800 BC-AD 43 Iron Age

The Iron Age in the south-east of England has benefited from a great deal of research in the last hundred years. This is because Iron Age settlements in this region are often still visible as ‘humps and bumps’ in the landscape or as cropmarks visible from the air. These bumps are the remains of the banks and ditches which enclosed many of the settlements.

Some sites are small and contain no more than two round house structures. Others, like the hillforts, were much larger and would have dominated the local landscape. Communities would have practised animal and crop husbandry. In the late Iron Age a number of changes occurred in the region. Hillforts went out of use, coinage was introduced and people started using more Romanised objects. There are also changes in burial practices, with cremation cemeteries appearing in the 1st century BC. There appears to have been greater interaction with mainland Europe. It also seems that social organisation changes at this time, with more emphasis on the individual and less on communities.