Food, sex and death: Cosmologies in the British iron age with particular reference to East Yorkshire

Abstract

The British Iron Age had an enduring set of traditions involving the east-west axis of the sun's path, the sunwise progression of movement and the classification of animals. Although these traditions were manifested regionally in slightly different ways and were modified, contested and restructured during the Iron Age, they provide us with a key to unlock aspects of the symbolism and practices of daily life. The significance of westerly orientations and of pigs in embodying and expressing associations of high status and other social differences were principal features of a strongly hierarchical society whose social differences were otherwise largely muted in terms of material culture distinctions. The cemeteries of East Yorkshire provide a detailed insight into the ordering of these social differences which were, even then, only rarely expressed through grave goods and mortuary elaboration. The burials of the Yorkshire élite are suggestive of a conception of sacred leadership or kingship, which included the symbolic spearing of certain individuals. Animal offerings were used in the structuring of social differences, with pig portions and sheep bones marking the dead of élite and commoner groups respectively.