Crease, SME; (2015) Re-Thinking Ritual Traditions: Interpreting Structured Deposition in Watery Contexts in Late Pre-Roman Iron Age and Roman Britain. Doctoral thesis , UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

This investigation seeks to define the strands of continuity and change in structured deposition across the Late Pre-Roman Iron Age to Early Roman transition in Britain, and interpret their significance in terms of cultural interaction. These interpretations not only examine and re-think structured deposition in relation to ritual traditions, but also explore how the continuity of such traditions was impacted by the transition between these two periods. Metalwork is a central focus but a wide range of other finds are also considered in order to take a holistic perspective on deposition. Watery deposits were an obvious starting point but comparisons with dry context deposits were necessary to provide a more complete understanding of these practices. The data were gathered from a number of individual sites throughout two contrasting case study zones defined by major waterways and labelled as such: the Severn-Thames Axis in the south and the Solway-Forth Axis in the north of Britain. Through the use of site reports as the main source of data, the analysis took a two-tiered approach. Individual episodes of structured deposition were examined and interpreted on a site-by-site basis. This then led to investigations on a broader scale by examining changes in the continuity of practices in the type of finds deposited, the contexts into which deposition took place and pre-deposition practices, such as deliberate breakage to determine patterns of deposition across the case study zones as a whole. With this comparative analysis it can be concluded that watery contexts were not a unique locus of structured deposition, and indeed that this practice is highly diverse across the zones studied. The temporal

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