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Rachel Pope

University of Liverpool, Archaeology, Classics and Egyptology, Faculty Member

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I research social organisation in the 1st millennium BC of western Europe. My work focuses on:

• Celts (discovering the regional nature of gender roles and social norms in Early Iron Age Europe from the mortuary evidence)
• Hillfort origins and development (understanding Late Bronze Age-Middle Iron Age social organisation beyond the household)
• Prehistoric houses (roundhouse architecture, set in a contextual understanding of settlement and land use temporality)

More technically, my work is developing new method for a data-led social archaeology, using contextual archaeological studies and multi-variate analysis towards a new understanding of social organisation and the mechanisms of social change.
Address: Department of Archaeology, Classics and Egyptology, University of Liverpool, UK (estab. 1904)
UK #2 for teaching excellence (The Guardian 2019) | UK Top 10 since 2011

Profile: http://www.liv.ac.uk/archaeology-classics-and-egyptology/staff/rachel-pope/
Google Scholar: http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=pp3KvewAAAAJ&hl=en

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Nerissa Russell

Cornell University

Duke University

Universidade de Lisboa

David González-Álvarez

CSIC (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas-Spanish National Research Council)

Marta Diaz-Guardamino

Durham University

Manuel Fernández-Götz

University of Oxford

The University of Manchester

Università di Bologna

Appalachian State University

Kristian Kristiansen

University of Gothenburg

InterestsView All (32)

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Celts & Society by Rachel Pope

Did prehistoric women have the right to roam? (online panel event)

Panel event with Dr Penny Bickle (University of York) and Dr Jenni French (University of Liverpoo... more

Origins of the Celts (podcast)

Episode of 'The Ancients' podcast with Tristan Hughes.

Re-approaching Celts II (online talk, 1.9K YouTube views)

Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 2023

i. Celts and the Danube? ii. The case for western survival of Celtic ideas.

Who were the Celts?

Dig It! Scotland, 2023

2000-word article for popular audience. Sometimes artefacts discovered in Scotland are identified... more 2000-word article for popular audience. Sometimes artefacts discovered in Scotland are identified as ‘Celtic’ and groups of people from Scotland’s past are referred to as ‘Celtic tribes’. Is this accurate? What does it mean? And who are these people? We asked Dr Rachel Pope, an archaeologist specialising in Iron Age Europe.

Re-approaching Celts: Origins, Society, and Social Change (30K downloads)

Journal of Archaeological Research, 2022

This work re-approaches the origins of “the Celts” by detailing the character of their society an... more This work re-approaches the origins of “the Celts” by detailing the character of their society and the nature of social change in Europe across 700–300 BC. A new approach integrates regional burial archaeology with contemporary classical texts to further refine our social understanding of the European Iron Age. Those known to us as “Celts” were matrifocal Early Iron Age groups in central Gaul who engaged in social traditions out of the central European salt trade and became heavily involved in Mediterranean politics. The paper focuses on evidence from the Hallstatt–La Tène transition to solve a 150-year-old problem: how the Early Iron Age “Celts” became the early La Tène “Galatai,” who engaged in the Celtic migrations and the sacking of Rome at 387 BC.

Review: ‘Bretons & Britons: The Fight for Identity’ by Barry Cunliffe

Current Archaeology 380, 54, 2021

Review: ‘Exploring Celtic Origins: New Ways Forward in Archaeology, Linguistics, and Genetics’ edited by Barry Cunliffe and John T. Koch.

Archaeological Journal 177(2), 2020

Gender and Society

In C. Haselgrove, P.S. Wells, and K. Rebay-Salisbury (eds) Oxford Handbook of the European Iron Age. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023

Over the last 25 years, archaeologists have been battling to disentangle Iron Age studies from th... more Over the last 25 years, archaeologists have been battling to disentangle Iron Age studies from the twin problems of masculine Classical comment, and a male-dominated archaeology of the later twentieth century – which together bequeathed to us a somewhat imbalanced view of European Iron Age society (Pope and Ralston 2011; Arnold 2012). For Arnold (1991), treatment of Iron Age women had ranged from ‘benign neglect to active sabotage’, with a similar trend recognized in studies of Celtic history (Berresford Ellis 1995: 78). Later twentieth-century archaeological methodologies continued to rely upon historical and/or anthropological analogy to reconstruct social organization – essentially an unrelenting circular argument, endlessly reproducing a familiar, romantic, patriarchal Celtic society.

Celts: Art and Identity at the British Museum

History Today, 2016

Invited review article on the British Museum Celts exhibition for History Today magazine. On comm... more

The Celts: Blood, Iron and Sacrifice

History Today, 2015

Invited review article on BBC 2 series 'The Celts: Blood, Iron and Sacrifice'. A new BBC series f... more

A Late Iron Age Helmet Burial from Bridge, near Canterbury, Kent

by Julia Farley and Rachel Pope

Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society, 2014

A rare find was made in 2012 when a metal-detectorist on land near Bridge, a few miles south of C... more A rare find was made in 2012 when a metal-detectorist on land near Bridge, a few miles south of Canterbury, Kent, recovered a copper alloy brooch, other metal items, and a quantity of burnt bone contained in a near complete, probably imported Gallic, helmet of Iron Age type. Excavation was undertaken to ascertain the immediate context of the helmet, confirm that it represented a cremation burial, and determine if it formed part of a larger funerary deposit. The helmet and brooch suggest a burial date in the mid-1st century BC and the apparently isolated cremation burial, of a possibly female adult, can be broadly placed within the Aylesford-Swarling tradition; the helmet taking the place of a more usual pottery cinerary urn. Cropmark evidence suggests that the burial was made within a wider landscape of Iron Age occupation.

