I know a lot of you are busy with family and friends celebrating the Independence of the United States. I hope everyone had a great day and hope the rest of the evening is equally enjoyable. My wife's mom and dad were down from The Villages and my son and stepdaughter and her boyfriend were also in attendance. We had corn on the cob, oven-baked chicken and mac-n-cheese, with mile-high-strawberry pie for desert. It was great.
The bronze age in Britain lasted from 2300-750 BC, although you can find different start and end dates if you look. The truth is, nobody showed up at midnight GMT on New Year's Day of 2301 and said "Here's bronze, knock this stone crap off." Likewise, they didn't one day put down all their bronze utensils and pick up iron implements.
Around 1500 BC, the roundhouse became the most common form of architecture in Britain. They ranged in size from five to fifteen meters in diameter. They had steep, conical roofs--necessary to help the thatch ward off rain. The construction material used in the structure was primarily hardwoods, but plenty of thatch and daub were also required.
I've added a number of roundhouses to my village, along with a few odd buildings such as a collection of sod shelters across the road from the village and a haphazard tannery by the river.
The large round structure is a palisade, used for common defense in case of invasion by unfriendly tribes.
The shaded area near the palisade is a midden, and there is another one just north of the village. The reason for using two middens was practical. The north midden was used for shells, bones and other dry trash, whereas the south midden was used for organic rubbish. This kept seepage from the south or "wet" midden from infiltrating the village and it also used the prevailing winds to blow the smell of it away from the village.
The long, narrow trench leading away from the south midden is a crude sewage system which diverts any runoff from the midden into the river. Yes, we cringe now to consider such a thing, but rivers have been used throughout man's history to dispose of sewage, and only recently have such practices become less common. Little thought was given to the impact to the village down-river, but then again, little thought was given to what the village up-river was dumping into the stream either.
Finally, I've added some images of real bronze-age artifacts found in Britain.
I'm not done yet. I have quite a bit of stuff to add to the map and a legend to create still.
