ABSTRACT
This chapter explains that any regional or chronological synthesis should begin by defining its chronological and spatial parameters. A starting date for the Iron Age around the seventh or sixth centuries BC is just as arbitrary as any historically derived horizon and could lead to an interminable and ultimately fruitless debate regarding the beginnings of iron technology and when it impacted significantly upon communities in later prehistory. Archaeological distributions show a divide between coin-using societies in southern England and their non-coin-using neighbours to the north. Archaeological evidence can be divided into three broad categories: Artefacts are represented by material; Sites, including fortifications, domestic buildings or tombs; and ecofacts, includes environmental evidence of human occupation. South-west Scotland and north-western England on the other hand may have been substantially forested throughout the Iron Age, though modern research suggests that extensive forest clearance and extensification of agriculture in northern England preceded the Roman occupation.
