After an administrative interval I resumed my full-time commitment to archaeological teaching and research. Excavations at the key site of broch and post-broch occupation at Beirgh in West Lewis were suspended in 1995, and a first volume of the final report was published in 2000 with Dr Simon Gilmour under the title The Iron Age Settlement at Beirgh, Riof, Isle of Lewis: Excavations 1985-95, Vol 1, The Structures and Stratigraphy. Publication of the first volume of the final report of the nearby island dun settlement at Loch Bharabhat has also appeared as Dun Bharabhat, Cnip, an Iron Age Settlement in West Lewis, Vol.1, The Structures and Material Culture (2000). Further publication of the results of the Western Isles Research programme is planned, subject to funding and resources being available.
My latest series of books began with the publication in 2004 of The Iron Age in Northern Britain, which offered an overview of the ‘long Iron Age’ in Britain north of the Trent, emphasizing continuity and change in settlement patterns beyond the zone of Roman colonization from the first millennium BC down to the period of Norse settlements. This was followed by a specialist study of The Archaeology of Celtic Art (2007) on the Continent and in Britain and Ireland from the Hallstatt Iron Age to the Early Christian era, building on a long-standing interest in the role of art in Iron Age society. The third book, and my first in almost forty years for Oxford University Press, was The Iron Age Round-house in Britain and beyond (2009), again taking up an interest that stemmed from early excavation experience and involvement in the Butser Hill experimental programme. The fourth, Iron Age Hillforts in Britain and beyond (2012) examined the controversy over hillfort functions and their role in the Iron Age, again in the wider geographical and chronological context of the ‘long Iron Age’. The most recent of the quintet is Death and Burial in Iron Age Britain (2015). It examines the very erratic funerary record from the insular Iron Age, and challenges the view that there should have been a consistent and recurrent form of burial, arguing instead that the remains of the dead may regularly have been fragmented and dispersed around settlements, effectively integrating the dead with the living, rather than segregating them into designated cemeteries.
1. Books:
1972 The Iron Age in the Upper Thames Basin, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1972, 178pp + 81 plates
1974 The Iron Age in Lowland Britain, London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1974, 260pp
1975 Later Prehistory from the Trent to the Tyne (with A. J. Challis) (2 vols), Oxford B.A.R. British Ser.20, 1975, 250pp + 180pp
1978 Prehistoric Europe, Oxford, Elsevier/Phaidon, 1978, 150pp
1993 An Iron Age Settlement in Dorset: Excavation and Reconstruction, (with I.M.Blake and P.J.Reynolds) Univ. Edin. Dept. Arch., Mon. Ser. No. 1,1993, 120pp.
2000a The Iron Age Settlement at Beirgh, Riof, Isle of Lewis: Excavations 1985-95, Vol.1 The Structures and Stratigraphy, (with S. M. D. Gilmour), Edinburgh, Univ. Edin. Dept. Arch., Calanais Research Series No. 1,103pp.
2000b Dun Bharabhat, Cnip:An Iron Age Settlement in West Lewis. Vol.1 Structures and Material Culture, (with T. N. Dixon), Edinburgh, Univ. Edin. Dept. Arch., Calanais Research Series No. 2, 144pp.
2004a The Iron Age in Northern Britain: Celts and Romans, Natives and Invaders, London/New York, Routledge, 350pp.
2007a The Archaeology of Celtic Art, Abingdon/New York, Routledge, 320pp.
2009. The Iron Age Round-house; Later Prehistoric Building in Britain and Beyond, Oxford University Press.
2012 Iron Age Hillforts in Britain and Beyond , Oxford University Press.
2015 Death and Burial in Iron Age Britain, Oxford University Press.
2020 Rewriting History – Changing Perceptions of the Past , Oxford University Press.
2023 Rethinking Roundhouses – Later Prehistoric Settlement in Britain and Beyond , Oxford University Press.
Reports:
1984a Holme House, Piercebridge: Excavations, 1969-70. A Summary Report, Univ. Edin. Dept. Arch. Project Paper 2, 1984, 21pp.
1986 Callanish Archaeological Research Centre, First Annual Report (with P. G. Topping), Univ. Edin. Dept.Arch., 1986, 39pp.
1987 Excavations in Oxfordshire, 1964-66, Univ. Edin. Dept. Arch. Occasional Paper. 15, 1987, 59pp.
2000c The Hebridean Iron Age: Twenty Years Research, Univ. Edin. Dept. Arch. Occasional Paper 20, 31pp.(On the web)
2. Books Edited:
1976a Hillforts: Later Prehistoric Earthworks in Britain and Ireland, London, Academic Press, 1976, 400pp + 200pp illus. (editor and contributor)
1976b Archaeology in the North: Report of the Northern Archaeological Survey, Durham, Durham University/H.M.S.O., 1976, 304pp + Gazetteer 137pp, (editor and contributor)
1982a Later Prehistoric Settlement in South-East Scotland, Univ. Edin. Dept. Arch. Occasional Paper 8, 1982, 210pp (editor and contributor).
