In recent years considerable attention has been devoted to the problems of the Early Iron Age in the British Isles; and, amongst these problems, that of the relationship between the insular and the continental cultures of the period has not become simpler or clearer as the British evidence has accumulated. How far, and in what manner, were the various Iron Age cultures of Britain derived from the continent? How far, and under what conditions, were they due to local initiative in Britain itself? Until questions such as these can be answered approximately, it will remain impossible alike to estimate the real achievement of the later prehistoric civilization of the island and to visualize the full significance of the adjacent civilization of northwestern Europe. The problem is not an easy one. The agricultural and therefore local basis of most of the Iron Age economy of Britain encouraged the strong local differentiation of cultural forms, and this local individuality was enhanced by the fashion in which the major tracts of open and habitable chalk or greensand tended, in ancient times, to be isolated by expanses of dense and often impassable forest. And, similarly, an intrusive element from overseas might easily take root in a particular area of southern or eastern Britain without directly affecting other areas within a relatively short map-distance.
The Abelam: A Study in Local Differentiation