Our understanding of the relationships between colonisers and indigenous peoples, past and present, has changed dramatically over the last 20 years. This paper argues that although theories of resistance, identity, and hybridity now commonly inform interpretations of archaeological data, there are still areas deserving of closer scrutiny. My doctoral research (Harlow 2017; 2018) crosses chronological, geographical, and disciplinary boundaries. It focusses on practice and display, drawing on Crummy’s (1983) functional categories which are allied to praxis, and Eckardt (2014), Gardner (2007), and Revell’s (2016) work on identity and difference.

My work uses material culture to investigate how the indigenous people of northern East Anglia identified themselves within Late Iron Age society and in contrast to, or in alliance with, the Roman conquerors. The study spans the period 100 BC–AD 200 and the modern counties of Norfolk, Suffolk, and Cambridgeshire. Working with small finds provides opportunities to think about how changes in practice can occur with the same material culture and vice versa. New patterns of display and behaviour can be sought through conservatism, innovation, and hybridity in objects. Although material agency without context, and intentionality in resistance, have been questioned (Russell 2004; Ribeiro 2016), objects can express and create feelings of (in)equality.

One of the challenges, often debated at previous TRAC conferences and workshops, is to successfully integrate theoretical understanding with large material datasets. Contextual interpretations are difficult to apply to unstratified surface finds, which form the bulk of my data. Nonetheless, I believe there is significant research value in large-scale studies of metal-detector finds. What we do have is material culture, and lots of it: I have compiled a database of over 14,000 individual object records from the Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS) and county Historic Environment Records (HERs) (Harlow 2018).

A discussion of boundaries necessitates talking about identities, but I would argue that the two are not identical. The idea of social boundaries encapsulates more nuanced divisions between people. I am interested in the social frontiers between coloniser and colonised, elites and non-elites, and those in between. The wide-ranging analysis in which I have been engaged demonstrates some of the possibilities and difficulties of integrating theory and data.

A brief outline of the historical and archaeological background to the Iceni territory and its distinctive regional characteristics sets the scene within which theoretical issues of cultural contact and change can be problematised. Then, I present four case studies, for which the underlying data is presented in Supplementary Table 1. Horse and chariot fittings are used to question social organisation, elite status, and the Icenian response to the invasion. I reconsider the role of brooches as symbols of group allegiance and resistance in light of intra-regional patterning. Themes of selective adoption and hybridity are explored through distributions of pipeclay figurines and seal boxes.

Late Iron Age (100 BC–AD 60) ‘Icenia’ was atypical in comparison with other parts of southern Britain.1 The Iceni seem to have subscribed to a different way of life than their neighbours, following less hierarchical settlement and burial practices. Although it is unwise to interpret social differentiation directly from material remains, this may indicate a more egalitarian social structure. Most homesteads were unenclosed and there were few of the extensive nucleations usually described as oppida (Pitts 2010; Moore 2012; Fernández-Götz 2014). There is little archaeological suggestion of developed social hierarchies, and an absence of the ‘warrior chieftain’ funerary rites typified by Aylesford-Swarling or Welwyn in the southeast, or the extravagant ‘Arras-style’ chariot burials of Yorkshire (Clarke 1939; Hill 1995; 2007; Martin 1999; Davies 2011). Only a select few imports reached the region from the Mediterranean and Gaul. Instead, distinctive items of indigenous material culture, including jewellery and horse gear, are often found in hoards rather than graves. Production continued into the early Roman period, frequently developing hybrid forms which blended local and Roman manufacturing techniques and designs.2

I use the term civitas Icenorum to describe the territory populated by the people known to us as ‘Iceni’, effectively a Roman administrative unit with its capital at Venta Icenorum (modern Caistor St. Edmund, Norfolk).3 Recent numismatic studies (Chadburn 2006: 478; Talbot 2011; 2015; 2017; Leins 2012: 300–304) have determined that there were several loosely associated sub-groups within this area, which perhaps coalesced around a charismatic individual or leadership group during the turbulence of the invasion. This coalition may have been identified by Roman officials as ‘Iceni’ (Davies 1999: 41; Hutcheson 2007: 369). However, the latest synthesis found no evidence of ‘rigid centralised organisational structures’, observing that the connection between coinage and political power or kingship ‘does not appear to be appropriate in Late Iron Age East Anglia’ (Talbot 2015: 313–314; 2017).

