Aylesford-Swarling pottery is part of a tradition of wheel-thrown

pottery Pottery is the process and the products of forming vessels and other objects with clay and other ceramic materials, which are fired at high temperatures to give them a hard and durable form. Major types include earthenware, stoneware and po ...

distributed around

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...

, Hertfordshire and

Bedfordshire Bedfordshire (; abbreviated Beds) is a ceremonial county in the East of England. The county has been administered by three unitary authorities, Borough of Bedford, Central Bedfordshire and Borough of Luton, since Bedfordshire County Council ...

and named after two cemeteries in Kent dating to the 1st century BC. The tradition reached Britain with the so-called Belgic invasion of the 1st century BC and may also be loosely termed Belgic ware. Whether there was actual migration, or how much, or whether "this culture developed because of the proximity of Roman trading systems, rather than a wholesale movement of continental peoples" remains the subject of debate. A cemetery of the

British Iron Age The British Iron Age is a conventional name used in the archaeology of Great Britain, referring to the prehistoric and protohistoric phases of the Iron Age culture of the main island and the smaller islands, typically excluding prehistoric ...

discovered in 1886 at

Aylesford Aylesford is a village and civil parish on the River Medway in Kent, England, northwest of Maidstone. Originally a small riverside settlement, the old village comprises around 60 houses, many of which were formerly shops. Two pubs, a village ...

in Kent was excavated under the leadership of Sir

Arthur Evans Sir Arthur John Evans (8 July 1851 – 11 July 1941) was a British archaeologist and pioneer in the study of Aegean civilization in the Bronze Age. He is most famous for unearthing the palace of Knossos on the Greek island of Crete. Based o ...

, and published in 1890. With the later excavation by others at Swarling not far away (discovery to publication was 1921–1925) this is the

type site In archaeology, a type site is the site used to define a particular archaeological culture or other typological unit, which is often named after it. For example, discoveries at La Tène and Hallstatt led scholars to divide the European Iron ...

for Aylesford-Swarling pottery or the Aylesford-Swarling culture, which included the first wheel-made pottery in Britain. Evans' conclusion that the site belonged to a culture closely related to the continental

Belgae The Belgae () were a large confederation of tribes living in northern Gaul, between the English Channel, the west bank of the Rhine, and the northern bank of the river Seine, from at least the third century BC. They were discussed in depth by J ...

, remains the modern view, though the dating has been refined to the period after about 75 BC. His analysis of the site was still regarded as "an outstanding contribution to Iron Age studies" with "a masterly consideration of the metalwork" by Sir

Barry Cunliffe Sir Barrington Windsor Cunliffe, (born 10 December 1939), known as Barry Cunliffe, is a British archaeologist and academic. He was Professor of European Archaeology at the University of Oxford from 1972 to 2007. Since 2007, he has been an Emeri ...

in 2012.Cunliffe, Barry W., ''Iron Age Communities in Britain, Fourth Edition: An Account of England, Scotland and Wales from the Seventh Century BC, Until the Roman Conquest'', near Figure 1.4, 2012 (4th edition), Routledge
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Characteristics

Vessels are generally wheel-thrown, and show cordons (strips of clay added around the pot), 'corrugation', and zones of combed or 'furrowed' decoration. Shapes may be angular or rounded, often with pedestal or foot-ring bases. The use of grog temper was extensive, though not universal.

Notes

References

* Alex Gibson & Ann Woods, ''Prehistoric Pottery for the Archaeologist'', 2nd ed., 1997 Leicester University Press, pp. 90–93, . * McKeown, J., "The Aylesford-Swarling Culture,

21 February 1999. * Dr Richard J. Pollard, ''The Roman Pottery of Kent'', Doctoral thesis completed in 1982, published 1988, pp. 30, {{ISBN, 0-906746-12-4
online
Romano-British pottery Iron Age Britain