Recommended Reading:
Facing the Ocean: The Atlantic & It’s
Peoples / Barry Cunliffe
Anything by Aubrey Burl
These and many more titles available from our
Prehistory Bookshop,
The
Peoples of the Sea
The Atlantic fringe of Europe, through centuries almost beyond
counting, has rejoiced in a distinctive individuality that has marked it out
as a place separate from the rest of the continent. Here was, and will ever
remain, the last dramatic interface of land and Ocean - the land constantly
under attack by wind, tide and storm, the sea an ever-present reminder of
forces far beyond the control of human agency. The wild peninsulas and
promontories of the Atlantic seaboard could not fail to make impression on
the peoples who inhabited them. Over thousands of years the communities of
the Atlantic were formed, in their development and beliefs, by their
relationship with the sea.
From earliest times the sea gave them sustenance.
As their understanding of tides and weather grew they ventured from their
coastal havens and broad river estuaries onto the open sea beyond,
tentatively tracing the line of the coasts, negotiating the currents, tidal
races and other hazards of the Atlantic shore. Coastal exploration brought
communities into contact. Communication and gift exchange led to trade and a
sharing of values. Over time these people of the sea developed a common world
view that was fundamentally different from that of the inland communities of
Europe. We can imagine that endless ocean, turbulent horizons and open skies
produced a keener sense of the infinite than the limited perspectives open to
the inhabitants of the dense primaeval forests of the interior. And the
recurrent violence of the sea on which they depended gave the Atlantic
communities an appreciation of supernatural potency (and their own
mortality!) far beyond the experience of those of the more placid, tideless, Mediterranean.
Well before the beginning of the early Neolithic (New Stone Age) era
in the west (around 4000 BCe) it seems that the Atlantic zone had a
well-established degree of cultural exchange and common identity, developed
independently of the rest of the continent. Even before the spread of the
Neolithic, some settlements had begun constructing elaborate burials. But
between the 6th and 3rd millennia BCe, Atlantic communities, from the Iberian
Peninsula in the south to Scandinavia in the north, evolved a common practice
of constructing monumental tombs and megalithic monuments, evidence of a
degree of cultural cohesion that was unknown in the rest of Europe. By the
mid-point of this era of architectural innovation the Neolithic lifestyle had
penetrated much of the Atlantic periphery, but seemingly without submerging
its cultural identity.
Settlements
& Networks
The interface between land and ocean gave early
hunter-gatherers in the west a fertile living space. To the riches of the
temperate forest - the plant foods and smaller mammals that replaced the
barren tundra and giant creatures of the last post-glacial period - were
added the fruits of the sea. Estuaries and foreshore were a perpetual and
abundant source of food, from seaweeds and salt-loving plants to fish,
molluscs, crustaceans and wildfowl. Constancy of supply throughout the year
may have led to permanent settlements well in advance of the spread of
agriculture and the herding of food animals.
Lasting evidence of early permanent settlements is furnished by the
shell middens that litter the western seaboard. These middens, comprising discarded
shells, animal bones and other domestic refuse accumulated over many hundreds
of years, can be up to 200 - 300 metres across and several metres deep. It
now seems probable that they became symbols of a bond between the people and
the land they occupied. In many instances shell middens were used for human
burials, suggesting a sense of ancestral continuity; and the ceremonial
inclusion of shell midden material in later Neolithic burial mounds
strengthens the likelihood of their symbolic significance. The ritualistic
adoption of these prominent landmarks may indicate a growing tendency towards
the monumental, precursor of things to come.
From remote antiquity the settlements of the Atlantic coast developed
local networks that overlapped in such a way that the whole coast, from
north-west Africa to the Shetlands, was loosely linked together. Whilst
regions within the coastal zone had individual characteristics, there was
sufficient conformity in systems of gift exchange, burial customs, beliefs
and other social constructs to show that information, goods and ideas were
able to pass rapidly amongst these communities. All this activity indicates
the early emergence of the primary requisite for long term cultural
interchange - a lingua franca, or common language, that was well
developed long before the advent of the Neolithic. Through its various
refinements and variations this language was to evolve and survive in the
Atlantic west down through the millennia to the present day.
