Iron Age

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British Museum/Compass
www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk/compass
Compass is an online database featuring around 5,000 objects chosen by the curators to reflect the extraordinary range of the British Museum's collections. The system features a wealth of links, background information and maps. There are online tours on a variety of subjects, including the Iron Age. Each object featured is illustrated with high-quality images that you can enlarge and study in detail. The information has been written with the general visitor in mind, and technical terms are explained in glossary links. Try starting with a search on the words 'Iron Age' and enjoy a virtual visit to one of the world's best museums.

Build a hillfort
www.bbc.co.uk/wales/celts/activities/
buildahillfort.shtml
An entertaining interactive activity for children, albeit with some very strange 'Celtic' accents, one of a number of activities on the BBC Wales Celts website.

Butser Ancient Farm
www.butser.org.uk/iafintro_hcc.html
Butser Ancient Farm is a replica of the sort of farm that would have existed in the British Iron Age around 300 BC. Its former director, Peter Reynolds, who died in 2001, was a regular Time Team expert. Founded in 1972, the farm has buildings, structures, animals and crops of the kind that existed at that time. It is much more than a museum, though. It is, in effect, a large open-air laboratory where research into the Iron Age and Roman periods goes on using the methods and materials available at the time, and also by applying modern science to ancient problems. The website includes a history of the farm project and details of its research programme and activities.

Bodrifty Iron Age Settlement: Building a Roundhouse
www.bodrifty.co.uk/home.htm
Website produced by the owners of Bodrifty Farm, Cornwall, where Time Team filmed during the making of the Helford programme. As well as the Bodrifty Iron-Age Settlement, which was excavated in the 1950s, the farm now has its own reconstructed roundhouse, inspired by Peter Reynolds' reconstructions at Butser Ancient Farm. The website has an excellent series of photographs, with descriptions, following the whole construction process.

Castell Henllys Iron-Age Hillfort Virtual Tour
http://castellhenllys.pembrokeshirecoast.org.uk/
english/tour/tour.htm
Set in 30 acres of woodland and river meadows, Castell Henllys (Welsh for the castle of the Prince's court) is the site of an Iron-Age hillfort, where excavations continue every summer. It boasts the longest-standing Iron-Age roundhouse reconstruction in Britain, the 'Old Roundhouse', which was reconstructed 20 years ago. Three more roundhouses and a granary have since been reconstructed on their original Iron-Age foundations. The latest project is the 'Chieftain's House'. The site also contains a visitor centre, sculpture trails depicting Celtic myths and legends, and prehistoric breeds of livestock grazing in adjacent fields (don't miss the Iron-Age pigs!) before visitors enter the hillfort itself. You can take a virtual tour of the site at the above website.

Brigantes Nation
www.brigantesnation.com
This website, run by a Time Team Forum regular, is devoted to the Iron Age and prehistory of the Brigantes tribe. Brigantes Nation is an archaeology club that aims to help individuals become involved in active prehistory research.

The Celtic Coin Index
www.writer2001.com/cciwriter2001/index.htm
An extraordinary resource, the Celtic Coin Index offers online access to more than 28,000 records and images of British Celtic coins, searchable by find location, tribe, metal content and more. The website also has an extensive bibliography. A truly remarkable achievement by John Hooker and Carin Perron, who have put the whole thing online.

Crannogs on the Web
www.arcl.ed.ac.uk/arch/holley/
Website run by the crannog and underwater archaeology specialist Dr Mark W Holley. It includes a catalogue (with photos) of all known Inner Hebrides crannog sites, a short report of Holley's survey of the Loch Hawe crannogs and a brief introduction to crannogs.

Living in the Iron Age
www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/british_prehistory/
#living_in_the_iron_age
The BBC's Ancient History web pages contain a range of articles and other information about living in the Iron Age. These include a step-by-step guide to roundhouse construction, an 'Iron Age tasks gallery' and a game to find out whether you have the skills to make fire, bake bread and spin cloth and so survive the Iron Age.

Scottish Crannogs
www.bbc.co.uk/history/lj/archaeologylj/crannog_01.shtml
Good introduction by Barrie Andrian to Scottish crannogs, including background on how our knowledge of these structures has developed since they were first identified in the 19th century.

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