The Question
Is the 'Invasion hypothesis' still a valid concept in British Iron Age Studies?
February 1995
The British Iron Age is considered to have spanned the period circa. 800/700BCE - 50 CE. In the area brought within the Roman Empire and to the 5th/6th centuries CE to those not conquered by Rome (e.g. the Northern mainland/islands and Ireland).
Early nineteenth century 'pilfering'[1] finds of tools, weapons and jewellery followed by "barrow sacking in high victorian style"[1] (mostly from Yorkshire, but other isolated finds elsewhere) had produced evidence of a British Iron Age, but it was not clear how they could be interpreted. Thurnham listed this material as 'Late British' (1857) and Sir Wollaston Franks as 'Late Keltic' (1863). After 1872 British archaeologists were able to identify this material against a classification system of comparable mainland continental styles based on the primary find sites of late Bronze/early Iron Age date at Hallstatt (Austria), and Middle to Late Iron Age at La Tene (Switzerland).
From the second half of the nineteenth century excavations of hillforts and settlements were being undertaken, enabling a more general perspective to emerge of Iron Age culture than was possible from the evidence of burial assemblages along, and which could be identified as having broadly Hallstatt (e.g. All Cannings Cross 1911-22, Eastbourne 1924) or La Tene (e.g. The Arras Culture of Yorkshire) affinities. The discovery of Belgic cemeteries at Aylesford (1886), Welwyn (1912), and Swarling (1921) added emphasis to a growing acceptance that waves of invaders arrived from continental Europe, bringing with them new forms of weaponry and associated pottery.
Abercromby (1912) suggested an invasion of Deverell-Rimbury Urn carriers (c700-650 BCE); Crawford (writing ten years later) advanced the theory that these invaders were late Bronze Age Goidelic Celts arriving 100 years earlier. Peake (1922) argued that a series of invasions took place, the first c 1,200 BCE; the second 900 BCE (Abercromby and Crawford's Deverell-Rimbury Urn carriers) and the third 300 BCE (Brythonic Celts). Hallstatt discoveries at All Cannings Cross appeared to confirm Peake's second invasion. Maud Cunnington (1923) summarised the hypothesis at this stage, as an obvious result of the northward movement of continental populations, an "invasion not likely to have come about as a single incursion but .... by a long continued series of small incursions and colonisations"[2].
Excavations of hillforts and occupation sites during the rest of the decade threw up a number of complications, leading to a new hypothesis being put forward by Christopher Hawkes (1930-1), which set the agenda for the next three decades.
Maud Cunningtons "long continuous series of small incursions and colonisations" was replaced by large scale migrations/invasions from the "seventh century or before"[3], and the ABC Invasion Hypothesis was born. Hawkes hypothesis was that three phases of migration/invasion can be discerned from the evidence:-
1. Iron Age A: being Hallstatt migrants arriving as a result of pressure from German tribal advances down the course of the Rhine. These people settled in Southern and Eastern England during the sixth century, occupying the territory, virtually undisturbed, until the first century. These people were associated with Univallate hillforts.
2. Iron Age B: formed two prongs of early and middle La Tene culture people, the first arriving in the fourth century from Spain and Brittany into South West England, associated with Multivallate hillforts. The second occurring in the third century from Gaul (the Marnians) into Yorkshire and associated with cart/chariot burials. Both prongs linked up encircling the earlier Iron Age A people, in some instances dislocating them.
3. Iron Age C: the late La Tene Belgae from Gaul, who arrived in two waves, the first C.75BCE into Kent and the Thames Valley seeking 'lebensraum' and in the process dislocating, or absorbing, the earlier Iron Age A people and introducing in process, pedestal urns. Roman advances into Gaul were the causal factor of a further influx into Dorset, Hampshire and Wiltshire, dislodging, or absorbing, indigenous populations and introducing Normandy bead ware. The Iron Age C people were also credited with the introduction of the potters wheel and Oppida.
Over the next three decades many more hillforts and settlements were excavated, producing additional data and regional variations on the theme. As a result complicated modifications of the ABC Hypothesis were advanced by Hawkes (1958; published 1961).
From the 1960 criticism of the traditional invasion view of prehistory began to surface (Hodson 1964 'Woodbury Culture') and alternative 'cultural' models were advanced, which highlighted "the indigenous nature of much of the material" [4]. Testing showed up a number of discrepancies, for example invasion theory would suggest that the earliest hillforts would be strategically built in Southern England, however the earliest evidence points to the Welsh Marches (understandably not fully appreciated prior to the introduction of Radio Carbon dating). Pottery and weaponry appear to be a mixture of indigenous forms alongside continental imports and locally manufactured continental styles. Hillforts could be seen as a development of earlier indigenous enclosures and henges, rather than a completely new innovation.
