Houses of Commons, Houses of Lords: Domestic Dwellings and Monumental Architecture in
Prehistoric Europe by Richard Bradley
This paper is based on the 2012 Europa Lecture and discusses the relationship between the
forms and structures of domestic buildings and those of public monuments. Its chronological
scope extends between the Neolithic period and the Viking Age in western, northern and
central Europe, with a special emphasis on the contrast between circular and rectilinear
architecture. There were practical limits to the diameters of circular constructions, and
beyond that point they might be organised in groups, or their characteristic outlines were
reproduced in other media, such as earthwork building. By contrast, the main constraint on
building rectangular houses was their width, but they could extend to almost any length. That
may be one reason why they only occasionally provided the prototype for specialised forms
of monument such as mounds or enclosures. Instead rectangular buildings played a wide
variety of roles from domestic dwellings to ceremonial centres.
A Newly Discovered Horse Engraving from La Madeleine (Dordogne), France by Michelle
C. Langley
A new engraving of a horse head has been discovered during a recent re-examination of the
Magdalenian osseous projectile point assemblage from La Madeleine curated in the Musée
d’Archéologie Nationale (St-Germain-en-Laye, France). Found on one side of an unmodified
tip of reindeer tine, this piece was uncovered in amongst a collection of distal (tip) fragments
of antler sagaies. While this piece is not unique to La Madeleine – a number of similar pieces
having been recovered in early excavations at this site – it nonetheless contributes another
small piece of information regarding Magdalenian mobiliary art. The horse engraving is
compared with other known finds from La Madeleine, as well as several additional
Magdalenian sites in order to outline its place in the current state of knowledge regarding
these enigmatic artefacts.
A Consideration of Villages in Neolithic and Bronze Age Britain and Ireland by Stuart
Rathbone
Neolithic and Bronze Age settlements in Britain and Ireland have, on occasion, been referred
to as being prehistoric villages but there is little agreement as to what a settlement from these
periods should consist of for it to be confidently identified as such. A particular problem is
that the development of villages in Britain and Ireland is commonly seen as being a medieval
phenomenon and most discussions regarding the essential characteristics of villages are
centred on medieval evidence. This paper examines which features of a prehistoric settlement
can be used to determine if the use of the term ‘village’ is appropriate, ultimately finding the
number of contemporary households to be the primary concern. Sites which have been
identified specifically as being Neolithic or Bronze Age villages are critically reviewed, as
are a selection of sites where the designation may be appropriate but where the term has so
far been avoided. The number of sites from both periods that could justify being identified as
being villages is found to be low, and in all cases it seems that moves toward larger nucleated
settlements are geographically and chronologically restricted and are followed by a return to
dispersed settlement patterns. This curious pattern of the rapid creation and decline of
villages at a regional level is contrasted with different explanations for the development of
nucleated settlements from other areas and during other time periods, which revolve around
economic and agricultural intensification, the development of more hierarchical societies and
the increase in structured trading networks. They do not fit well with either our current
perceptions of the Neolithic and Bronze Age societies, or with the strictly localised moves
towards nucleation that were observed. New explanations with a more local focus are found
to be required.
The origins of domestic horses in north-west Europe: new direct dates on the horses of
Newgrange, Ireland, by Robin Bendrey, Nick Thorpe, Alan Outram and Louise H. van
Wijngaarden-Bakker
This paper discusses direct radiocarbon measurements made on horse skeletal remains from
the Beaker period settlement at the site of Newgrange in Ireland; finds which have previously
been argued as the earliest domestic horses in Ireland. The new determinations date the horse
remains to the Irish Iron Age and shed important new light on the introduction of domestic
horses to Ireland and to north-west Europe more generally. Although the new dates
undermine the idea for the introduction of horses as part of a ‘Beaker package’, their early
use is not well defined archaeologically or chronologically and the earliest use of domestic
horses in Ireland and Britain is still uncertain. Evidence for heavy bitting damage on the Iron
Age Newgrange horse teeth is presented and some possible parallels are discussed between
the evidence from Newgrange and that at Tara, which has been previously linked with
kingship rituals.
Daggers in the West: Early Bronze Age Daggers and Knives in the South-west Peninsula
by Andy M. Jones and Henrietta Quinnell
This paper describes the results from a project to date Early Bronze Age daggers and knives
from barrows in south-west England. Copper alloy daggers are found in the earliest Beaker
associated graves and continue to accompany human remains until the end of the Early
Bronze Age. They have been identified as key markers of Early Bronze Age graves since the
earliest antiquarian excavations and typological sequences have been suggested to provide
dating for the graves in which they are found. However, comparatively few southern British
daggers are associated with radiocarbon determinations. To help address this problem, five
sites in south-west England sites were identified which had daggers and knives, four of
copper alloy and one of flint, and associated cremated bone for radiocarbon dating. Three
sites were identified in Cornwall (Fore Down, Rosecliston, Pelynt) and two in Devon (Upton
Pyne and Huntshaw). Ten samples from these sites were submitted for radiocarbon dating.