Within the long Atlantic littoral there were core zones where the lie
of the land and sea favoured innovation, based on especially close contact
and communication. These zones were at maritime 'pinch-points' where traffic
was concentrated and interchange was especially intensified. In the south a
core zone extended from the mouth of the River Tagus (site of modern Lisbon)
to the Moroccan coast. Central to this zone are the Straits of Gibraltar, the
restricted maritime gateway to the Mediterranean. Further north a more
complex zone evolved around the Armorican Peninsula (Brittany) and the
British Isles, where two major seaways converged.
Between Brittany and the south west peninsula of England lies the
western entrance to the English Channel. The Dover Strait provides a more
constricted transit at the eastern extremity. The Channel was the major route
between communities to the south and the Low Countries to the north. The
Irish Sea appears to have been the preferred sea route from Armorica and the
south west to the northern ocean - Scotland, the Hebrides, Orkney and
Shetland. The southern passage is via the St. George's Channel between St.
Davids Head in Wales and Carnsore Point in SE Ireland; and between Holyhead
and Dublin Bay. The northern passage is the North Channel between Stranraer
and Larne. Between the two, the Irish Sea formed a cultural province in its
own right. This 'Mediterranean of the West' teemed with traffic and developed
its own variants along the inward facing seaboards of Britain and Ireland,
somewhat different in character from, say, the Irish communities that
overlooked the Atlantic in the west.
Along with the wider benefits arising from its position at the
pinch-points of major sea routes the Armorican-British axis was a sub-region
of rich internal cultural exchange. But the Armorican region was also
connected to inland Europe and the western Mediterranean by the valleys of
the Seine, Garonne and Loire, routes which were to assume increasing significance
as contacts with the interior developed.
The Impact of the
Neolithic
At around 7000 BCe the techniques of food production began their
long 3,000 year journey from the Middle East across mainland Europe. By this
time the post-glacial deciduous forests of the temperate zone, annually
shedding their leaves and other detritus, had formed a nutrient-rich loam,
eminently suitable for crop production. Farming moved slowly westwards from
the Balkans and the Aegean via the Danube Valley and the Hungarian Plain,
partly through migrations into the thinly populated continental interior,
partly by dissemination from one community and forest clearing to the next.
By the end of the 6th millennium the hunter-gatherers of the Atlantic fringe
had come into contact with groups who grew cereal crops and herded
animals.
Early Neolithic agri-pastoralism found a receptive climate amongst
the established social networks of the west. Seed, breeding stock and
pottery-making techniques spread across the Atlantic seaboard although, as
always, there were regional variations in the mix between hunter-gathering
and agriculture. The settled communities of the Atlantic coast were already
rich in food resources that had released them from day-to-day and
hand-to-mouth subsistence. Now, with the addition of agriculture and
corresponding population growth, an increasingly stable socio-economic system
made for an unparalleled release of manpower and a new energy and purpose.
There followed an explosion of creativity aimed at the monumental recognition
and celebration of ancient ancestry and ancestral possession of the land - a
maturing of the impulses first manifest when shell middens were transformed
into ritual sites. By the middle of the 5th millennium (4700-4400 BCe) some
communities in the Morbihan (just south of the Armorican Peninsula) were
building long barrows with associated menhirs (standing stones) set up as
single monoliths or in multiple alignments. By 4000 BCe this kind of grave
architecture was also present in Wessex and elsewhere. These long mounds
enclosed stone chambers containing collective burials with grave goods,
notably stone axes, thought to have been symbols of potency and empowerment
in many ancient societies, that had already been featuring in gift
exchange.