Gender in British Prehistory

In D. Bolger (ed.) A Companion to Gender Prehistory (Blackwell Companions to History). Oxford: Blackwell, 2012

This paper is a first attempt to synthesise work on gender in British prehistory and aims to disc... more This paper is a first attempt to synthesise work on gender in British prehistory and aims to discover something of the nature of prehistoric gender identities from the archaeology. Recognising a failure in British settlement studies to move beyond unenlightened ideas surrounding sex as binary, with female as domestic; we turn instead to the mortuary evidence in an attempt to recognise specifically prehistoric gender identities through graveside practices and artefacts associated with sexed bodies. In the later 20th century, British prehistoric studies exchanged an over-reliance on functionalist and historical interpretation for an over-reliance instead on anthropology. From reading in feminist theory, it is now clear that we cannot project our assumptions about sex and gender back onto the past, as has so often been the case in archaeology in the creation of imaginary reconstructions of gendered labour in prehistoric settlements.

As critical archaeologists, we can again attempt an objective, contextual study of our material evidence – working from the ground up, in our rejection of top-down social modelling and the uncritical use of analogy. As part of this trajectory, the present authors turn to gender archaeology in the hope of identifying distinctly prehistoric gender identities in the mortuary evidence – Brück’s (1999) ‘prehistoric rationality’. As such, the paper necessarily focuses on those periods whose traditions preserved skeletal material: the Earlier Neolithic long barrows and Chalcolithic/Early Bronze Age round barrows of Wessex (central southern Britain); and the Middle Iron Age inhumations of southern and eastern Britain , in its aim to discover something of the nature of prehistoric gender identities in these periods.

Approaching sex and status in Iron Age Britain with reference to the nearer continent

In L. Armada and T. Moore (eds) Atlantic Europe in the First Millennium BC: Crossing the Divide. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011

For almost three decades, British Iron Age studies have seen the traditional paradigm framed in t... more For almost three decades, British Iron Age studies have seen the traditional paradigm framed in terms of a timeless, hierarchical ‘Celtic society’ face sustained challenges (Collis 1981, 67; Hill 1989; Hill 2006). Regarding social organisation, hierarchies must now be demonstrated in the evidence rather than assumed. In a similar way, approaches to Iron Age gender centred on archaeological and osteological evidence remain under-developed; with a tendency instead to focus on the few classical testimonies and to gender prehistory by formal analogy (cf. Pope 2007). The challenge remains to develop an archaeological understanding of Iron Age societies: one that takes neither power-structure nor sex-class for granted; and one that prioritizes the archaeological data. The authors explore this issue by selectively addressing the ‘woman question’ in west European Iron Age studies; with a review of recent work in non-Mediterranean France providing context for the British material.

The Earlier Iron Age in Britain and the near Continent. Oxford: Oxbow. [350 pp. 26 refereed papers]

This book has its origins in a seminar held in December 2001, at the University of Durham, to rev... more This book has its origins in a seminar held in December 2001, at the University of Durham, to review the Earlier Iron Age in Britain in the light of these developments – and at the same time to set the insular evidence for the period c. 800–300 BC in a wider chronological and geographical perspective by inviting papers on the Late Bronze Age and from scholars working on mainland Europe and the Atlantic fringes. A number of contributions have since been added to address other topics (Brück; Huntley; James; O’Connor) and especially to enhance coverage of northern France and the Low Countries (Diepeveen-Jansen; Fontijn and Fokkens; Haselgrove). It is, after all, within a contact zone embracing south-east England, north-east France, and the Low Countries that current opinion locates the origins of the earliest types of Hallstatt C sword – the object that more than any other symbolises the onset of the Iron Age in western and central Europe (e.g. Milcent 2004). One of the regrettable features of research in the last 30 years has been that whilst British scholars approaching the Bronze Age to Iron Age transition from a Bronze Age perspective have stressed the continued close links between Britain and Europe at this time (e.g. O’Connor 1980), their Iron Age counterparts have been prone to focus on features that set Britain apart, hindering the development of what ought to be – and, in previous generations, was – a productive dialogue with continental colleagues.

Characterising the Earlier Iron Age

In C.C. Haselgrove and R.E. Pope (eds) The Earlier Iron Age in Britain and the near Continent. Oxford: Oxbow , 2007

The Earlier Iron Age is a period which has consistently managed to elude study in British prehist... more The Earlier Iron Age is a period which has consistently managed to elude study in British prehistoric studies (Haselgrove et al. 2001). The period is often characterised more by what it lacks that what it consists of: for Bronze Age studies it lacks bronze; from the perspective of the Later Iron Age it lacks elaborate enclosure. Nevertheless, the Earlier Iron Age encompasses a period of major social change in later prehistory which we have consistently failed to characterise, let alone understand. We decided that the time was ripe for a reassessment of the period and to clarify what we now know about the character of society in Britain between 800-400 BC. The result was a two-day research seminar attended by over sixty invited participants, held at the University of Durham in December 2001. This paper will serve as an introduction to the volume by drawing together the main themes of the seminar in an attempt to define, find, characterise and direct future research into, the Earlier Iron Age period.

Hillforts & Houses by Rachel Pope

Prehistoric dwelling: circular structures in north and central Britain c 2500 BC - AD 500 (Durham E-Theses)

This thesis provides the first comprehensive study on the character and roles of the prehistoric ... more This thesis provides the first comprehensive study on the character and roles of the prehistoric roundhouse. As well as providing a history of roundhouse studies, the thesis also discusses those methodological and theoretical issues associated with the subject. The research focuses, however, on the analysis of a database holding c. 1200 circular structures — all excavated, published examples in Britain, north of a line from Aberystwyth to the Wash. The data spans the period from the later Neolithic until the end of the Roman Iron Age (c. 2500 BC — AD 500). Main themes addressed include: construction techniques, structural principles, structure function, use of space, house lifespans, maintenance, abandonment, and decay. From these topics come evidence for changes in house design, craft activities, domestic economy, daily routines, subsistence economy, use of landscape, social organisation, and ritual practice. Both regional and chronological trends are identified, allowing a securely based insight into everyday life in Prehistoric Britain, alongside the characterisation of regions and a broader narrative of social change. It is hoped that the thesis will encourage a return to data in prehistoric studies with a move towards an informed social archaeology.

