Re-classifying Iron Age marsh-forts

The proposed project will create a new understanding of the site class known as marsh-forts. Despite increased interest in these sites, there has been little critical reflection beyond descriptive observations relating to their proximity to wetlands. Recent research at one site, funded through M3C (Norton 2019),
has created new evidence of its environmental context but there remains no critique of whether the use of a descriptive classification is appropriate for such a diverse range of sites.

My GIS-based MA research focused on the analysis of seven marsh-fort sites, resulting in the hypothesis that there are two distinctive types of marsh-fort defined by relationships between constructed architecture and wetland context. The first type uses wetlands as natural defences in a similar way to
promontory forts, whereas the second type displays the opposite, counter-intuitive trend with increased levels of fortification in the areas of such natural obstacles. If this hypothesis is correct, then the grouping of marsh-forts within a single descriptive category is unhelpful for the interpretation of later prehistoric
architecture and society, and for understanding the significance of each site.

The proposed research aims to create a new critical reclassification of marsh-fort sites by testing this hypothesis by expanding my MA research to all identified examples, and undertaking targeted fieldwork of a selection. The first phase of the project will centre on the critical analysis of all sites in England and Wales currently defined as marsh-forts using GIS-based modelling (lidar, geology, archaeology) and site visits. This will result in an initial classification of different types of marsh-fort that will be tested in the second phase focusing on characterising wetland deposits for a selection of sites with different architectural details using stratigraphic analysis of borehole transects, targeted radiocarbon dating of basal deposits, and GIS-based modelling.