So how do you think like a man in the middle to late iron age in England? It is not easy and I found myself standing a field near to Normanton le Heath doing just that. Actually that is not true because I have no idea, no one really does despite what they might say, has the first clue as to what would be going through a person’s mind over 2000 years ago. We really have no terms of reference apart from one – our own human interaction with the world around us.

So why was I trying to thing like this? Well as you may not be aware my field of research is prehistoric salt roads running through west Leicestershire and so I’m trying to work out the routes taken. A lot of the time there are clues, such as salt place names or perhaps salt related pottery as has been found at Normanton le Heath. However as I look east from the site the next salt place name is 37 Km to the east – just how did the salters get from Normanton to there? The first question would be how do you overcome Bardon Hill? Now this isn’t a particularly large hill but it is there and do you go over or around? Well my guess is around. So the next question is do you go to the left or right?

Well if you look at the photo you’ll see that the land is higher to left rather than the right which is consequentially the way I think the salt road went. Also by going to the right there is more water, an important thing if you have a train of pack ponies to look after.

So that is how you think like an Iron Age man – by not pretending you know what he would be thinking but rather trying to address obvious questions that the landscape might pose. Of course when I get home I start to plot all these things onto different maps which is what I’ve been doing this afternoon. Busy old time all in all.

Simon Marchini
Web: http://WWW.simonmarchini.co.uk