All but one (Upton Pyne) are associated with two or more dates. The resulting radiocarbon
determinations revealed that daggers/knives were occasionally deposited in barrowassociated contexts in the south-west from c. 1900 to 1500 calBC.
The dagger at Huntshaw, Devon, was of Camerton-Snowshill type and the dates were
earlier than those generally proposed but similar to that obtained from cremated bone found
with another dagger of this type from Cowleaze in Dorset: these dates may necessitate
reconsideration of the chronology of these daggers.
The Marlborough Mound, Wiltshire. A further Neolithic monumental mound by the River
Kennet by Jim Leary, Matthew Canti, David Field, Peter Fowler, Peter Marshall and Gill
Campbell
Recent radiocarbon dates obtained from two soil cores taken through the Marlborough castle
mound, Wiltshire, show the main body of it to be a contemporaneous monument to Silbury
Hill, dating to the second half of the 3rd millennium cal BC. In light of these dates, this paper
considers the sequence identified within the cores, which includes two possible flood events
early in the construction of the mound. It also describes four cores taken through the
surrounding ditch, as well as small-scale work to the north-east of the mound. The
topographic location of the mound in a low-lying area and close to rivers and springs is
discussed, and the potential for Late Neolithic sites nearby is set out, with the land to the
south of the mound identified as an area for future research. The paper ends with the prospect
that other apparent mottes in Wiltshire and beyond may well also have prehistoric origins.
Transforming identities – new approaches to Bronze Age deposition in Ireland by Katharina
Becker
This paper explores the interpretation of deposition of artefacts in Ireland from c. 2500 to c.
800 BC, combining a contextual analysis with post-processual ideas about materiality,
artefacts, and their biographies. Hoards, single and burial finds are shown to be
complementary strands of the depositional record and the result of deliberate deposition. It is
argued that both the symbolic value of these items as well as economic and practical
rationales determine the depositional mode. The paper attempts to infer social practices and
rules that determined the differential treatment of materials and object types. The main
structuring factor in the depositional record is the type-specific meanings of individual
artefacts, which embody social identities beyond the utilitarian function of the object. The act
of deposition facilitates and legitimates the literal and symbolic transformation of artefacts
and the concepts they embody. The need for a separation between ritual and profane
interpretation is removed, as deposition is understood as the reflection of prehistoric concepts
rather than labelled according to modern notions of functionality. It is also argued that both
dry and wet places are meaningful contexts and that different forms of wet landscapes were
conceptualised differently.
The west Mouth Neolithic Cemetery, Niah Cave, Sarawak by Lindsay Lloyd-Smith
Excavations between 1954 and 1967 in the West Mouth, Niah Cave (Sarawak) uncovered the
largest known Neolithic cemetery in south-east Asia with over 150 burials. Subsequent work
in the 1970s and by the Niah Caves Project (2001–2004) brought the total to 168, comprising
89 primary, 77 secondary, and two ‘multiple’ burials. The size of cemetery and scale of the
archaeological data are unprecedented in south-east Asian Neolithic archaeology and offer a
unique opportunity to investigate in detail the cemetery’s origins, development, and history.
Analysis of the demographic structure of discrete spatial burial groups within the cemetery
and their short term burial sequences are combined to interpret the history of changing burial
practice in terms of different social/settlement groups using the cave for communa. A new
suite of radiocarbon dates for the West Mouth Neolithic cemetery lie between 1500 and 200
cal BC. Six phases of burial are defined and the associated transitions of ritual practices are
discussed. In particular, a transition from primary to secondary burial occurred around c.
1000 cal BC, which subsequently intensified into the practice of cremation. This process was
probably associated with/fuelled by an intensification of economic activity to support more
elaborate secondary burial funerals. Two further cycles of primary and secondary burial
followed, before the main cemetery ceased c. 200 cal BC. A Post-Neolithic phase of possibly
14 burials is proposed which, while continuing aspects of Neolithic mortuary behaviour, is
considered on isotopic data to represent a group of hunter-gatherers living in a closed-canopy
environment.
The Pershore Hoards and Votive Deposition in the Iron Age by Derek Hurst and Ian Leins
A large hoard of Iron Age coins was discovered by metal-detecting at Pershore,
Worcestershire, in 1993. During small-scale archaeological excavation further Iron Age coins
were recovered, including a likely second hoard. Further fieldwork in the same vicinity as the
hoard(s) produced more Iron Age finds, including more coins, and a possible fragment of a
twisted wire gold torc. In total 1494 Iron Age gold and silver coins were recovered.
