Iron Age metalwork object hoards of Britain, 800 BC – AD 100

Abstract

This thesis investigates Iron Age metalwork object hoards from Britain (800 BC – AD 100), identifying geographical and chronological patterns in hoard contents, landscape locationand depositional processes. This significantly advances our understanding of object selection and the practices surrounding deposition in different times and places.Results demonstrate some continuation in depositional practice from the Late Bronze Age through to the Earliest Iron Age with a shift to site-focused deposition in the Middle Iron Age. From the Roman Iron Age (after 150 BC) object hoards were deposited at an increasingly diverse range of sites, with a wider variety of object types represented. A new object form, the coin, was introduced to Britain in the second century BC and this thesis examines the findspots of both object and coin hoards to identify similarities and differences in deposition. Two case study areas, south-west and south-east England, were selected to explore local variation in hoarding practices, in particular the relationship between metalwork hoarding and other forms of deposition, including burial of material on settlements, and contemporary finds from graves, rivers and shrine sites.