Ferrous Rituals in Iron Age Britain: A Study in Depositional Praxis

Principal investigator: Liam
Level: PhD level research

University of Hull

Title and Abstract: Ferrous Rituals in Iron Age Britain: A Study in Depositional Praxis. This research goes beyond Richard Hingley's study of structured depositions in Iron Age Britain by exploring practices surrounding the disposal, death, and superstition of iron as a significant socio-economic medium during the British Iron Age. Through plotting distributions by context and grouping the frequency by which different types of iron objects occur together in various settings, further knowledge of the social and community practices--such as ritual, magic, and religion--of Iron Age peoples can be further explained. Ethoarchaeological examples from Africa and Mongolia indicate iron was and in some cases, still is, viewed as highly liminal and magical material linked to the birth, death, and regeneration cycle. Such cycles are integral and important part of being, in the cosmological mythos of many nomadic and hunter gatherer societies. There is no reason currently to discount or discredit a similar socio-cultural attitude during the British Iron Age towards iron; this study no matter the findings, will cast a great deal of light, in an otherwise grey area, on the attitudes of Britain's prehistoric peoples to craft production, community practice, and the extent (including the lack of) superstition towards a leading resource, iron.

Audit data

• Created: 8 years ago
• Created by: S M
• Updated: 8 years ago
• Updated by: S M