Geophysical survey indicated that the hoard(s) lay at the southern end of an extensive area of
settlement, which, based on the fieldwalking evidence, was mainly of Iron Age and Roman
date. This covered an overall area of approximately 10 ha, within which several areas of more
intensive activity were defined, including enclosures and possible round-houses. It is
suggested that the coin hoard(s) indicate the location of a Late Iron Age religious space in an
elevated landscape position situated on the edge of a settlement which continued into the
Roman period. As part of the archaeological strategy, specialist deep-search metal-detecting
was undertaken in order to establish that the site has now been completely cleared of
metalwork caches.
Bronze Age ‘Herostrats’: Ritual, political and domestic economies in early Bronze Age
Denmark by Mads Kähler Holst, Marianne Rasmussen, Kristian Kristiansen and Jens-Henrik
Bech
In this article we argue that within the Danish Bronze Age there was a short-lived period
(roughly 1500–1150 BC) that witnessed a dramatic investment of resources into the
construction of monumental architecture in the form of barrows and long houses. These
investments had far-reaching long-term effects on the local landscape with negative
consequences for agricultural productivity. We use two extraordinarily well-documented
excavations of a barrow (Skelhøj) and a long house (Legård) as a model for labour
organisation and resource allocation, which is calculated against the number of barrows and
long houses recorded in the Danish Sites and Monuments database for the period. An
astonishing minimum of 50,000 barrows were constructed, devastating an estimated
120,000–150,000 hectares of grassland. During the same time period an estimated 200,000
long houses were constructed and renewed every 30–60 years. In densely settled regions the
effects are easily recognisable in pollen diagrams as a near-complete deforestation. Thereby,
the productive potential of the economy was, in effect, reduced.
The situation was unsustainable in a long-term perspective and, at least on a local
scale, it implied the risk of collapse. On the other hand, the exploitation of resources also
appears to have entailed a new way of operating in the landscape, which led to a new
organisation of the landscape itself and a restructuring of society in the Late Bronze Age. The
intense character of these investments in monumental architecture is assumed to rely
primarily on ritual and competitive rationales, and it exemplifies how the overall economy
may be considered an unstable or contradictory interplay between ritual, political, and
domestic rationales.
Tunnel visions: a decorated cave at El Pedroso, Castile, in the light of fieldwork by Lara
Bacelar Alves, Richard Bradley and Ramón Fábregas Valcarce
How can we devise appropriate ways of studying later prehistoric rock art in its wider
context, and how can we relate ancient images to the deposits of artefacts found on the same
sites? This paper describes the methods adopted in recording a series of carved motifs within
a cave located outside the defences of a Chalcolithic hillfort on the Spanish/Portuguese
border in Castilla y Leon. It features two quite different series of images, located in separate
chambers and divided from one another by a kind of tunnel. Excavation on an artificial
terrace outside the cave mouth established a chronological sequence which could be applied
to the contents of the different parts of the site. This work suggested that the outer chamber,
which features a large number of cup marks, might have been associated with domestic
occupation of a kind found elsewhere on the mountain, whilst the elaborately decorated inner
chamber was used over a shorter period and may have played a much more specialised role.
Its initial use could have been for burial. In a final phase the entire cave saw the deposition of
large numbers of artefacts before its entrance was blocked. Its distinctive layout and the
organisation of the decoration suggest that by the second millennium BC it was considered as
a natural passage grave.
Re-interpreting the Danebury Assemblage: Houses, Households and Community by Oliver
Davis
Cunliffe’s excavations at Danebury have revealed an Iron Age settlement in extraordinary
detail. Its inhabitants have come to represent, in the popular literature at least, the idealised
hillfort community of warriors, craftsmen, farmers, and their families in a hierarchically
ordered settlement system. This model has been vigorously challenged, although largely from
a theoretical perspective, and there has been little contextual re-analysis of the dataset. This
paper seeks to re-examine the Danebury structural assemblage and question why Iron Age
people came together in this place, and how those that did come perceived their place within
wider group identities. By examining patterns of activity within the interior of Danebury this
paper demonstrates that the nature of the community that resided in the hillfort changed
considerably over the course of the Early and Middle Iron Age. In particular, it is argued that
Danebury was occupied by a permanent population. The organisation of domestic space,
however, was tightly managed. In the early period occupation was characterised by single
round-houses of individual household units emphasising their distinctiveness by spatial
isolation and variability in round-house design. A dramatic change in the nature and intensity
of occupation came in the late period. A large number of ‘identikit’ round-houses were
tightly packed into the quarry hollows in the lee of the ramparts. This probably represents
households from the surrounding settlements moving into the hillfort. It is also argued that
the communal construction and maintenance of Danebury’s defences would have been a way
for a dispersed population to have reproduced a sense of community. Participation may also
have been a mechanism of maintaining networks and relationships with other households in
the long term.