The introduction of Radio Carbon dating required re-assessment of the data, added to this the 1960's was a period during which a radical re-think of previous theories were taking place in a number of disciplines. The new archaeology saw invasion theory as being heavily influenced by inter-war/immediate post-war experiences. The ABC scheme, "by and large held good" [5], but was reinterpreted for the new age, the old ideology was discounted and the British Iron Ages was "generally seen as consisting of indigenous regional groups, influenced by contact with the Hallstatt and La Tene cultures of the continent, with some immigration, such as the Arras culture in Humberside, and the Belgae into Southern England." The alphabet was effectively reduced to a C- !
Since the sixties arguments have become increasingly polarised "both schools have developed entrenched positions, and as so often happens, the major issues have been lost between the battle lines"[7]. If the late Iron Age had not entered the stage of history through Strabo, Caesar etc., it is tempting to imagine that the Belgae too would have become an aboriginal elite emulating continental contemporaries, a possibility that Cunliffe finds of equal probability as 'invaders', in interpreting the exotic chariot and square ditched barrow burial tradition of the Yorkshire Arras Culture.[8]
In the nineties people are again questioning the 'new orthodoxy', pointing out that theorists from the sixties onward are also victims of social bounding/ influence. "The adoption of a revolutionary polemic by the New Archaeologists of the 1960's was a response to the political environment of their academic adolescence. In Western Europe and North America the children of the middle classes had embarked on a crusade to establish a new world order, to meet the challenge archaeology needed to be both ambitious and iconoclastic - the times demanded no less". [9] It is, of course, important to learn from the academic past and to recognise this problem and accept "the extent which we interpret, or emphasise, any particular aspect of prehistory will be a function of our own backgrounds and beliefs". [10]
The archaeological (and historical) material is enigmatic and open to various interpretations. If the Romans had not been firmly literate, is it possible that their occupation of the islands could have been theorised away? Roman and native pottery, rituals and buildings are also found alongside each other - evidence of an aboriginal elite emulating continental exemplars in the time honoured, traditional manner perhaps?
The type of theoretical archaeology that builds a new invasion theory to explain every change in material culture is no more, or less, likely to be correct than his/her colleague who claims that on her entry to the (Roman) world stage, the people of the British Isles were, by and large, the descendants of migrants that had crossed via the land bridge and were then cut off. If no peoples 'invaded' then this is the conclusion that appears to meet the evidence - no neolithic innovators, no Beaker folk, no Hallstatt or La Tene migrants, a position that would appear to be incompatible with common sense and continuity "migrations have been well described in both contemporary and historic societies ..... there seems no reason to doubt that similar migrations would have occurred in prehistory."[11]
The material recovered cannot prove whether, when or how many people migrated into/invaded the Islands of Britain. Nor is it sufficiently sparse to prove the opposite. An invasion of people does not necessarily require large numbers, nor do they have to be belligerent. Cunliffe argues that "on balance ..... there is no evidence in the British Isles to suggest that a population group of any size migrated from the continent."[12] Unfortunately, even fairly large elite invasions are likely to be almost invisible in the archaeological record, as the new elite would probably use indigenous labour for the production of both luxury and utilitarian tools, weapons etc. Local craftsmen would use traditional materials and techniques for the 'new order', sometimes this would result in 'changes of continuity' [13], for example the building of traditional circular structures but with a re-orientation of entrances, which occurred from the late bronze age onwards [14]. As Cunliffe added, "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" [15], giving an example of the 40,000 Celts than 'invaded' Greece in 279 BCE, but the archaeological evidence of this historic 'fact' are 3/4 items. In this context it would be interesting to mount an expedition to the Indian sub-continent in search of the British Raj!
Almost all of the evidence against the 'Invasion Theory' can be explained as irrelevant or can be used to argue the opposite. For example the siting of early hillforts on the Welsh Marches, rather than in the south, may be a response to internal raiding by intrusive warriors seeking metal ores and cattle [16]. It is possible that an early raiding and pillaging phase of Hallstatt continental incursions was carried out by people associated with the Round Houses constructed in the Thames Valley and Eastern England.
It is interesting that the La Tene Aylesford-Swarling Culture is also located in the same area.
