Ancient Brittan

[ArielFingolfin]

The story I'm working on right now is based loosely off the Roman conquest of Britain, but I'm having some trouble finding sources about the lifestyle of the people then. I've found lots about the time of Arthur and the downfall of the Roman empire, but not a whole lot early enough for the period I'm interested in. Of course it doesn't help that my library is tiny. Can anyone recommend any books or websites?

Edited in: Yeah, I really do know how to spell Britain; I don't know what my fingers were trying to do there with the title of this thread. That's embarassing.

 

[Steerpike]

Here is a site I came across when I was looking up something about Boudica:

BBC - History - Ancient History in depth: An Overview of Roman Britain

 

[Graylorne]

I bumped into the same problem too. I found there isn't all that much known about Britain's Iron Age, culturally spreaking. I think you can either search for info about Celts (Gauls) in general or Germanic tribes. The British were civilised, especially in the south-west. Highly developed pottery industry, kings coining their own money, extensive iron and tin mining. They traded with the continent, there was much infighting between tribes.
It probably wasn't a uniform civilisation; too much influx of fugitives from the continent with their own gods, mores and habits. So whichever you choose, as long as you keep it local, it won't matter much.

 

[Butterfly]

Typically look for life during the iron age or Iron age Britain

Research the Ordovices, Silures, Picts, the Iceni, the Brigantes - the ancient tribes in Britain before the Romans.

For people Caratacus/Caradog, Boudicca,

Here's a book you might find useful Amazon.com: Lords of Battle: The World of the Celtic Warrior (World of the Warrior) (9781841769486): Stephen Allen: Books

These are good sites - BBC - History - Ancient History in depth: Life in an Iron Age Village

British Museum - Daily life in Iron Age Britain

BBC - History - Ancient History in depth: Overview: Iron Age, 800 BC - AD 43

 

[Caged Maiden]

I tend to buy books relating to costume for my job, but the interesting thing is that those are largely untapped resources. Sometimes you can get a lot of understanding about people through the clothes they wore and how certain garments, say pants for instance, which came from the Mongol invaders, showed how cultures communicated, traded, etc.

I'm not terribly knowledgeable about that particular time period, but researching clothing might turn up a lot of interesting things because other people do research specifically on clothing. Also you might try some other craft, say pottery or mining as mentioned above. It might reveal loads more than just the industries themselves. Best wishes.

 

[Chilari]

The best academic book out there on Roman Britain, I would argue, is David Mattingly's doorstopper of a book, An Imperial Possession. I must admit some bias in this as he was my personal tutor in my MA year, but I did read it and several others and found it very useful indeed. Even the Romans agree; I spotted it in the gift shop in the Pantheon in Rome when I was there two years ago. I suppose for balance I should mention Guy de la Bedoyere's Roman Britain: a New History, which I also found useful. Both were published in 2006 so they're pretty up to date.

Generally, Mattingly's position is that the world of Late Iron Age Britain was highly regional, the culture dependant on contact with the continent, the region's landscape and resources, and various other factors. When the Romans came in, their approach to each region was tailored to how welcome they were made to feel by the local inhabitants, how valuable the region was to them in terms of transporting resources through it or producing food for them, and what other resources, like tin or gold, they had. If I recall correctly, thye mostly built colonies in the regions which were not so happy about them being there, and civilian towns where the locals were more welcoming, or at least easily and swiftly defeated. So the lifestyles of the inhabitants of a region varied from region to region.

In terms of beliefs about curses, you might find my article on curse tablets and judicial prayers useful (or at least, I hope, interesting), as many of the curse tablets known about are from Britain.