A Petrological Study of Iron Age and Early Roman Ceramics from Shropshire

The narrative of Iron Age Shropshire has remained stagnant for decades. Desire for further research has been suppressed through the incorrect assumption that the region produces insufficient material culture for the narrative to be challenged or advanced. An audit of Iron Age archaeology throughout Shropshire was conducted, identifying the scale of excavation evidence and materials available for study. From this an entirely new analysis of Iron Age ceramics was undertaken – the largest to date. The results established that Shropshire was not aceramic in the Iron Age but had a complex relationship with the consumption of ceramics and wider materials. From the Bronze Age the population was constructed from numerous social groups that are not defined by physical boundaries or hierarchy. Instead, they were maintained by a network of relationships, socially transmitted throughout a shared landscape. The Early Iron Age sites studied had a shared perception of how to produce ceramics, with numerous locally produced fabrics identified. Through the further application of GIS analysis, it was concluded that the sources of clay may not have always been logical. Instead, the craft tradition focused on harvesting clay from places that were meaningful throughout the immediate landscape. These places were perceived as being liminal in their nature, with clays bestowing biographies to the ceramics created from them. This shared perception extended to the consumption of other materials also, such as metal, glass, and coinage. Over time hillfort sites were constructed within these liminal landscapes, forming a symbiotic relationship with the outlying settlements where the materials were being produced. Results from later Iron Age sites demonstrate that the Roman conquest was a catalyst for this society to change. A new social hierarchy formed, known as the Cornovii to modern researchers, which enabled collaboration with the incoming Roman administration. Overtime the network of relationships shifted to other central settlements, such as Wroxeter. This period of transition featured aspects of both continuity and change, spurred by the same network of social transmission as in the Iron Age. This allowed coinage to be adopted, alongside population migration, changes in settlement structure, and an increase in the consumption of metals. A diminished belief in the consumption of materials with liminal biographies endures. Within ceramics this can be seen through the consumption of Malvernian wares through till the end of the Roman period, whilst glass continues to be shunned by natives due to the imported chunks losing their biographies.