. London: Routledge &Kegan Paul.

Scott, W.L., 1948. Gallo-British colonies: the aisled round-house culture in the North. Proceedings of the Prehis-toric Society 14,46-125.

Sharpies, N., 1991. Maiden Castle: Excavation and Field Sur-vey 1985-6. London: English Heritage.

Stead, I.M., 1979. Vie Arras Culture. York: Yorkshire Philo-sophical Society.

Stead, I.M., 1991. Iron Age Cemeteries in East Yorkshire.London: English Heritage.

Tierney, J.J., 1960. The Celtic ethnography of Poseidonius.Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 60 (Section C),189-275.

Wainwright, G.J., 1979. Gussage All Saints: an Iron AgeSettlement in Dorset. London: HMSO.

Wait, G., 1985. Ritual and Religion in Iron Age Britain. (BARBritish Series 149.) Oxford: BAR.

Whimster, R., 1981. Burial Practices in Iron Age Britain.(BAR British Series 90.) Oxford: BAR.

Whitehouse, R. & D. Whitehouse, 1974. The fauna, in CroftAmbrey, by S.C. Stanford. Hereford: privatelyprinted, 215-21.

Williams, R.J. & R.J. Zeepvat, 1994. Bancroft: a Late BronzeAge/Iron Age Settlement, Roman Villa and Temple Mau-soleum, vol. 1: Excavations and Building Materials.(Monograph 7.) Aylesbury: Buckinghamshire Ar-chaeological Society.

Young, A., 1953. An aisled farmhouse at the Allasdale,Isle of Barra. Proceedings of the Society of Antiquariesof Scotland 87,80-105.

Young, A. & K.M. Richardson, 1960. A'Cheardach Mhor,Drimore, South Uist. Proceedings of the Society of An-tiquaries of Scotland 93,135-73.

69




https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959774300015201

Food, Sex and Death: Cosmologies in the British Iron Age ... · Food, Sex and Death: Cosmologies in...

Documents

Transcript of Food, Sex and Death: Cosmologies in the British Iron Age ... · Food, Sex and Death: Cosmologies in...