The Archaeology of Britain: An introduction from ... - waughfamily.ca
The Archaeology of Britain: An introduction from ... - waughfamily.ca
The Archaeology of Britain: An introduction from ... - waughfamily.ca
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<strong>The</strong> Earlier Bronze Age<br />
• 89 •<br />
buttons (<strong>of</strong> material <strong>from</strong> Whitby, Yorkshire), the East <strong>An</strong>glian flint dagger and the Wessex chalk<br />
artefacts found with the body <strong>of</strong> the adult male in the main burial (Figure 5.1 0b) indi<strong>ca</strong>te the<br />
range <strong>of</strong> these extensive social contacts. Additionally, his bones were disarticulated and his mandible<br />
was missing, suggesting that the body had not been buried until long after death. When buried in<br />
the mound, his remains were placed in a wooden chamber with evidence <strong>of</strong> a timber superstructure,<br />
possibly a shrine or viewing platform. A second burial <strong>of</strong> an adult (also probably male), in a<br />
separate primary grave, was equipped with only a bone needle (Figure 5.10c).<br />
In the Irthlingborough barrow, the man’s Beaker, knife, arrowhead, wristguard, jet buttons,<br />
amber ring and assortment <strong>of</strong> other artefacts support the evidence for a very large funeral that<br />
might be accorded to a man <strong>of</strong> considerable standing and a family or kin group <strong>of</strong> substantial<br />
influence. Yet not all archaeologists would consider this burial to be the most affluent Beaker<br />
grave so far discovered. Others, such as the burial at Barnack, Cambridgeshire, or that <strong>from</strong><br />
Culduthel, Inverness-shire, are associated with small items <strong>of</strong> goldwork, such as buttons and<br />
basket-shaped earrings, stone wristguards with gold studs, daggers with gold pommels, or stone<br />
battle axes. How we avoid imposing our own values about precious metals is, <strong>of</strong> course, problematic.<br />
A small amount <strong>of</strong> goldwork has come <strong>from</strong> a group <strong>of</strong> burials <strong>from</strong> 2200–1900 BC mainly <strong>from</strong><br />
the Wessex area, known as Wessex I (separate <strong>from</strong> the later Wessex II group <strong>of</strong> 1700–1500 BC<br />
which is also associated with bronze daggers, stone battle axes and beads <strong>of</strong> amber and faience<br />
but not with gold), and first described as the ‘Wessex culture’ by Piggott in the 1930s. <strong>The</strong> most<br />
impressive <strong>of</strong> the Wessex I burials are the Norman ton Down group, just south <strong>of</strong> Stonehenge,<br />
especially the Bush Barrow with its gold lozenge, stone mace, three large bronze daggers (one<br />
with a pommel inlaid with thousands <strong>of</strong> tiny gold pins) and a ‘baton’, all associated with the<br />
corpse <strong>of</strong> an adult man. Other assemblages containing gold artefacts are known <strong>from</strong> over 25<br />
lo<strong>ca</strong>tions, notably the Clandon barrow in Dorset, and the Lockington barrow in Leicestershire (a<br />
large bronze dagger, two gold armrings and two pots found without human remains on the edge<br />
<strong>of</strong> an empty burial mound). <strong>The</strong>re are close similarities with the Kernonen burial and others<br />
across the Channel in Brittany (Clarke et al. 1985, 129–135). For many archaeologists, these<br />
assemblages indi<strong>ca</strong>te the existence <strong>of</strong> chiefs; the Bush Barrow man was even suggested as the<br />
architect <strong>of</strong> Stonehenge until the monument was redated. However, other interpretations are<br />
possible. <strong>The</strong> burying <strong>of</strong> this personal wealth may actually have prevented the accumulation <strong>of</strong><br />
hereditary power, and funerals such as Irthlingborough may have acted to disperse and destroy<br />
wealth, represented by <strong>ca</strong>ttle, in return for personal or family honour and prestige. Perhaps the<br />
point was not to keep wealth but to be seen to dispose <strong>of</strong> it in extravagant gestures at funerals<br />
and other ceremonies. Whereas certain archaeologists have considered these burials to have been<br />
the products <strong>of</strong> chiefdom societies in which hereditary elites coerced tribal groups into erecting<br />
monuments like Stonehenge (Fleming and Renfrew in Renfrew 1973), there is an equally plausible<br />
<strong>ca</strong>se for a kin-based, broadly egalitarian yet competitive society, ordered by fine gradations <strong>of</strong><br />
rank and status and motivated by honour and self-aggrandizement, in which heredity played a<br />
less signifi<strong>ca</strong>nt role (Parker Pearson and Ramilisonina 1998, 322–3).<br />
Other inferences about social structure <strong>from</strong> funerary deposits <strong>ca</strong>n be made <strong>from</strong> grave goods<br />
and <strong>from</strong> the relative placing <strong>of</strong> human remains in burial mounds. Some <strong>of</strong> the grave goods <strong>ca</strong>n<br />
be divided on gender lines to suggest that there was a certain division <strong>of</strong> labour between men and<br />
women, symbolized in death. Whilst male graves contain arrowheads, daggers, wristguards, belt<br />
rings, amber buttons, flint or stone axes and fire-making tools, female graves are associated with<br />
shale and jet beads and the majority <strong>of</strong> awls and antler picks or hoes; certain items (flint blades,<br />
earrings and pebble hammers) are equally shared. Whereas daggers, ornaments and small tools<br />
were regularly placed in graves, other items were generally deposited elsewhere. Metal axes,<br />
spearheads and halberds are found invariably in boggy contexts as hoards or single finds. <strong>The</strong>se