Stones, Bones and Homes: An Examination of Regionality in the Iron Age Settlements and Landscape of West Wales

West Wales in the Iron Age contained a diverse range of settlement types, from hill-forts to unenclosed farmsteads, with the dominant type of settlement the enclosed farmstead. However, a recent review of information available for the British Iron Age identified a relative lack of systematised information for Wales and consequently there is a pressing need to re-examine the settlement record for this area, as the belief in a single Iron Age "culture" gives way to recognition of regional difference in material cultures, social institutions and life-ways. This thesis examines the settlements and landscape of West Wales in an attempt to contribute to our understanding of this region in the Iron Age. In order to make a regionally synthesised investigation of the social, I conducted a survey of excavation and survey information for Iron Age settlements in West Wales. Analysis centred on examining the spatial patterning of settlements by considering the morphology, distribution, placement and structure of settlements, their place in the landscape and regional trends in the structuring of space and artefacts. The investigation was contextualised within the wider body of material for the Iron Age in Britain. The use of landscape theory as an interpretive framework in examining the spatial patterning of the material culture in the Iron Age proved an effective method for interpreting domestic settlements within the lived landscape. Social and cosmological relations within settlements and within the referential structuring of a landscape, particularly with respect to pre-existing monuments, were suggested by the analysis. By comparing these trends in the structuring of settlements within the landscape to settlements elsewhere in Britain, a distinct and regional culture for the Iron Age of West Wales was identified