Iron Age Mnemonics: A Biographical Approach to Dwelling in Later Prehistoric Britain

Abstract

Domestic architecture played a central role in the identity of later prehistoric communities, particularly in creating lasting bonds between the living and the dead. Acting as a conduit of memory and legacy for successive generations of inhabitants, roundhouses straddled the divide between house and memorial. The exceptionally well preserved Late Iron Age settlement at Broxmouth in southeast Scotland demonstrates the potential of biographical approaches in understanding the central role that roundhouses played in fashioning the identity of successive households, and the role of objects in constructing genealogical narratives.

Examining Temporality and Difference: an Intensive Approach to Understanding Medieval Rural Settlement

“…To achieve this, we can follow Johnson's (2013) call for a renewed focus on 'lived experience', an acknowledgement that buildings are used and experienced in a multitude of ways. Houses, like portable objects, have a 'biography', intertwined with those of their residents (Bütser, 2021;Weikert, 2015). An intensive approach demands that we shift our gaze from stable spatial formations to activities and processes, to understand the relations which comprise lived experiences of construction and dwelling (McFadyen, 2006;Bolender & Johnson, 2016, 78).…”

‘Problematic stuff’: death, memory and the interpretation of cached objects

“…One roundhouse in particular (House 4) displays at least five stages of modification (Figures 1 & 4). AMS dates suggest that remodelling took place on a generational or bi-generational basis, roughly every 40-60 years, during which transitional deposits were placed into the fabric of the structure (Büster & Armit 2013: 138-51;Büster 2021). Some of the objects appear to reference one another, despite being deposited over several generations.…”