Neolithic

Question 1

New Ideas in the Neolithic

Answer 1

• Domesticated animals
• Cereal cultivation
• Flint mining, quarrying and trading
• Long-houses
• Ceremonial or ritual monuments

Question 2

Early Neolithic houses

Answer 2

Few known until recently
– Lack of visibility?
– Mobile, transient nature of early Neolithic population?
- ‘Pre-monumental’ phase

Question 3

‘Hall-houses’: Communal houses for ‘pioneer farmers’?

Answer 3

• Meeting places: feasting or cult centres?
• Farm houses?
• Social cohesion in clearance
and construction
– Symbolic burning?
– Cereals and dairying
– Low numbers of artefacts
– Smaller oval/rectilinear structures nearby
– Other flimsier Neo structures

Question 4

Ideologies behind the ‘houses’

Answer 4

Broad similarities in template
• Structured deposition, e.g. arrowheads, axes, pottery sherds
• Lifecycles of houses and people
• Burning down
– Closure
– Arson/attack?
– Accidental?

Question 5

Causewayed enclosures

Answer 5

Monument found across NW Europe, including northern France, Western Germany, southern Britain
• Discontinuous ring of ditch(es) and bank with causeways

Question 6

Enclosure layout

Answer 6

Use of slopes, water courses as well as ditches
• Enclosing central area with
• England: shorter ditch segments

Question 7

‘Tor’ enclosures

Answer 7

• Discontinuous drystone walls without ditches e.g.
Carn Brea, Cornwall
• 3700 – 3300 BC
• 14 House platforms
• Occupation debris
• Houses burnt down
• 700+ leaf shaped arrowheads around entrance

Question 8

Causewayed enclosures purpose

Answer 8

• Meeting places, defence, act of creation of monument?

- Similarities with Paris basin – continuing connections/migrations?

Question 9

Neolithic Houses: Ritual or profane?

Answer 9

Ritual:
– Atypical butchery evidence: sporadic feasting?
– Structured depositions
– Little evidence for permanent settlements?
Domestic:
– Faunal evidence is comparable with other Neolithic domestic settlements

Question 10

How mobile were Early Neolithic ‘farmers’?

Answer 10

• Wild animals were still exploited
• Dairying was intensively practiced
• Aquatic animals seem to be largely ignored
• Were causewayed enclosures meeting places?

Question 11

Marine resources

Answer 11

• In the Mesolithic, coastal dwellers had a marine-based diet
• In the Neolithic, everyone seemed to have a terrestrial based diet

Question 12

Cereal agriculture

Answer 12

-Cereal agriculture widespread, comparable with continent?
or
-Cereal agriculture sporadic; wild plants still major resource?
or
-Failed attempt, reemergence in Bronze Age?

Question 13

Later development of the house

Answer 13

• Houses become less regular and more diverse
• Rectangular houses rare in later Neolithic
• By 3300 BC things began to change, move towards circular houses

Question 14

Orkney Isles: Habreck

Answer 14

Early Neolithic (3300 – 3000 BC)
• Timber houses – only short-lived
• Followed by stone structures
• Raw resources – trees? Neolithic quarry.

Question 15

Skara Brae

Answer 15

(3100 – 2500 BC)
• Stone-built
• Circular
• Central hearth
• Stone furniture

Question 16

Neolithic Britain and Ireland

Answer 16

Connectivity
– Comparisons with continent: causewayed enclosures, houses, pottery, introduction of domesticates to Ireland
– Around Britain and Ireland: spread of styles and ideas, e.g. Grooved Ware, house styles
• Regionality
– Regional pottery styles and uses of pots
– House styles and materials

Question 17

Neolithic definition

Answer 17

The arrival of farming
A major social development
Move from reliance on hunting‐gathering‐fishing to food production

Question 18

When and how does farming reaches Britain and Ireland?

