< Main Page Chapter 12 Kingdoms A comparative lack of burials in the Iron Age has made it difficult to support the chronology of the period with grave-goods as it was possible to do in the early and middle Bronze Age. In the past the few burials that do exist have been taken as unequivocal evidence of Continental invasion but nowadays this idea has been discarded. For a group of burials known as the Arras Culture in the Yorkshire Wolds region, students pointed to similarities with the area of Champagne, north-east of Paris, that also has square-ditched barrows, burial of chariots and a particular type of horse bit. These similarities are undeniable but the only actual imports are fragments of coral used as inlay. Arras (Yorkshire) burials have many insular features and are located in groups within blocks of land defined by linear dykes that are probably boundaries of ancestral landholdings. Earliest burials date to the fifth century BCE and are covered by large, square barrows. Later barrows were smaller, had deep, central pits and this continued to be the style into the first century BCE. Two types of burials under these later barrows were either orientated north-south and crouched or extended east-west with different grave goods. Brooches and sheep-bones were common with the crouched burials while swords, spears, tools and pig-bones characterised the extended burials. Some corpses had been speared as part of the burial ritual. Chariot burials (sometimes called cart burials in England) included some decorated metalwork along with the dismantled vehicle and include the only example of a chain-mail tunic from the whole Iron Age world. An excavation at Wetwang in the East Riding of Yorkshire was dated to cAD600 (British Museum). An important find was the remains of a cart or chariot in a good enough state of preservation to enable a full-size reconstructed model to be made. This was road-tested and found to bear out the accounts of such vehicles left to us by the ancient authors. Some twenty other chariot burials are known in Britain, all in Yorkshire with the exception of one at Newbridge near Edinburgh dated to between 520 and 370BCE. Most are associated with quantities of animal bones: a recent example dug by the Oxford Archaeology in West Yorkshire had the remains of some 250 cattle in the upper fill of the ditch which are thought to be the remains of a huge funeral feast. These burials provide archaeological evidence for the use of the wheel but they are not the earliest, a disc wheel found in a bog at Blair Drummond in Scotland has a radio-carbon date of 810BCE and is so far the earliest in Britain but it must have been part of a heavier vehicle than a war chariot, perhaps one drawn by oxen, evidence for which in the form of a yoke, was also discovered in a Scottish bog at Loch Nell, dating from 1420BCE. There are a number of scattered burials from the south of England such as a `warrior' grave from Owslebury in Hampshire with sword and remains of shield but the main group of burials is in the Home Counties and is known as the Aylesford-Swarling Group, named after two Kentish cemeteries that belong to the last century or so of the Iron Age and are evidence of the contacts of the wealthy in that particular Iron Age kingdom with the Roman world in Gaul. Probably most archaeological effort has been put into the study of agriculture of the Iron Age due to excavations like those on the hillforts of Owslebury and Danebury, on a number of settlement sites and the research station at Butser Ancient Farm in Hampshire. Flotation that retrieves carbonised plant remains has now been introduced as a standard technique on these excavations. Various phases of grain processing can now be recognised from the chaff and weed remains and two types of grain husbandry have now been recognised. One was intensive, probably based on heavy manuring and spade cultivation and concentrated on emmer wheat and barley, and the other was extensive using a plough with little weeding of the crop and with barley and rye as the main products. Where animal bones are preserved it is possible now to go beyond simple identification of species that allows the percentages of the numbers of various animals on the site to be calculated. It is possible to say something about age of death and disease which is done mainly by the study of the teeth in the laboratory. Experimental archaeology has made a major contribution to our understanding of Iron Age agriculture. On his experimental station at Butser Ancient farm, the late Dr Peter Reynolds demonstrated the viability of a number of the techniques suggested by archaeologists and the non-viability of others. Experiments with ploughing are done using Dexter cattle that approximate to the size of animals of the Iron Age, the bos longifrons that are now extinct. The ard (the plough) can either be attached to a yoke placed at the neck or by the horns and cultivated the top nine inches of the soil, the growing zone, and the seed was planted into