Previous considerations of boundaries sought geographical borderlines between the Iceni and their neighbours (e.g. Clarke 1939; Allen 1970; Martin 1999). While there are some observable geographical confines to the circulation and deposition of Icenian coinage, my study of other portable artefacts (including horse harness, votive objects, and personal adornment) has revealed different distributions. Despite distinct groupings of material culture, there is no archaeologically clear pattern to be ascribed to a single unified polity or people. In light of this, discussing the Iceni (or the neighbouring Trinovantes in south Suffolk and Essex, or the Catuvellauni in Cambridgeshire) as discrete entities is problematic. The names are retained here as familiar epithets, but should be read as shorthand for the communities of these regions, without implications of ethnic identity or coherent leadership.

After the Claudian conquest, we are told, the Iceni were affiliated with the Roman Empire under a client king, Prasutagus (Tacitus, Annales 12.31; 14.31). The breakdown of this relationship and the ensuing Boudican ‘War of Independence’ (Cassius Dio, Historia Romana 62.1–12; Crummy et al. 2015) in AD 60/614 has been much discussed (e.g. Trow 2003; Collingridge 2005; Hingley and Unwin 2005; Gambash 2012). A narrative of widespread depopulation and abandonment in the aftermath, based on Tacitus (Annales 14.38), has gone relatively unchallenged, but is little supported by material evidence.

The Iceni have been constructed as an ‘Other’, not just as rebellious barbarians facing up to the Roman invaders, but also in opposition to inhabitants of the south-eastern kingdoms. They are perceived to have rejected the civic accoutrements of mosaics and inscriptions, and the architectural statements of large towns and villas, preferring traditional modes of status, display, and portable wealth (Fincham 2002: 83; Mattingly 2007: 111–113; Andrews 2012: 66). These absences may reflect significant pre-conquest differences, rather than an unwillingness to embrace a ‘Roman’ way of life (e.g. Atkinson 1932: 42; Millett 1990: 100–101). Their slow adoption of new material culture and practices has been ascribed to social inwardness and, more recently, in terms of resistance. Cultural conservatism can be part of a dynamic of resistance in response to Imperial oppression (Hill 2001). I define ‘resistance’ in Hingley’s (1997: 88) sense, in which material culture is used in subtle forms of opposition, or Scott’s (1990) ‘hidden transcripts’, which may have occurred as an alternative, or a counterpart, to outright armed rebellion.

An elite can be described as: ‘Individuals in a society with greater access to wealth and power than the majority of members’ (Wells 1999: 267). Elite status and identity in the Roman world have been presumed to be ‘self-evident, inevitable, and unproblematic’, as Revell (2016: 61) observes. Uncritically used, expressions like ‘native elites’ and ‘high-status’ fail to explore variability or discrepancy. Hoards and richly-furnished burials are often interpreted as deposits of individual wealth and status, resulting in the assumption that ‘material elites’ are readily visible in the archaeological record.

We need to be aware of how we use this terminology and apply it to archaeological groups or artefacts. We must also question the assumed membership of these elites, aristocracies, and status groups. I do not dispute the existence of social differentiation, but wish to raise the debate about how to recognise it archaeologically. Individuals could have held membership of various, sometimes contradictory, social groups, based on household and kinship connections, knowledge and skills, age and peer groupings, inherited class and power, as well as non-hereditary leadership (Tullett 2010: 65–67). An exclusive group based on access to specialised knowledge, such as a craft workshop or a religious cult, would leave very different material remains to one based on communal ownership of livestock, for example.