Open or enclosed: settlement patterns and hillfort construction in Strathdon, Aberdeenshire,
1800 BC to AD 1000 by Murray Cook
This article presents a synthetic précis of enclosed and unenclosed settlement in
Aberdeenshire over an extended period of study encompassing the later prehistoric and early
medieval periods (1800 BC to AD 1000) where the perceived boundary between prehistory
and history is of limited significance. The results will then be placed in a wider Scottish
context, with a brief discussion of the changing nature of enclosure within the study area.
A recent upsurge in research, development, and survey work has, in particular, drawn
renewed attention to a discrete cluster of around 20 hillforts in the Strathdon area, which lie
well beyond Cunliffe’s Hillfort Dominated Zones. In general, the settlement record is
predominantly unenclosed but, in the first half of the 1st millennium BC the Strathdon area
appears to reflect wider UK trends: there are relatively few hillforts and they appear to be
aimed at communal gatherings. Their direct use in conflict appears to have been rare and their
‘defences’ perhaps marked a neutral zone rather than fortification. A putative increase in the
volume of agricultural surplus may have led to increased social competition and eventually
conflict. After c. 500 BC a variety of local factors influence hillfort design and there is an
increase in their number and variability, before the emergence of a single dominant form
from Northern Fife to Inverness, and then an abandonment of enclosure until the early
medieval period. The current evidence indicates that hillforts were abandoned before the
Roman incursions, perhaps by several hundred years and, while they may have been reoccupied, there is as yet no evidence for refortification. In contrast during the early medieval
period hillforts appear to have been more actively used in both settlement and conflict. They
may relate to a period of expansion amongst local competing polities and the cessation of
their construction in the 7th century AD may be connected with the emergence of larger
regional power structures.
‘Tilbury Man’: A Mesolithic skeleton from the Lower Thames by Rick Schulting
‘Tilbury Man’ is the partial skeleton of an adult male found in 1883 during the construction
of new docks at Tilbury, Essex, on the north shore of the River Thames, approximately halfway between London and the mouth of the estuary. At the time, the find stirred considerable
interest due to its depth of nearly 10 m, with the eminent biologist and palaeontologist Sir
Richard Owen hailing it as being of Palaeolithic age, though most subsequent (and even
contemporary) researchers assigned it to the early Holocene. AMS radiocarbon dating now
places the skeleton in the Late Mesolithic, 6065–5912 cal BC. The paper presents the
circumstances of the find, describes the surviving skeletal elements, including two healed
cranial injuries, and places Tilbury in the context of what little is known regarding Late
Mesolithic burial practices in Britain.
Dates, diet and dismemberment: evidence from the Coldrum megalithic monument, Kent by
Michael Wysocki, Seren Griffiths, Robert Hedges, Alex Bayliss, Tom Higham, Yolanda
Fernandez-Jalvo and Alasdair Whittle
Radiocarbon and stable isotope data, and osteological analyses of the remains of a minimum
of 17 individuals deposited in the western part of the burial chamber at Coldrum, Kent, are
presented. Coldrum is one of the Medway Neolithic monument group — sites with shared
architectural motifs and no very close parallels elsewhere in Britain. Their location in Kent
has been seen as important in terms of the origins of Neolithic material culture and practices
in Britain. The osteological analysis identified the largest assemblage of cut-marked human
bone yet reported from a southern British earlier Neolithic funerary monument; these
modifications were probably undertaken as part of Neolithic burial practices. The stable
isotope dataset shows very enriched d15N values; the causes of which are not entirely clear,
but could include consumption of freshwater fish resources. Bayesian statistical modelling of
the available radiocarbon dates demonstrates that Coldrum is an early example of a Neolithic
burial monument in Britain, though the monument was perhaps not part of the earliest
Neolithic evidence in the Greater Thames Estuary. The site was probably first used after the
initial appearance of other early Neolithic regional evidence including an inhumation burial,
early Neolithic pottery, a characteristic early Neolithic post-and-slot structure, and Neolithic
flint extraction in the Sussex mines. Coldrum is the only site in the Medway monument group
to have samples which have been radiocarbon dated, and is important both for regional
studies of the Neolithic and wider narratives of the processes, timing and tempo of
Neolithisation across Britain.