Celtic Life in the Iron Age

hello my name is David chunk from ancient arts today we're going to look at what life is like in the Iron Age like in the round house would have focused around the half and the light and heat it provided most British round houses have their heart in the center giving a uniform light and heat for the whole structure smoke rising for fire into roof will reflect some of the light back down into the house further evidence for lighting has been found such as this replica lamp from the Great Orme copper mines this consists of concave pebble with a moss wick and animal fat or bone marrow for fuel here the wick is lit from the fire and transferred to the lamp but this time bread had become the staple food it was made predominantly from barley and wheat grain unlike the Magnificent windmill here at Klingon today which produces flour mechanically and efficiently prehistoric people had to grind the grain by hand in the Bronze Age they used a saddle groom a flat coarse grain stone with a small grinding stone held in the hand a laborious and physically hard job the grain may have been softened by soaking overnight the flower made is course unglued small fragments of grit from the quay and stones themselves leaving our ancestors teeth badly worn later in the Iron Age a more efficient rotary grin was developed here grain entered the grain through a hole at the top as ground and forced out the sides as a coarse flour still hard work once crowned the flower is made into dough and put in a clove and like this one here at the Sun on cloven is made on a stone base and its structure built up with a mixture of clay and straw the oven is then dried out a violet inside and left to die down the ashes are then raked out and the dough put in to bake the stone and clay walls will have been heated by the fire will now slowly release the residual heat those baking the bread in addition to the bread fruits and nuts would have been collected for food acid greens fungi fish and other seafood primitive breeds of sheep pigs and cattle have been kept providing meat skins bone horn sinews on wool wool would also have been used to produce textiles the stone disks which form spindle whirls seen here at the top of drop spindles are from found on excavations of round houses they were used to spin the wool dyes made from plants such as world Weld brambles and nettles were used to add color to the wall the wall would then have been woven into textiles on looms such as this format from bark wood and leather containers would have been used for storage and mixing but little pottery is found at this time what there was was of poor quality unable to take direct heat from the fire for heating liquids some families may have had high stakes as bronze or iron cauldrons but there is also Evans a more primitive technique using heated stones was used this is done by heating stones under a bonfire after half an hour or so the stones are uncovered some may have already shattered in the fire the stones are then put into a water-filled leather bag or leather cord you already completed wall thermal shock will shatter some of the stones making the tell-tale pop boilers found during excavations the water will start to boil one spoiled occasional added hot stone will maintain the temperature large amounts of heat shuttered stones are also found on sites called burn mounds here ash covered burnt stones are seen eroding out of a slope on a flame Peninsula in 2008 ancient arts and grinev archeological trust excavated the site to find out what it being used for this revealed Bronze Age oak plank trough surrounded with blackened stones and a wooden launder leading into the trough from an old stream bed there are many theories about what this was used for we decided to test the most attractive theory which is that it was used for making ale a replica wooden trough was made and placed into a slot in the ground and filled with water a bonfire was lit over the stones and the heated stones were removed from the fire and placed into a basket in the trough soon boiling the water the water was then left to cool a little and malted barley added crushed elder breeds were added as a source of yeast to ferment the brew the resulting mix was saved to remove the barley which can be used to make bread and the brew left to ferment for five days the experiment produced 77 pints of drinkable ale and everyone survived the most important technological advance that would have affected the Roundhouse dwellers was the increased use of metal first bronze and then iron stone and wooden tools were still used but bronze tools such as this axe and highly decorated items such as this mirror would have been effective tools and valuable possessions bronze is made from a mixture of copper and 10 North Wales has two important prehistoric copper mines a Paris Mountaineer animal and the great on copper mined in Llandudno turning copper ore into copper metal a process called smelting could have been done in a small pit dug into the ground a small groove is cut into the edge to allow air from a set of back bellows to be blown into the pit the beautiful green color door is called malachite and would have been mined at the Great Orme in the bronze and iron ages using stone hammers and tools made from animal bones you always crushed on a small stone handle a fire lit in the pit and charcoal added the crush door is then sprinkled onto the hot coals and the end of the both bellows is placed in the pit Capitol turf placed over the top air is then forced into the pit by the bellows this will increase the temperature inside the pit creating a simple furnace this is kept up for a couple of hours inside the pit er reducing atmosphere is produced the carbon monoxide produced by the burning charcoal bonds with the carbon and the oil producing carbon dioxide and copper metal this chemical reaction is what changes your inter metal and not the temperature in the furnace changes in the kurtal of the flame coming out of the pit show how the smelt is progressing when this is complete the turf cap is removed and the copper metal retrieved the metal is a pink yellow in color the remaining fill of the pet is washed to check the small fragments of copper using a simple panning technique these fragments are collected and put back into a crucible and melted together small amounts of 10 or LED are added to produce the harder bronze alloy this can then be poured into molds either stone ones or ones made from clay and done is open and the bronze revealed around two and a half thousand years ago iron tools first start to appear in Wales iron it's melted from an all such as hematite a different type of furnace is needed for this as a temperature has to be significantly higher here slight from the oil runs out to the base of the furnace leaving the iron bloom inside once dug out the iron bloom has to be reheated on hammered to remove any remaining slag before it can be used the iron is then hammered or forged into objects such as this knife blade a wooden pampers attached and the knife is used in everyday life by the people of the round houses [Music]

Channel: ancient1580

Views: 177,434

Keywords: ancient arts, llynnon, roundhouse, celtic, anglesey, History, Prehistoric Art (Literature Subject), Prehistoric, artefacts, Stone Age

Id: XQ9lvVCfyN8

Length: 10min 58sec (658 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 27 2012