Answer 18

Cultivated cereals
Domesticated animals – cow, sheep, goat…
Pottery
Leaf‐shaped arrowheads; ground axeheads
Monuments
Flint mines
Rectangular timber buildings

Question 19

Long tradition of studying Neolithic monuments

Answer 19

• Very visible!
• Initial antiquarian interest
• Early 20th century, beginnings of modern archaeology
• A Mediterranean origin, especially Mycenae, Crete
• Megalithic monuments (mega, lithos = big stone) could only have been erected by skilled masons from advanced civilisations
• e.g. Newgrange, Edward Llwyd, 1699
• Stonehenge and Avebury landscape, William Stukely,, 18th century

Question 20

Range of Neolithic monuments across Britain and Ireland

Answer 20

Some are mortuary monuments – associated with human remains = ‘tombs’
Others gathering spaces for ceremony, movement, performance
Ways of bringing people together (male/female? Hierarchy? Coercion?)
• Shape/form (typology)
• Landscape setting
• Mortuary practice
• Radiocarbon age
• Social structure in prehistory

Question 21

Classification of megalithic monuments

Answer 21

By shape or form (typology)
e.g. long mounds/long cairns versus chambered tombs; simple&raquo_space;» complex
By date
e.g. early&raquo_space;» late Neolithic

Question 22

Dating megalithic monuments

Answer 22

Very often, not easy to determine –
• Secondary re‐use in prehistory
• Excavated/dug out in 18th/19th centuries
• Stone – lack of organics to radiocarbon date construction phases
• Emptied of material, modern tourist attractions

Question 23

Portal tombs

Answer 23

• Also called portal dolmens, quoits (Cornwall)
• Widely spread – north & west Wales, Ireland, Cornwall
• Over 230 examples in total
• Shared maritime cultural tradition – Irish Sea Zone

Question 24

Features of portal tombs

Answer 24

• ‘Closed‐off boxes’; rectangular chamber
• Usually one chamber
• Sometimes surrounding low stone cairns
• Completely covered or capstone visible?
-Distinctive large capstone
-Capstone often sloping to back, heavier part to front
-Brownshill capstone c. 120 tonnes
-Portal stones, usually in line with sidestones
-Often a doorstone fully or partly blocking the entrance

Question 25

Human remains from portal tombs

Answer 25

e. g Poulnabrone portal tomb, Clare, SW Ireland - Monument constructed c. 3800 BC and in use for up to 600 years OR - Older, skeletal material gathered up and placed in a later monument? - Dates of human bone span 390‐660 years - Starting – 3885‐3720 cal BC - Ending – 3335‐3115 cal BC

Question 26

Other functions of portal ‘tombs’?

Answer 26

- ‘Raising stones to sky’ - Performance rather than burial the key issue? - Quarrying of capstone - ‘Quick architecture’?

Question 27

Long cairns/long barrows

Answer 27

``` Ireland – called ‘court tombs’ Scotland – called ‘Clyde tombs’ • Elongated shape (usually trapezoidal) • Court feature • Gallery/chambers of stone orthostats (originally roofed) • Surrounding stone cairn and kerb ```

Question 28

Variation in long barrow features

Answer 28

``` • Open courts • Single Court • Dual courts • Central courts -Function of the court? -A place for ceremonies? ```

Question 29

Long barrows

Answer 29

- Mostly eastern Britain - South‐central England ‘heartland’ e. g. Severn‐Cotswold, Wessex, Thames Valley - Also Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Eastern Scotland

Question 30

The ‘classic’ long barrow (Kinnes 1992)

Answer 30

- Elongated mound (rectangular, oval, trapezoidal) that is higher to east - Monumental forecourt or façade, usually facing east - Porches/avenues of posts approaching entrance - Stone/wooden revetments supporting mound edges - Ditches running along sides of mound - Burial chamber/s approached through forecourt OR inserted into sides of mound - Timber/stone blocking when monument closed

Question 31

Five southern British long barrows

Answer 31

West Kennett, Wayland’s Smithy, Ascott‐under‐Wychwood, Fussell’s Lodge, Hazleton North -Most dating between 3750‐3550 BC -However, construction and use short‐lived -Rare events in any one locality -Variation in treatment of human remains: -Unburnt, but articulated dis‐articulated -Relatively small numbers ‐ 15‐40 people -Successive deposition over max 5 generations, usually fewer =Little evidence for very old/ancestral remains

