Dress and Identity in Iron Age Britain: A Study of Glass Beads and Other Objects of Personal Adornment

Studies of Iron Age artefacts from Britain tend to be dominated either by the study of metalwork, or pottery.This book presents a study not only of a different material, but also a different type of object: glass beads.These are found in a range of different sizes, shapes, colours, and employ a variety of different decorative motifs.Through an analysis of glass beads from four key study regions in Britain, the book aims not only to address regional differences in appearance and chronology, but also to explore the role that this object played within the networks and relationships that constructed Iron Age society.It seeks to understand how they were used during their lives and how they came to be deposited within the archaeological record, in order to establish the social processes that glass beads were bound within.The results indicate that glass beads were a strongly regionalised artefact, potentially reflecting differing local preferences for colour and motif.In addition, glass beads