New Perspectives on Warfare in the Iron Age of Wessex

Summary

Wessex, a region of southern England, has been the subject of more study than almost any other region of the UK. While much excavation has focused on the Iron Age little work has focused on the role of warfare at that time. Discussions of warfare have led to antithetical conclusions by researchers utilizing the same material with much of the disagreement stemming from fundamentally different interpretations of equivocal evidence and assumptions about life in the period. Some of this is ultimately founded on untested models and questionable historic accounts. I propose a new method of approaching warfare utilizing what I am calling bellicose references as a way of cutting through and resolving many of the issues that have complicated the study of warfare. Based in Practice Theory, specifically the idea of habitus, bellicose references are a conceptual tool that shifts focus away from the presence or absence of warfare and instead puts the focus on how these materials manifest socially, putting the focus on human action and practice. I demonstrate the usefulness of this approach utilizing data from Wessex and show how this, in conjunction with other information from the region, gives a more holistic understanding of violence and conflict.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 22183