2005a Celtic Connections, Papers from the Tenth International Congress of Celtic Studies, Edinburgh, 1995, Vol. Two, Archaeology, Numismatics, Historical Linguistics, (with W. Gillies) (editor and contributor), Univ. Edin. Dept Arch. Monograph ser. 2.
3. Articles:
1959 ‘Excavation of Multiple Banks, Thickthorn Down, Dorset’, Proc. Dorset Nat. Hist. and Arch. Soc., 81, 1959, 110-113.
1963 ‘An Early Iron Age Settlement in Dorset’ (with I. M.Blake), Antiquity, XXXVII, 63-4.
1969 ‘The Iron Age and Anglo-Saxon Site at Upton, Northants’ (with D. A. Jackson and J. N. L. Myres), Antiquaries Journal, XLIX, 1969, 202-21.
1973. ‘Round and Rectangular: Iron Age Houses, British and Foreign’, in C. F. C and S. C. Hawkes (eds), Greeks, Celts and Romans, Studies in Venture and Resistance, London, J. M. Dent, 1973, 43-62.
1976c ‘Blewburton Hill, Berks: Re-excavation and Re-appraisal’, in Hillforts, D. W. Harding (ed), London, Academic Press, 1976, 133-46.
1979 ‘Air Survey in the Tyne-Tees Region, 1969-79’, in N. Higham (ed), The Changing Past, Manchester, Univ. Manchester Dept Extra-Mural Studies, 1979, 1-30.
1980 Celts in Conflict. Hillfort Studies, 1927-77. Univ.Edin. Dept. Arch. Occ. Ppr. 3, 1980, 19pp + 5 illus.
1984b ‘The Function and Classification of Brochs and Duns’, in R. Miket and C. Burgess (eds) Between and Beyond the Walls, Essays on the Prehistory and History of North Britain in Honour of George Jobey, 1984, Edinburgh, John Donald, 206-20.
1983 ‘Aerial Reconnaissance in Scotland: Comment’, Scottish Arch. Rev., 2, 1, 1983,65-7
1990a ‘Changing Perspectives in the Atlantic Iron Age’, in I. Armit (ed), Beyond the Brochs, Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 1990, 5-16.
1990b ‘Survey and Excavation in West Lewis’, (with I. Armit), in I. Armit (ed), Beyond the Brochs, Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 1990,71-107.
1994a ‘Celtic Europe’ in Cambridge Ancient History, J. M. Lewis, John Boardman et al. (eds), Vol.VI, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 404-21; 944-46.
1997a: ‘Forts, duns, brochs, crannogs: Iron Age Settlements in Argyll’ in The Archaeology of Argyll, J. N. G. Ritchie (ed), Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 118-40.
2000d ‘Crannogs and Island Duns’, Oxford Journ. Archaeology, 19, 3, 301-17.
2001. ‘Later Prehistory in South-East Scotland: a critical review’, Oxford Journ. Archaeology, 20, 4, Nov. 2001, 355-76.
2002. ‘Torrs and Early La Tène Ornamental Styles in Britain and Ireland,’ in B. Ballin Smith and I. Banks (eds), In the Shadow of the Brochs: the Iron Age in Scotland, Stroud, Tempus, 191-204.
2004b. ‘Dunagoil, Bute, re-instated’, Transactions of the Buteshire Natural History Society, XXVI, 1-19.
2005b ‘The Iron Age in Atlantic Scotland and the Western Seaways,’ in W. Gillies and D. W. Harding (eds), Celtic Connections, Papers from the Tenth International Congress of Celtic Studies, Edinburgh, 1995, Vol. Two, Archaeology, Numismatics, Historical Linguistics, Univ. Edin. Dept. Arch. Mon. Ser. 2, 166-180.
2005c ‘Archaeology and Celticity’, (with W.Gillies) in W. Gillies and D. W. Harding (eds), Celtic Connections, Papers from the Tenth International Congress of Celtic Studies, Edinburgh, 1995, Vol. Two, Archaeology, Numismatics, Historical Linguistics, University of Edinburgh Department of Archaeology Monograph ser. 2, 1-14.
2005d. ‘The Atlantic Scottish Iron Age: External Relations Reviewed’, in Turner, V., Nicholson, R., Dockrill, S. and Bond, J., eds., Tall Stories? 2 Millennia of Brochs, Lerwick, Shetland Amenity Trust, 32-51.
2006 ‘Redefining the Northern British Iron Age’, Oxford Journ. Archaeology, 25, 61-82.
2007b. ‘Crannogs and island duns: an aerial perspective’, Green, C. (ed) Archaeology from the Wetlands: Recent Perspectives, Proceedings of the Eleventh WARP Conference, Edinburgh 2005, Society of Antiquaries of Scotland , Edinburgh, 267-73.
2007c ‘Culture Contact in Prehistoric Europe: Forty Years on from the Diffusionist Debate’, in Beyond Stonehenge: Essays on the Bronze Age in Honour of Colin Burgess, Christopher Burgess, P. Topping and F. Lynch, eds, Oxford, Oxbow Books.
2010. ‘Secondary occupation of Atlantic roundhouses: problems of identification and interpretation,’ in Cooney, G. et al. eds, Relics of Auld Decency: Festschrift for Barry Raftery, Dublin, Wordwell Books.