NEW ROCK ART DISCOVERY: PLAS MAEN STONE, CYMAU, FLINTSHIRE

Archaeology in Wales, 2023

This short paper describes the discovery of a later prehistoric rock art site, that was made by t... more This short paper describes the discovery of a later prehistoric rock art site, that was made by the second author in late June 2022. The site lies northwest of Wrexham, Flintshire, south of Cymau village. The rock art is located within an undulating field that lies immediately east of a lane known as Pant Hyfryd, at SJ 30155 55755 (Figure 1). Pant Hyfryd lane extends south from the village of Cymau, to a late 19th to early 20th century terrace known as Pant Hyfryd Cottages, quarry workers cottages that served the former Ffrwd Quarry to the south, now the site of a communal nature reserve. Greater discussion of the rock art discovery, its associated Bronze Age landscape, and its wider relevance for N Wales, is to be submitted by the authors to Archaeologia Cambrensis (Pope et al forthcoming).

Review: ‘Moel-y-Gaer (Bodfari): A small hillfort in Denbighshire’ by Gary Lock, John Pouncett, Derek Hamilton, et al.

Archaeologia Cambrensis, 2023

Operation Nightingale and the Dunch Hill roundhouse: A Butser experiment in earthen walls

Current Archaeology, 2021

The excavation of a Bronze Age roundhouse on Salisbury Plain has fed into a new reconstruction at... more

Understanding hillfort gate-mechanisms

British Archaeology , 2021

[2000 words, popular digest of Archaeological Journal article, commissioned by editor, Mike Pitts].

Did prehistoric women have the right to roam? (online panel event)

Panel event with Dr Penny Bickle (University of York) and Dr Jenni French (University of Liverpoo... more

Origins of the Celts (podcast)

Episode of 'The Ancients' podcast with Tristan Hughes.

Re-approaching Celts II (online talk, 1.9K YouTube views)

Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 2023

i. Celts and the Danube? ii. The case for western survival of Celtic ideas.

Who were the Celts?

Dig It! Scotland, 2023

2000-word article for popular audience. Sometimes artefacts discovered in Scotland are identified... more 2000-word article for popular audience. Sometimes artefacts discovered in Scotland are identified as ‘Celtic’ and groups of people from Scotland’s past are referred to as ‘Celtic tribes’. Is this accurate? What does it mean? And who are these people? We asked Dr Rachel Pope, an archaeologist specialising in Iron Age Europe.

Re-approaching Celts: Origins, Society, and Social Change (30K downloads)

Journal of Archaeological Research, 2022

This work re-approaches the origins of “the Celts” by detailing the character of their society an... more This work re-approaches the origins of “the Celts” by detailing the character of their society and the nature of social change in Europe across 700–300 BC. A new approach integrates regional burial archaeology with contemporary classical texts to further refine our social understanding of the European Iron Age. Those known to us as “Celts” were matrifocal Early Iron Age groups in central Gaul who engaged in social traditions out of the central European salt trade and became heavily involved in Mediterranean politics. The paper focuses on evidence from the Hallstatt–La Tène transition to solve a 150-year-old problem: how the Early Iron Age “Celts” became the early La Tène “Galatai,” who engaged in the Celtic migrations and the sacking of Rome at 387 BC.

Review: ‘Bretons & Britons: The Fight for Identity’ by Barry Cunliffe

Current Archaeology 380, 54, 2021

Review: ‘Exploring Celtic Origins: New Ways Forward in Archaeology, Linguistics, and Genetics’ edited by Barry Cunliffe and John T. Koch.

Archaeological Journal 177(2), 2020

Gender and Society

In C. Haselgrove, P.S. Wells, and K. Rebay-Salisbury (eds) Oxford Handbook of the European Iron Age. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023

Over the last 25 years, archaeologists have been battling to disentangle Iron Age studies from th... more Over the last 25 years, archaeologists have been battling to disentangle Iron Age studies from the twin problems of masculine Classical comment, and a male-dominated archaeology of the later twentieth century – which together bequeathed to us a somewhat imbalanced view of European Iron Age society (Pope and Ralston 2011; Arnold 2012). For Arnold (1991), treatment of Iron Age women had ranged from ‘benign neglect to active sabotage’, with a similar trend recognized in studies of Celtic history (Berresford Ellis 1995: 78). Later twentieth-century archaeological methodologies continued to rely upon historical and/or anthropological analogy to reconstruct social organization – essentially an unrelenting circular argument, endlessly reproducing a familiar, romantic, patriarchal Celtic society.

Celts: Art and Identity at the British Museum

History Today, 2016

Invited review article on the British Museum Celts exhibition for History Today magazine. On comm... more

The Celts: Blood, Iron and Sacrifice

History Today, 2015

Invited review article on BBC 2 series 'The Celts: Blood, Iron and Sacrifice'. A new BBC series f... more

A Late Iron Age Helmet Burial from Bridge, near Canterbury, Kent

by Julia Farley and Rachel Pope

Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society, 2014

A rare find was made in 2012 when a metal-detectorist on land near Bridge, a few miles south of C... more A rare find was made in 2012 when a metal-detectorist on land near Bridge, a few miles south of Canterbury, Kent, recovered a copper alloy brooch, other metal items, and a quantity of burnt bone contained in a near complete, probably imported Gallic, helmet of Iron Age type. Excavation was undertaken to ascertain the immediate context of the helmet, confirm that it represented a cremation burial, and determine if it formed part of a larger funerary deposit. The helmet and brooch suggest a burial date in the mid-1st century BC and the apparently isolated cremation burial, of a possibly female adult, can be broadly placed within the Aylesford-Swarling tradition; the helmet taking the place of a more usual pottery cinerary urn. Cropmark evidence suggests that the burial was made within a wider landscape of Iron Age occupation.