it after the clods had been broken up, perhaps with a hoe. During the Iron Age, barley was a common crop, along with emmer and spelt wheat, celtic beans (Vicia faba minor) and fat hen (melde). Also grown were vetch for cattle food and woad for dyeing. Fields were probably manured by the cattle after harvest and from the farmyard manure heap since sherds from broken pottery are a common fieldwalking find on Iron Age fields. Soay sheep are bred at Butser. They are a breed that has survived on the remote island of St Kilda and are of the prehistoric type, much smaller than modern domesticated sheep, similar to goats and with wool that has to be plucked off. They will provide milk but are not big enough to be a good source of meat. Horse bones only appear in special contexts like the pits at Danebury, not on farmsteads. They were prestige animals used by the aristocracy and Caesar describes how they were harnessed in pairs to chariots for warfare using the sorts of equipment found in the better-class Arras graves. They were the size of a modern Exmoor pony but there is no evidence of them having been used for plebeian tasks. Representations of the animals appear on Iron Age coins in both Celtic and realistic styles. Pigs were common animals in the Iron Age and the wild boar may have been a cult animal for it is appears on metalwork, on coins and as small bronze models. They were always food animals and may also have been used by farmers to tear up grassland in preparation for planting crops. Pig bones or tusks appear in some of the Arras graves and these deposits may have ritual significance. Another animal that may have had some ritual significance was the dog for dog burials appear in places like the entrances to settlements and hillforts and they are often found in farming communities. Strabo, the Roman writer, tells us that the British exported `clever hunting dogs' which presumably means that they were especially trained for the hunt. Methods of storing grain in pits have been extensively experimented with at Butser. The theory of storing grain in pits is straightforward. Grain uses up oxygen and gives off carbon dioxide in its normal respiration. If the grain is put inside a sealed container it will start to sprout and quickly use up all the oxygen present. Then it stops growing and becomes dormant. The interior is then anerobic. Pits were dug into the rock (usually chalk) sometimes up to two metres in depth and a metre in diameter. After being filled with grain, a seal of moist clay covered by loose soil is put on the top which keeps the clay moist so that it does not crack and stops any penetration by rain. Inside, bacteria and fungi have been trapped with the grain but they will die as they are deprived of oxygen. Experiments have shown that grain stored in this way will still grow extremely well and is also edible. But the food corn is more likely to have been stored in above ground granaries because it is not wise to keep on re-opening and re-closing a pit. Beans could have been stored in pits and perhaps other foodstuffs as well. Silage could have been made in these pits; grass piled inside and covered with stones to compress it would soon `cure'. And of course pits of this sort were re-used as rubbish or loo pits or even as places of ritual deposit. Other work done at Butser has involved studies of cloth-production using wool as the textile. Wool from Soay sheep works very well for this purpose. It was spun using a wooden spindle with a clay or stone weight on the end called a whorl and the weaving was done on an upright loom. Archaeologists often find triangular stone loom weights that were used to stretch the vertical warp threads. Weft threads were woven between these with wool attached to the spindle. To make it quicker a heddle (a horizontal wooden rod) is attached to alternate warp threads and can be pulled forward to allow the spindle to pass through between the alternate warp threads. A skilled weaver can work by firelight and probably usually did so in winter evenings in the smoky Iron Age huts. We have a range of iron tools from the Somerset Levels excavated from the waterlogged context that has preserved the metal extremely well. These tools are immediately recognizable as carpenters' tools because they are exactly the same as modern ones. Some of the woodwork was preserved in the same contexts and show that the Iron Age carpenter was just as skilled as modern day carpenters, perhaps more so, because he did not have the benefit of power tools. He was capable of making joints and building large structures like frames for ramparts and houses. Charcoal was also produced by local blacksmiths for smelting iron and perhaps was used for domestic fires as well since it produces great heat without much flame, something that would be suitable for interior fires in the timber and thatch houses of the time. We have no evidence for charcoal-making beyond the fact that we know that it was done. Excavation is beginning to flesh out our picture