Category Archives: Iron Age

VM_365 Day 283 The North Foreland landscape

Archaeology, Iron Age, Landscape, Uncategorised, VM_365 Project

VM 283

Today’s image for Day 283 of the VM_365 project shows a complex group of cropmarks of linear and curvilinear features, stretching along the western side of the valley at North Foreland, Broadstairs. The aerial photograph were taken by the Trust in 1990 and the image faces east, looking out toward the sea. On the left hand side of the picture you can see North Foreland Lighthouse; along the sea edge is the private North Foreland estate.

Running along the west facing valley side,  the cropmark has at least six parallel linear ditches.  At the southern end of the cropmark (right of picture) several of the features take a sharp bend to the east before curving back to the same north south orientation.

The cropmarks on the chalk ridge at North Foreland have been interpreted as a multi ditched promontory fort of the Iron Age but the projection of the aerial photographic plots of the ditches on to a topographic model clearly shows them falling downhill toward the valley bottom rather than following a contour around the promontory. Recent excavations and analysis suggest that the cropmarks represent the multiple ditches of an ancient trackway, dating back at least to the Iron Age.

Excavation of sample sections through the cropmarks by the Isle of Thanet Archaeological Society in 1994 suggested that although the linear ditches originated in the Iron Age, they were recut several times and material continued to be deposited in them until the 3rd century AD (Hogwood 1995). One of the ditches on the crest of the hill was sampled and dated to the late Iron Age during excavations in 1999 and 2003 by the Trust or Thanet Archaeology. This major route seems to have extended from the coast near Kingsgate and rose through the valley to reach the ridge of Thanet’s chalk plateau, from where it led all the way to Sarre on the western side of the Island.

 

VM_365 Day 280 Roman Brooch from Monkton

Archaeology, Iron Age, Minster, Monkton, Roman, Uncategorised, VM_365 Project

VM 280The image for Day 280 of the VM_365 project shows a Bow Brooch or Fibula of late Iron Age or Early Roman date, which was found in 1992 when trial trenching was carried out between Monkton and Minster in advance of the expansion of the old single lane road into a dual carriageway.

The Bow Brooch is made from copper alloy and has a perforated catch plate to cover and secure the pin. Classified as an early Colchester type, it dates to the period between 25 BC and 50-75 AD.

Like many clothes fastenings and small personal items, Bow Brooches like this formed part of the Late Iron Age costume and continued to be worn into the Early Roman period, despite the many material changes the Roman invasion brought to the country. Because of the continuing influence of indigenous costume and the fastenings and ornaments that were associated with them, a distinctive Romano-British hybrid culture eventually emerged, drawing on elements from both cultures.

VM_365 Day 274 Iron Age coin Links North Foreland with continental intrigue

Archaeology, Broadstairs, Iron Age, Landscape, Thanet, Uncategorised, VM_365 Project

VM 274

The image today for Day 274 of the VM_365 project is of an Iron Age coin (a Van Arsdell Type 194), issued by Amminus, who was possibly also known as Adminius. Becoming King of the Kent’s Cantiaci tribe in the early to middle of the 1st century A.D., Amminus was thought to have had strong pro-Roman sympathies. Amminus was a son of Cunobeline, a King of the Catuvellauni in the early part of the 1st century. A gold stater minted by Cunobeline and found at St Nicholas at Wade featured in the VM_365 post for Day 272.

The coin in today’s image was found at North Foreland, on the eastern tip of the Isle of Thanet, where a large Iron Age settlement dating from the mid to Late Pre-Roman Iron Age occupied the crest of a chalk ridge overlooking the sea and an important shipping route to the mouth of the Thames estuary.

The coin links the location and its contemporary archaeology to the murky intrigue that eventually culminated in the full scale invasion of Britain by the Roman Empire. The limited contemporary evidence that is available from the distribution of coins of Amminus/Adminus is supplemented by a text reference in the biography of the Emperor Caligula produced by Roman historian Suetonius.

Seutonius claimed that Caligula had exaggerated the banishment of Amminus/Adminius and a group of followers for unknown reasons, into a grand announcement in the Senate  that the Emperor had secured victory over the whole Island of Britain.  Amminus may have also played a part in Caligula’s military posturing, which culminated in an abortive invasion of Britain. It has also been suggested that Amminus returned to Britain with the Emperor Claudius as an advisor and possible later as a Governor.