Gender in British Prehistory

In D. Bolger (ed.) A Companion to Gender Prehistory (Blackwell Companions to History). Oxford: Blackwell, 2012

This paper is a first attempt to synthesise work on gender in British prehistory and aims to disc... more This paper is a first attempt to synthesise work on gender in British prehistory and aims to discover something of the nature of prehistoric gender identities from the archaeology. Recognising a failure in British settlement studies to move beyond unenlightened ideas surrounding sex as binary, with female as domestic; we turn instead to the mortuary evidence in an attempt to recognise specifically prehistoric gender identities through graveside practices and artefacts associated with sexed bodies. In the later 20th century, British prehistoric studies exchanged an over-reliance on functionalist and historical interpretation for an over-reliance instead on anthropology. From reading in feminist theory, it is now clear that we cannot project our assumptions about sex and gender back onto the past, as has so often been the case in archaeology in the creation of imaginary reconstructions of gendered labour in prehistoric settlements.

As critical archaeologists, we can again attempt an objective, contextual study of our material evidence – working from the ground up, in our rejection of top-down social modelling and the uncritical use of analogy. As part of this trajectory, the present authors turn to gender archaeology in the hope of identifying distinctly prehistoric gender identities in the mortuary evidence – Brück’s (1999) ‘prehistoric rationality’. As such, the paper necessarily focuses on those periods whose traditions preserved skeletal material: the Earlier Neolithic long barrows and Chalcolithic/Early Bronze Age round barrows of Wessex (central southern Britain); and the Middle Iron Age inhumations of southern and eastern Britain , in its aim to discover something of the nature of prehistoric gender identities in these periods.

Approaching sex and status in Iron Age Britain with reference to the nearer continent

In L. Armada and T. Moore (eds) Atlantic Europe in the First Millennium BC: Crossing the Divide. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011

For almost three decades, British Iron Age studies have seen the traditional paradigm framed in t... more For almost three decades, British Iron Age studies have seen the traditional paradigm framed in terms of a timeless, hierarchical ‘Celtic society’ face sustained challenges (Collis 1981, 67; Hill 1989; Hill 2006). Regarding social organisation, hierarchies must now be demonstrated in the evidence rather than assumed. In a similar way, approaches to Iron Age gender centred on archaeological and osteological evidence remain under-developed; with a tendency instead to focus on the few classical testimonies and to gender prehistory by formal analogy (cf. Pope 2007). The challenge remains to develop an archaeological understanding of Iron Age societies: one that takes neither power-structure nor sex-class for granted; and one that prioritizes the archaeological data. The authors explore this issue by selectively addressing the ‘woman question’ in west European Iron Age studies; with a review of recent work in non-Mediterranean France providing context for the British material.

The Earlier Iron Age in Britain and the near Continent. Oxford: Oxbow. [350 pp. 26 refereed papers]

This book has its origins in a seminar held in December 2001, at the University of Durham, to rev... more This book has its origins in a seminar held in December 2001, at the University of Durham, to review the Earlier Iron Age in Britain in the light of these developments – and at the same time to set the insular evidence for the period c. 800–300 BC in a wider chronological and geographical perspective by inviting papers on the Late Bronze Age and from scholars working on mainland Europe and the Atlantic fringes. A number of contributions have since been added to address other topics (Brück; Huntley; James; O’Connor) and especially to enhance coverage of northern France and the Low Countries (Diepeveen-Jansen; Fontijn and Fokkens; Haselgrove). It is, after all, within a contact zone embracing south-east England, north-east France, and the Low Countries that current opinion locates the origins of the earliest types of Hallstatt C sword – the object that more than any other symbolises the onset of the Iron Age in western and central Europe (e.g. Milcent 2004). One of the regrettable features of research in the last 30 years has been that whilst British scholars approaching the Bronze Age to Iron Age transition from a Bronze Age perspective have stressed the continued close links between Britain and Europe at this time (e.g. O’Connor 1980), their Iron Age counterparts have been prone to focus on features that set Britain apart, hindering the development of what ought to be – and, in previous generations, was – a productive dialogue with continental colleagues.

Characterising the Earlier Iron Age

In C.C. Haselgrove and R.E. Pope (eds) The Earlier Iron Age in Britain and the near Continent. Oxford: Oxbow , 2007

The Earlier Iron Age is a period which has consistently managed to elude study in British prehist... more The Earlier Iron Age is a period which has consistently managed to elude study in British prehistoric studies (Haselgrove et al. 2001). The period is often characterised more by what it lacks that what it consists of: for Bronze Age studies it lacks bronze; from the perspective of the Later Iron Age it lacks elaborate enclosure. Nevertheless, the Earlier Iron Age encompasses a period of major social change in later prehistory which we have consistently failed to characterise, let alone understand. We decided that the time was ripe for a reassessment of the period and to clarify what we now know about the character of society in Britain between 800-400 BC. The result was a two-day research seminar attended by over sixty invited participants, held at the University of Durham in December 2001. This paper will serve as an introduction to the volume by drawing together the main themes of the seminar in an attempt to define, find, characterise and direct future research into, the Earlier Iron Age period.

