Antiquity Reviews: Ralston December 2010

Book Review

NIALL SHARPLES. Social relations in later prehistory: Wessex in the first millennium BC. xiv+380 pages, 86 illustrations, 5 tables. 2010. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 978-0-19-957771-2 hardback £80.

Review by Ian Ralston
School of History, Classics and Archaeology, University of Edinburgh, Scotland, UK
(Email: Ian.Ralston@ed.ac.uk)

Social Relations in later prehistory is a detailed synthetic study of the archaeology of a circumscribed, but geographically-varied, area of later prehistoric south-central England through the Metal Ages from the end of the Early Bronze Age. Focused on the first millennium BC and especially the developing Late Bronze Age through to the Middle Iron Age, coverage extends back to the Middle Bronze Age (for example in terms of houses) and runs on to the eve of the Roman Conquest. For some topics, such as the consideration of roundhouse settlements, rhythms detectable across this long view offer particularly persuasive insights.

Sharples' approach is organised around landscape and its sub-divisions, the creation of communities, domestic architecture and households, and the identification of individuals and their significance — the topics of the four principal chapters. And, while each of these factors has been a key concern for British later prehistorians for some time, and Wessex data has previously been importantly deployed in the consideration of them, notably at the end of the last century, Sharples succeeds in bringing new perspectives into a work that is avowedly 'prehistoric archaeological' in orientation. These fresh views stem in part of course from access to new data (and the author manages to include selected material published as recently as 2009), but also from Sharples' reworking and updating of earlier studies, for example on the presence of human bone on settlement sites in storage pit and other contexts, as well as in conventional graves (including a distinct new later Iron Age series made evident following Barry Cunliffe's excavation of Suddern Farm). He also privileges models and comparanda drawn from anthropological theory (in particular the concepts of grid and group propounded by the late Mary Douglas). Forced to choose, this reviewer would select the later chapters on buildings and the definition of the individual (in large measure an 'archaeology of death'), as the more successfully argued and, in particular in the latter case, the more innovative. Wessex has, of course, long been a key zone for later prehistoric research in British prehistory, and it is both salutary and reaffirming to see how the enduring application of numerous archaeologists has paid off in terms of the compilation of this overview; salutary because in some cases good quality data is still limited in quantity (e.g. for finds distributions on floors within houses); and reaffirming since, even if the proposed interpretations are not all equally convincing (e.g. of rampart architecture such as the posts associated with the Segsbury enclosure, p. 123 ff), some are underpinned by what must be amongst the most robust later prehistoric datasets Britain has to offer. The 'social relations' considered here are those approached through the foregoing topics; other aspects less well, or not, attested in the archaeological record, such as gender relations, warfare, or relations amongst the elites, or aspects of religion (druids make only a cameo appearance on p. 154) are effectively sidelined.

Overall, a distinctly and consistently more wary attitude to the value of ancient historical sources, and the demise of certain datasets (e.g. house plans), mean that the treatment of the final decades of the Iron Age, with its complications of named individuals, identifiable tribal groups, strengthening cross-Channel connexions, coinage with legends and the proximity of later Republican and then Imperial Rome, seem to this reviewer slightly faltering in comparison with the confidence — even exuberance — of some of the analysis and writing on earlier periods. That said, the text on earlier periods is sanguinely tempered by straightforward admissions when the evidence is ambiguous, and is also usefully illuminated by mini-biographical essays recounting the development of the author's involvement with both the area and aspects of its archaeology (such as his Maiden Castle fieldwork).

Although predominantly about Wessex, and indeed helpfully demonstrating the internal variations in the cultural records apparent within it, Sharples also makes selective comparisons elsewhere within Britain, mostly with south-east and eastern England as far north as Yorkshire and Atlantic Scotland. The reader is still left, however, with a perception, that — notably after the Late Bronze Age — Wessex was a rather introverted and different place, a view which is reinforced in the conclusion (e.g. p. 311). In particular, it could be contended that the distinctions from the near continent, where too archaeologists have progressively learned to recognise regionally-diverse cultural practices in later prehistory, are rather overdrawn in the concluding chapter here, notably by the emphasis placed on some regionally-specific elite traits which are absent in many areas. This is something that others, armed with this valuable synthesis, can pursue. An excellently-organised bibliography, a good index and a wide selection of illustrations, primarily line-drawings, only occasionally over-reduced to fit the page format, are included. This book is thus a recommended purchase for anyone interested in the later prehistory of temperate Europe, despite its hefty price.