In this context it is tempting to see the particularly large hillforts located along the Welsh Marches as an attempt to hold a boundary against external incursions. Bradley argues that in the late Iron Age exotic imports to the 'core' area of eastern England and the Thames Valley, were paid for by a "purely local aggrandisement" [17] outwards into the periphery zones to provide the trade goods required by importers (continental Europe and Rome) of slaves, cattle, gold, silver, iron, corn, hunting dogs [18], copper, lead and salt [19]. "This list is revealing for the number of commodities which could not be obtained in the core area ..... hillforts outside the core area might be a response to this threat ..... some of these were attacked at this time.
One area with evidence of widespread destruction is the Welsh Marches" [20]. Evidence from slaving in West Africa suggests that slaving is normally undertaken against people that the native slavers see as 'other', which would add support to a core zone population of non-indigenous settlers.
The other area where late Bronze Age Round Houses are found also has a later history of continental intrusion, this is the Arras Culture of South Yorkshire with its La Tene chariot burials and square ditched barrows. On the continent similar burial traditions are found. If South Yorkshire is the home of an indigenous elite 'emulating' exotic continental cultures in order to differentiate themselves from a lower social strata, they went to extraordinary lengths in adopting the tribal name of their exemplars. In historic times these people were known as the Parisii, they also travelled inland to find them.
It is conceivable that the earliest Arras Culture people arrived in Yorkshire earlier than the inauguration of the Chariot Burial Tradition, at which time the continental Parisii perhaps resided closer to the British Isles. Their 'historic' homeland was located further down the course of the Seine in an area where isolated chariot burials are found - concentrated examples being found further east. The Yorkshire Parisii being aware of their relationship, perhaps continued contact with the motherland (wherever it moved) and adopted new burial rituals because of this known kinship, rather than emulation. That the earliest Arras Culture people were Hallstatt, rather than La Tene, is suggested by finds of Hallstatt jewellery in a square ditched barrow at Burton Fleming (1978), and that the Arras Culture barrows are clustered around the site of the earlier round house at Thwing etc.
Caesar described the inhabitants of Britain thus "while the people of the interior believed themselves to be aboriginal, the 'maritime part' was inhabited by men who had crossed over for warfare and plunder 'ex-Belgio' and settled down permanently to till the land, still bearing, for the most part, their ancestral tribal names." [22]. Tribal names found both sides of the channel are the Parisii (see above), Artebrates and Catuvellauni (it should be remembered that Caesar sometimes got his Gauls, Celts and Germans mixed up, and never ventured further than Kent or the Thames Valley).
It would appear that archaeological material and historical evidence does point to invasive cultures penetrating the British Isles over a long period of time, probably stretching from the late Bronze Age (or before if the Beakers are intrusive), up to the Claudian invasion in CE 43. Whether these were large scale, to what extent the aboriginal peopled contested, or welcomed, the intrusion is not easily determined. It is possible that most migrations took the form of elite group movements, rather than large scale population disruptions, leading to cultural mixing rather than swamping of the indigenous people*. It is almost certain that large scale incursions occurred during the final century, or so, before the Roman advance into the island. A non-Roman source supports the 'invasion hypothesis', the 'Book of Invasions', tells of the "Mil or Milesius, the ancestor of the Gaels of Ireland, came from Spain ..... people ..... could have come from Spain in the wake of the Roman conquest there in 133 BCE. Such a possibility is strengthened by the presence of chevaud-de frise stones at (e.g.) Dun Aenglus ....... similar examples occur in Spain and Northern Portugal"[23]. The 'Book of Invasions' tells of earlier invaders, including the Fir Bolg and the Tuatha De Danainn. Whatever cultural ideologies lie behind the monks that transferred the oral traditions to written form, they are most certainly not those that influenced either the orthodoxy of ABC' or of the 'C-' theories! The Invasion Hypothesis is not merely a valid concept for study of the British Iron Age, but essential to understanding it.
During the nineties perhaps the time has come to abandon both entrenched positions and take a fresh look at the evidence. I will leave the last words with Brodie "interpretation must be open to constant scrutiny as facts and theories shift around within their social formers ..... it seems desirable that any process of critical evaluation should proceed by means of a logical and structured discourse, polemic exchanges from theoretical bunkers serve only to retard progress and ultimately vitiate the discipline" [24].
TUTOR COMMENT:
I thoroughly enjoyed this - a very stimulating essay. It underlines that we need to constantly re-examine our attitudes too, as well as the physical evidence. Well done. No idea which one, probably Mark as I could read it!