Question 32

Long barrow histories: West Kennett

Answer 32

Excavated partially 19th c, John Thurnam Long ditches, transeptal chamber Forecourt blocked in Late Neo/Early Bronze Age 36 individuals in primary deposits Sealing layer chalk rubble, sarsens, earth Secondary human deposits Conventional thought – open for centuries Construction of monument 3670‐3635 cal BC A surprisingly short span of use – 10‐30 years (68% probability) 1‐55 years (94% probability) Not a long history of accumulation of human remains

Question 33

Causewayed enclosures

Answer 33

- A non‐megalithic ‘monument’ - Earthen bank and ditched enclosure; gaps or causeways - Palisade fences, wooden ramparts/revetments - Concentrated in southern Britain, but in smaller numbers across other parts England, Wales and Ireland - Peak in construction 3700 BC onwards, i.e. after long barrow construction starts - Labour required for enclosure construction – how/why were people involved? - Some enclosures with ‘ritual’ or purposeful deposits e.g. Windmill Hill - Animal & human bone, pottery across three circuits. - Density; whole/parts. Symbolic order?

Question 34

Cursus monuments

Answer 34

- Parallel‐sided linear earthen monuments - Ditches and banks - Often running for long distances - Notoriously difficult to date! - Lack of associated material - Stratigraphy – relationship to other monuments, e.g. causewayed enclosures - Mid‐4th millennium BC but continuing into Bronze Age

Question 35

Passage tombs

Answer 35

Irish Sea area | Middle Neolithic – 2nd half of 4th mill. BC

Question 36

Passage tomb features

Answer 36

``` A passage (!) That opens up into a chamber • Cruciform • Polygonal • Undifferentiated A covering mound or cairn ‐ sometimes layered (stone, earth, turves) ```

Question 37

Passage tombs in the landscape

Answer 37

- Just off the summits of mountains, ridges - Intervisibility - Commanding attention? - Connecting larger communities than earlier monuments? - Dense clusters or complexes of passage tombs

Question 38

Human remains in passage tombs

Answer 38

- Multiple burials | - New interest in cremation, although unburnt bone/inhumed bone still present

Question 39

Grave goods from passage tombs

Answer 39

- Chalk & stone balls - Stone & bone beads - Pendants - Bone & antler pins - Carrowkeel pottery - Stone basins

Question 40

Passage tomb art

Answer 40

- Mostly abstract or non‐representational - Concentration in Boyne Valley, Ireland, esp. Knowth and Newgrange - Key points in tomb architecture – entrance, thresholds, lintels

Question 41

Passage tombs and astronomical alignments

Answer 41

``` Passages of some tombs aligned on astronomical events, e.g. shortest and longest days of year Midwinter solstice – • Newgrange, Ireland • Maes Howe, Orkney Midsummer solstice – • Bryn Celli Ddu, Anglesey ```

Question 42

Late Neolithic monumental landscapes

Answer 42

3000/2900 BC, passage tombs coming to end of their primary use New types of monument appear: • Henge (open‐air enclosure defined by earthen banks and ditches) • Stone circles • Timber circles • Wooden palisades

Question 43

Passage tomb dating

Answer 43

-Bone pins c. 3600 BC onwards -Quanterness- Deposition probably starts 3450–3350 BC -Big eastern tombs 3300‐3000 BC -Cellular or Maes Howe‐type tombs -Progression? Simple to more elaborate? West to East?

Question 44

Henge monuments

Answer 44

Definition: - Circular area surrounded by ditch and (normally) an outer bank - Stone/wooden uprights standing within - Before 3000 BC right up to c.2000 BC - Part of ‘ceremonial’ landscapes – with lots other monuments - Low lying, set within dished landscapes - Framing landscape around? - An ‘amphitheatre’?

Question 45

To recap…

Answer 45

Earlier Neolithic monuments -Portal tombs/dolmens – Irish Sea distribution -Long mounds – court tombs/Clyde tombs (mostly stone) long barrows (earth, stone chambers/timber structures) -Stalled cairns – Orkney‐Cromarty tombs -Causewayed enclosures – ‘heartland’ in south‐central Britain Middle Neolithic -Passage tombs – across Irish Sea zone – related to Maes Howe‐type (cellular) tombs on Orkney -Cursus monuments Late Neolithic -Henges -Stone circles (mostly in Scotland; stone circles further south are later in date) -Timber circles and settings (large open‐air spaces or arenas) -Cursus/linear monuments continuing