Use of Land in Central Southern England during the Neolithic and Early Bronze Age

Description

This study approaches the prehistory of Wessex (central southern England) from an inclusive, broad brush point of view. It incorporates the whole of the land, the soils that the geology supports, the climate and drainage pattern and, in particular, it focuses on the less studied part of the area, the coastal zone. TITLES.doc Use of land in central southern England during the Neolithic and early Bronze Age David Field PRELIMS.doc USE OF LAND IN CENTRAL SOUTHERN ENGLAND DURING THE NEOLITHIC AND EARLY BRONZE AGE USE OF LAND IN CENTRAL SOUTHERN ENGLAND DURING THE NEOLITHIC AND EARLY BRONZE AGE CONTENTS Acknowledgements Summary CHAPTER 1 CLOCKS, CAGOULES AND WAYS OF EXPERIENCING THE LAND Introduction 1 Landscape and the Land 2 Analysis of land-use 2 Economic 2 CHAPTER 2 THE SOLENT BASIN: AN ANCIENT RIVER AND ITS EFFECT ON THE LAND Introduction 14 The structure of the land 14 Quaternary developments 17 Soils 18 Climate 20 Land-use 21 The changing coastline 21 Sea-level 23 Tides 24 CHAPTER 3 CURATING NUTS AND COPING WITH ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE Introduction 26 Landforms 30 CHAPTER 4 CARVING OUT A NICHE AND GETTING ALONG WITH OTHERS: THE FOURTH MILLENNIUM 4000-3000BC Introduction 37 CHAPTER 5 DESCRIBING DITCHES: SACRED AND MUNDANE IN THE THIRD MILLENNIUM BC. Introduction 53 CHAPTER 6 THE CONSOLIDATION OF LAND DIVISION: SECOND MILLENNIUM Introduction 71 Introduction 87 Sea, ships and the zone of information 87 APPENDICES 132 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PREFACE DATING CHAPTER 1 CLOCKS, CAGOULES AND WAYS OF EXPERIENCING THE LAND.doc CHAPTER 1 CLOCKS, CAGOULES AND WAYS OF EXPERIENCING THE LAND Introduction Landscape and the land Economic Anthropology and human behaviour The study Landforms The region Historical background CHAPTER 2 THE SOLENT BASIN.doc Introduction The structure of the land Quaternary developments Soils Climate Land-use The changing coastline Erosion Accretion Estuaries The sea-bed Sea-level Tides Breaching the channel CHAPTER 3 CURATING NUTS AND COPING WITH ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE.doc CHAPTER 3 CURATING NUTS AND COPING WITH ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE Introduction Landforms Coastal Plain At Castle Meadow, Downton an irregular group of 23 well-bedded stake holes in an area no more than 2.75 by 1.25m were revealed (Higgs 1959) that form no clear pattern, but appear to polarise into two clusters each confined to an area of about a square metre (Fig 3:4). Section drawings indicate that only nine were upright, the others placed at varying angles and Higgs suggested that in each cluster upright posts formed a semi-circular shelter, with outer, outward leaning posts used as pegs to take supporting ropes. While acknowledging that it is unclear whether these represent one or two separate structures, he felt that they may represent temporary huts similar to those found at Rissen and Detmold in Germany (ibid 231-2). In each case, however, the upright posts enclose an area of less than 1m, an extremely small and uncomfortable shelter, whereas the German examples that he illustrates are a reasonable 3m in diameter. There are further problems. One of the uprights in each group, at least according to the profiles illustrated, is leaning. Other arrangements are clearly possible and indeed the posts need not be contemporary. One that emerges is a straight line of five uprights spanning both clusters from south-west to north-east. Further posts, three of them inward leaning, mimic this axis less than 0.5m to the east. Alternatively, the southwestern group can be visualised as a four poster – supported by four outward leaning posts on a west to east axis. Rather than shelters, the possibility of free-standing structures might also be considered, perhaps a hide stretching, plant drying, or meat smoking frame. An area of charcoal around the eastern post setting was thought to represent a hearth, which, had it been in operation contemporaneously, would have burnt the posts supporting the shelter. Further inland, a series of sites have been recorded on the Higher Chalk, particularly on or close to the areas capped by Clay-with-flints. Iwerne