of the Iron Age settlement. An example of a two enclosure, classic early Iron Age Site is Little Woodbury (Bersu), that has become the type-site on the chalk of southern England. It lies a little to the south of Salisbury in Wiltshire and was one of the first sites discovered by aerial photography. Part of the larger enclosure with huts was excavated just before the Second World War. A large circular hut with a diameter of 13.7m had been built in the traditional way with wattle-and-daub and thatch on a timber framework. Not far off was a smaller hut that may have been the residence while the larger hut functioned as a barn. Also inside the 130m diameter stockade were storage-pits, four-poster granaries and two-posters that were thought perhaps to be drying racks for hay. Finds included animal bones of the usual domestic animals and seed evidence shows that wheat and barley, at least, were grown. Similar settlements have been excavated at Pimperne in Dorset, Glastonbury and Meare in Somerset, West Brandon in County Durham, Staple Howe in Yorkshire, West Plean in Stirlingshire with or without the large huts and they can be found in the west of Britain with walls built of stone instead of wattle-and-daub. A new find of a late-Iron Age village dating from around 100BCE has been made at Midross in Dumbartonshire on the western shores of Loch Lomond while a settlement at Seaton Burn in Northumberland has been completely excavated in advance of surface mining. The site had been in use for over 500 years occupying a two-hectare area and had comprised in total during that period some 50 round houses. It is one of a number of similar sites recognised in that part of north-eastern England. The type of farming carried on in these settlements varies, of course, with the ecology and differing emphases on the balance between grain and pastoral husbandry. Storage pits are restricted to the drier and warmer south of England where the greatest amount of grain was grown. Domestic animals were universal with perhaps goats appearing on some sites. Sites near the coast probably got a proportion of their food from the sea as at Jarlshof and Clickhimin in Shetland and in areas where the beaches were gently sloped along the east and southern coasts farmers/fishermen could involve themselves for the summer months in making salt. These sites might be thought of as the `undefended' homestead sites of the period. But, there are a number of sites, apart from hill-forts, where defence seems to have been one of the preoccupations of the inhabitants. In south-western Wales, for example, raths were built. The best excavated is Walesland Rath in Dyfed (Wainwright) consisting of an oval-shaped area, 50m by 65m, enclosed by a bank and ditch with two entrances, one of which had a massive gate comprising three pairs of timbers supporting a tower. Another entrance was flanked by drystone walling with its gate set back in the rampart. Inside the defences were six circular timber huts and a possible granary. Occupation started in the first century BCE and continued into the Romano-British period like many of the settlements in the west. In North Wales, ramparted sites can range from homestead-sized like Castell Odo with two ramparts and eight huts to hillforts like Tre'r Ceiri that could house up to 400 people. Houses were stone-built, circular, and the ramparts were normally drystone walls. In the south-western peninsula, a characteristic sites, apart from hillforts and cliff castles are `rounds' like Carn Brae and Trevisker in Cornwall, consisting of simple banked enclosures with a few huts built up against the rampart. At Carn Brae, a souterrain (underground tunnel) or weem as they call them in Cornwall, led from one hut under the rampart to a point outside the settlement. Chycauster is an example of another type of settlement, the courtyard village, consisting of a number of stone-built houses. Each house has a stone-paved courtyard surrounded by rooms and byres, the whole complex enclosed within a stone wall. Outside are the stone-walled fields belonging to the settlement. Although it is usually said that stone-built settlements of this sort are characteristic of the highland region, they are not a universal phenomenon in those parts. Excavations at Truroe in Cornwall have uncovered two unenclosed settlements with timber and wattle-and-daub houses dating from the late-Iron Age that are more typical of eastern areas. Glastonbury Iron Age site is representative of settlements built on the raised bog of the Somerset Levels. They appear to have been the houses of people who were making a living from the marsh itself together with some cattle raising and perhaps crop growing in drier patches. A new interpretation of Glastonbury (Minnitt and Coles) suggests that the earliest structures on the site were rectangular, later becoming circular; some being the houses of farmers but others the huts of boneworkers, carpenters, metalworkers and potters. Remains of over 5000 pots and wooden vessels