The coin issued by Amminus links the archaeology of the North Foreland, one of the major coastal Iron Age settlements in Kent, to the power struggles between the British tribal leaders and the growing Roman Empire which must have played a part in the defence of the Island against the Roman invasion fleet.

 

VM_365 Day 273 Coins and Iron Age Minster

Archaeology, Iron Age, Minster, Roman, Thanet, Thanet archaeology, Uncategorised, VM_365 Project

VM 273The image for Day 273 of the VM_365 project is of another coin dating to the Iron Age, a struck Bronze of a Late Iron Age King called Eppillus, which was found at Minster on the southern side of the Isle of Thanet .

The biography of Eppillus is largely based on the evidence, using the tiny scraps of written evidence derived from the inscriptions on coins. Eppillus became king of the Cantiaci, the tribe that lived in Kent, around 15 A.D. , possibly after he was deposed or replaced as King of the Atrebates by his brother Verica.

The powerbase of the  Atrebates was in the region around Chichester, which was known to them as Noviomagus. The Atrebates began a political relationship with the Roman Empire as its influence expanded on the continent. Coins of Eppillus issued from Noviomagus were marked Rex, indicating that the King’s power had been recognised by the Roman state.

Like many of the coins issued by Late Iron Age regional rulers in Kent, the example shown in the image today (Type: Van Arsdell 178) is based on a coin issued by Phillip of Macedon, the father of Alexander the Great. Although the images on the coins went through many incremental distortions and abstractions, the bust and chariot on either side of the coin can be traced through their evolutionary changes to their ancient Greek origins. The imagery reflects the independent connection of the Iron Age states with the classical Greek world.

Coins struck by the pre-Roman Kings of Kent provide material and written evidence that was independent of the control of the Roman state, although its influence on the iconography and texts can be detected in the years before the Empire expanded to Britain.

As our extended written evidence of pre-Roman Britain comes almost wholly from writers who lived in the dominant culture, the study of the Late Iron Age coin series allows us to perceive, however dimly, an alternative point of view to the Romans. The scatter of Iron Age coins, pottery and other artefacts from Minster in Thanet provide an indication of what came before the almost overwhelming amount of cultural information about the Roman period which is represented by sites like the Villa that was discovered in Minster.

VM_365 Day 272 Coins as historic documents

Archaeology, Iron Age, St Nicholas, Uncategorised, VM_365 Project

VM 272

The image for Day 271 0f the VM_365 project is of the two faces of a Stater, a coin struck from gold in the early first century A.D. , in the Late Iron Age.  As the coin is made by placing a gold blank in a mould and striking it with a carved punch, the coin has a dish shape with one convex face and one concave.  The example shown in the image was found with a metal detector in a field in St. Nicholas at Wade in Thanet.

Although it may seem that the value in finding coins like this comes from the metal they were made from, there is greater value in the knowledge that can be derived from the symbols that were used to decorate them and convey authority and value, as well as their distribution in the country.  When coins are used to represent any sort of value in a society, they are often made from rare materials so they can not be easily copied,  they are also decorated with images and words that also have cultural resonances in the society that accepts them. From these symbols we can make a culture that has left us no written evidence speak in its own voice in a small way. If we apply our current knowledge and understanding of coins and the economics of systems of exchange to the examples of ancient coins we discover, we can generate new ideas about how this type of material functioned in an ancient society.

On the reverse of this coin, which has a concave surface, there is a stylised rearing horse along with the letters CUN, representing CUNOBELINE the name of a King of the Catuvellauni tribe who took power in the first century to the late 40’s A.D.  On the convex face of the obverse are the letters CAMU, showing the coin was minted at Camulodunum, now modern Colchester, one of the strongholds of the Catuvellauni and a  centre of Cunobeline’s physical power. The precious metal, the name of the authority who issued the coin and the location of the mint assert the authenticity of the coin. That is not to say that as in the modern period coins could not be forged, but the technology set a barrier to reproduction and the authority of the power that issued it no doubt conveyed the punishment that might be applied to anyone caught producing them.

The distribution of the power and authority of the Kings who issued coins like this one can be estimated from their distribution pattern, which in this case is confined to the south east region. Perhaps people could take these out of the general area of circulation, but like most monetary systems they were potentially of more value circulating within the network of traders who recognised and accepted them while they were in this form as struck coins.

