Conny Waters – AncientPages.com – Maiden Castle is one of the most extensive and most complex Iron Age fortifications discovered in Britain. The site is located 1.6 mi (2.6 km) southwest of Dorchester, in the English county of Dorset.
Aerial view of Maiden Castle, Dorset, the largest Iron Age hillfort in Britain (image credit: Jo and Sue Crane.
For decades, the site symbolized the heroic resistance of the Britons against the Romans, but this historical image is untrue.
Modern analysis conducted by archaeologists at Bournemouth University (BU) undermines the old version of events.
Maiden Castle was instead the scene of diverse local conflicts, social tensions, and cultural changes that involved brutality but spread over decades and generations of violence where Britons lost their lives at the hands of fellow Britons. This period is marked by internal strife and repeated clashes that significantly impacted the nation’s history.
A new study has revealed that bodies recovered from the so-called ‘war-cemetery’ at Maiden Castle Iron Age hillfort in Dorset —previously attributed to the Roman Conquest of Britain—did not die in a single dramatic event.
Researchers re-examined the burials and used radiocarbon dating, which has revealed that individuals became victims of deadly violence spanning multiple generations, spread across the late first century BC to the early first century AD.
BU’s Dr Martin Smith, Associate Professor in Forensic and Biological Anthropology, who conducted the analysis of the remains, confirmed that the discovery of dozens of human skeletons displaying lethal weapon injuries was never in doubt.
However, by undertaking a systematic programme of radiocarbon dating, it was possible to establish that “these individuals died over a period of decades, rather than a single terrible event”.
This suggests episodic periods of bloodshed, possibly the result of localised turmoil, executions, or dynastic infighting during the decades leading up to the Roman Conquest of Britain.
Skeleton with evidence of bladed weapon injuries. Image copyright Martin Smith
The ‘war-cemetery’ of Maiden was discovered in 1936. Many of the skeletons unearthed had clear evidence of trauma to the head and upper body. Dig director at the time, Sir Mortimer Wheeler, suggested that the marks were “the marks of battle”, caused during a furious but ultimately futile defence of the hillfort against an all-conquering Roman legion. Wheeler’s colorful account of an attack on the native hillfort and the massacre of its defenders by invading Romans, was accepted as fact, becoming an iconic event in popular narratives of Britain’s ‘Island Story’.
“Since the 1930s, the story of Britons fighting Romans at one of the largest hillforts in the country has become a fixture in historical literature. With the Second World War fast approaching, no one was really prepared to question the results,” said Dr Miles Russell, Principal Academic in Prehistoric and Roman Archaeology at BU, and the study’s Dig Director.
Two of the skeletons excavated by Mortimer Wheeler in the 1930s, dating from the 1st century AD. Both these individuals exhibit bladed weapon injuries, whilst one has a spear head lodged in his spine, previously interpreted (wrongly) as a Roman ballista bolt. Image Copyright Martin Smith
“The tale of innocent men and women of the local Durotriges tribe being slaughtered by Rome is powerful and poignant. It features in countless articles, books and TV documentaries. It has become a defining moment in British history, marking the sudden and violent end of the Iron Age.”
“The trouble is it doesn’t appear to have actually happened. Unfortunately, the archaeological evidence now points to it being untrue. This was a case of Britons killing Britons, the dead being buried in a long-abandoned fortification. The Roman army committed many atrocities, but this does not appear to be one of them.”
Written by Conny Waters – AncientPages.com Staff Writer