together with basketry and wickerwork were discovered in the excavation. The village was situated on a crannog surrounded by a palisade and is believed to have been occupied by five or six families from about 100BCE to AD50. Nearby, the site at Meare is interpreted differently - as a seasonal market or fair, held on marginal land as fairs are held today on commons. An amazing variety of materials, both local and non-local were both worked and sold or exchanged at Meare and are represented in the archaeological record Including copper, tin, bronze, lead, iron, stone, flint, shale, jet, glass, amber, wood, clay, antler and bone. Close to Inverness in Scotland a site has been excavated that consists of a dozen very large roundhouses containing evidence of metal and glass working and appears to be the residence of a local Highland ruler at the turn of the millennium. The north of Scotland has types of site that are not represented elsewhere in Iron Age and early Roman Britain and seem to succeed the stone-built round houses at Jarlshof mentioned previously. Built on top of these houses both at Jarlshof and at Clichhimin are brochs. A broch (Mackie) is a dry-stone tower, some 14 to 22m in diameter, serving as a fortified homestead. The hollow walls are between 3.5 and 4.5m in thickness and contain chambers and a staircase to an upper floor or roof walk. The central court, up to 10.5m in diameter is open to the sky and contained lean-to buildings of timber against the interior wall that could be up to 12m high. Nearly four hundred of these have been recorded, now more or less ruined, in the north and west of Scotland where good examples are the Broch of Mousa in Shetland and that at Gurness in Orkney which like some other brochs is the focus of a village and where `the visitor has first to pass the deep, defensive ditches qnd ramparts to find small houses surrounding the broch. The dwellings each comprose ayard with surrounding rooms; there are hearths and storage areas as well as drains and latrines. Internally the houses were divided by high stone slabs which could be moved. A well-preserved street still runs between houses to the entrance of the broch which was clearly the heart of the settlement. Low guard cells protect the entrance ant there were also internal cells in the all at this point. Inside the brock later alterations obscure the original layout but the space was divided by upright slabs and there was a large hearth as well as a sunken well.' (Wickham-Jones - abridged) Wheelhouses (Mackie) appear to be roughly contemporary with brochs. They are circular stone-built huts, the interior of which is divided by radial stone piers projecting from the wall but leaving the middle of the hut clear. These piers presumably supported a timber and turf roof. In some examples, the piers are free-standing but are joined to the outer walls by lintels. These buildings are called aisled wheelhouses. A good example is at Clettraval in the Hebrides. Duns, which are associated with brochs, are small-dry-stoned walled enclosures seldom exceeding 370 square metres in internal area. Walls, originally about three metres high were normally solid but some were provided with mural galleries or cells. `Dun' is also used to describe a class of monuments called galleried duns that are circular or oval homesteads with a drystone wall perhaps 3.5m thick containing passages and galleries the function of which is thought to be mainly structural. By steps, either in the wall or on its inner face, the wall-top could be reached. Inside the enclosure were timber buildings in an area of perhaps c30m across. This type of dun is common in Ireland. A much larger version falls into the class of hillfort. `Blockhouses' are unusual structures and are best described as fortified gatehouses. An example is at Clickhimin had timber buildings up to three storeys in height attached to its back. A passage through the blockhouse reached the interior of the fort with cells built on either side in the thickness of the wall. At first-floor level a door gave access to the timber range and on the second floor was a look-out post (Cunliffe). A few other examples can be found elsewhere in Shetland. Our best picture of the warlike side of the Britons comes from the account by Julius Caesar of his two expeditions to Britain in 55 and 54BCE. Although he gives the impression that they were reconaissances, it is fairly clear that on the second visit he was determined on the conquest of Britain which, however, he did not have the troops to carry through. He tells us something of what he found out about Britain on his two visits in his memoirs: `The central regions of Britain are inhabited by a people who claim to have originated there. On the coast live the immigrant Belgae, who came to plunder and fight, but stayed to cultivate the land. The population is very large; they have many houses rather like those in Gaul (France) and large herds. They use bronze or gold coins or, as an alternative, iron rods of fixed