What other models might have existed in later prehistoric and early Romano-British societies? Hill (2011: 258) explored alternatives to stratified societies, such as segmentary and non-hierarchical groupings, which lack elites and hold resources communally. The idea of heterarchy, which allows for multiple and overlapping interest groups to exert influence, has been applied variously to complex societies, metalworking, and gender groups (Crumley 1987; 1995; Ehrenreich 1991; Ehrenreich et al. 1995; Levy 1999). Rathbone’s (2014) ‘anarchist archaeology’ and Revell’s (2016) search for non-elite provincial identities also offer interesting possibilities. Oosthuizen (2016) looks at the potential for collective land holding and ‘horizontal’ forms of governance. Even in ostensibly egalitarian societies, people hold strong opinions about values and (in)equality and monitor and assess each other accordingly (Wason 1994: 36–37).

Watts (2005: 2) makes a valuable point that increasing hierarchy may have come about as the result of interactions and trade during the first century BC. She also considers the likelihood of slave labour in certain industries in Roman Britain. Iron slave shackles have been discovered at Saham Toney in Norfolk (Bates et al. 2000: 230) (NHER 29429) and dredged from the River Wensum at Worthing (NHER 2984). Was there an ‘Icenian aristocracy’ (Gurney 1998: 27) which included Prasutagus and Boudica, or their equivalents? After the rebellion was subdued, were the remnants of this ‘elite’ enslaved or allowed to take up positions of power in the new administration? If material culture and craft skills were valued as sources of status, these may have provided a safe locus for the manifestation of rival identities. During the occupation, we can only imagine the dynamics at work between local power-brokers, resettled veterans, active military personnel, and the administrative class, as well as the average subsistence farmer. Nevertheless, this viewpoint still assumes that hierarchy was the norm. There are possibilities for a re-reading of the Boudican uprising, using concepts of consensus and collective action (DeMarrais 2016).

The paradigm of the material elite is based largely on the expectation that past societies operated hierarchically through material wealth, projecting the values of late Western capitalism backwards in time. Social status can nevertheless be predicated upon many other factors, including ownership of livestock, magico-ritual capital, prowess in battle or hunting, and links with the ancestors or land. Many of these forms would leave little archaeological trace, but it is important to consider their existence (Hill 2011: 243). I am not implying that such assumptions are made by all Late Iron Age and Roman archaeologists, rather that they are rarely overtly problematised in the same way that gender bias, for instance, is now commonly questioned.

The idea of inherited status is also seldom interrogated. Caesar (Bellum Gallicum 5.14) states the Britons practiced polygamy and had customs which determined the place of children within this marriage network, although there is nothing to corroborate this. Tacitus (Annales 14.29) introduces other elements of social hierarchy, such as the role of priests or ‘Druids’. These texts were intended to emphasise the ‘transgressive customs’ of the ‘barbarian’ Britons (Stewart 1995: 3). Hoards of torcs, coins, and horse harness are a ‘culturally distinct phenomenon’ of the region (Chadburn 2006: 174). Based on their frequency, it is conceivable that the Iceni held their wealth in common, rather than individually, in the form of precious metalwork or livestock. This social organisation would have an important impact on inheritance of land, power, and wealth, and on our ability to recover these structures archaeologically.

The material elite paradigm has seeped into our very understanding of artefacts and practices such as hoarding. The language speaks of ‘treasuries’ (e.g. Stead 1991: 463), objects are ‘in circulation’ or ‘cached’ for safe-keeping. There is also a tendency to refer to Roman ‘industrial production’ (e.g. Allason-Jones 1989: 68), and Gaulish and Romano-British ‘factories’ (Green 1976: 15, 20; Watts 2005: 3), perhaps a relic of the progressive understanding of Roman Imperialism (see papers in Webster and Cooper 1996 for critique). Mackreth (2011: 68, 130) goes further, referring to the ‘marketing area’, factory owner, and mass production of certain types of brooch. In fact, the values placed upon precious metalwork, even coinage, in this period, are poorly understood. Talbot (2015; 2017) found conflicting evidence for the use of Icenian coins as part of a ‘market economy’. Walton (2011: 290–291) describes the patchy monetisation of Roman Britain, especially in the early centuries of occupation. During the early colonial period in North America, the Algonquians were eager to acquire refined copper at the expense of gold and silver. This seemed naive to the European colonists, but ‘within the indigenous world view it made complete sense’ (Farley 2012: 152–156): copper was a powerful, spiritual, and political substance, particularly valued for its red colour. This historical example should remind us to avoid retro-fitting materialist and capitalist doctrines onto prehistory.

