- Chapter Ten -
Braughing, perhaps the royal residence of Tasciovanus (Partridge I 98 I). Though it
has an exceptionally rich range of imported continental pottery and amphorae for
wine and garum (fish paste) from Italy and Spain, it lacks the prestigious dykes found
elsewhere. As on later sites, one of the nodal points is a subrectangular enclosure
which may mark the royal residence. In the case of Gosbecks at Colchester there is
a temple site immediately adjacent. The major centres of population were elsewhere
within the enclosed area, but most of these sites are badly eroded or excavated in
only a limited way, so their true nature is unclear; the supposed industrial activity is
more assumed than demonstrated.
In addition to these top-level 'royal' sites there are secondary centres, of which
Baldock is the most extensively explored. It too has a dyke system, and rich burials,
with buckets, chain mail, etc., but certainly not of the highest class. Similar centres
seem to have existed along the Thames, as at Dorchester on Thames or Abingdon. In
Wessex even smaller agglomerations are now being identified which seem to ape on
a small scale the eastern oppida - sites like Gussage Hill in Dorset with its short
lengths of dykes and ditched burial enclosure. But the larger sites are also found in
the west (Bagendon in Gloucestershire) or in the north (Stanwick in North
Yorkshire).
Many of these sites were subsequently to develop into Roman towns. Colchester
was initially selected as the capital of the new province, though it was quickly
eclipsed by London. St Albans rose rapidly to the status of municipium; Braughing
became a 'small town'. Other towns such as Leicester or Canterbury have more
shadowy iron age origins. To what extent this was a natural outcome of an already
developing process, or rather the imposition of an entirely new system from outside,
is still a matter of discussion.
OVERVIEWUrbanization among the Celtic-speaking tribes of continental Europe and Britain
is essentially a phenomenon of the third to the first centuries Be, occurring in a
wide arc from central Spain and Portugal in the west to the Carpathian Basin in the
east. The urban sites in this zone form a contrast to those of the Mediterranean
countries, in that generally they are large in size and small in number, in contrast to
the small but densely spaced sites of the Mediterranean littoral, be they Greek,
Etruscan, Roman, Gallic or Iberian. This in part seems to be connected with social
and political organization: the Mediterranean towns generally start their life as
city-states, whereas, in Gaul at least, we are dealing with tribal states covering much
larger territories. Inscribed coinage usually bears the name of an individual ruler or
aristocrat, in contrast to the city's name in the Mediterranean. Celtiberian inscribed
coinages are among the few exceptions (Blanco Garcia I99I).
Chronologically the appearance of these sites is not homogeneous - probably
third century in Spain, early second century in Czechoslovakia and southern
Germany, late second century in Gaul, later first century in Slovakia, and early first
century AD in Britain (Figure IO.5). Nor can we look for a common cause for their
appearance. Defence and nucleation of the population within a defended site is a