weight. Tin is found inland and small quantities of iron near the coasts but they import their copper. Apart from the beech and fir, there are trees of every kind as in Gaul. They think it is wrong to eat hares or chickens or geese but they breed them as pets. As the cold is less severe, the climate is more temperate than in Gaul. The island is triangular, and one side, about 175 (Roman) miles long, is opposite Gaul. Kent forms one corner and nearly all the ships from Gaul land there. This side points east while the other points south. Another side looks west towards Spain; the Britons reckon it is roughly 665 miles long. In this direction is Ireland which they reckon is about half the size of Britain and about the same distance away from it as Gaul. In the middle of the Irish Channel is the Isle of Man; they think there are a number of smaller islands off the coast. Some geographers have written that in midwinter in these islands there are about thirty days continual darkness. Though I made enquiries, I could find nothing about this, but we did discover from accurate measurement by water-clock that the nights are shorter than on the Continent. The third side, thought to be 760 miles long, looks north with no land opposite, but one corner points roughly towards Germany. The circumference of the whole island measures 1,900 miles. The most civilised people are those in Kent that is entirely a coastal area; they have much the same customs as the Gauls. Most of those living further inland do not sow corn but live on milk and flesh and wear clothes of animal skins. All the Britons, though, dye their skins with woad that produces a blue colour and thereby look all the more terrifying in battle. They do not cut their hair but shave all the rest of the body except the head and upper lip. Wives are shared between groups of ten or twelve men, usually made up of brothers or fathers and suns. The children are reckoned as belonging to the man each girl marries first.' This account suggests that what Caesar sees with his own eyes is properly reported but that he has also retailed some rather fanciful stories he had been told as well. For example, he has this to say about Ireland. `I have nothing very certain to say about this island except that the inhabitants are less civilised than the British, for they eat great quantities of food - and men as well. Moreover, they consider it an honourable thing, when their fathers die, to eat them....' Caesar set sail from Boulogne with some ten thousand men in eighty transports at about midnight in the late summer of 55BC leaving his cavalry to embark from a spot further north and follow the main fleet. He reached the British coast at about none o'clock in the morning under the cliffs of Dover. Above him he could see the British warriors so he dropped anchor and waited for the whole fleet to gather together. At about 3.30 they moved off northwards along the coast and found a suitable landing place somewhere between Deal and Walmer. But the British had followed him along the coast and were there to greet him with their cavalry and war chariots and the Roman infantry were reluctant to land until a standard-bearer jumped into the surf and started to wade to land. A fierce fight developed and the Romans only got ashore with difficulty but when the British ran off, Caesar was unable to chase them because his cavalry had still not arrived. However, some of the British came back and offered to co-operate with the Romans. Caesar spent the next two days waiting for the cavalry. Their ships met with a storm on the crossing and thought it safer because of the horses to return to France. The storm and a high tide had a disastrous effect on the camp that Caesar had constructed on the shingled foreshore and on the warships that had been beached there and on the transports that were riding at anchor a little way out. Clearly Caesar was not familiar with the tides that did not occur in the Mediterranean Sea. Taking advantage of this mishap, the British ambushed the Seventh Legion which had been sent out to reap the Britons' harvest in the fields. A fight started and Caesar had to march to the rescue with reinforcements and drive the British off. The British force had hidden in a wood with their chariots and Caesar gives a description of how they attacked his troops. `They began by driving all over the field hurling javelins then they worked their way between their cavalry units where the warriors jumped down and fought on foot. Meanwhile the chariot drivers retired a short distance from the fighting and stationed the cars in such a way so that their masters, if outnumbered, had an easy means of retreat to their own lines. In action, therefore, they combined the mobility of cavalry with the staying power of foot soldiers. Their skill may be judged by the fact that they control the horses at full gallop on the steepest incline, check and turn them in a moment, run along the shaft, stand on the yoke and get back again into the chariot quick