Prehistoric dwelling: circular structures in north and central Britain c 2500 BC - AD 500 (Durham E-Theses)

This thesis provides the first comprehensive study on the character and roles of the prehistoric ... more This thesis provides the first comprehensive study on the character and roles of the prehistoric roundhouse. As well as providing a history of roundhouse studies, the thesis also discusses those methodological and theoretical issues associated with the subject. The research focuses, however, on the analysis of a database holding c. 1200 circular structures — all excavated, published examples in Britain, north of a line from Aberystwyth to the Wash. The data spans the period from the later Neolithic until the end of the Roman Iron Age (c. 2500 BC — AD 500). Main themes addressed include: construction techniques, structural principles, structure function, use of space, house lifespans, maintenance, abandonment, and decay. From these topics come evidence for changes in house design, craft activities, domestic economy, daily routines, subsistence economy, use of landscape, social organisation, and ritual practice. Both regional and chronological trends are identified, allowing a securely based insight into everyday life in Prehistoric Britain, alongside the characterisation of regions and a broader narrative of social change. It is hoped that the thesis will encourage a return to data in prehistoric studies with a move towards an informed social archaeology.

NEW ROCK ART DISCOVERY: PLAS MAEN STONE, CYMAU, FLINTSHIRE

Archaeology in Wales, 2023

This short paper describes the discovery of a later prehistoric rock art site, that was made by t... more This short paper describes the discovery of a later prehistoric rock art site, that was made by the second author in late June 2022. The site lies northwest of Wrexham, Flintshire, south of Cymau village. The rock art is located within an undulating field that lies immediately east of a lane known as Pant Hyfryd, at SJ 30155 55755 (Figure 1). Pant Hyfryd lane extends south from the village of Cymau, to a late 19th to early 20th century terrace known as Pant Hyfryd Cottages, quarry workers cottages that served the former Ffrwd Quarry to the south, now the site of a communal nature reserve. Greater discussion of the rock art discovery, its associated Bronze Age landscape, and its wider relevance for N Wales, is to be submitted by the authors to Archaeologia Cambrensis (Pope et al forthcoming).

Review: ‘Moel-y-Gaer (Bodfari): A small hillfort in Denbighshire’ by Gary Lock, John Pouncett, Derek Hamilton, et al.

Archaeologia Cambrensis, 2023

Operation Nightingale and the Dunch Hill roundhouse: A Butser experiment in earthen walls

Current Archaeology, 2021

The excavation of a Bronze Age roundhouse on Salisbury Plain has fed into a new reconstruction at... more

Understanding hillfort gate-mechanisms

British Archaeology , 2021

[2000 words, popular digest of Archaeological Journal article, commissioned by editor, Mike Pitts].

Approaching hillfort gate-mechanisms: A contextual, architectural re-assessment of Eddisbury, Hembury, and Cadbury hillforts (3K downloads)

Archaeological Journal, 2020

This paper offers a typology of hillfort gate-mechanisms, and a developed understanding of tempor... more This paper offers a typology of hillfort gate-mechanisms, and a developed understanding of temporal depth in hillfort architecture – via applied contextual analysis. Rediscovery of the Eddisbury hillfort archive revealed three iron gate-mechanisms. To situate these rare objects, detailed analyses of entrance architecture and stratigraphy was conducted – for Eddisbury and parallels (Hembury, South Cadbury) – enabling new sequences, resolution of the Mid-Late Cadbury sequence, and reconstruction of the Cadbury gate-fittings. Crucially, Bayesian analysis of C-14 dates from Eddisbury confirm a 400 BC date for developed hillforts. Eddisbury’s gate-mechanisms are revealed as the earliest in Europe, with Roman adoption of Iron Age technology.

Understanding the ‘great gate’ at Eddisbury

CBA NW Newsletter, 2020

Rescuing a scheduled ancient monument: Recent work at Merrick’s Hill, Eddisbury Hillfort

In D. Garner (ed.) Hillforts of the Cheshire Ridge. Oxford: Archaeopress, 2016

Interim article on the University of Liverpool's excavations Merrick’s Hill, Eddisbury. On the ar... more

Bronze Age architectural traditions: dates and landscapes

In F. Hunter and I.B.M. Ralston (eds) Scotland in Later Prehistoric Europe. Edinburgh: Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 2015

Scottish roundhouse studies have always been at the forefront of work on prehistoric settlement i... more Scottish roundhouse studies have always been at the forefront of work on prehistoric settlement in Britain, from the pioneering excavations of Peggy Piggott in the 1940s, to Dick Feachem’s typology of the 1960s, and the structural analysis of Peter Hill in the 1980s. This paper will discuss the dated roundhouse assemblage in Bronze Age Scotland and Northumberland in an attempt to update our understanding of the development of circular architecture prior to 800 BC. Using the current assemblage of radiocarbon-dated roundhouses the paper discusses the development of architectural forms In both upland and lowland landscapes. With reference to Feachem’s (1965) typology, the paper considers the key features of northern roundhouse settlement in the Bronze Age: unenclosed platform settlements; ring-banks; the question of stake-rings; post-built structures; ring-grooves; double-ring ring-beam technology; and ring-ditches. The discussion takes the form of a chronological narrative, in which a 1400 BC date is proposed for the E-MBA transition and the nature of the LBA-EIA transition is discussed. The paper concludes with a modern, dated roundhouse typology.

Prehistoric Roundhouses of northern Britain: Origins and Development (online talk, 800 YouTube views)

Society of Antiquaries of Scotland and The Prehistoric Society sister lectures (Edinburgh and Aberdeen), 2014

On developments in Scottish prehistoric settlement.