Because of the painstaking work to locate each coin discovered in archaeological excavations and by metal detectorists, we can assume that in the 1st century A.D. Thanet was within the territory of exchange with Cunobeline’s people, linking the many Iron Age archaeological sites in the area to the small scraps of written and symbolic evidence from coins which has been used to model Late Iron Age society. Many more Iron Age coins have been found on the Isle and the picture of overlapping powers and evidence for the exchange of currency in the Iron Age is so complex that a gallery in the Virtual Museum is dedicated to Iron coins in Thanet.

With thanks to David Holman for providing photographs of this coin.

VM_365 Day 264 Cropmarks record ancient Ramsgate landscape

Anglo Saxon, Archaeology, Bronze Age, Iron Age, Lord of the Manor, Neolithic, Ramsgate, Roman, Thanet, Thanet's Heritage Pioneers, Training excavation at Lord of the Manor 2013, Uncategorised, VM_365 Project

VM 264Today’s image for Day 264 of the VM_365 project shows an aerial photograph of one of the most impressive groups of crop mark groups in Thanet’s historic landscape. The picture was taken in the the late 1970’s, from an aeroplane flying over the downland ridge at Lord of the Manor, Ramsgate overlooking Pegwell Bay.

In the photograph, which is facing south east toward Ramsgate, a chalk ridge extends from the lower right corner of the picture toward the top left. The ridge is isolated by the dry valleys that flank it on the right and left hand sides, affording spectacular views over the coastline to the south .

The overflight to photograph the cropmarks took place before several major developments in the road network in the immediate area took place, preserving a record of the  landscape despite the considerable changes  that have happened in recent years. The linear markings and circular shapes that can be seen through the variations in the colour of the crops growing in the field, indicate the locations of buried archaeological features and sites, which have been investigated in many phases of archaeological investigations that were guided by the location of the crop marks since the photograph was taken. The effect of buried archaeological sites  which produced the variations in colour in the growing crop was explained in a drawing produced by Dave Perkins in our VM_365 post for Day 252.

At the junction between a road and a railway cutting that can be seen at the top right of the picture, one of the earliest published archaeological investigations was conducted by William Rolfe, Thomas Wright and Charles Roach Smith, when an Anglo-Saxon cemetery was disturbed by the railway cutting in 1846.  A drawing made of one of the graves was shown on VM_365 Day 225. The Saxon cemetery and the more ancient Bronze Age ring ditches that had occupied the ridge, continued to be investigated in several stages in the later 20th century.  Images of some of the excavations of the Anglo-Saxon cemetery that were carried out in the 1980’s were shown in the VM_365 posts for Day 216 and Day 217.

The three concentric ring ditches of a multi-phase monument, which was first constructed in the Neolithic period and was renewed in the Beaker and Bronze Age periods, can be seen in the bottom right part of the image. A view of the partial excavation of the three ring ditches in 1976 was shown in the image for Day_21.

Archaeological work in this landscape has continued to be carried out with the ditches of an Iron Age settlement being explored in 2012 and in a  training excavation carried out as recently at 2013.

 

VM_365 Day 261 Two sides to Archaeology at Drapers Mills Margate

Archaeology, From the Archives, Iron Age, Margate, Post Medieval, Roman, Uncategorised, VM_365 Project

VM 261The image for Day 261 of the VM_365 project shows two aspects of the archaeology of Drapers Mills, Margate, both from very different periods but occupying the same landscape.

In the foreground of the image the excavation of a Late Iron Age or Early Roman enclosure is taking place on the playing field of a school. The ditched enclosure is located on the periphery of the site of a Romano-British villa, which was disturbed by the construction of the school in the 1930’s and investigated by excavations between 1959 and 1961 and again in 1981.  The villa probably replaced a small Iron Age settlement, which lay within the enclosure ditch. A filled in chalk quarry from the Roman period in the 2nd century AD, located near the houses to the right of the mill in the image, produced the cast bronze head of a boxer which appeared in the image for Day 17 of the VM_365 project. A wooden box storing a collection of the samian pottery from the villa excavations of 1959 to 1961 in the same area featured in VM_365 Day 86.

In the background at the centre of the image is Draper’s Mill, a smock mill constructed in 1845 by the Canterbury millwright John Holman. A smock mill has a sloping body, with a cap at the top that rotates so that the sails can be turned to face the wind. The windmill is the last survivor of three mid 19th century windmills that that once stood together on this rounded downland hilltop. Draper’s Mill was threatened with demolition in 1965, but was saved and restored in 1968.