The division of labour which supports specialised craft practices is sometimes considered evidence for social differentiation, although this has been disputed (e.g. Ehrenreich 1991). In this model, supposed ‘elites’ exercise symbolic and economic control over the skills of craftspeople and the negotiation and exchange of prestige items. Commissioning high-quality artefacts is seen as a political strategy to distinguish the (material) ‘elite’ from other social strata (Wason 1994: 107–108). Certainly, there may have been a relationship between social stratification and craft specialisation, but this seems rather too analogous with a medieval European system of patronage.

In the production of Middle Iron Age cauldrons, there is little sign of the dedicated elite-sponsored workshops once thought to have been a major stimulus for production of ‘prestige metalwork’ (Baldwin and Joy 2017: 103–105). The frequency of metalworking debris on settlements confirms that small-scale, local production with idiosyncratic styles and methods continued into the Late Iron Age. Increasing standardisation is considered to exemplify the metalwork of the early Roman occupation, but this is superficial. Many artefacts created in the first two centuries AD were individually finished, even when manufactured in relatively large amounts (Jackson 2010: 26). Therefore, I would argue that a hierarchical, competitive social milieu need not exist in order for highly-skilled craft production. The trappings used for harnessing horses to carts and chariots form one such category of elaborate decorative metalwork. In the next section, I present my interpretation of these artefacts and suggest that the symbolic and social value of horses may represent a more communal system of wealth.

Artefacts mediate in power relationships: they have potency over people and give people authority. In this way, objects interact with power at the boundaries between colonised and coloniser. The agency and potential of the masses have often been overlooked in discussions of Roman colonisation. The over-concentration on elites leaves the majority of the population ‘neutralized’, ‘disempowered’, and ‘unprivileged’ (James 2001: 199). Cultural resistance can be a constructive practice within dominated and marginalised groups, unwilling or unable to risk more direct action against oppression (e.g. Hingley 1997; Wells 1999; Webster 2003). It is therefore possible to speak of the power of the dispossessed, which may take a variety of forms: ‘subordinate groups in the province resisted the power and ideological projections of the Roman rulers in everyday practices using everyday things’ (Hill 2001: 14). Prior to the rebellion and for several generations beyond, items of portable wealth and display may have been used to resist incorporation into the Roman world (Davis and Gwilt 2008: 146).

As a theory, cultural resistance has been questioned. Sauer (2004: 119) accuses it of being ‘a misguided research strategy’ and an ‘anti-colonialist mission’ seeking proof in the archaeological record of ‘otherwise unrecorded widespread resistance’. He challenges the idea that the ‘subdued population of the provinces’ was constantly struggling for independence and asks why covert resistance rarely spilled over into open rebellion in the Roman Empire. Of course, in the case of the Iceni, it did. Carr (2006: 15–16) puts forward the idea of ‘persistence’ and ‘multi-faceted local struggles’ in an attempt to move away from the polarisation of oppressive Romans vs. rebellious Natives. Resistance is also problematic from a practical perspective, given what we know of intra-regional diversity and the relatively slow spread of change and communication. In this section, I discuss three categories of objects and how they each tell a different story of Icenian resistance.

My archaeological approach with its focus on portable artefacts has the advantage of looking at object patterning across a wide area, not simply the keyhole view of excavation. These predominantly surface finds can add a different perspective to the narratives derived from written sources or known settlements, towns, and forts. Studying a 300 year period also affords the potential to take the long view of cultural contact and change. An object-centred method allows the intricate processes by which new ideas and things arrive, take hold, and become commonplace to be explored.

Novel technologies, fashions, and social structures can all leave their marks on the archaeological record. The charges of cultural backwardness or rebellious difference are often levelled at the Iceni as a foil to other southern British peoples as early adopters or ‘neophiles’. There has been a tendency to fall back on the paradigm of the material elite and a teleological view in which neophilia is seen as positive and evolutionary, whereas neophobia is a trait which stifles growth and creativity. Carr (2006: 15–16) questions whether the persistence of earlier practices and artefacts could be evidence of poverty: an inability to acquire new things, rather than deliberate resistance. This does not seem likely given the abundance of finds from my study area.