NOTES:
1. Barry Cunliffe 'Iron Age Communities in Britain' P1
2. Barry Cunliffe 'Iron Age Communities in Britain' P7
3. Barry Cunliffe 'Iron Age Communities in Britain' P8
4. Barry Cunliffe 'Iron Age Communities in Britain' P17
5. Personal Comment lecture Mark Corney
6. Lesley & Roy Adkins 'The Handbook of British Archaeology' P74
7. Neil Brodie 'The Neolithic - Bronze Age Transition in Britain' P27 paraphrasing D W Anthony 'Migrations in archaeology: the baby and the bath water' American Anthropologist (1990) P898. Discussing Beakers, but the argument is equally applicable to the ABC invasion theory.
8. Barry Cunliffe 'Iron Age Britain' P23
9. Neil Brodie 'The Neolithic - Bronze Age Transition in Britain' P84
10. Robert Bewley 'Prehistoric Settlement' P133
11. Neil Brodie 'The Neolithic - Bronze Age Transition in Britain' P10
12. Barry Cunliffe 'Iron Age Britain' P22
13. Wakefield 1995 - I think I just made this up!
14. Robert Bewley 'Prehistoric Settlement' P107/8, Parker-Pearson P122/3 plus previous assignment, which I have not yet had returned.
15. Barry Cunliffe 'Iron Age Britain' P22
16. Michael Parker Pearson 'Bronze Age Britain' P134 plus previous assignment as above
17. Richard Bradley 'The Social Foundations of Prehistoric Britain' P155
18. Richard Bradley 'The Social Foundations of Prehistoric Britain' P156 as listed by Strabo
19. Richard Bradley 'The Social Foundations of Prehistoric Britain' P156 additions to Strabo's list
20. Richard Bradley 'The Social Foundations of Prehistoric Britain' P156
21. 'The Arras Culture' P94
22. Christopher Hawkes & G C Dunning 'The Belgae of Gaul and Britain' P32 citing 'The Bello Gallico' Vol.12 1-2
23. Peter Harbison 'Pre-Christian Ireland' P170
24. Neil Brodie 'The Neolithic - Bronze Age Transition in Britain' P84
ILLUSTRATIONS:
Frontispiece: A Garton Slack cart burial (1971) 'The Arras Culture' P111
1. Distribution of circular enclosures - Barry Cunliffe 'Iron Age Communities in Britain' P42
2. Area of Aylesbury-Swarling Culture with inset showing area of Thames Valley core zone in the late bronze age/early iron age (as represented by ritual weapon deposits). Barry Cunliffe 'Iron Age Communities in Britain' P131 and Richard Bradley 'Social Foundations of Prehistoric Britain' P111
3. Distribution of Iron Age Hillforts in Wales. The Marches are marked by particularly large examples. Robert Bewley 'Prehistoric Britain' P98
4. Core and periphery suggesting where the commodities not available in the 'core' zone were derived. Richard Bradley 'Social Foundations of Prehistoric Britain' P155
5. Vehicle burials of the fifth to third centuries BCE in Britain and Europe. The home of the historic Parisii were South Yorkshire and eastward along the Seine (thus the city Paris). Barry Cunliffe 'Iron Age Britain' P46
6. Distribution of square barrows in Yorkshire and Humberside, showing the site of Thwing and a possible coastal round house. 'The Arras Culture' P31
7i. Location and names of Iron Age tribes in England and Wales, as recorded by Caesar, with names found both sides of the channel highlighted. Robert Bewley 'Prehistoric Britain' P92
7ii. Location and names of Iron Age tribes in Gaul at the time of Caesar, with the names found both sides of the channel highlighted. Christopher Hawkes and G C Dunning 'The Belgae of Gaul and Britain' P230
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
NO AUTHOR The Arras Culture The Yorkshire Philosophical Society 1979
ADKINS, Lesley & Roy The Handbook of British Archaeology Papermac 1993
BEWLEY, Robert Prehistoric Settlements English Heritage/Batsford 1994
BRADLEY, Richard The Social Foundation of Prehistoric Britain: themes and variations in the archaeology of power Longman 1992
BRODIE, Neil The Neolithic-Bronze Age Transition in Britain BAR British Series 238 1994
CUNLIFFE, Barry Iron Age Communities in Britain Routledge 1991 Iron Age Britain English Heritage 1995
HARBISON, Peter Pre-Christian Ireland Thames & Hudson 1994
HAWKES, Christopher & DUNNING, Michael Bronze Age Britain English Heritage 1993
FURTHER RESEARCH:
* Recent Mitrochondrial DNA evidence has confirmed the nature of the British population as mainly indigenous on the mother's side - Paternal DNA suggests the levels of invasions that may have occurred.
http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=7817
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Oppenheimer
