Ways of living in the Upper Thames Valley: the changing nature of domestic life in the Long First Millennium BC

Abstract

The Long First Millennium BC in Britain was a period of social, ritual, technological, environmental, and economic change. Understanding households is crucial for understanding broader societal changes, as they are the basic unit of social interaction. They are therefore a vital to look at broader societal developments that allow examination of whether the variety of social developments that are so often highlighted as taking place within the Long First Millennium BC, truly had an impact on everyday life. There has, however, been a perpetuation of a particular image of what a later prehistoric household was, what it looked like and where we should find it. The persistent image of later prehistoric houses, typically depicted as roundhouses with thatched roofs and central hearths, may not accurately reflect the variety of household forms throughout the Long First Millennium BC. The nature of settlement during the Long First Millennium BC is one that changed throughout the period, and should we not, therefore, expect households and their spaces to do the same? There is, however, a lack of high-resolution insight into the long-term developments in households and their wider contexts to understand whether the perpetuated image of later prehistoric households is indeed an accurate one.
This thesis aims to utilise the changing nature of this period to understand how people in reacted and adapted to change through the Long First Millenium BC through the lens of household dynamics. It embraces a more nuanced understanding of what a house and household looks like by bringing together the evidence for households and their practices throughout the entirety of the Long First Millennium BC in a distinct, extensively excavated region (The Upper Thames Valley). It analyses the settlement record by collating and comparing geographical, temporal and intra-settlement data. The analysis of this data highlights the need for a deeper understanding of not just later prehistoric households, but the changing role they played in the way in which people lived throughout the Long First Millennium BC.

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Identifiers

ORCID for Olivia Kathleen Gardner Britter: orcid.org/0009-0004-8384-6569

ORCID for Joanna Sofaer: orcid.org/0000-0001-6328-8636

ORCID for Josh Pollard: orcid.org/0000-0002-8429-2009

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