Prehistoric Britain
Though the scribes that accompanied the Roman invaders of the greater part of the islands of Britain gave us the first written history of the land that came to be known as England, its history had already been writ large in its ancient monuments and archeological findings.
Present day England is riddled with evidence of its long past, of the past that the Roman writers did not record but which is indelibly etched in the landscape. Where the green and cultivated land is not disfigured by cities and towns and villages of later civilizations -- those dark Satanic mills so loathed by William Blake -- one can see what seem to be anomalies on the hillsides. There are strange bumps and mounds; remains of terraced or plowed fields; irregular slopes that bespeak ancient hill forts; strangely carved designs in the chalk; jagged teeth of upstanding megaliths; stone circles of immense breadth and height; and ancient, mysterious wells and springs.
Humans settled here long before the islands broke away from the continent of Europe. They found there way here long before the seas formed what is now known as the English Channel, that body of water that protected the islands for so long, and that was to keep it out of much of the maelstrom that became medieval Europe. Thus England's peculiar character as part of an island nation came about through its very isolation.
Early man came, settled, farmed, and built. His remains tell us much about his life style and his habits. We know of the island's early inhabitants from what they left behind. In such sites as Clacton-on-Sea in Essex, and Swanscombe in Kent, the exploration of gravel pits has opened up a whole new way of seeing our ancient ancestors dating back all the way to the lower Paleolithic (early Stone Age). Here were deposited not only fine tools made of flint, including hand-axes, but also animal bones including those of elephants, rhinoceroses, cave-bears, lions, horses, deer, giant oxen, wolves and hares. From the remains, we can assume that man lived at the same time as these animals, most of which have long disappeared from the English landscape. So we know that a thriving culture existed around 8,000 years ago in the misty, westward islands the Romans were to call Britannia, though some have suggested the occupation was only seasonal, due to the still-cold climate as the glacial period came slowly to an end.
As the climate improved, however, there seems to have been an increase in the movements of people into Britain from the Continent, attracted by its forests, its wild game, abundant rivers and fertile southern plains. An added attraction was its relative isolation, giving protection against the fierce nomadic tribesmen that kept appearing out of the east, forever searching for new hunting grounds and perhaps, people to subjugate and enslave.
The new age of settlement took place around 4,500 B.C, in what we now term the Neolithic Age. Though isolated farm houses seem to be the norm, the remarkable findings at Skara Brae and Rinyo in the Orkneys give evidence of settled, village life. In both sites, extensive use was made of local stone for interior walls, beds, boxes, cupboards and hearths. Roofs seem to have been supported by whale bone, more plentiful than timber, and more durable. Much farther south, at Carn Brea in Cornwall, another Neolithic village attests to a life-style similar to that enjoyed at Skara Brae, except in the more fertile south, agriculture played a much larger part in the lives of the villagers. Animal husbandry took place at both sites.
Very early on, farming began to transform the landscape of Britain from virgin forest to ploughed fields. An excavated settlement at Windmill Hill, Wiltshire, shows us that its early inhabitants kept domestic animals; they cultivated wheat and barley, and also grew flax; they gathered fruits, and they made pottery. They buried their dead in long barrows -- huge elongated mounds of earth raised over a temporary wooden structure in which several bodies were laid. These long barrows are found all over southern England, where fertile soil allied to a flat, or gently rolling landscape greatly aided settlement, the keeping of animals, and soil cultivation.
To clear the forests, stone axes of a sophisticated design were used. Many of these were provided by trading with other groups of people or by mining high-quality flint. Both activities seem to have been widespread, as stone axes appear in many areas away from the source of their manufacture). At Grimes Grave, in Norfolk (in the eastern half of England), great quantities of flint were mined by miners working deep hollowed-out shafts and galleries in the chalk.
At the same time the Windmill people practiced their way of life, other farming people introduced decorated pottery and different shaped tools to Britain. The cultures may have combined to produce the striking Megalithic monuments, the burial chambers and the henges. The tombs consisted of passage graves, in which a long narrow passage leads to a burial chamber in the very middle of the mound; and gallery graves, in which the passage is wider, divided by stone partitions into stall-like compartments. Some of these tombs were built of massive blocks of stone standing upright as walls, with other huge blocks laid across horizontally to make a roof. They were then covered with earthen mounds, most of which have eroded away.
One of the most impressive of these tombs is New Grange in present-day Ireland. They are the oldest man-made stone structures known, older even than the great Pyramids of Egypt.
Sometime in the early and Middle Neolithic period, groups of people began to build camps or enclosures in valley bottoms or on hilltops. Perhaps these were originally built to pen cattle, later being developed for defense, for settlement, or as meeting places for exchange of products. These enclosures began to evolve into more elaborate sites that may have been used for religious ceremonies, perhaps even for studying the night stars so that sowing, planting and harvesting could be done at the most propitious times of the year.
Whatever their purpose, most of these henges, are circular or semi-circular in pattern. They include banks and ditches; the most impressive, at Avebury, in Wiltshire, had a ditch 2l meters in width, and 9 meters deep in places. Many sites still contain circles of pits, central stones, cairns or burials, and clearly defined stone or timber entrances.
