Where Have All the People Gone? A Puzzle from Middle and Late Iron Age Essex

A survey of 211 Iron Age roundhouses from twenty-five settlements across Essex shows a steep Late Iron Age fall in numbers from a Middle Iron Age peak. It cannot be explained by the replacement of the roundhouse with an architectural form that left little trace in the ground because the roundhouse remained a living architectural tradition until the late Roman period in the county. Nine of these twenty-five settlements were abandoned in or before the Late Iron Age, but have next to nothing in the way of pre-conquest artefacts that could have come from houses of that date which had not survived. The fall in roundhouse numbers is interpreted as a population contraction of at least 50 % over the period c. 125–25 BC. Political upheaval may have been partly responsible. No environmental changes could be identified as contributory factors. Population retreat in the county explains the dearth of Late Iron Age settlements and the absence of large cemeteries.

对埃塞克斯郡25处定居点的211座铁器时代圆形房屋开展的考古调查显示，其数量从中铁器时代的峰值到晚铁器时代出现急剧下降。该数量下滑无法通过圆形房屋被一种几乎不会在地层中留下痕迹的建筑形制取代来解释，因为在该郡范围内，圆形房屋作为存续的建筑传统一直延续至罗马时代晚期。这25处定居点中有9处在晚铁器时代或之前便已被废弃，但几乎未发现可源自该时期未留存房屋的罗马征服前人工制品。圆形房屋数量的下降被解读为：在约公元前125年至公元前25年这一时期内，该郡人口至少缩减了50%。政治动荡或许是部分诱因，未发现可作为促成因素的环境变化。该郡的人口缩减可以解释晚铁器时代定居点稀缺以及大型墓地缺失的现象。