This volume presents for the first time the results of the excavation
and scientific analysis between 2005 and 2013 of seventeen Iron Age
cauldrons discovered in a large pit on farmland in the parish of
Chiseldon, Wiltshire, and consequently acquired by the British Museum.
The assemblage is unprecedented in many respects and is the largest
known single deposit of prehistoric cauldrons from Europe. The hoard was
deposited in the fourth or third centuries BC, although hoarding as a
practice is generally underrepresented during this period. The inclusion
in the hoard of rare decorated cauldrons also means that it is one of
very few deposits from Britain dating to the middle Iron Age known to
contain multiple objects decorated with Celtic art and the only example
where it is possible to ascertain that decorated objects were all
deposited at the same time. Scientific investigation has revealed that
the cauldrons were complicated to manufacture and sophisticated
techniques such as quenching were used to make them. Examination of food
residues adhering to the vessels demonstrates that they were used to
prepare and serve both meat and vegetable based dishes probably
including stews, gruels and porridges. The discovery of so many
contemporary vessels in one deposit has important implications for our
understanding of middle Iron Age society in southern Britain. Thought to
be vessels made and used for feasting, the capacity represented by the
Chiseldon Hoard indicates the potential in these societies to host
feasts with many hundreds, if not thousands of participants,
demonstrating levels of sophistication and organisation traditionally
viewed as being beyond societies with relatively flat social
hierarchies.