Una Edad del Hierro redonda: La cabaña circular en los castros del NW de la Peninsula Ibërica

Kalathos , 2009

Roundhouses: 3,000 years of prehistoric design

Current Archaeology, 2008

Just a generation ago, only 200 roundhouses were known to archaeology. Today, it is more like 4,0... more

Ritual and the roundhouse: a critique of recent ideas on domestic space in later British prehistory

In C.C. Haselgrove and R.E. Pope (eds) The Earlier Iron Age in Britain and the near Continent. Oxford: Oxbow., 2007

This paper offers a critique of recent work on British Iron Age cosmologies, which are seen as ce... more This paper offers a critique of recent work on British Iron Age cosmologies, which are seen as centred on sun worship and expressed through use of domestic space. The first part of the paper examines the methodologies which underpin the cosmological model and the problems inherent in the use of structuralist theory, formal analogy and narrative, advocating a move away from structuralism towards a contextualised prehistory of everyday life. Our current understanding of the orientation data is also assessed. In the latter part of the paper, an alternative model is proposed, drawing on the author’s doctoral research on prehistoric and Roman period roundhouses in north and central Britain. Alongside a degree of variation, spatial and structural analyses of a database of 1178 roundhouses point to the organisation of domestic space around centre/ periphery and front/back distinctions. Whilst the former
appears to be a conscious organising principle, the latter seems to be more a result of the subconscious desire for light and contact, alongside the potential for privacy.

Characterising the Welsh Roundhouse: chronology, inhabitation and landscape

by Rachel Pope and Eleanor Ghey

Internet Archaeology, 2007

The article stems from a one-year project funded by the University of Wales Board of Celtic Studi... more The article stems from a one-year project funded by the University of Wales Board of Celtic Studies to collect and analyse all the evidence for excavated prehistoric and early historic roundhouses in Wales. The resulting dataset will serve as a resource for researchers and, through the analysis provided in this article, provide an important counterpoint to similar studies from elsewhere in Britain. The methodology of the project is presented, and the limitations of the data are discussed in detail. The principal difficulties were associated with dating the building and duration of use of individual structures, and the bias created by a few sites with large numbers of excavated structures.

Review: 'Hillforts: prehistoric strongholds of Northumberland National Park' by A. Oswald, S. Ainsworth, and T. Pearson

The Prehistoric Society , 2007

La pierre et le bois dans les maisons des Grande Bretagne

In O. Buchsenschutz et C. Mordant (eds) Architectures Protohistoriques en Europe Occidentale du Neolithique Final a l'Age de Fer. Paris: CTHS., 2005

Peggy Piggott and post-war British archaeology

European Journal of Archaeology, 2024

The later career of British prehistorian Peggy Piggott, latterly Guido, is evaluated in this arti... more The later career of British prehistorian Peggy Piggott, latterly Guido, is evaluated in this article, in a bid to further develop our understanding of women's participation in twentieth-century British archaeology. After WWII, when her husband Stuart Piggott was appointed to the Abercromby Chair in Edinburgh, she worked to assist his role. By the early 1950s, she had co-directed and published eight hillfort excavations, advancing our understanding of prehistoric architecture before the advent of radiocarbon dating. The authors consider Peggy Piggott's contribution as a fieldworker, promoting open-area excavation and influencing the next generation. We also consider her thinking, as an early advocate for continuity and Childe's diffusionism, in contrast to the invasionist views of Christopher Hawkes and Stuart Piggott. The authors reflect on the role her marriage played in enabling and restricting her career, her work in 1960s Italy, her expertise in ancient glass beads, and her activity in retirement.

Peggy Piggott: Women and British Archaeology (1930-1945)

Oxford Journal of Archaeology, 2023

The 2021 film, The Dig, stimulated much interest in discovering more about Peggy Piggott, the arc... more The 2021 film, The Dig, stimulated much interest in discovering more about Peggy Piggott, the archaeologist who first 'struck gold' at Sutton Hoo. Piggott was a leading British prehistorian, who produced over sixty published works for the field. Here we examine her early life and career, her training with the Curwens and the Wheelers, her marriage to Stuart Piggott, and her recognized expertise that led to her joining the Sutton Hoo team in 1939. During WWII, she established the modern standard for barrow excavation, and in 1944 was recognized by the Society of Antiquaries for her 'devotion to the study of archaeology'. Piggott provides a lens through which we consider the careers of 1930s women archaeologiststhose factors enabling access to archaeology (class, wartime opportunity) and factors that limited progress (lack of a degree, marriage).

Review: 'English Landscapes and Identities: Investigating Landscape Change from 1500 BC to AD 1086' by Chris Gosden, Chris Green, Anwen Cooper et al. 2021. Oxford University Press, Oxford. xxiv + 470 pp. (hardcover), $110. ISBN 978-0-19-887062-3.

American Antiquity, 2023

History of the Prehistoric Society (online talk)

Prehistoric Society Day School, 2023

[Begins at 10.30]

Women in the present, women in the past (online keynote talk, 2,800 YouTube views)

'Modern women of the Past: Unearthing Gender' conference (Australian Archaeological Institute at Athens) and Antiquity) , 2021

Gender archaeology is practiced only by women and gay men

In L. Coltofean-Arizancu, B. Gaydarska, and U. Matić (eds) Gender Stereotypes in Archaeology. Leiden: Sidestone Press, 2021

[250 words, over 2000 downloads in first week]

The ‘real’ Peggy Piggott (online talk, 300 YouTube views)

The Prehistoric Society, 2021

The Real Peggy Piggott

Society of Antiquaries of Scotland newsletter, March 2021, 6-7. , 2021

(1,400 words, commissioned by Simon Gilmour)

Archaeologists You Should Know: Margaret Guido [Peggy Piggott]

AIA (Archaeological Institute of America) website, 2021

(1,200 words)

Wikipedia, 2016

The lost archive of Eddisbury: Rediscovering finds and records from the 1936-38 Varley excavations

In D. Garner (ed.) Hillforts of the Cheshire Ridge, 29-45. Oxford: Archaeopress, 2016

Research undertaken on the lost archive from W.J. Varley’s 1936-38 excavations at Eddisbury Hillf... more

