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> Neolithic period<br />
• 59 •<br />
newly sedentary lifestyle based on agriculture, could best define the changes apparent in the<br />
Neolithic. This view has been increasingly challenged for some 15 years. Undoubtedly, there were<br />
new resources in play, including domesti<strong>ca</strong>ted <strong>ca</strong>ttle, pigs and sheep/goats (the latter not<br />
indigenous), and cultivated cereals, principally wheats and barleys (also not indigenous); but their<br />
relative importance and impact remain to be established, and substantial rescue and research<br />
projects have consistently failed to turn up definitive evidence for permanent or large-s<strong>ca</strong>le<br />
settlements. <strong>The</strong> essence <strong>of</strong> the Neolithic seems to lie elsewhere, in a changing world view involving<br />
new notions <strong>of</strong> time, descent, origins, ancestry, relations with nature, community and shared<br />
values and ideals: in changing conceptions <strong>of</strong> people’s place in the scheme <strong>of</strong> things (Barrett<br />
1994; Bradley 1993; Hodder 1990; Thomas 1991; Tilley 1994; Whittle 1996). <strong>The</strong>se are bound up<br />
in part with domesti<strong>ca</strong>tion, but that should not lead us to equate the Neolithic uniquely with<br />
mixed farming, nor necessarily with sedentary existence.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Neolithic period <strong>of</strong>fers both continuities and contrasts with what <strong>ca</strong>me before and after<br />
it. Mobility and dispersal, a broad-spectrum resource base, and perhaps social ideals such as<br />
sharing, <strong>ca</strong>n be linked to the Mesolithic lifestyle, while domesti<strong>ca</strong>tion <strong>of</strong> plants and animals, more<br />
frequent woodland clearance, novel artefacts, treatment <strong>of</strong> the dead and the building <strong>of</strong> a great<br />
variety <strong>of</strong> monuments, serve to distinguish the Neolithic <strong>from</strong> the preceding period. <strong>The</strong> contrasts<br />
with what follows, <strong>from</strong> the Beaker horizon on, may appear superficially extensive: increasing<br />
emphasis on individuals in mortuary rites; a greater range <strong>of</strong> artefacts, some <strong>of</strong> metal; the demise<br />
<strong>of</strong> major monument building; and a trend in many areas to less wooded lands<strong>ca</strong>pes. <strong>The</strong>re are<br />
also many continuities, however, and the greatest shift may be sought between the world <strong>of</strong> the<br />
Neolithic and Earlier Bronze Age (considered in Chapter 5) and that <strong>of</strong> the Later Bronze Age,<br />
when the processes <strong>of</strong> settling down and social differentiation took firmer hold.<br />
In this perspective, traditional terminologies look increasingly unhelpful, but they have their<br />
value as labels, and are sanctioned by long use. <strong>The</strong> simplest division is between an Earlier Neolithic<br />
and a Later Neolithic, separated at c.3000 BC. This accords quite well with major patterns in the<br />
development <strong>of</strong> pottery styles, flint projectile points, and much <strong>of</strong> the repertoire <strong>of</strong> southern<br />
British monument types. To the Earlier Neolithic belong round-based pot styles, some decorated;<br />
chipped and polished stone and flint axes; leaf-shaped flint arrowheads; and long barrows, various<br />
series <strong>of</strong> chambered tombs, <strong>ca</strong>usewayed enclosures, and cursus monuments. To the Later Neolithic<br />
belong more pr<strong>of</strong>usely decorated round-based pots in the Peterborough tradition and flat-based<br />
Grooved Ware pots; waisted, partially polished and other variant stone axes; asymmetri<strong>ca</strong>l and<br />
transverse flint arrowheads; other portable artefacts including stone and antler maceheads, bone<br />
pins, and stone balls; and henges, stone and timber circles, timber palisaded enclosures, early<br />
round barrows and ring-ditches, and late cursus monuments.<br />
A next-best approximation is to distinguish Early Neolithic, Middle Neolithic, and Late Neolithic.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Early Neolithic (c.4000–34/3300 BC) displays strong continuity with the Mesolithic in terms<br />
<strong>of</strong> residential mobility and broad-spectrum subsistence, but now involving animal herding and<br />
some cereal cultivation with accompanying limited clearance <strong>of</strong> woodland, broad regional styles<br />
<strong>of</strong> round-based pottery, and axe production but limited circulation (perhaps through gift exchange).<br />
<strong>The</strong> first tombs and shrines, in a variety <strong>of</strong> regional types <strong>of</strong> barrow and <strong>ca</strong>irn, with internal<br />
structures <strong>of</strong> wood and stone, were erected; and towards the end <strong>of</strong> this phase the first <strong>ca</strong>usewayed<br />
enclosures were built.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Middle Neolithic (perhaps 3400/3300–3000/2900 BC) is marked by both continuing<br />
development <strong>of</strong> these features and the beginnings <strong>of</strong> replacement and further change. Many <strong>of</strong><br />
the southern <strong>ca</strong>usewayed enclosures (and also modified enclosures as at Flagstones, Dorchester,<br />
Dorset, or the first phase <strong>of</strong> Stonehenge) and most <strong>of</strong> the largest and most complex chambered<br />
tombs, for example <strong>of</strong> Maes Howe type on the Orkney Islands, were in use, as the largest passage