The construction of these large tombs indicates another maturation -
that of local elites that were capable of motivating (or coercing) and
directing workforces at an unprecedented scale. The early Neolithic thus
seems to have generated a change of world view and social organisation that
generated a burst of construction in the northern Atlantic Zone. But by
around 3800 BCe the earlier large mounds were beginning to coexist alongside
simpler portal dolmens and (slightly less simple) passage graves in Brittany,
West Wales, Scotland, Orkney and Ireland. That this development heralded
another shift in world view is suggested by the deliberate sealing of earlier
tombs; and in Brittany there are examples of the destruction of earlier
menhirs to provide material for the new passage graves. There emerged a more
sophisticated megalithic landscape: portal and passage graves containing
collective burials and valuable grave goods, enclosed by large circular
mounds; standing stones in varying combinations; with the whole linked by
clear alignments and focal points. Some authorities have argued that by this
time, possibly around 3500 BCe, the funerary function of these complex sites
was being replaced by that of the shrine and ritual centre. Certainly from
3500 BCe onwards burials were further simplified in western France with the
introduction of the basic elongated chambers known as gallery graves,
sometimes only partly covered by earthen mounds, which coincided with the
spread of settlement into the hinterland.
Any attempt to interpret the events of the latter half of the 4th
millennium must be conjectural at best. But it may be that, as population
increased and areas away from the main coastal regions were brought under
cultivation, burials ceased to be symbolic of local ancestral connections and
were gradually replaced by regional centres in the primary areas of
settlement. These centres may also indicate the growth of a more profound
religiosity, and a new curiosity and receptiveness to new belief systems in
the cultural clusters of the west. By the end of the millennium the first
timber henges were appearing in Wessex and the earliest stone monumental
structures in the British Isles were under construction in treeless Orkney.
There has been much speculation on the functions of these emerging megalithic
landscapes, and especially on their relationship with astronomical bodies and
events. However wild some of the theories, the fact remains that astronomical
alignments exist, and to degrees of accuracy that seem inconceivable at so
early a date and so early a stage of social development. But we must bear
constantly in mind that the architects of these landscapes were also people
of the sea.
Throughout the history of maritime settlement, lore has been passed
down from generation to generation. It is scarcely possible that astronomical
phenomena will have escaped notice through successive centuries of seafaring,
where lives and livelihood depended on close observation and inherited
knowledge. Inland agricultural societies formulated calendar systems around
the agricultural year, based on their gradual awareness of the relationship
between astronomical events and seasonal cycles. How much more rapidly will
this awareness have impinged upon the consciousness of mariners, exposed as
they were to immediate cause and effect? The tidal range varies constantly
between spring (largest) and neap (smallest) tides as the moon moves through
its phases. If the concept of lunar gravitation was beyond the reach of
ancient peoples the empirical evidence of a relationship between moon and
tide was not. Similarly, the equinoxes would have assumed especial
significance as the periods when the highest tides of the year coincided with
equinoctial storms, amplifying the hazards of the tide races of the western
promontories. The corollary was the period of calm at the solstices, when the
sun reached the limits of its transit, marking the waxing or the waning of
the year, when the tidal range was at its lowest. Add to this the sun and stars
as aids to navigation. Add, again, the seasonal migrations of shoaling fish
and wildfowl, and it seems evident that a sophisticated appreciation of
seasonal and the heavenly cycles would have been handed from father to son.
And from community to community: although incapable of proof, this knowledge
perhaps added an intellectual commodity to the more material gift-exchange
goods.
So it is entirely plausible that, as some recent authors have argued,
the move from elaborate burials to astronomically aligned monumental
landscapes indicates a shift in religious focus from the cthonic (the
underworld and underworld gods) to the celestial. And if this shift marks a
milestone in spiritual evolution, other factors were soon to coalesce and
accelerate the social and religious development of the peoples of the west.
