adapted from a design by George Bain based on the Book of Kells home Programme Bookings Shop The Wuffings .
Wuffing Education
 

Smiths, Soldiers, and Princes
of pre-Roman Essex

The excavation of the possible druid’s grave at Stanway

with Howard Brooks BA (Hons) MIFA

at Tranmer House, Sutton Hoo (map)
on Saturday 6th December 2008

An exploration of the landscape of pre-Roman Essex, looking at the defended homes of rich metal traders, the Iron Age hillforts and other sites.

Essex has not had a good press recently, but its archaeological remains (especially in later prehistory and the Roman period) are of exceptional interest.
We shall explore the landscape of Essex from the Bronze Age to the eve of the Roman invasion, looking at the defended homes of rich metal traders, the Iron Age hillforts, and the Iron Age village sites (some of which may have been defended against the invasion of Julius Caesar in 55BC).

After Caesar’s time, we will examine the evidence from recent excavations in the ‘proto-town’ or oppidum of Camulodunum (the home of Cunobelin and the target of the Roman invasion of AD 43), and the extraordinary élite burials of princes (or druids?) at Stanway.

Provisional Programme
  10.00 Coffee on arrival  
  10.15 Metal traders - circular thinking? Mucking, Springfield Lyons and the metal trade in the Bronze Age. Bronze hoards – what do they mean?  
  11.15 Coffee  
  11.45 Iron Age hillforts in Essex? Settlements in the in the Essex flatlands  
  12.45 Lunch break  
  14:00 The later Iron Age in Essex: villages, oppida and trading.  
  15:00 Tea break  
  15:15 Stanway: the burial of a druid or a doctor? Gosbecks and Abbotstone: settlement and territory at Camulodunum.  
  16:15 Close  

About Howard Brooks BA (Hons) MIFA

Howard first dug in a Derbyshire cave site in 1969, and his first involvement in East Anglian Archaeology came in 1970 when he dug at Sheepen (Colchester) with Rosalind Dunnett. He studied archaeology at the University of Wales, and graduated in 1975. He worked for Colchester Archaeological Trust between 1976 and 1981, and again in 1985, where he was involved in the excavation of Roman Colchester. Between 1986 and 1991, he worked for Essex County Archaeology Section, mainly in directing the fieldwalking and excavation project at Stansted Airport. He is currently Deputy Director of Excavations for Colchester Archaeological Trust and a tutor for the University of Cambridge. He lives in Colchester with his wife and youngest daughter, and performs in ‘Am Drams’ and operettas in what little spare time he has.

Some suggestions for further reading
(useful but not essential)

Bewley, R., Prehistoric Settlements (Batsford, 1994)
Crummy, P., City of Victory (Colchester Archaeological Trust, 1997)
Cunliffe, B., The Iron Age in Britain (Batsford, 1994)
Hawkes, CFC, & Crummy, P, Camulodunum 2 (Colchester Archaeological Report 11, 1995)
Miles, David, The tribes of Britain (Phoenix 2006)
Oppenheimer, Stephen The Origins of the British Robinson Publishing, 2007)
Parker-Pearson, M., Bronze Age Britain (Batsford, 1993)
Pryor, Francis, Britain BC (Harper Collins, 2003)
Pryor, Francis, Farmers in prehistoric Britain (Tempus, 1999)

Bookings

Please phone or email to check the availability of places and then send the application form and a cheque for £38, payable to Wuffing Education to:

Wuffing Education,
4 Hilly Fields,
Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 4DX
(tel : 01394 386498)

Email cliff AT wuffingeducation.co.uk
(replace 'AT' by '@' in order to send email - we used 'AT' to avoid spam robots automatically sending us emails)
Website www.wuffingeducation.co.uk

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