The Archaeology of Britain: An introduction from ... - waughfamily.ca

The Later Bronze Age
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metalworking. Although they are a very common element of the Bronze Age record, their true
function is far from clear, and indeed they may derive from many different operations. Other key
assemblages are not sites but the hoards of bronze. There is great regional and chronological
variation in their number and composition, and these topics are discussed below.
ENVIRONMENT AND AGRICULTURE
The Later Bronze Age was a time of major environmental change. The Late Neolithic and Earlier
Bronze Age had been a period of favourable climate, marginally but significantly warmer and
drier than today. The prehistoric people of Britain exploited these conditions to extend their
farming into new environments, but this expansion was not sustainable, and by the end of the
Bronze Age human occupation had contracted drastically. In part this was due to natural causes,
in part to previous human activity. Suggestions that the retreat from some northern uplands was
sudden, and attributable to dust-clouds from volcanic activity in Iceland, are not widely accepted
(Cowie and Shepherd 1997).
Towards 1000 BC, a period of climatic deterioration began. This is seen particularly in the
changing rate of growth in peat bogs, and involved a trend to colder and wetter conditions.
The growing season for crops was shortened, and existing agricultural practices became
increasingly problematic, especially in many upland areas. In some environments, especially
those that would become the open upland moors, the increased rainfall, combined with soil
changes resulting from human exploitation, produced waterlogging and peat growth. Human
overexploitation also reduced other areas, such as the acid heathlands of the Hampshire-Dorset
basin, to their present state. The combination of natural processes and the effects of earlier
agriculture resulted in an environment that was increasingly less favourable. All this placed a
premium on those soils that were able to withstand more intensive exploitation and sustain
their productivity, especially those of the major river valleys and the more fertile lowlands of
southern and eastern Britain.
The agricultural economy also shows major changes at this time, though their relationship
to climatic, environmental or social pressures is not clear. It was a system of mixed agriculture,
exploiting crops and animals in more complex and more intensive ways than before, including
new crops, new facilities, and new ways of organizing land use; perhaps most important
were new ways of using agriculture for products other than food. Animals were increasingly
used for traction, and sheep became for the first time an important source of wool for
textiles.
There was a switch in the dominant crop species represented in some regions: emmer wheat
gave way to spelt, naked varieties of barley to the hulled varieties, and beans and rye were
introduced. The increased emphasis on the division of land into field systems or larger territories
may have been due to different causes at different times and places. The erection of boundaries
may indicate the growing importance of land as a scarce resource, but it was also a means for its
more efficient and intensive exploitation. Agricultural produce was also treated in new ways, with
pits and granaries constructed for grain storage; the salt industry allowed the preservation and
transport of meat.
Changing attitudes to agriculture and food can also be seen in their increasing involvement in
ritual activities. As we will see below, there was a new concern for the preparation and serving of
food, much of it concerned with prestige feasting. The growing practice of making special deposits
in boundary ditches and storage pits also suggests a focus of ritual very different from that of the
Earlier Bronze Age.