Beakers &
Battleaxes
Some time around 3000 BCe Northern Europe, from the Middle Rhine
to the western Ukraine, saw the introduction of a new and distinctive type of
burial. Known in its formative stages as the 'Corded Ware-Battle Axe' culture
and generically as the 'Beaker' culture, this burial-type spread eastwards
towards modern Moscow, westwards along the Danube and northward along the
Rhine. By the middle of the third millennium beaker burials had spread
(probably by emulation, rather than by the mass migration of a 'Beaker
People' as previously thought) to a line drawn roughly from Denmark and the
Netherlands to the Western Alps.
The large handle-less pottery vessels that gave the burials their
name were mutated into several distinct types and were a consistent feature
of a grave goods 'parcel'. At the beginning this cultural parcel included
superbly finished polished stone axes and flint daggers, but supplementary
grave goods varied as beaker patterns and regional distribution developed.
Along the western seaboard the typical burial parcel evolved to include
archers' equipment - flint arrowheads, stone wrist guards, copper and bronze
tools. The latter artifacts give evidence that metal-working techniques,
spreading westwards along the well-worn path from the Black Sea and the
Aegean, had reached the Iberian Peninsula at the south of the Atlantic
networks by around 2700 BCe. From this time onwards the maritime communities
were to become more firmly bonded to the rest of the continent.
The greatest immediate change in the Atlantic zone was the gradual
replacement of collective burials by the Beaker practice of separate single
interment. The body was buried with a standardised grave set - the large
beaker a remnant, perhaps, of a communal funerary rite, the accompanying
goods reflecting the status of the deceased. The advent of beaker burials in
the west marks a transition from the celebration of ancestry to glorification
of the individual. We have noted that that the Neolithic lifestyle led to the
growth of local elites. Now, on the cusp of the full flowering of the
megalithic, funerary practice points to the emergence of social organisation
based on elite groups and individuals of new potency and power. And with the
contemporary shift in emphasis from elaborate collective tombs to great
megalithic landscapes, it seems that the process of emulation that had spread
the beaker phenomenon westwards was here, at the west's last limits,
superseded by innovation.
Thus the fusion of outside influence with local traditions seems to
have fired religious and social impulses that permeated the communities of
the Atlantic west and inspired a swathe of monumental building, in the
northern core zone as elsewhere. The northern zone network extended from
Armorica into south-western Britain and along an Irish Sea-Boyne
Valley-Orkney axis that included Northern Ireland, the Western Isles and
northern Scotland. The relics of this effort can be seen at Carnac in
Brittany, in the ritual landscapes of Wessex, in the later development of
Newgrange in the valley of the Boyne, at Callanais (Callanish) in the Outer
Hebrides and at the Ring of Brodgar on Orkney.
The Wessex Connection
Wessex was a predominant hub of the networks of mainland
Britain. On first sight the inland location of Salisbury Plain and its
environs, home to some of the best known megalithic monuments in the world,
argues against immediate exploitation of the major maritime routes. Only upon
closer consideration does the strategic strength of the location become
apparent: equidistant from the south coast and the Bristol Channel and
straddling the watershed at the base of the south-western peninsula. To the
south there are river connections to the Solent, facing the coast of France.
To the west the rivers drain into the Severn Estuary at the southern
pinch-point of the Irish Sea, and give access to a further river system that
feeds from Wales and northern England. The River Kennett opens a route to the
Thames Valley and the east coast, where extensive 'Bell Beaker' distribution
evidences contact with the Low Countries and the northern European seaboard.
Wessex was also linked to the east and north-east, including the monumental
sites of Yorkshire, by overland routes that followed the line of the Jurassic
limestone ridge that extends from the Exe to the Humber Estuary.
