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the archaeology of the first century B.C. is the
lamentable shortage of sites with a long sequence of occupation,
particularly in Kent, an area at the heart of the 'Belgic controversy'.
II. THE POTTERY OF THE
'AYLESFORD-SWARLING CULTURE'
The passage in Caesar's Gallic Wars (v, 12) recording the
settlement of maritime areas of Britain by immigrants from the Belgic
areas of Gaul in the century of his own subjugation of Gaul has been
possibly the foundation for more speculation on the late Iron Age in
Britain than any other ancient reference. The excavation of two cemeteries
in Kent, at Aylesford (Evans 1890) and Swarling (Bushe-Fox 1925) provided
type-sites for the study of 'Belgic' Britain, and the 'Aylesford-Swarling
Culture' is entrenched in the literature (see Champion 1976, 10-17,
for an historiography, and Cunliffe 1978, 83-93 for a summary of its
elements).
The pottery of the Aylesford-Swarling Culture has been the
subject of intensive studies by a number of scholars, including doctoral
theses in recent years by Thompson (1982) and Tyers (1981). The
characteristics of the pottery are much less elusive than its chronology.
Vessels are generally wheel-thrown, and evince a penchant for cordons, 'corrugation',
and zones of combed or 'furrowed' decoration. Shapes may be angular or
rounded, often with pedestal or foot-ring bases, and in some cases clearly
derived from the fine platters, beakers, cups and flagons of
Julio-Claudian northern Gaul (Figs. 14 and 15). The use of grog
temper was extensive, though not universal, particularly in south-east
Britain (Thompson 1982). Typological affinities with northern French
material are strong, particularly between the assemblages of Kent and the
Boulonnais, northern Artois and western Flanders (Tyers 1980, 1981).
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Chronological studies have tended to look to associated, independently
dateable objects, such as metalwork or imported fine pottery and amphorae,
for the elucidation of a developmental sequence in the 'Belgic' pottery,
either in burials or on stratified sites (e.g. Rodwell 1976a; Stead 1976;
Birchall 1965). Opinions voiced in the early 1980s have held that such
studies are premature (Tyers 1980; Thompson 1982, 3), though the desire to
make sense of the tantalising evidence for dating the late pre-Roman Iron
Age in south-east Britain is understandable. The databases for both funerary
(e.g. Stead 1969; Thompson 1978) and domestic (e.g. Partridge 1981; Thompson
1982; Blockley and Day forthcoming) assemblages are expanding gradually, but
it is still easier to criticise earlier attempts at chronology than it is to
establish a new, more acceptable version (Pollard 1983a, 52-5).
'Aylesford-Swarling', or more appropriately 'Belgic'
pottery (in the sense of a distinctive class of pottery, without political,
economic or historical implications: Thompson 1982, 5), is, so far as
the regions south of the Thames are concerned, primarily a feature of
eastern Kentish sites. In Kent west of the Medway valley (except perhaps on
the Thames flood plain), and in East Sussex, it is rare, and may be regarded
as either intrusive or a product of a cross-fertilisation of ideas (Thompson
1982, 11-14; Green 1980; Pollard 1983a, 55-63).
III. POTTERY STYLE-ZONES IN
LATE IRON AGE KENT
The dearth of 'Aylesford-Swarling' cemeteries west of the Medway valley
- Stone-near Greenhithe (Cotton and Richardson 1941) is the sole known
occurrence - may be an accident of
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