- The Social Implications of Celtic Art -
contexts, on habitation sites. In Yorkshire, at Staple Howe, a small oval enclosure on
a hill-top had round or oval houses about 8 m across, in one of which someone
had left two razors (sixth-fifth centuries Be), one bronze - an exotic from across the
North Sea - the other a native piece (Brewster 1963; Piggott 1965: 199; Cunliffe 1974:
204-5, fig. 133). This gives some idea of a minor chief's accommodation towards the
north of Britain at this time, the exotic iron razor perhaps an item of prestige gift-
exchange. At Coygan, on the south-west coast of Wales, a small defended pro-
montory was a farmstead from the fourth century Be; the pair of simple bronze
arm-rings might by European Celtic standards suggest a lady of modest rank, a
member of the family who controlled this coastal farming estate in the third century
Be (Wainwright 1967: 83-5; d. a lady buried at Trevone on the opposite north
Cornish coast: Dudley and Jope 1965).
Little Woodbury in Wiltshire, a ring-work whose interior was fully excavated by
Bersu 1940) had a substantial round house 13 m across, producing an iron ring-
headed pin and iron brooch of the third century Be (Brailsford 1949: 165) and good
pottery; it was set one among a group of prosperous farmsteads (but with very
modest artwork), developing in use through some ten generations (Harding 1974:
21-3). At Gussage All Saints in Dorset, inhabitants from the third century Be
secured their clothing with simple brooches; but here in the later second-first
centuries Be some intensive bronze-founding was producing items of horse and
vehicle harness (Spratling in Wainwright 1979; Foster 1980) which ranks with that of
the Yorkshire chariot-burial chieftains with their display swords (see pp. 394-5),
thereby revealing Gussage as probably an establishment of chieftain class. We
should, however, be cautious in not too readily upgrading farmsteads of this
kind without specific evidence (e.g. Harding 1974: 21-7; Pimperne, Harding and
Blake 1993, Little Woodbury, etc.). Gussage illustrates the kind of evidence needed
to upgrade to higher rank; note also the refined balance-arm which the metal-
workers at Gussage were using (Wainwright 1979; d. Stradonice in Moscati et al.
1991 : 541).
A mirror with decorated back must have been a fine possession for a British lady
in the early first century AD. These mirrors are mostly confined to Britain, from the
later first century Be for about a century, and those with decorated backs seem to
recall faraway Etruscan ways of some centuries earlier. They have nearly all been
found in burials, but one of the finest and heaviest, from Holcombe near Lyme Regis
in south Devon, gives a rare instance of such a mirror in domestic context, for it must
be associated with the native house underlying the romanized farm (Fox and Pollard
1973; Jope and Jacobsthal in press, pIs 236-55).
The rivers among the extensive farmlands of the upper Thames have yielded fine
daggers and swords of the fourth-first centuries Be Gope 1961; Jope and Jacobsthal
in press:, pIs 12-27; Harding 1972). These may in fact be part of a body-disposal
custom (see p. 384), the men who owned these weapons actually living as residents
up on the chalk rather than on the damp river-plain. A group of horse and vehicle
gear at Hagbourne, on the chalk (Harding 1972: 41, 91; Leeds 1933: 133, 124),
suggests that it is up there that the chieftainly residences should be sought, even
among the hill-forts (d. Hod Hill, Dorset (Richmond 1968: 2 Iff., figs 12-14). Hill-
forts imply high-ranking leadership and organization of manpower and material
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