In itself the strategic location explains the wide variety of
commodities that have been revealed by archaeology. But Wessex may also have
been a ritual site of inter-regional importance and a centre of pilgrimage
that brought the usual benefits - an influx of votive and trade goods and a
consequent retention of riches. As the third millennium progressed we find
jet from the Yorkshire coast, amber from Jutland and the Eastern Baltic, and
faience beads, manufactured by processes that had passed down the networks
from the Near East and Central Europe - perhaps another example of an intellectual
commodity. As metals come into use we find silver from Iberia and links to
the developing 'gold routes' of the Atlantic seaways. We can only speculate
on the perishable goods, long since disintegrated into dust, which were part
of this traffic. We can suppose that the resulting prosperity allowed the
Wessex region to maintain its pre-eminent position through the continual
refinement of architecture and ritual. At the same time the availability of
valuable commodities reinforced the elite hierarchy through the material
expression of status and conspicuous consumption in the form of rich grave
good deposits.
Stonehenge is an example of refinement through the centuries that
was, in various ways, repeated throughout the Atlantic fringe. By 3000 BCe
the site was already a basic henge, evolved from a simple outline ditch, one
of many in the region: an open space defined by a circular ditch and internal
bank, surrounding a circle of 56 pits which held large upright timbers. There
is evidence that from its early, crude, development there were substantial
periods when the site fell into disuse. But some time between 2800 and 2700
BCe the bluestones, from the Preseli Hills in North Pembrokeshire, were
erected within the early henge. The final phase, 2400-2300 BCe, saw the
construction of the unique sarsen trilithons and circle that give the
monument its familiar profile. Through the same period other monuments in the
region were developed with varying degrees of sophistication, dominating the
natural routes. And around these centres of ritual and power, round barrows,
containing single interments or cremations, were constructed in their
thousands, suggesting that the landscape had achieved eminence as a regional
or inter-regional necropolis.
The beliefs that motivated all of this tremendous effort are beyond
our reach or imagining. An expanding archaeological record and advances in
scientific methodology can merely help us to sketch out the broad sequence of
events. Through an imperfect accumulation of sometimes ambiguous or
contradictory data we catch tantalising glimpses of hidden meanings, patterns
and subtle transformations in an era of major innovation that exceeded the
timespan between the Battle of Hastings and the present day.
What, for example, can be construed from the presence of the
bluestones at Stonehenge? Did they, as some geologists argue, arrive at the
northern periphery of the Wessex zone through glacial action, a convenient
and unusual cluster of erratic boulders that attracted the attention of the
builders? Or were they manhandled laboriously from the Pembrokeshire uplands
to the great estuary of Milford Haven, and thence along the waterways to
their permanent home on the southern fringes of Salisbury Plain? If so, what
body of belief gave the bluestones and the Preseli Hills such special
distinction? Did this area of West Wales serve a similar function to the
great southern plain as a cult centre and necropolis, with a religious significance
that called in some way for a physical expression of a spiritual
relationship? In whatever way the bluestones arrived on Salisbury Plain,
recently discovered burials have supplied analytical evidence that the
occupants may have originated in the Preseli region. This provides fertile
ground for the fervid imagination. But it should be noted that the so-called
‘bluestone’ circles were not formed exclusively from a single, spotted
dolerite, source as is commonly thought, but from a variety of types from a
number of outcrops within the Preseli region. And if the bluestones had
special significance, why was the first bluestone circle demolished before it
was complete, with the implication, perhaps, that the later internal
concentric bluestone circle was constructed from material that happened to be
on site?
And, again, what interpretation can be placed on the large beaker
burial discovered three miles from Stonehenge in May 2002? The occupant was a
lame man, 35-40 years old when he died. The grave has been dated to around
the beginning of the final phase of the monument's construction and is the
richest from this period so far found in Britain, indicating that the
occupant was of extremely high status. The grave goods, totalling around 100
items, included an unusually high number (5) of beakers together with flint
tools and arrowheads, wristguards and other hunter's equipment.
