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
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
Chapter Five<br />
<strong>The</strong> Earlier Bronze Age<br />
Mike Parker Pearson<br />
INTRODUCTION<br />
<strong>The</strong> Earlier Bronze Age is, by and large, a handy shorthand for a specific chronologi<strong>ca</strong>l range<br />
(2600–1400 BC) and for a group <strong>of</strong> associated artefacts—certain styles <strong>of</strong> pots, houses, lithic<br />
assemblages, burials, stone monuments and metalwork. Whilst the British Bronze Age <strong>ca</strong>n be<br />
divided into a tripartite scheme—Early (2600–1600 BC), Middle (1600–1200 BC) and Late (1200–<br />
700 BC) —it is divided in the present work (see also Chapter 6) into two: the Earlier (2600–1400<br />
BC) and Later Bronze Age (1400–700 BC). Few archaeologists would still accept the technologi<strong>ca</strong>l<br />
determinism that led Vere Gordon Childe in his 1930 study, <strong>The</strong> Bronze Age, and others to see<br />
techni<strong>ca</strong>l innovation (in this <strong>ca</strong>se the use <strong>of</strong> bronze) as driving social change, and thus providing<br />
the chronologi<strong>ca</strong>l framework for prehistory. Instead, we recognize that many aspects <strong>of</strong> that<br />
vanished society, such as monument building and subsistence practices, were similar before and<br />
after the adoption <strong>of</strong> bronze metallurgy. <strong>The</strong> British Isles were considerably behind other parts<br />
<strong>of</strong> Europe in using metals. <strong>The</strong> smelting <strong>of</strong> copper had been going on in south-east Europe for<br />
2,000 years prior to our earliest evidence in <strong>Britain</strong>. <strong>The</strong>re is no clear indi<strong>ca</strong>tion <strong>of</strong> a British<br />
Chalcolithic (Copper Age), since both the earliest copper and bronze tools here are dated to the<br />
same broad period <strong>of</strong> c.2700–2000 BC.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Earlier Bronze Age has been a crucial period for many <strong>of</strong> the most important questions<br />
and debates in British and European prehistory. Was the arrival <strong>of</strong> Beaker pottery due to the<br />
immigration <strong>of</strong> ‘Beaker folk’, or was it more the diffusion <strong>of</strong> an ‘ideologi<strong>ca</strong>l package’, a group <strong>of</strong><br />
new traits associated with new beliefs and practices? Was the great stone monument <strong>of</strong> Stonehenge<br />
built by Mycenaean architects <strong>from</strong> the eastern Mediterranean or by indigenous groups unaware<br />
<strong>of</strong> architectural innovations elsewhere? Was the change <strong>from</strong> communal to individual burial<br />
indi<strong>ca</strong>tive <strong>of</strong> changing notions <strong>of</strong> individuality? Do the monuments and rich graves <strong>of</strong> Wessex<br />
indi<strong>ca</strong>te the emergence <strong>of</strong> elites who controlled chiefdoms? Did Bronze Age metallurgy initiate<br />
the freeing <strong>of</strong> production <strong>from</strong> politi<strong>ca</strong>l constraint, and thereby instil core values <strong>of</strong> freedom and<br />
innovation in Western society? In addition, this period has gripped the imagination <strong>of</strong> fringe<br />
interests in prehistory, such as the ‘Earth Mystery’ researchers, who consider that the standing<br />
stones and stone circles tap long-forgotten lines <strong>of</strong> energy unknown to modern science.<br />
<strong>The</strong>re are many recent books about the British Earlier Bronze Age and its surrounding centuries<br />
(Barrett 1994; Burgess 1980; Burl 1987; Clarke et al. 1985; Parker Pearson 1994), written <strong>from</strong>