as lightning.' A few days later the British gathered a large force and attacked the Roman camp but were repulsed and the Romans chased them, as well as they could, with the few horses that they had, killed the stragglers and burnt several houses. Later that day, British envoys arrived to make peace. Caesar demanded that hostages be brought over to Gaul, decided to make the best of a bad job and set off back to Boulogne. Before leaving for Italy, he determined to make a full attempt at conquest next year and left orders that preparations should be made. Next year he repeated the voyage, with 800 ships this time and 2000 cavalry and built a camp, probably near the same place as the year before. There he received news that the British force had withdrawn from the coast to a fortified place at Bigbury Woods, on the River Stour, some distance inland, not far from present-day Canterbury. Leaving ten battalions and 300 cavalry to guard the camp, Caesar set off inland, following the track that led to the crossing of the river. He arrived there to find that Bigbury was a hillfort overlooking the crossing-place and that the Britons were pouring down the slope with their cavalry and war-chariots to bar his passage. However, with difficulty, he managed to cross and attacked Bigbury that had its entrances blocked with masses of felled trees. But the troops of the Seventh Legion, working under cover of interlocked shields, piled up branches against the fortifications, stormed the position and drove the Britons out at the cost of a few minor casualties. The Romans spent the rest of the day building a marching camp for the night. Next morning Caesar sent out a light force of infantry and cavalry in three parties to overtake the Britons. As they were leaving a messenger arrived from the Roman camp on the seashore with the news that an overnight storm had wrecked nearly all the expedition's ships! After what happened last year, this was incredible news. It shows how little the Romans had learnt from that experience. So the pursuit was delayed for ten days while the camp was refortified and the ships pulled up on the beach inside it. When he got back on the road to Bigbury, Caesar found that the British had taken advantage of his tardiness by combining their disparate forces and offering the leadership to Cassivellaunus, king of the Catuvellauni, whose territory lay beyond the Thames in the region of Middlesex, Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire. He began to attack the legions on the march and a running fight developed. When the Romans entrenched for the night the Britons attacked the outposts. Heavy fighting developed and the Britons were only driven off that night after reinforcements had been summoned and thrown into the mêlée Next morning the Britons threatened to continue the running fight. After a concerted effort of the legions and the cavalry, the Britons withdrew and Caesar was able to resume the march. He reached the River Thames at present-day Brentford. This must have been anticipated by Cassivellaunus for he had positioned sharpened stakes in the river bed beneath the water and on the banks. Beyond the river was the British army. The Romans' blood was up. Without delay they dashed across the river and scattered the enemy. When all his troops were across, Caesar set out for Cassivellaunus' stronghold at Wheathampstead near present-day St Albans. All along the line of march he was under attack from the British cavalry and chariots. Whenever he sent out patrols or cavalry to plunder the countryside, they were cut off and attacked. On this march envoys arrived from the Trinovantes whose territory lay in southern East Anglia and whose king had been assasinated by Cassivellaunus and whose son, who was with Caesar, had fled to Gaul to seek help from the Romans. In return for hostages and a promise to submit to his orders, Caesar sent the young man back to his people with the envoys. As a result of this decision, Caesar received offers of help and friendship from five more tribes in southern and western Britain. This heartened the Roman soldiers and when they reached Wheathampstead, the oppidum was immediately attacked from two sides and, after a brief resistance, the Britons retreated. Caesar says that great quantities of cattle were found there. Meanwhile, Cassivellaunus had instructed four of the Kentish leaders to make a surprise attack on the Roman base on the coast, In the engagement one of the Kentish leaders was killed and the rest driven off. This seems to have persuaded Cassivellaunus to come to terms with Caesar. Caesar tells us that he decided at this point to winter in Gaul so he demanded hostages from the Britons, fixed an annual tribute to be paid to Rome (acting as though he had conquered the whole country) and forbade Cassivellaunus to interfere with the Trinovantes. He then marched back to the coast and, after some problems due to a shortage of transports, managed to embark his army and set out for Gaul. He never returned to