THE PREHISTORY OF BRITAIN AND IRELAND pt.4

PLOUGHSHARES INTO SWORDS
PERIOD DETAILS
Anyone writing an account of prehistory must decide how to shape the narrative.
Which were the major periods of change? How are they represented in
the archaeological record, and what is the right way of distinguishing between
local phenomena and more general developments? The previous chapter considered
an ‘Earlier’ Bronze Age. That raises the question of how the ‘Later’
Bronze Age should be characterised (Figs. 4.1 and 4.2).
One might suppose that the problem was solved forty years ago, for the term
has been used in Irish archaeology since the 1960s. In 1979, it was employed
to organise a major synthesis of The Bronze Age in Europe (Coles and Harding
1979), and at about the same time an entire conference was devoted to the
British Later Bronze Age (Barrett and Bradley eds. 1980). There seems to be a
consensus that the period should be divided in half, but there any agreement
ends.
The different schemes are superficially similar, but they are based on different
criteria, and it is not possible to harmonise them. That is understandable, for
classification is never a neutral exercise. It depends on the priorities of individual
authors and on the questions that they ask. Thus the two-fold division of the
Irish Bronze Age favoured by George Eogan (1964) depended on a study of
the metalwork. Eogan was unhappy with the existing framework, which split
the period into three, and wished to consider the artefacts of the ‘Middle’
Bronze Age Bishopsland phase alongside those dating from the ‘Late’ Bronze
Age. Stuart Needham (1992) has taken a similar approach to the metalwork
from Britain, combining the long-accepted Early and Middle Bronze Ages and
separating them from what came afterwards.
Coles and Harding (1979) followed a different procedure, for they saw the
major period of change as separating two Continental traditions, each of which
exerted an influence outside its area of origin in Central Europe. In the thirteenth
century BC, the Tumulus Culture was replaced by the Urnfield Culture. Although these terms describe two burial rites, they also correspond to important
developments in other spheres, including changes in the settlement pattern
and in the production and distribution of metalwork. Successive chapters considered
the evidence from the remaining parts of Europe.
In 1980 Colin Burgess took yet another approach to the British sequence,
although his scheme is like that devised by Coles and Harding in combining
studies of metalwork with broader changes in the landscape. In this case
these two elements seem to be in conflict. His metalwork chronology has been
widely accepted and is supported by radiocarbon dating, but he is less conversant
with the results of fieldwork. That was understandable when his ideas
were published twenty-five years ago, but he has repeated them in virtually
the same form in a recent article (Burgess 2004). He postulates a ‘catastrophe’
in the twelfth century BC, a situation that he infers from the disappearance
of settlements over much of Britain (Burgess 1992). There is no
reason to believe that this happened, and domestic sites of this phase are often
found by excavation. Burgess postulates a crisis brought about by climatic
change, and, in the original version of his interpretation, he connected it
with an eruption of the Icelandic volcano Hekla which is registered by Irish
tree rings between 1159 and 1141 BC. This interpretation is extremely controversial
(Young and Simmons 1997; Tipping 2002), and yet it colours his
entire approach to the Bronze Age. Only the metalwork seems to have been
unaffected.
There is no doubt that these artefacts can be arranged in sequence and that
their distributions and associations may be investigated on a large scale, but such
research will always raise some problems. They were deposited according to
certain conventions, with the result that only a small fraction of the surviving
material is associated with settlements or with the remains of the dead (Bradley
1998a). Most of it exists in isolation. The fact that metal artefacts can be analysed
in so much detail does not say anything about their original significance. That
must be demonstrated and not assumed. There is no doubt that metalwork
has been important for one group of Bronze Age scholars, but did it really
dominate the lives of prehistoric people?
As a reaction against this trend John Barrett and the present writer suggested
that a more appropriate period division might be based on changes in the
settlement pattern (Barrett and Bradley 1980). These were not exactly synchronous
from one region to another, but they did share many features. Such
developments were less apparent in Continental Europe, and even where they
did occur they took a different form. This raised some important questions.
Which were more important: the affinities between metal types on either side
of the English Channel and the North Sea, or the contrasts between the houses,
cemeteries, and domestic landscapes in these different regions? Was it better
to emphasise such distinctions or to disregard them? It seemed important to
consider what was both distinctive and new . Major changes are apparent in several spheres: in the organisation of settlements
and land divisions, and in the treatment of the dead. Even the role of
metalwork was changing. It is clear that these features were not evenly distributed
across Britain and Ireland, but they do encapsulate two fundamental
contrasts. There was a contrast with the practices that were discussed in Chapter
Three, and there were obvious differences between developments in parts of
the British landscape and those in neighbouring areas of Continental Europe.
They cannot be dated accurately, but all these processes began in the middle of
the second millennium BC. For the purposes of this account the ‘Later Bronze
Age’ combines the Middle and Late divisions defined by metalwork studies and
extends from 1500 BC until approximately 800 BC (Needham 1996; Needham
et al. 1998). During that time there was a continuous process of change, but it
was a process which had its roots in the past.
Table 4.1 sets out the terminology used in this book and compares it with
the chronological schemes employed by other writers. The term ‘Later Bronze
Age’ will be used where it applies to the entire period from 1500 BC, but
the text refers to the Middle and Late Bronzes Ages, respectively, where it is
concerned with specific developments.

CHARACTERISING A LATER BRONZE AGE
None of the features that characterise the Later Bronze Age in these islands
was completely new. Rather, they grew out of those of the previous period.
Each will be considered later in this chapter, but it is important to trace their
sources now.
