Regional Diversity in Britain and Beyond

Abstract

AbstractDating the transition from timber to stone roundhouses in Wales is fraught with similar issues as in Northern Britain, not least the poverty of material remains and lack of pottery. In south-west Wales, roundhouses occur in precipitous promontory fort locations, as they do in Cornwall. Cornwall also has distinctive settlements in ‘rounds’ and courtyard houses (some with ‘fogous’), both of which have origins in the pre-Roman Iron Age, but continue into the Roman period. In Ireland hillforts are now demonstrably Bronze Age, with some evidence for hierarchy of buildings in the Baltinglass sites. Late Bronze Age villages are now known in Ireland and in northern France, the key Irish sites including post-ring and ring-ditch construction. Sites formerly termed ‘royal’ in Ireland from historical associations are now deemed to be communal, possibly for Iron Age communities that were more mobile and pastoral. The northern French and Breton villages of the later Bronze Age commonly show axial symmetry, porches, and central posts, the latter perhaps constructional or supporting upper floor levels. Iron Age roundhouses in northern France are still relatively few, and are progressively superseded by rectilinear plans. Like Scotland, Brittany has roundhouses (and rectangular) with integral souterrains. In the peninsular North-West, castros are now dated from the early first millennium, but urban layout of round and rectilinear houses does not appear on major sites until the Augustan period. Familial courtyard groups, however, including roundhouses suggest a division of functions from the pre-Roman Iron Age.