Illustrating Eddisbury: Excavations 1936-38 and 2010-11: A re-evaluation of W.J. Varley’s Eddisbury, in light of recent excavations

Royal Archaeological Institute Newsletter 51, 9-10, 2016

e latest edition of the Heritage Alliance newsletter (dated 1 April, but no joke, I fear) includ... more e latest edition of the Heritage Alliance newsletter (dated 1 April, but no joke, I fear) included overviews focused on matters likely to affect heritage, with links to responses from other organizations, for two major matters: the 2016 Budget of 16 March, and the Government's Culture White Paper, published 23 March. ey can be seen by following links from www.theheritagealliance.org.uk/news/. e principal concerns of those who've commented so far seem to be with proposals for speeding up the planning system, raising fears of a reduction of protection for the historic environment. Our Institute is looking for a new member for each of the Audit and Investment and the Research Committees. For the former, an RAI member with legal or financial expertise would be welcome. For the latter, Council is looking for an Institute member with current experience of research, especially field projects, and particularly, but not exclusively, in the commercial or voluntary sectors. ere is only one meeting per year of each committee. Any member who would like to be considered should write to the Administrator. To mark the 300th anniversary of 'Capability' Brown's birth and in celebration of England's many gardens and landscapes, 'Year of the English Garden' is VisitEngland's theme for 2016. Lady Cobham, the chairman of Visit England, said 'e images that Brown created are as deeply embedded in the English character as the paintings of Turner and the poetry of Wordsworth.'. At the centre of the celebrations is the Capability Brown Festival, which is a collaboration between a large number of organisations, everyone from the National Trust to the Embroiderers' Guild. e Heritage Lottery Fund awarded the festival a grant of £911,000 which is being managed by the Landscape Institute. English Heritage commissioned the University of East Anglia's Landscape Group to review research carried out to date and to map gaps in knowledge. eir 85-page report (Gregory et al. 2013) looks at the reputation of Brown, his style, the drivers for the English Landscape Style, and poses questions about how to define what are Brown landscapes and how they should be conserved in the twenty-first century. Of the 260 or so landscapes with which he is associated, 150 are generally considered worth visiting today. Some rarely-open places are taking part in the National Gardens Scheme. To find out more about the background and what is proposed, visit the festival's website at www.capabilitybrown.org. As well as an interactive map from which you can find out when gardens and parks are open to visitors, there are links to all manner of events, from photographic and design competitions and exhibitions to study days and major conferences. My favourite is a National Trust project, aerial filming with drones. is has produced twenty-three hours of footage covering fourteen Trust properties, from Cambo village (Northd) where Brown went to school, via Stowe (Bucks), his first big job, to Croome Park (Worcs) and Berrington Hall (Herefs), which were amongst his last landscapes. e taster video is a little hectic, but in passing includes a clear view of Housesteads Fort and Hadrian's Wall! e finished videos will be available on the National Trust's website and at www.gardensfromabove.com

Processual archaeology and gender politics: The loss of innocence

Archaeological Dialogues, 2011

Providing a younger woman’s perspective, and born out of the 2006 Cambridge Personal Histories ev... more Providing a younger woman’s perspective, and born out of the 2006 Cambridge Personal Histories event on 1960s archaeology, this paper struggles to reconcile the panel’s characterization of a ‘democratization’ of the field with an apparent absence of women, despite their relative visibility in 1920s–1940s archaeology. Focusing on Cambridge, as the birthplace of processualism, the paper tackles the question ‘where were the women?’ in 1950s–1960s archaeology. A sociohistorical perspective considers the impact of traditional societal views regarding the social role of women; the active gendering of science education; the slow increase of university places for young women; and the ‘marriage bars’ of post-war Britain, crucially restricting women’s access to the professions in the era of professionalization, leading to decades of positive discrimination in favour of men. Pointing to the science of male and female archaeologists in 1920s–1930s Cambridge, it challenges ideas of scientific archaeology as a peculiarly post-war (and male) endeavour. The paper concludes that processual archaeology did not seek to democratize the field for women archaeologists.

History of the Prehistoric Society 1908-2008 (2008) http://www.prehistoricsociety.org/about/history_of_the_prehistoric_society/

A functional ceramics analysis and its application in later Iron Age Dorset

In J. Humphrey (ed.) Re-searching the Iron Age: Proceedings of the Iron Age Research Student Seminar 1999-2000. Leicester: Leicester Archaeology Monograph 11, 2003

This paper offers a new and formative way of using pottery in the interpretation of Iron Age site... more This paper offers a new and formative way of using pottery in the interpretation of Iron Age sites. Accepting that there is a relationship between the degree of restriction of a vessel’s orifice and its functional use, a hypothetical scheme is devised which comprises six standard vessel forms. Ethnographic parallel is used to allot vessel function to these forms, allowing four main activity types to be identified in a standard domestic assemblage. The resulting 'Functional Ceramics Analysis' is applied to nine later Iron Age assemblages from Dorset. The results provide interesting conclusions regarding change in later Iron Age settlements especially in the areas of display and storage.

Mason, R.G.S. and Pope, R.E. 2016. Excavations at Penycloddiau Hillfort Flintshire, North Wales: Interim Report 2016. Unpublished report, University of Liverpool.

Mason, R.G.S. and Pope, R.E. 2015. Excavations at Penycloddiau Hillfort Flintshire, North Wales: Interim Report. Unpublished report, University of Liverpool.

Excavations at Penycloddiau Hillfort (2012-2019)

Read about our excavations in Eric Powell's article in the December 2015 edition of Archaeology M... more

Mason, R.G.S. and Pope, R.E. 2014. Excavations at Penycloddiau Hillfort Flintshire, North Wales: Interim Report 2014. Unpublished report, University of Liverpool.

Mason, R.G.S. and Pope, R.E. 2013. Excavations and Survey at Penycloddiau Hillfort Flintshire, North Wales: Interim Report 2013. Unpublished report, University of Liverpool.

Mason, R.G.S. and Pope, R.E. 2012. Excavations at Penycloddiau Hillfort Flintshire, North Wales: Interim Report. Unpublished report, University of Liverpool.

Excavations at Eddisbury Hillfort (2010-2011)

Re-excavating W.J. Varley trenches. Dating a Bronze Age palisaded enclosure and Iron Age hillfort.

Pope, R.E., Snape-Kennedy, L.M. and Dungait, J. 2010. Kidlandlee Dean Prehistoric Landscapes Project. Royal Archaeological Institute Newsletter 39, 6-7.

Handbook to the Roman Wall; Historic Scotland: People and Places; Roman Scotland: a Guide to the ... more Handbook to the Roman Wall; Historic Scotland: People and Places; Roman Scotland: a Guide to the Visible Remains; A Queen's Progress (on the surviving buildings associated with Mary Queen of Scots); and The Stone of Destiny: Artefact and Icon. He has, in other words, always enjoyed and made time for research and, indeed, is still engaged in tracing his family tree, a project on which he embarked fifty-five years ago. David was happy to be interviewed for the Newsletter.

Mason, R. and Pope, R.E. 2009. Excavations at Kidlandlee Dean, Upper Coquetdale 2007-2008. Archaeology in Northumberland 18, 2-3.

Excavation of an Early Bronze Age house and field system. Final interim statement re. 2007-2008 s... more

Carne, P. and Pope, R.E. 2007. Kidlandlee Dean, upper Coquetdale. Archaeology in Northumberland 17, 23.

Excavation of an Early Bronze Age house and field system. Interim statement re. the second (2006)... more

Carne, P. and Pope, R.E. 2006. Kidlandlee Dean. Archaeology in Northumberland 16, 22.

Excavation of an Early Bronze Age house and field system. Interim statement on the first (2005) s... more

Pope, R.E. 2002. The Fawdon Dean circular structures. In The Breamish Valley Archaeology Project Report 2002. ASUD Report 953, 13-19. Durham: Archaeological Services University of Durham.

Report on excavated roundhouses from a Northumbrian upland settlement dating to the LIA and immed... more

A Research Framework for the Archaeology of Wales

Cadw, 2022

Late Bronze Age/Iron Age expert panel

Why the Patient-Made Term 'Long Covid' is needed (7K views)

Wellcome Open Research , 2020

The patient-made term ‘Long Covid’ is, we argue, a helpful and capacious term that is needed to a... more The patient-made term ‘Long Covid’ is, we argue, a helpful and
capacious term that is needed to address key medical,
epidemiological and socio-political challenges posed by diverse
symptoms persisting beyond four weeks after symptom onset
suggestive of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). An international
movement of patients (which includes all six authors) brought the
persistence and heterogeneity of long-term symptoms to widespread
visibility. The same grassroots movement introduced the term ‘Long
Covid’ (and the cognate term ‘long-haulers’) to intervene in relation to
widespread assumptions about disease severity and duration.
Persistent symptoms following severe acute respiratory syndrome
coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection are now one of the most pressing
clinical and public health phenomena to address: their cause(s) is/are
unknown, their effects can be debilitating, and the percentage of
patients affected is unclear, though likely significant. The term ‘Long
Covid’ is now used in scientific literature, the media, and in
interactions with the WHO. Uncertainty regarding its value and
meaning, however, remains. In this Open Letter, we explain the
advantages of the term ‘Long Covid’ and bring clarity to some
pressing issues of use and definition. We also point to the importance
of centring patient experience and expertise in relation to ‘Long Covid’
research, as well as the provision of care and rehabilitation.

Why we need to keep using the patient-made term ‘Long Covid’

BMJ Opinion, 2020

“Long Covid” was first used by Elisa Perego as a Twitter hashtag in May to describe her own exper... more “Long Covid” was first used by Elisa Perego as a Twitter hashtag in May to describe her own experience of a multiphasic, cyclical condition that differed in time course and symptomatology from the bi-phasic pathway discussed in early scientific papers, which focused on hospitalized patients. Just three months later, following intense advocacy by patients across the world, this patient made term has been taken up by powerful actors, including the World Health Organization. Politicians have used it too: Matt Hancock, UK health secretary, recently explained to a parliamentary committee that “the impact of long covid can be really debilitating for a long period of time.”

BWA: An agenda for action (online talk, 180 YouTube views)

British Women Archaeologists' contribution to TAG panel 'Equality in Archaeology', London , 2019

(begins at 41.30)

Ten years of BWA (online talk, 150 YouTube views)

British Women Archaeologists' TAG session 'Feminist Archaeologies', Chester, 2018

Are we a profession yet? (online talk, 280 YouTube views)

Chartered Institute of Field Archaeologists annual conference, 'Archaeology, Equity, and Economics' session, Glasgow, 2015

Welsh Archaeological Research Framework: Late Bronze Age/Iron Age

IfA Cymru, 2017

In defence of Old Oswestry: A strategic battle in NPPF assault on heritage.

Rescue Newsletter, 2015

Authors: Clarke, K., Pope, R.E., Rowlands, M., Waine, J., Nash, G., Malim, T., and Phillips, N. ... more

Scottish Archaeological Research Framework: The Bronze Age

Edinburgh: Historic Scotland, 2012

Invited 3000-word contribution on the Scottish Bronze Age settlement evidence.

Welsh Archaeological Research Framework: Late Bronze Age/Iron Age

IfA Cymru, 2010

North East Regional Research Framework: Later Bronze Age and Iron Age Research Strategy

Expert panel.