Envaluing past practice: a framework for the spatial analysis of metalworking in first millennium BC Britain

This thesis explores how current understandings of craft have largely restricted its analysis to the domains of material and technique. Through a critique of existing approaches to space and a reconfiguring of what constitutes craft practice, it is argued that space needs to be considered as a vital element of craft and may benefit from being considered as a technological choice. Having reconsidered the role of space, the thesis reviews and explores approaches and methods to characterising space in both archaeological and experimental contexts. The study engages with a number of analytical techniques including geophysical and geochemical methods to develop approaches to the characterisation of space in both experimental and archaeological case studies.

It is argued that the study of space and its inhabitation offers the potential to unite experimental and conventional archaeological excavation on a continuum of exploration that emphasises the active use of space and in craft contexts, encourages the use of dynamic reconstruction. A number of analytical constructs are advocated so as to allow the better use of spatial characterisation in archaeological syntheses. Ideas of technical routines and the signatures that they impart to open soil contexts are developed in the context of experimental and Iron Age case studies to demonstrate the utility of considering space as an element of craft.