Wessex culture

This article is about the Bronze Age archaeological culture in southern Britain. For the later medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom, see Wessex.

The Wessex culture is the predominant prehistoric culture of central and southern Britain during the early Bronze Age, originally defined by the British archaeologist Stuart Piggott in 1938.

The culture is related to the Hilversum culture of the southern Netherlands, Belgium and northern France, and linked to the Armorican Tumulus culture in northern France and the Únětice culture in central Germany, with connections to the Argaric culture in southern Iberia and to Mycenaean Greece. It is prototyped with the Middle Rhine group of the Bell Beaker culture and commonly subdivided in the consecutive phases of Wessex I (2000–1650 BC) and Wessex II (1650–1400). Piggott attributes the origin of this culture to an "actual ethnic movement" from Northern France. Piggott describes the culture as composed of an underlying substratum, similar to the contemporary food vessel culture found further north, and an intrusive ruling class who opened trading networks with France and central and northern Europe, and imported bronze tools and probably also artisans.

It has been speculated that river transport allowed Wessex to be the main link to the Severn estuary. The wealth from such trade probably permitted the Wessex people to construct the second and third (megalithic) phases of Stonehenge and also indicates a powerful form of social organisation.

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