‘Tribal elites’ are frequently used to explain the development of emergent aristocracies in the Late Iron Age, which maintained power through the control of rare and imported products (Millett 1990: 38, 68). My study of the widespread, high-quality, horse harness presents an interpretation against hierarchical social organisation. However, if we are to discuss status and elites we must be much more explicit about the potential alternatives and the limits of our knowledge. The ostentatious decoration of horses and vehicles in the client-kingdom signalled their importance and relevance to earlier, more communal forms of wealth and status. This may indeed demonstrate an overt, non-violent, form of cultural resistance, and also challenges the idea of a hiatus in the post-revolt period. Production and deposition of horse gear and brooches suggest strong regional connections, which cross social and geographical boundaries. This raises the need for further investigation of the idea of transient metalworkers and the processes of manufacture and trade in this period. My discussion of the two brooch variants proposes that intra-regional patterning may derive from workshops or fashions rather than resistance through the badging of identities. This breaks the straightforward link between material culture and ethnic identity and contests outmoded concepts of ‘tribal’ boundaries.

The construction of the Iceni as an ‘Other’ does not stand up to much scrutiny. Instead, the case studies of pipeclay figurines and seal boxes challenge the stereotype of the Iceni as culturally conservative and backwards-looking. These objects can inform our understanding of the processes of selection and strategic adoption of new techniques, practices, and material culture. Both were sometimes deposited in ritual contexts, whether at temples or in burials. The avoidance of certain figurine types may relate to the persistence of local burial customs, or the strength of earlier cosmologies and religious preoccupations. This could be seen as resistance, but it is not a blanket rejection of all imports or ideas. In the case of seal boxes, the clearly advantageous practices of literacy and mark-making were adopted no more slowly in Icenia than other parts of Britain. The evidence here is for a lack of resistance, twinned with hybridity, suggesting that people were actively negotiating how these objects fitted into indigenous symbolism and lifestyles.

There are undoubtedly links between objects, social boundaries, and power. Manifest in these are people’s varied responses to change, from discrimination and resistance to acceptance and desirability. Imported goods were treated differently for a considerable period after the conquest and locally made versions were frequently hybridised. This is also evident in religious behaviour which transferred from natural places in the landscape to more formalised temples and shrines. The end of the Icenian client-kingdom brought new deities and changing patterns of ritual practice, as well as increased literacy. In the mid-Roman period, stylistic, material, and formal changes in material culture show a shift from diversity and fragmentation towards greater similarity and integration. By the third century AD, the bloody uprising a distant memory, another phase begins. Innovation and radical change slow and many items of display discussed above go out of use, for currently unknown reasons. The practice of hoarding carries through into the Late Roman period, albeit with different artefacts, such as pewter plate and Christian symbolism (Moore et al. 1988: 73, 82).

At the risk of describing ‘Romanisation by any other name’, I would argue that these developments are related to the increased connectivity which occurs at times of contact, with its attendant access to new resources, styles, and concepts. This does not presuppose Roman cultural superiority, but rather demonstrates the willingness of the Iceni to engage with and appropriate these novelties. The processes of adjustment, acceptance, appropriation, and adaptation happened over generations.

So, was resistance beneficial to the inhabitants of the Iceni territory? Their confrontations with Imperial might were ultimately unsuccessful. Yet, there is no real show of advanced militarisation of the polity, unlike on the northern frontier. Perhaps the evidence of post-revolt continuity presented here implies that the remaining insurgents simply returned to their rural lifestyles. Icenian resistance, both physical and symbolic, may have resulted in a subsequent century or two of peace, in which complex displays of identity and affiliation became less crucial as their ‘political and economic advantages’ waned (Wells 1999: 197–198). Resistance was not a reaction to a unilateral process of ‘Romanisation’, or a two-way dialogue between elites, but a multivocal discourse which reflected the claims and identities of all sides in the battle for Britannia.

The additional file for this article can be found as follows: