Celtic Culture

At about 700 BC, the Wessex culture waned and in this part of Britain was replaced by a Gallic culture and a Celtic language slowly spreading from India, through central Europe, to NW France and Belgium, across the Channel into the SE of the British Isle and then west to Cornwall and Wales where the language survived subsequent invasions over the next two thousand years.

The new culture was characterised by the disappearance of burial monuments and ceremonial centres, the development of intensive farming and of field systems and land  boundaries that would be familiar to most medieval farmers, and the building of defended farmsteads and hill-forts.

During the period from 150 BC onwards the South-East of England became increasingly dominated by tribal lords; increasingly from neighbouring parts of France and Belgium. They were known to acquire lands and trade extensively with the continent.   Caesar reported great similarities between the peoples of SE Britain and northern France. They seem to have developed a liking for fine Italian wines; for which, sad to relate, they probably paid with slaves.

The beginnings of coinage in Britain also belong to the final century or so before the Roman conquest.  Initially it seems unlikely that they were used as currency in the modern manner, but they did form part of the system of trade and exchange of goods.  Belgic and Gallic coins became the local currency - an early form of the Euro?  Later the British rulers minted their own coins.  Ironically, the only Iron-age coin so far found in our area was not of local origin; it was a coin of Addedomaro (a minor East Anglian Celtic king between 20-O BC) and was found during the excavations in the Windlesham Arboretum.¹

The approximate territory of the Atrebates

From 50 BC onwards, we know that the local tribes were the Atrebates (a word apparently meaning 'settlers' - almost certainly from northern Gaul where there was a similarly-named tribe).    The Atrebates were led by Tincomarus in the south and Eppillus in the north, both of whom were recognised by the Romans as a client kings. 

Romanised Culture

It appears that the aristocracy in South East Britain modelled themselves on the Romans they had seen on the Continent; their rulers Latinised their Gallic names, drank imported wine, used Roman coinage and paid import and export taxes to Rome - a long time before the Roman invasion of Britain.  The Greek writer Strabo commented on the close relationship between some of Britain's 'chieftains' and Rome: "they pay dues which yield a large revenue on imports from Gaul and on their own exports (corn, cattle, gold, silver, iron , hides, slaves, and hounds), so that the island does not require a garrison." ^{2 p123}

The Atrebates' local administrative centre for our area  was at Calleva (by Silchester, near Basingstoke). 

Eppillus struck coins proclaiming himself to be the king of Calleva Photos courtesy of the School of Archaeology at the University of Oxford

At Calleva the Atrebatian elite seems to have absorbed Roman culture well before the invasion.  For instance, excavations by Reading University have found styli and graffiti with writing in Latin, that quantities of pottery were imported from northern and central France as well as the Mediterranean regions, including containers for wine, olive oil and other preserved foods. Oysters, otherwise unknown from inland Iron Age sites, were abundant and the presence of fowl and the proportion of pork and beef to other meats are also indicative of habits quite different from those of the local population in the countryside.3 At roughly the turn of the millennium, the civic buildings become rectangular, and roads became metalled and appear to be on a grid aligned SW-NE - emulating Roman towns.   Even then civic buildings were timber-framed with wattle and daub infill - and probably thatched: they had not learned the art of building in stone, brick, and tiles.

 By 43 AD, political instability and the rise of anti-Roman rulers provided the newly-elected Roman ruler, Claudius, with an opportunity to show his metal and a reason to annex SE England.  The Roman era was about to start..............

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