Thanks to several decades of intensive research under the direction of Fulford, Silchester has become one of the best-investigated Roman towns in the north-western provinces. However, it is also significant in terms of its Iron Age evidence, since the Roman town of Calleva Atrebatum was preceded by a pre-conquest oppidum. The chronology of this late Iron Age occupation, ranging from the very end of the first century b.c. to the Claudian conquest, makes it a prime case study for analysing the transition between the late Iron Age and the Roman period in Britain. While the first late Iron Age traces were discovered in the 1980s during excavations of the Roman Forum-Basilica (M. Fulford and J. Timby, Late Iron Age and Roman Silchester, London 2000), it has been the fieldwork in ‘Insula IX’ (uncovering slightly over 3,000 m2) that has provided the greatest amount of pre-conquest evidence. This is presented in detail in this book, which is focused on the period from c. 10 b.c. to a.d. 45/50 and is the third volume from the 1997–2014 Silchester Town Life Project after the publication of the mid- and late Roman evidence (M. Fulford and A. Clarke, Silchester: City in Transition, London 2011; M. Fulford et al., Life and Labour in Late Roman Silchester, London 2006); two forthcoming books will cover the Claudio-Neronian and the late first- and early second-century a.d. occupation.
Iron Age oppida are a difficult category of sites to investigate, since, due to their large area, we have only a limited knowledge of their internal occupation (S. Fichtl, La ville celtique, Paris 2005). While geophysical and airborne surveys are helping to overcome partly this shortcoming, it is essential to combine them with targeted excavations to assess the stratigraphic sequence and the nature of the occupation. The authors estimate that, combining the excavations of the Forum-Basilica and Insula IX, approximately 1.2% of the defended core of Iron Age Silchester has been excavated (0.4 ha of a total of 32.5 ha). This is still far from the most extensively excavated oppidum on mainland Europe (Manching, with c. 10% of the total 380 ha investigated; S. Sievers, Manching: Die Keltenstadt, Stuttgart 2007, plus additions of more recent work), but much more than at most other British oppida. The recent publication of the fieldwork at Stanwick represents a northern British ‘counterpart’ to the present volume, and allows for interesting comparisons that exemplify the heterogeneity covered by the generic term oppidum (C. Haselgrove (ed.), Cartimandua's Capital? The Late Iron Age Royal Site at Stanwick, North Yorkshire, York 2016).
The book's 24 chapters are grouped into four thematic sections: introduction to the project and stratigraphic sequences; finds (subdivided into categories such as brooches, coins, glass vessels and pottery); environmental evidence (from animal remains to pollen analysis, radiocarbon dating and geochemistry); and the concluding discussion which summarises and contextualises the results. In addition to the four main authors, the book also includes analyses of specific aspects of the archaeology and materials by several other scholars and over 100 pages of appendices. The text is complemented by numerous excellent-quality figures and tables, and a digital repository held by the Archaeology Data Service (https://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archives/view/calleva_reading_2018/index.cfm).
The richness of the information presented makes it impossible to summarise all the chapters. Nonetheless, I would like to highlight the importance of the structural evidence, which includes a number of compounds, and in particular the remains of a monumental hall of c. 48 m in length. Also of note are the complexity and variety of the economic activities and the regional and international connections documented at Insula IX. Finally, the excellent environmental work, which reflects the highest standards of modern archaeological investigations, has provided some notable results: for example, that celery, coriander and olives were imported and consumed before the Claudian conquest (see also L. Lodwick, ‘Condiments before Claudius: new plant foods at the late Iron Age oppidum at Silchester, UK’, Vegetation History and Archaeobotany 23 (2014), 543–9). Among the very few aspects of the volume that might have benefited from further consideration is the relatively limited comparison with other oppida in Britain and the near continent.
The Silchester project exemplifies the value of long-term research excavations, which are becoming increasingly rare at a time when short-term planning based on review cycles places growing pressure on scholars to produce quick outputs. It is not by chance that the best-investigated continental Iron Age sites, such as Heuneburg and Manching, have been excavated on a more or less continuous basis since the 1950s. Funding bodies must recognise that this type of long-term work is still relevant in the 21st century, at least at a few selected sites that provide privileged ‘windows’ into the past while serving as field schools for future generations of archaeologists.
In sum, this outstanding volume represents a milestone in the study of late Iron Age oppida in southern Britain and further contributes to establishing Silchester as one of the best-excavated archaeological sites on the island. There is an increasing body of information on oppida north of the Channel which deserves to be taken into account by scholars working on mainland Europe.