Courtney (or Minster), Shroton (Summers 1941, 145-6), overlooking Handcocks Bottom has already been mentioned. Rankine described it as the largest surface site in Dorset and the most important outside the Weald, and compared it with the large sites discovered by Draper at Butser in Hampshire (Rankine 1962, 92). It comprised a surface scatter that included over 800 cores and 400 scrapers and was excavated by P G Summers with the unfulfilled expectation of uncovering pit dwellings (Summers 1941, 145-146). Little of consequence was evidently revealed and Summers subsequently thought the soil to be unsuitable for the construction of dwelling pits. More recently, Arnold has considered the site to be an amalgamation of several much smaller concentrations (Green 2000a, 23-4). No principal sites are recorded on the main interfluves, although small flint scatters and a number of isolated tranchet axes have been found in such positions. Equally sites that occupy hilltop locations, as distinct from high positions OD, are quite unusual. Warren Hill on Hengistbury Head and Fort Wallington, Portsdown, might come into this category. Wakefords Copse might be considered unusual in its prominent upland siting, being situated on the upper slopes adjacent to a re-entrant with views over the Coastal Plain. Mesolithic artefacts were found on the southern slopes of a prominent ridge above Swyre Head, Dorset during excavation of an Iron Age/Romano-British shale working site (Palmer 1977, 143: Toms 1968). It may be that the lack of such sites is more apparent than real. CHAPTER 4 CARVING OUT A NICHE.doc Introduction Use of the Coastal Plain Relating biographies In addition to the examples illustrated, a little north of Fussell's Lodge, long barrows are situated at similar distances apart along the Avon at Durrington Walls, Bulford, Netheravon and Figheldean (McOmish et al 2002), while in Cranborne Chase they are situated on ridges that divide the watersheds (Barrett et al 1991). Whether these examples are the survivors of a once extensive arrangement across the region is less easily demonstrated. The extant examples occur mainly on marginal ground and their survival can be put down to use of the land as sheep walks throughout historic times. The problem occurs on the sandy heaths where, although often marginal, there is currently little evidence of monument construction. If long barrows were distributed evenly across central southern England, one might expect some examples in the New Forest or other heathlands of the area. It would seem at present that Pistle Down Barrow, Verwood (NMR No SU 01 SE 30), is the only candidate, the mound of which, when excavated in 1828 by Dr Wake-Smart, was found to be largely composed of gravel and nothing but four lozenge shaped flint arrowheads recovered (Warne 1866, 16). It may be, however, that mound construction coincided with a period when agricultural or pastoral use of the sands had already resulted in exhausted, podsolised soils, in which case an absence of monuments might equate to the lack of 4th millennium agricultural opportunity. CHAPTER 5 DESCRIBING CIRCLES 2.doc CHAPTER 5 DESCRIBING DITCHES: SACRED AND MUNDANE IN THE THIRD MILLENNIUM BC. Introduction Although of uncertain origin, the importance of circular figures in belief patterns appears to have taken shape with effect from at least the second half of the 4th millennium BC. William Cunnington recorded the presence of domed structures constructed of turf or stone beneath long mounds on Salisbury Plain during the early years of the 19th century at, for example, Heytesbury North Field and Old Ditch, Tilshead, (Cunnington mss: Wilts Archaeol and Nat Hist Soc Library, Devizes: McOmish et al 2002, 30). Whether these structures derived from simple piles of material formed in an unintentional manner, or whether there was an overall aim to the design is not clear. A simple mound of turf was present at Raunds, its construction materials mirroring those of the nearby long mound (Windell et al 1990: Healy and Harding 2003), while the inner circular circuit at the West Cotton henge may either represent an earlier barrow, or the two features may have been contemporary, perhaps marking a Duggleby Howe-like monument (R Bradley pers comm). In the north of England circular mounds