ABSTRACT
It is clear that the landscapes of southern Britain underwent significant and wide-ranging change in the early first millennium BC. This is evident from the transformation witnessed in the range and scale of settlement form, as well as the widening geographical locus of activity. What was driving these transformations? A number of ideas have been put forward to explain them and, very often, these have a catastrophic or near-Malthusian feel. What is clear, however, is that wider, social, issues must also be factored into the calculation. The shifts in how people adapted and used the landscape go hand in hand with a marked change in the material remains—principally pottery and metalwork—and present a picture of highly dynamic communities at this time.
