Professor Tom Moore

There's Wilbury, there's Breeden Hill where you have violence.

You know, people who were clearly killed, probably massacred at the site.

So there is interpersonal violence, but I think it's from the evidence we have from the human remains that I think it's unlikely that this is happening all the time, everybody.

And for some people, you may get status through warfare, through violence, but I think this is probably not always the case and perhaps not often the case.

Yeah, I mean, I think it's certainly and certainly in the late Iron Age, those kind of, you know, battles between groups of Iron Age people certainly happened and throughout the Iron Age.

You know, certainly violence was part of society.

There was warfare.

I think where I'm sort of distinguishing, I guess, is from the kind of assumption that status is always gained through violence.

I mean, we're just talking about female power and that's probably more through ownership of land.

And so it's probably land that's most important.

So,

Is that difference between saying is violence part of society or is it a warrior elite?

And I think that might sound like, you know, nitpicking, but actually I think it's really important to think how do you gain status?

And violence is probably one way, but it's perhaps not common all the time.

So for much of the Iron Age, there is little in the way of temples or sanctuaries.

They appear at the very end of the Iron Age.

Where we see belief is through things like remains buried on settlement sites, both human remains, but also animal remains, structured sometimes, so arranged in unusual ways, which are probably some kind of ritual activity offerings on settlement sites.

Even the structure of the way their settlements are organized, mentioning about the way round houses that can be orientated towards the rising sun.

So the way you structure the space of your settlement is also about reflecting ritual and belief.

But there's not a place probably where you go and do ritual for much of the Iron Age.