It was not too long before stone circles began to dot the landscape, spanning the period between the late Neolithic and the early Bronze Ages (c. 3370 - 2679 B.C). Outside these circles were erected the monoliths, huge single standing stones that may have been aligned on the rising or setting sun at midsummer or midwinter. Some of these, such as the groups of circles known as the Calva group in present-day Scotland, also were used for burials and burial ceremonies. Henges seem to have been used for multiple purposes, justifying the enormous expenditure of time and energy to construct them.
to be continue >>>
Present day England is riddled with evidence of its long past, of the past that the Roman writers did not record but which is indelibly etched in the landscape. Where the green and cultivated land is not disfigured by cities and towns and villages of later civilizations -- those dark Satanic mills so loathed by William Blake -- one can see what seem to be anomalies on the hillsides. There are strange bumps and mounds; remains of terraced or plowed fields; irregular slopes that bespeak ancient hill forts; strangely carved designs in the chalk; jagged teeth of upstanding megaliths; stone circles of immense breadth and height; and ancient, mysterious wells and springs.
Humans settled here long before the islands broke away from the continent of Europe. They found there way here long before the seas formed what is now known as the English Channel, that body of water that protected the islands for so long, and that was to keep it out of much of the maelstrom that became medieval Europe. Thus England's peculiar character as part of an island nation came about through its very isolation.
Early man came, settled, farmed, and built. His remains tell us much about his life style and his habits. We know of the island's early inhabitants from what they left behind. In such sites as Clacton-on-Sea in Essex, and Swanscombe in Kent, the exploration of gravel pits has opened up a whole new way of seeing our ancient ancestors dating back all the way to the lower Paleolithic (early Stone Age). Here were deposited not only fine tools made of flint, including hand-axes, but also animal bones including those of elephants, rhinoceroses, cave-bears, lions, horses, deer, giant oxen, wolves and hares. From the remains, we can assume that man lived at the same time as these animals, most of which have long disappeared from the English landscape. So we know that a thriving culture existed around 8,000 years ago in the misty, westward islands the Romans were to call Britannia, though some have suggested the occupation was only seasonal, due to the still-cold climate as the glacial period came slowly to an end.
As the climate improved, however, there seems to have been an increase in the movements of people into Britain from the Continent, attracted by its forests, its wild game, abundant rivers and fertile southern plains. An added attraction was its relative isolation, giving protection against the fierce nomadic tribesmen that kept appearing out of the east, forever searching for new hunting grounds and perhaps, people to subjugate and enslave.
The new age of settlement took place around 4,500 B.C, in what we now term the Neolithic Age. Though isolated farm houses seem to be the norm, the remarkable findings at Skara Brae and Rinyo in the Orkneys give evidence of settled, village life. In both sites, extensive use was made of local stone for interior walls, beds, boxes, cupboards and hearths. Roofs seem to have been supported by whale bone, more plentiful than timber, and more durable. Much farther south, at Carn Brea in Cornwall, another Neolithic village attests to a life-style similar to that enjoyed at Skara Brae, except in the more fertile south, agriculture played a much larger part in the lives of the villagers. Animal husbandry took place at both sites.
Very early on, farming began to transform the landscape of Britain from virgin forest to ploughed fields. An excavated settlement at Windmill Hill, Wiltshire, shows us that its early inhabitants kept domestic animals; they cultivated wheat and barley, and also grew flax; they gathered fruits, and they made pottery. They buried their dead in long barrows -- huge elongated mounds of earth raised over a temporary wooden structure in which several bodies were laid. These long barrows are found all over southern England, where fertile soil allied to a flat, or gently rolling landscape greatly aided settlement, the keeping of animals, and soil cultivation.
To clear the forests, stone axes of a sophisticated design were used. Many of these were provided by trading with other groups of people or by mining high-quality flint. Both activities seem to have been widespread, as stone axes appear in many areas away from the source of their manufacture). At Grimes Grave, in Norfolk (in the eastern half of England), great quantities of flint were mined by miners working deep hollowed-out shafts and galleries in the chalk.
At the same time the Windmill people practiced their way of life, other farming people introduced decorated pottery and different shaped tools to Britain. The cultures may have combined to produce the striking Megalithic monuments, the burial chambers and the henges. The tombs consisted of passage graves, in which a long narrow passage leads to a burial chamber in the very middle of the mound; and gallery graves, in which the passage is wider, divided by stone partitions into stall-like compartments. Some of these tombs were built of massive blocks of stone standing upright as walls, with other huge blocks laid across horizontally to make a roof. They were then covered with earthen mounds, most of which have eroded away.
One of the most impressive of these tombs is New Grange in present-day Ireland. They are the oldest man-made stone structures known, older even than the great Pyramids of Egypt.
Sometime in the early and Middle Neolithic period, groups of people began to build camps or enclosures in valley bottoms or on hilltops. Perhaps these were originally built to pen cattle, later being developed for defense, for settlement, or as meeting places for exchange of products. These enclosures began to evolve into more elaborate sites that may have been used for religious ceremonies, perhaps even for studying the night stars so that sowing, planting and harvesting could be done at the most propitious times of the year.
Whatever their purpose, most of these henges, are circular or semi-circular in pattern. They include banks and ditches; the most impressive, at Avebury, in Wiltshire, had a ditch 2l meters in width, and 9 meters deep in places. Many sites still contain circles of pits, central stones, cairns or burials, and clearly defined stone or timber entrances.
It was not too long before stone circles began to dot the landscape, spanning the period between the late Neolithic and the early Bronze Ages (c. 3370 - 2679 B.C). Outside these circles were erected the monoliths, huge single standing stones that may have been aligned on the rising or setting sun at midsummer or midwinter. Some of these, such as the groups of circles known as the Calva group in present-day Scotland, also were used for burials and burial ceremonies. Henges seem to have been used for multiple purposes, justifying the enormous expenditure of time and energy to construct them.
to be continue >>>
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