Publications
Social Relations in Later Prehistory: Wessex in the First Millennium BC, by Niall Sharples, published 25 June 2010 (392 pp., Oxford University Press, ISBN-10: 0199577714 & ISBN-13: 9780199577712)
Abstract:In this fully illustrated study, Niall Sharples examine the complex social relationships of the Wessex region of southern England in the first millennium BC. He considers the nature of the landscape and manner of its organization, the methods that bring people together into large communities, the role of the individual, and how the region relates to other regions of Britain and Europe. These thematic concerns cover a detailed analysis of the significance of hillforts, the development of coinage and other exchange processes, the character of houses, and the nature of burial practices. Sharples offers an exciting new picture of a period and a region which has considerable importance for British archaeology, and he also provides all archaeologists interested in prehistory with a model of how later prehistoric society can be interpreted.
Review by John Manley in Sussex Past & Present no. 124, August 2011:What relevance has this book on Wessex for Sussex? A little and a lot I think. The former because the book encompasses the far west of Sussex - Chichester and the coastal plain; the latter because it provides a source of ideas with which to rethink aspects of the last millennium BC in our county. Four chapters deal with major themes - the landscape, gifts and exchange, the house and finally the burial record, and this reader found new insights into all of them. An interesting interpretation of hillforts, for example, sees them as competing communal centres in regions populated by many small, antagonistic communities.
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Sussex readers will find reference to some well known sites as Blackpatch, Itford Hill, The Trundle and the Chichester Dykes. Some minor points of disagreement. The author maintains that the siting of the hillfort at The Trundle was not linked in some way to the earlier Neolithic causewayed-camp (page 25); I think it was. And Middle Iron Age multiple-roundhouse settlements at Chalkpit Lane and Westhampnett suggest quite a dense Iron Age occupation of the West Sussex Coastal Plain (pace Sharples page 81). Much of the author's inspiration is derived from extensive reading of ethnography and social anthropology - which makes the archaeological interpretation so much richer.
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Sussex readers will find reference to some well known sites as Blackpatch, Itford Hill, The Trundle and the Chichester Dykes. Some minor points of disagreement. The author maintains that the siting of the hillfort at The Trundle was not linked in some way to the earlier Neolithic causewayed-camp (page 25); I think it was. And Middle Iron Age multiple-roundhouse settlements at Chalkpit Lane and Westhampnett suggest quite a dense Iron Age occupation of the West Sussex Coastal Plain (pace Sharples page 81). Much of the author's inspiration is derived from extensive reading of ethnography and social anthropology - which makes the archaeological interpretation so much richer.