Mortimer Wheeler's excavations in 1951–2 provided a three-phase chronological framework and an historical context for the great complex (c. 270 ha) of earthworks at Stanwick, placing the oppidum at the heart of Brigantian political manoeuvrings in the mid-to-late first century a.d., concluding with a final confrontation with Rome during the governorship of Petillius Cerialis (a.d. 71–4). Since then much had changed to provide the rationale for Haselgrove's excavation within the Tofts, a 6.25 ha ‘promontory enclosure’ at the heart of the Stanwick complex, between 1981 and 1989. Not only were there doubts about Wheeler's short chronology, but new or more firmly established techniques in archaeological practice, most notably radiocarbon dating and the systematic recovery of carbonised plant remains, offered the possibilities of a revised chronology and new perspectives, including on Stuart Piggott's model of a pastoral economy across northern Britain. Above all there was a need to characterise better the nature of the occupation and to place it in the context of British and European late Iron Age oppida more widely.

Much has been learned from the 1980s excavation: five periods proposed, spanning the first century b.c./first century a.d. (c. 80/70 b.c.–a.d. 65/75), rather than the much shorter, Wheeler chronology; clear evidence for a local arable economy; a complex sequence of occupation in the principal area of excavation (c. 1,200 m²), Site 9 in the Tofts, including timber roundhouses which were replaced by stone-footed equivalents in Period 5 (a.d. 30/40–65/75). Remarkable among the Period 4 (c. 30/20 b.c.–a.d. 30/40) buildings were the large structures LS1 and LS2, the latter with an inner diameter of c. 9.2 m and a projected outer diameter of 15.1 m, making it one of the largest timber roundhouses in Britain, with parallels at Fison Way in East Anglia and the mighty ‘40 metre structure’ at Navan in Ireland. Given the small area excavated it might be reasonable to hypothesise other similar-sized structures within the rest of the Tofts enclosure. The excavation provided evidence for both local trade, in the form of briquetage, and, in the case of imported Roman pottery and other artefacts, of more distant trade to the south of Britain and to the Continent, perhaps from as early as the Tiberio-Claudian period, but more certainly from the a.d. 50s and up to the end of occupation, c. a.d. 70. Compared with southern oppida, such as Camulodunum and Calleva, the quantities of imported goods are very small and the sherds themselves generally small and abraded, but the South Gaulish samian assemblage of 171 pieces (with an average sherd weight of 5.45 g), in particular, includes a high proportion of decorated sherds and of vessel types, such as the Hermet 15 decorated flask, which are exceptionally rare elsewhere in Britain. As well as some high-quality glass, two sherds were recovered of a decorated obsidian bowl, not otherwise paralleled from Britain at this time. With traders well established at London by the early a.d. 50s, the opportunities for trade would have seemed more favourable than before the conquest, but merchants’ energies may have been consumed by the need to supply the Roman military with better expectations of good returns. However, the recent discovery at Scotch Corner, a short distance from Stanwick, of a large contemporary settlement with an impressive range and number of Roman imports, several as exotic as those from contemporary Stanwick (Period 5), raises challenging questions both about its role and that of its impressively fortified neighbour (British Archaeology May/June 2017, 14–21).

Comparisons are made with southern oppida such as Camulodunum or Calleva, with their rectilinear architecture and abundant and diverse material culture assemblages, rich in well-dated imports, providing chronologies slightly at variance with that advocated for Stanwick, which, in the absence or scarcity of datable artefacts before Period 5, relies on a sequence of radiocarbon dates interpreted with Bayesian statistics. Period 1 stretches back to the early first century b.c. and the start of Period 4 to c. 30/20 b.c. This gives a much longer history of development compared with the southern British oppida, whose intensive occupation begins scarcely 50 years or so before the Claudian invasion. Of course we should not assume parallel trajectories, but just how confident can we be in the radiocarbon chronology at this time? To assist calibration it would be helpful to obtain radiocarbon dates from Roman contexts closely dated through the associated material culture to the later first century b.c. and the first century a.d.

H. and his colleagues are to be congratulated on a magnificent report, which, inter very many invaluable alia, reasserts Cartimandua's association with Stanwick. It is a landmark publication of enduring value for oppida studies and Britain's (and Europe's) later prehistory more widely.