Significantly, the burial also contained copper knives, a cushion stone (used
for working metal) and two hair tresses fashioned from the oldest worked gold
ever found in Britain. More interesting still, analysis of the oxygen content
of his teeth enamel shows that the 'Amesbury Archer' came from the north
western Alpine region. The nature and dating of the burial places the Archer
at the threshold of the early Bronze Age. Archaeologists have speculated that
he may have been amongst the first to introduce the art of metal working to
mainland Britain and that this new technology accorded him the social standing
that is evidenced by his burial. Later European myths and legends, those
lasting repositories of folk memory, speak of itinerant metalworkers whose
skills, incomprehensible to indigenous populations, imparted an aura of the
magical that had previously been the preserve of the shamanistic leaders that
in some cases they replaced.
The mystery deepened with the discovery of a second burial nearby.
The skeleton was of a man of 25-30 years, from roughly the same period as the
Archer. Anatomical evidence showed that the man was a relative of the Archer,
probably his son; and a similar pair of gold hair tresses confirmed that the
burials were connected. The 'companion' had, however, grown up in southern
England and spent his late teens in the English Midlands or north east
Scotland. The Archer had, therefore, been settled in the Wessex region for
sufficient time to begin a family before his demise. As a technocrat of the
time, had he contributed to the planning or building of the last trilithic
phase, even, as the media would have it, as the 'King of Stonehenge'? If so,
the culmination of the megalithic would appear to be linked to the
introduction of metallurgy and beaker burial. And if the companion had spent
time in areas that were integral with the megalithic network, was this part
of a system of information or ceremonial exchange? Further: do the elite
burials of father and son point to the emergence of an hereditary principle?
The
Warrior Aristocracies
The Bronze Age marks a further stage in the long progression. As
metal became more widely adopted for practical use and adornment, so elite
burials increased in extravagance, reaching a peak at around 2000 BCe. But
the westward spread of metal working technology went hand in hand with the
technology of metal extraction. It was soon apparent that the Atlantic zone
was rich in the raw materials necessary to feed burgeoning consumption in the
rest of Europe. In the northern zone Armorica, Cornwall and Ireland's Wicklow
Mountains yielded tin and alluvial gold. North Wales, mid-West Wales and the
south west of Ireland were major sources of a scarce commonity – copper -
which was highly valued as the principle constituent of alloyed bronze. Now,
the demand for luxury goods as symbols of status, particularly from the
developing Minoan and Mycenaean power centres in the Aegean, stimulated
innovation, production and the exploitation of land and maritime
communication networks. Thus a system of two-way traffic grew up, innovation
and innovative goods moving westwards and raw materials moving in the
opposite direction.
Amongst the most dramatic artefacts from this period are the bronze
daggers, swords and axes that are found in elite burials and votive sites.
The use of weaponry in ceremony and ritual points to a celebration of
militaristic power and to growing conflicts between communities that were
reaching new levels of chauvinistic self-awareness. Demand for cultivated or
cultivatable land, and for other resource-rich territory, was increasing with
population pressure. Opportunities for plunder grew as prosperity increased:
livestock and harvested crops; luxury goods and raw materials in transit; the
hoards and treasuries accumulated by more advanced communities; slave labour
and women to add to the prestige of emerging political entities and their
rulers. Finally, we should not discount competition for status, influence and
territorial control between these political entities; and the corollary of
aggression is defence. So that a new kind of leader became more prominent,
whose magical/religious attributes were less important for status than his
ability to raid or to repel. Warrior chieftains and societies in conflict
were the stuff, dimly remembered, of the epic poetry of a later age:
"… The broken wall, the burning roof and
tower /
And
Agamemnon dead."
Through all of this turmoil the resource-rich
Atlantic zone became linked more and more strongly with the rest of Europe;
and these linkages were to survive the collapse of the Mycenaean world in
1200 BCe and the wide-ranging destruction that followed. The peoples of the
Atlantic, no longer living in a circumscribed network of communities, were
drawn irreversibly into the mainstream of European history. And if they
benefited from their increasing exposure to outside influence, they
reciprocated with a particular and individualistic outlook that contributed
to the cultural evolution of the continent.
Text & Photographs © 2006 History Unlimited & Hill
House Publications
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