Iron Age Mortuary Practices in Britain: An Assessment of Current Trends and their Characteristics within Contemporary North-western European Traditions

Abstract

The past four decades have been a time of great activity for researchers examining the Iron Age in north-west Europe. Since the 1980s, the scale of archaeological fieldwork has expanded massively and, with it, the quantity of data available to study. Iron Age mortuary data have been one of the main beneficiaries of this. Britain is no exception to this trend, with a number of important discoveries made over the years, thereby improving our understanding of mortuary practicesduringthis period. The situation is comparable for the regions which immediately border Britain: Ireland, northern France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. This paper reviews the current state of research for this part of Europe, contextualising the Iron Age British data within the broader north-west European frame of these neighbouring regions. In so doing, a better understanding of how chronological developments in the British mortuary data relate to those elsewhere is possible. Additionally, these data may inform us of other aspects of past societies, such as population mobility, social structure, and the persistence of ritual practices over time.