Britain. Archaeological evidence for these expeditions is very sparse. The site of Bigbury is known. It is situated on the Downs on the North Down trackway overlooking the route that Caesar took on his way to the Thames. Its main earthwork consists of a rampart 2.4m high and an outer ditch some 5m wide that encloses some 3.2 hectares. There are two entrances and an annexe on the north-west. Inside, the site has been vandalized by gravel digging during which a good many finds were made including a fire-dog, cauldron hooks, ploughshares, horse-bits and a slave-chain with a barrel padlock. From the Thames at Brentford has come one of the stout stakes sunk into the river by the Britons. At Wheathampstead, the Devil's Dyke and another earthwork called the Slad together enclose about 36 hectares. Devil's Dyke is massive, some 457m long, 12.2m deep and nearly 40m wide at the top. The Slad may be natural. So far, efforts to find traces of Caesar's camps have been unavailing: a site known as Caesar's Camp in Surrey is an early Iron Age hillfort. Iron Age warriors had a fearsome reputation and we can see that they were able to put up a good show even against Caesar's highly- trained professional army. As mercenaries they were employed as far afield as Greece and it was the warriors returning to Gaul after the terminations of their contracts who brought with them their pay in the form of Macedonian staters that provided prototypes for the Gallic staters minted by various Iron Age chieftains. These coins were also copied in Britain and are the earliest written documents in the country. Inscribed in Latin during the second half of the first century BCE we find names of leaders (often abbreviated) who were members of tribes livng in southern Britain and were also mentioned in Latin texts. There is Commios, king of the Atrebates and his sons Tincommios and Verica, there is Tasciovanos, king of the Cantuvellauni and his son Cunobelinos with the legend CAMU (Camulodunum), the stronghold of the tribe as well as other tribal leaders. It is clear from what Caesar says that the British use of chariots in warfare was old-fashioned at this time but this did not prevent them being very effective against the Roman infantry and they were only overcome when Caesar was able to deploy sufficient cavalry on his second expedition. However, the problem with all ad-hoc forces that are only brought together on specific occasions is their lack of training. Cassivellaunus, however, excellent a soldier he was in native warfare with his own troops, found at such short notice that it was virtually impossible to control the his combined force tightly enough to win against a professional army. But it seems obvious that, by the end of the campaign, Caesar was as anxious for closure as Cassivellaunus, and it is probable that it was he who proposed a settlement to the British supremo since it was Commius, Caesar's ally, who conducted the negotiations. The situation in Gaul had become so dangerous at that time that it took Caesar three years' hard fighting to put down the several rebellions that broke out in the winter of 54BCE. He never had time to consider a third expedition to Britain. There is no doubt that he had failed and that Rome knew this as well as he did. Though, on his second visit to Britain, he had in fact met and defeated far larger forces than in his first campaign, an achievement for which a public thanksgiving of twenty days was decreed and triumphal gateways set up, no second thanksgiving was arranged. A feeling of disappointment with the outcome of the expedition is summed up in a letter written by Cicero to a friend in Greece. `On October 24th I received a letter from my brother Quintus and from Caesar, sent from the nearest point on the shore of Britain on September 25th. They have settled affairs in Britain and taken hostages: there's no booty, though they have imposed a tribute; they are bringing the army back from the island.' British warriors who confronted Caesar in their chariots were the aristocrats. They were able to afford the equipment, the chariot and the driver, a magnificence at odds with what little we know of their rustic homesteads. Their martial tradition must have been a strong one, judging from the fact that in the Yorkshire Arras culture, many were buried with their weapons and some with their chariots but it is difficult to know how the militaristic tradition arose. Perhaps, it may be that it has its origin in the Late Bronze Age when the leaf-shaped swords and the horned helmets were in vogue and therefore has a pedigree of several hundreds of years. It gives us an insight into the society of the time which we can broaden by adding to the picture the Druids, the guardians of the other social and religious traditions of the period, and the new industrial traditions that were growing up at the time and base them all on the age-old tradition of agricultural production which was the bedrock of society. After 700BCE [LINK] main page [LINK] Museums [LINK]