Creating Society and Constructing the Past: Social Change in the Thames Valley from the Late Bronze Age to the Middle Iron Age: Social Change in the Thames Valley from the Late Bronze Age to the Middle Iron Age

This book gives a new account of society and social change in the upper and middle Thames Valley from the Late Bronze Age to Middle Iron Age, 1150-100 BC. A model is developed from social anthropological case studies setting out expectations on how societies are structured based on certain material manifestations. Patterns are found within the wide range of types of evidence that are integrated and synthesised. This includes settlements, house forms, metalwork, pottery, human and animal remains, monuments, landscape boundaries and special deposits.The main interpretation offered is that Late Bronze Age societies were fluid and unstructured by either social status differences or lineage identities, whereas Early Iron Age communities were more concerned with ancestral genealogy and inter-generational inheritance. By the Middle Iron Age, communal aspects of ritual practice and material practice were largely replaced by local and household concerns in which smaller groups displayed increasing autonomy from each other. Front Cover Title Page Copyright Acknowledgements Table of Contents List of Figures List of Tables List of Graphs List of Maps Abstract Chapter 1: Introduction Chappter 2: Understanding Objects, Identity and Community Chapter 3: The Late Bronze Age Chapter 4: The Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age Transition Chapter 5: The Early Iron Age Chapter 6: The Middle Iron Age Chapter 7: Discussion Bibliography