The rich survey and archaeological dataset accrued through decades of survey and excavation allows us to create diverse narratives of the Iron Age of South East Scotland. Most of the sites discussed within this chapter are shown on the map below. From this diverse record we can create pictures of peoples’ lives and deaths within the confines of the banks and ditches of enclosures and across the fields, woods, wetlands, shores and pastures that surround them.
But as with all new research, there remain many new questions to explore in the future. This section of SESARF is concerned with identifying new research questions for Iron Age South East Scotland. In order to do this, we must consider the existing record, with reference to old and new discoveries.
The Iron Age is defined here as 800 BC to around AD 400. This period coincided with the Roman military campaigning and occupation in Scotland from the Flavian campaigns of AD 77-90, through to the Severan campaigns of AD 208-211 and the wider period of Roman influence in the area between and up to the end of Roman control in Britain in AD 411. The Roman period is assessed in a separate chapter (see SESARF Chapter 7. Roman).