were also being constructed at that time (Kinnes 1979: Brewster 1992) and indeed some of the larger round mounds of central southern England e.g. Compton, Westbury (Westbury 7), or Tilshead (Silver Barrow), all in Wiltshire, excavated by Colt Hoare (McOmish et al 2002: Hoare 1810), might be of that date as well. Kinnes (1979, 48) pointed out that circular mound construction is an economical and obvious method of creating a visual impact. Beyond that, the domed mounds may have had spiritual significance in terms of earth breakage, for example, as offerings for disturbing the ground, or may have been more symbolic, representing the dome of the perceived world (Bradley 1998). The idea of digging pits and trenches into the ground was resolving into a preference for circular arrangements too. Some of the generally oval circuits of interrupted ditches at causewayed enclosures, at for example, Briar Hill, in Northamptonshire; Whitehawk Camp and the Trundle, in Sussex; Gt Wilbraham, in Cambridgeshire and Roughton, in Norfolk, approached a circular plan (Oswald et al 58, 77), while around the turn of the 4th to 3rd millennium enclosures at Flagstones (c3380-2910 cal BC) and Stonehenge (c 3020-2910 cal BC) were circular. Circles and pits Soon after 2500 BC a new material, yellow metal, was introduced into the area. Initially this may have entered the area as gifts and been perceived as highly symbolic, perhaps even sacred. The earliest evidence here, the tanged copper knife with bone pommel from Shrewton round barrow 5k, is dated to this time and associated with it are All Over Cord, European Bell Beaker and Developed Northern British Beakers. Three dates from human bone provide date ranges between 2500 and 2280 cal BC (Needham 1996, 128: Green and Rollo Smith 1984) setting it firmly within Needham's Period 1, which he dates to between 2500 and 2300 (Needham 1996) and which significantly also encapsulates the construction of sarsen settings at nearby Stonehenge. Shrewton 5k is one of 18 barrows that cluster around the northern slopes at the head of a combe that leads down to the River Till and that overlook the probable site of a former spring. The ground to the east rises in height towards Robin Hoods Ball and set just metres in that direction would have ensured greater intervisibility, in particular with Stonehenge, should that have been important. The metamorphosis of monuments CHAPTER 6 CONSOLIDATION OF LAND.doc Introduction Round barrows and ring ditches Artefacts Flint daggers might be considered a ceremonial type and perhaps represent the location of burials. Grimes shows three on his map, two in the Amesbury area and one north of Portsmouth (Grimes 1931). Numbers within the area increased as result of museum inspection to 15, four are present from the Bournemouth area increasing the emphasis on that area as a focal point (Fig 6:6: Appendix 6:2). Mounds, rivers and settlement CHAPTER 7 PROBLEMS.doc CHAPTER 8 SACRED.doc CHAPTER 9 SEQUENCE.doc REFERENCES.doc Wymer, J J 1977 Gazetteer of Mesolithic sites in England and Wales CBA APPENDICES.doc ABBREVIATIONS APPENDIX 4:8 OVING DISTRICT FIELDWALKING SURVEY Introduction Topography, geography and geology Method The flint Raw material Tool preparation Blades Tools Table 2 Notes Field T = 216 SU 90 SW F2 = Aldingbourne Table 9 Field 305 APPENDIX 5:11 EASTON DOWN IN CONTEXT: THE PROBLEM OF DOMESTIC BEAKER ACTIVITY ON THE HIGHER DOWNLAND Introduction Flint daggers Untitled Blank Page Front Cover Title Page Copyright SUMMARY FOREWORD Table of Contents LIST OF APPENDICES LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PREFACE DATING THE ILLUSTRATIONS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS CHAPTER 1 CLOCKS, CAGOULES AND WAYS OF EXPERIENCING THE LAND CHAPTER 2 THE SOLENT BASIN: AN ANCIENT RIVER AND ITS EFFECT ON THE LAND CHAPTER 3 CURATING NUTS AND COPING WITH ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE CHAPTER 4 CARVING OUT A NICHE AND GETTING ALONG WITH OTHERS: THE FOURTH MILLENNIUM 4000-3000BC CHAPTER 5 DESCRIBING DITCHES: SACRED AND MUNDANE IN THE THIRD MILLENNIUM BC CHAPTER 6 THE CONSOLIDATION OF LAND DIVISION: SECOND MILLENNIUM CHAPTER 7 PROBLEMS RELATING TO HOW THE LAND WAS USED CHAPTER 8 SACRED GEOGRAPHIES CHAPTER 9 SEQUENCE AND DEVELOPMENT REFERENCES APPENDICES