Further reading

English Heritage Book of Iron Age Britain by Barry Cunliffe (English Heritage, 1995) paperback £15.99
Between 700 BC and the Roman conquest of Britain in 43 AD, a number of important social changes took place. The first millennium BC was a time of dramatic change in Europe, dominated by the emergence of Rome as a mega-state. Britain, on the periphery of these developments, witnessed huge social and economic change, seeing the end of the Bronze-Age cycle of subsistence farming and the beginning of a more complex society. Still-existing regional boundaries were established, hillforts such as those on Bredon Hill were built by warring chiefs and the first towns were founded. This well-illustrated book surveys the period.

Iron Age Communities in Britain by Barry Cunliffe (Routledge, 1991, 3rd edition) hardback £100
For more than 20 years Barry Cunliffe's survey of the British Iron Age has been a standard source. But the mass of new evidence (more than 700 new papers and books have been published in a decade) and the quite radical change in emphasis that has occurred in prehistoric studies has required a complete revision of the book. This new, third edition retains the qualities of the first two editions, but the changes are substantial. The text has been completely revised, new sections have been introduced and all illustrations have been redrawn. Likewise new photographs have been taken of all the sites. The result is, once again, a classic of British archaeology.

Prehistoric Settlements by Bob Bewley (Batsford/English Heritage, 1994) paperback £15.99
This book traces the variety and development of prehistoric settlements in Britain through 8,000 years, from the hunter-gatherers of the Mesolithic to the tribes of the Iron Age in the years before the Roman invasion. Examining key sites such as Star Carr, Bodmin Moor, the Dartmoor reaves, and hillforts and farmsteads, Bewley concentrates on two central themes: the close relationship between the individual settlement site and the wider landscape; and the ways in which archaeologists discover, interpret, and reinterpret prehistoric settlements.

Britain and the Celtic Iron Age by Simon James and Valerie Rig (British Museum Press, 1997) paperback £9.99
Excellent introduction to the Celts, a family of European peoples who spoke related languages and shared many things in common, from art to aspects of religion and social organisation. Was the British Iron Age simply part of this supposedly uniform, Celtic world, or was it something much more distinctive, complex, strange and fascinating? New research is promoting reappraisals of Britain's prehistory, in ways that challenge many ideas, such as that of a familiar Celtic past. Excellent introduction to the Celts, marvellously illustrated, with lots of pictures of sites and artefacts, and chapters on people, economy, settlement, society, ritual and communications.

The Ancient Celts by Barry Cunliffe (Oxford University Press, 1997) hardback/paperback £25.00 hardback
With a subject as wide ranging as a good thousand years of prehistory in Europe, this master of the subject explores in some considerable depth the archaeological evidence in a superbly illustrated book which also contains copious maps. Examining the archaeological reality of the Iron-Age inhabitants of barbarian Europe, he traces the emergence of chiefdoms, patterns of expansion and migration, and the development of a mature urbanised society, thus assessing the disparity between the traditional view of the Celts and the archaeological evidence. One of the tricks of archaeological writing is not only to know your subject, but to be able to explain it as well, and this is just what the author is able to do.

Iron Age Farm – The Butser Experiment by Peter J Reynolds (British Museum Publications, 1979) hardback/paperback out of print ISBN: 0714180149/0714180157
Butser is an experimental farm set up to discover the practicalities of farming in the Iron Age. Nearest modern analogue breeds were used if the original breeds of the Age had died out, and grains and cereals harvested and stored under Iron-Age conditions. Dr Peter Reynolds, author of the book and director of the project, diagnosed and described the functioning of the grain pit at the Salisbury Plain dig. The book describes these and other aspects of Iron-Age farming, including the observations of the high jumping capacity of Soay sheep (six feet!) and the difficulty of keeping them penned.