Radiocarbon-based models of earliest Iron Age village community (Køge Bay region, East Zealand)

This paper explores the dynamics of village community formation and change during the earliest Iron Age (c. 500–1 BC) using radiocarbon-based models. A dataset of more than 5000 radiocarbon dates from a study area within the Køge Bay region (East Zealand, Denmark) is compiled to approach multiple scales of analysis. First, overall spatiotemporal trends in the settlement record across the study area are examined to contextualise formational and transformative processes. These models show abrupt, significant growth in frequency and spatial densities of radiocarbon dated settlement from c. 400/350 BC, indicating high-tempo processes of expansion and formation into aggregated community configurations. Modelled densities peak c. 300–200 BC and then decrease rapidly, constraining this dynamic of growth, plateau and reduction to short-duration sequences. Second, site-scale models focusing on a specific village community within a corresponding timeframe are used to assess temporal frameworks and changepoints in detail. These models test diverse spatiotemporal frequencies and distinctive properties of several individual farm clusters constituting the village and consistently suggest significant intra-community variability. The results propose new ways to look at timings and change-rates in the dynamics of interaction, cohesion and division shaping earliest Iron Age village communities.