Time Team - Swords, Skulls and Strongholds
Monday, 19 May 2008
The Iron Age is the period of about 800 years before the Romans arrived to turn this nation of disparate tribes into a single state.
No writing survives from the time; the only accounts were written by the conquering Romans.
It was a crucial yet mysterious period of British history. A time which left the landscape littered with huge, impressive and enigmatic monuments.
For centuries, this Age was believed to have been barbaric and primitive, with warring tribes venturing out from their hilltop forts to confront each other; the most sophisticated engineering visible in those forts assumed to have been learnt from the Romans.
But in the last 20 years, archaeologists have turned this rather apocalyptic vision on its head. 'Hill forts' were not forts, they were villages, religious and trading places.
They were a statement of grandeur and presence, a claim to the surrounding land. They were protected but they were there to avoid war, not wage it.
The Iron Age Britons were a skilled people to whom community was vital.
But there was a darker side to their life. For them the Gods were ever present, whether underground or in the air.
They had to be constantly appeased, sometimes in the most shocking ways. Tony Robinson with Francis Pryor and Phil Harding presents this radical new picture of a key time in our history.
This episode is on CHANNEL 4, Monday 19 May 2008 @ 9-10pm.
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