Iron Age Archaeology c.800 BC-AD 400
- Comments
-
Glasgow Museums has a medium-sized collection of Iron Age artefacts and related material which broadly dates from around 800 BC to AD 400. The Iron Age saw the innovation of the smelting and working of a new material – iron - into objects such as axeheads, spearheads, pins, and knives. Iron was also alloyed to produce carbon steel. The use of rotary querns for grinding grain and use of the potter’s wheel also first appeared in this period. Further, the making and use of items of glass, mainly beads, became firmly established during the Iron Age. In this period forts and crannogs were further developed, and new types of structure, such as duns and brochs, were built. Caves and rock shelters were also used for occupation, industrial and craft activities, and sometimes for burial and ritual purposes. As in the Bronze Age, the practice of the deposition of two or more objects in hoards continued. This period also saw the arrival of the Romans in the 1st century AD, bringing great change to life in central and southern Scotland in particular. Glasgow Museums holds confirmed Iron Age material from fifteen of Scotland’s thirty-two Council Areas, as well as a few items from other countries such as England and Ireland. We also hold modern replicas of some Iron Age objects from Ireland, and models of a broch and crannog. The Iron Age material is from crannogs, forts, duns, souterrains, roundhouses, burial sites, a possible religious and/or ritual site, and a hoard. There are also chance finds in the collection dating to this period. Artefacts include a ladder, logboat, glass beads, torc, armlet fragments, sling stones, grinders, pounders, rotary quern fragments, crucible fragments, and a Celtic head sculpture. Further material includes human remains, animal bones, slag, daub, charcoal, and carbonised cereal grains. Of particular note is material from scheduled monuments, objects from Dumbuck and Langbank East crannogs, and a group of samples of vitrified stone collected by antiquarians from many different forts across Scotland. In addition, Glasgow Museums holds material from the UNESCO World Heritage Site of St Kilda. The Iron Age material in Glasgow Museums’ collections has been acquired from the late nineteenth century onwards. We are still actively adding to this collection group. It should be noted that only sites which contain solely Iron Age and related material, or Iron Age chance finds, are couched under the ‘Iron Age Archaeology’ heading on the Collections Navigator website. To view Site records with further Iron Age archaeological material, please look under the ‘Multi-Period Archaeology’ heading or carry out a general search using the term ‘Iron Age’.
- Broader term
- Narrower term
- Staff Contact