Reliving the Iron Age in Britain

Volunteers turn back the clock for the BBC

Helen Elphick stands in the rain at the edge of a 6-ft. pile of cow dung, feeding two grotesque pigs, both part wild boar. Inside the smoky communal hut, couples in hides and rough wool garments squat around the fire, spit-roasting a heavy pork leg and preparing sausages and black pudding made from skin, offal and gut. John Rossetti sheds his clothes, steps into a wood tub and begins to scrub off five days' grime with clay and hot water. John Rockcliff enters through the goatskin door, carrying a rat he has caught. It will be on the menu tomorrow.

These young Britons are not members of a hippie commune, but volunteers for an experiment in Iron Age living, sponsored and filmed by the BBC and now on English television as a twelve-part series. Isolated deep in the Wiltshire woods, they have spent nearly a year trying to re-create the lives of their Celtic ancestors of 2,200 years ago.

BBC Producer John Percival, an archaeology buff, conceived the project after a visit to a re constructed Iron Age settlement in Lejre, Denmark. From 1,000 volunteers, Percival selected six couples and trained them in Celtic crafts and culture. One couple, with the commune's only children, three boys, braved it for much of the year but quit the experiment several months ago. The others have stayed on, raising crops and livestock, making pottery, cooking Iron Age food and spinning and weaving wool sheared from their own sheep.

To Percival's surprise, the volunteers, "who had sat on their asses most of their lives," coped gracefully with primitive life. Building the communal hut took more than two months. Using ancient tools, the group chopped wood for 72 rafters, fashioned a conical thatched roof and sides out of wattle (interwoven hazel branches) and daub (mud and animal hair). Making a loaf of bread the Celtic way took nearly a day. Fashioning clay storage pots took longer, and the early pottery tended to crack over the fire--until the novices got the hang of their craft. Says Helen Elphick: "We were all very frustrated."

The volunteers grew peas, beans, buckwheat and flax, and raised chickens, goats, pigs and cattle. They kept bees in wicker hives for their honey, and traded pottery and baby goats to the film crew for rations of salt and butter. Food storage was a constant problem. At times, the group had to eat maggoty meat and cope with invasions of rats.

Doing things "proper Iron Age" became the commune's buzz words. A sieve made out of animal hair was allowed--the Celts might have devised it. But when John Rossetti made a chair, Percival destroyed it. Says he: "It was too early to have thought up such a thing." Martin Elphick, a doctor from Kent, pursued primitive medicine, treating flu with violet and willow bark, headaches with valerian root, and asthma with deadly nightshade. The Iron Agers developed their own dyes, appletree bark for yellow, the yew tree for orange, lichens for brown and green.

For amusement, the Iron Agers told stories, played the lyre, pipe and drums, and competed at "Nine Men's Morris," an ancient board game. Sarah Rockcliff, who dearly missed her afternoon tea, made do with brews of dandelion or mint.

A year of communal living with scant privacy produced close friendships, a good deal of casual nudity, and a strong taboo against swapping sexual partners. The group talked and moved more slowly and became more superstitious, although members found it hard to sustain an interest in the Celtic religion. "I still can't pray to their gods and goddesses," says John Rockcliff. "It takes more than a year to leave this century."

Despite the general rule against modern conveniences--no electricity, plumbing, newspapers, cigarettes or soap --the 20th century kept intruding. British education authorities ruled that schoolbooks had to be available for the children, and laws demanded that a butcher come in to stun and slaughter the pigs. TV crews appeared on the scene about twice a week. Percival allowed the volunteers to use Tampax and contraceptives, sent in a doctor four times during emergencies, and took the group for a summer outing at the shore. Said he: "No one's life should suffer or be altered for a television show."

The couple who dropped out, Peter and Lindsay Ainsworth, could not agree more. The Ainsworths--he is a former union official, she is a hairdresser and yoga teacher--are vegetarians, and nettled their fellow Iron Agers by refusing to kill animals or eat meat. Lindsay resented some of the restrictions. One rule barred beverages between mealtimes, because there was no evidence that Iron Age people snacked.

Last summer the Ainsworths' five-year-old son developed a persistent rectal disorder. The commune wanted to vote on whether the family should stay or go, but the Ainsworths balked at the notion of group control and left. Was that a proper Iron Age decision? Says Lindsay: "An Iron Age mother would have attended to her child, especially if it was a boy." A specialist later reported that the primitive diet had produced the ailment, which contemporary meals promptly cleared up.

Lindsay recalls the pressure of confinement and the constant bickering during the experiment. "We had nothing else to take up our thinking time," she says. Still, she misses the animals and the plants, and the continuing story about trees that she told the children at nighttime around the fire. "It developed into a saga, and now that's gone." The children are less nostalgic. They now refer to the Celtic experience as a "silly time."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.