Early maps show windmills occupying the hilltop near Drapers Mill as early as the 17th century, and it is likely that there were earlier post mills near the site in the medieval period, standing on similar trestle platforms and possibly within circular enclosures,  to those at St. Peters and Sarre that were shown on VM_365 Day 259 and Day 260. The hilltop site overlooking the bay at Margate has been occupied for many thousands of years and its history is written in the archaeological record, both above and below ground.

VM_365 Day 226 La Tène style pottery from Margate

Archaeology, From the Archives, Iron Age, Margate, Uncategorised, VM_365 Project

VM 226

Today’s image for Day 226 of the VM_365 project shows two different views of the upper part of a Middle Iron Age pot decorated with geometric patterns in the distinctive continental La Tène style.

La Tène was a culture with its own distinctive decorative style which developed in Europe during the Iron Age and is named after the Swiss site where evidence of it  was first discovered  in 1857. The La Tène culture flourished in the area north of the Alps around Belgium, Eastern France, Switzerland, Austria, Southern Germany, the Czech republic, Poland, Hungary and Romania. Artefacts influenced by this style are found in Britain and parts of Ireland.

The vessel was found in excavations by Dr Arthur Rowe in 1924 at Tivoli, Margate and was  probably made locally,  influenced by the continental style. Other continentally influenced vessels have been found at Margate, with the pattern picked out in red paint, found at Fort Hill on the eastern side of Margate during excavations in the 2000’s.

VM_365 Day 224 Comb decorated Late Iron Age vessel from Margate

Archaeology, In the Store, Iron Age, Margate, Prehistoric pottery, Uncategorised, VM_365 Project

VM 224

The VM_365 post for Day 224 is of the reconstructed upper body of a comb decorated Late Iron Age vessel, found in an excavation at Hartsdown, Margate.

The post for Day 223 showed how a new trend for comb decoration on vessels made of fabric tempered with grog emerged in the Late Iron Age and continued into the Roman period. Typical vessels of the new ‘Belgic’ style pottery were cooking and storage vessels like the bead rim jars shown in yesterdays post and the reconstructed jar shown today.

The jar rim is everted, a term that describes a curved or straight rim that leans outward from the upper edge of the vessel. The  vessel has been decorated with three shallow horizontal grooves at the upper shoulder, which create the impression of  raised beads. The rim and upper body are burnished to a low sheen and the lower part of the body is decorated all over with oblique curved stripes, formed with a narrow toothed comb.

Close examination of vessels of this type help to reconstruct the range of potting techniques and decorative schemes that were introduced in the Late Iron Age.

VM_365 Day 223 Late Iron Age comb decorated pottery

Archaeology, In the Store, Iron Age, Prehistoric pottery, Thanet, Uncategorised, VM_365 Project

VM 223

For Day 223 of the VM_365 project we have a series of images of pottery sherds whose surfaces have been decorated using a comb. All the sherds are from sites in Thanet and date to Late Iron Age, around 50  to 43/50 AD, although the comb decorated style lasted well into the Early Roman period after the conquest in 43 AD.
The post for Day 192 of the VM_365 showed a range of Early to Mid Iron Age vessels decorated using combs and other tools to create regular surface impressions. All the examples that were shown were from vessels were flint-tempered, where fragments of crushed flint were incorporated into the clay used to form the vessel improving its working and firing properties.
 The tendency for potters to decorate coarsewares with linear comb-dragged finishes almost died out after around 350 to 300 BC.  The style did not re-appear until the introduction of ‘Belgic’ style pottery from the continent around 125 to 100 BC. However, the clay used to make the new style of vessels was tempered with grog, ground fragments of pottery which served the same purpose as the flint in improving the working and firing properties of the material.
Comb decoration only became a regular feature in local domestic assemblages from around 75 to 50 BC, mostly used on kitchen cooking or coarsewares. A frequent style trend is for a narrow horizontal band of combing near the top of the vessel, with diagonal or vertical combing down the rest of the body (bottom left). Sometimes the combing was shallow (top left) and sometimes the pattern was deeper and bolder (bottom right). Often the direction of the combing combined to form complicated cross patterning (top right). Jars with a small rounded bead-rim, (bottom left) are a characteristic of the period. The reconstructed profile of a typical comb decorated bead rim jar from Hartsdown, Margate was shown on Day 170, a large comb decorated storage jar from Broadstairs also featured on Day 105.