Perhaps the most striking trend is a marked increase in the frequency of
settlement sites. They are widely distributed but often contain more substantial
structures than those of earlier periods . They are characterised by
considerable stone or timber buildings, they are sometimes enclosed by ditches, fences or walls, and they are associated with substantial collections of artefacts.
Moreover they commonly occur together with field systems or longer land
boundaries. Such evidence usually occurs on the more productive soils, and
settlements of later phases are often located nearby. table 4.1. Chronology and terminology for the period between 1500 and 800 BC
Burgess Needham
Barrett &
Bradley This chapter
Early Bronze Age
(2000–1500 BC)
Early BA Early BA Early BA EARLIER BA
Period of change –––––––––––––––––––
Middle Bronze Age
(1500–1100 BC)
Middle BA Middle BA
Period of change –––––––––––––––––– –––––––––––––––––– Later BA LATER BA
Late Bronze Age
(1100–800 BC)
Late/ Later BA Late /Later BA
To a large extent their distribution contrasts with that of the sites discussed
in the closing section of Chapter Three. That is because Earlier Bronze Age
examples were quite ephemeral and left little trace behind, but it is also because
the newer settlements are less frequent in the marginal areas where remains
of the previous phase survive. Those different observations may be linked, for
the reorganisation of the lowland landscape that is so much a feature of the
Later Bronze Age may have been a response to deteriorating conditions in areas
which could not sustain a lengthy occupation. Upland soils were increasingly
acidic and poorly drained (Bradley 1978, 1991), and in the lowlands ground
conditions were becoming wetter as a result of soil erosion in the river valleys (French 2003: chapters 6–10). This process was under way three hundred years
before the eruption of Hekla 3 and is best explained as a response to local
conditions.
There were two areas in which events took a different turn, and this is important
for it seems to mark the start of a process which eventually extended to
many parts of lowland England. The first involved some of the more marginal
areas which were increasingly used on a seasonal basis. As a result specialised
forms of land use assumed a much greater significance. Wooden paths were
constructed across many areas of damp ground, including the Somerset Levels
(Coles and Coles 1986: chapter 6) and parts of the East Anglian Fens (Hall
and Coles 1994: chapter 5). A similar process happened along the banks of
the Thames, where brushwood trackways, timber platforms, and even a metalled
causeway were created to provide access to the rich grazing land beside
the river (Sidell et al. 2002: 34). The earliest bridges may also date from this
phase.
There was a greater emphasis on the soils that retained their productivity.
In most cases the poorer land first settled during the Earlier Bronze Age was
less often used after the mid-second millennium BC, as occupation focused on
more productive areas. It was here that regular field systems were established.
On Dartmoor, however, there seems to have been an attempt to maintain
activity on the higher land by creating an extensive system of fields and longer
boundaries. It is not clear how this process was organised and whether it was
achieved by compulsion or cooperation (Fleming 1988; R. Johnston 2005).
Nor is it clear whether it happened over a short period or was a piecemeal
development, but in the end it probably did lead to an equitable division of
the resources that were coming under pressure. Those systems extended onto
the lower ground beyond the limits of the moor, where fewer traces survive.
For present purposes it is significant that these changes began towards
the end of the Earlier Bronze Age. At present there is little to suggest developments
on this scale in other parts of Britain and Ireland. There may have
been field systems of similar date in Cornwall (Nowakowski 2006) and southern
Wessex (Ladle and Woodward in press). Otherwise, they belong to later
phases.
The second major change concerns the relationship of the living and the
dead. Here it is easy to be misled by the Continental terminology. In lowland
Britain it is clear that round barrows – ‘tumuli’ – were supplemented and
eventually replaced by the cremation cemeteries known as ‘urnfields’, but
this process was well established before it took place in Central Europe, and
developments in these two areas were probably unconnected. Moreover, some
of the elements of the new system had their origins in the Earlier Bronze
Age. Again the detailed evidence will be considered in due course, but three
observations are important at this stage. The first is that burials seem to have been located close to settlement sites
(Bradley 1981). This may well have applied to a number of the mounds built
during the previous period, and, in Wessex, it certainly seems to be true of
the miniature round barrows found in low-lying positions which are associated
with many of the poorest burials. Normally they contain a cremation and a
ceramic vessel, and few are associated with any metalwork. Such monuments
were sometimes in small groups and continued to attract burials during the
later second millennium BC. What had formed only part of the earlier system
now became the norm (Peters 2000).
Secondly, cremation cemeteries were not a new development. They were
already important in the uplands of Britain and Ireland where they could
be associated with ring cairns and small stone circles. In the lowlands a few
examples were known in isolation and others were established outside the
burial mounds of the same period. The novel development of the Later Bronze
Age is that in most parts of Britain such barrows became much smaller until
eventually their construction lapsed. In Ireland, they had a longer currency,
but again they were never built on an impressive scale (Waddell 1990; Grogan
2004b).
Lastly, as these changes happened, metalwork is found less often with the
dead. Occasional metal items have been identified in the excavation of cremation
cemeteries, but they are rather rare and are not always associated with
one particular burial (Ellison 1980). They are usually small and fragmentary
and may consist of a personal item such as a ring. This contrasts with the more
elaborate graves of the previous period in which the dead might be accompanied
by a wider range of weapons and ornaments. That is not because such
types went out of use. Instead their contexts changed so that they are more
likely to be discovered in isolation, whether in the collections of metalwork
known as hoards, or as deposits in rivers and similar environments (Bradley
1998a: chapter 3). Again such practices were not entirely new. The burial of
hoards began with stone axes and other artefacts during the Neolithic period
and continued during the Earlier Bronze Age. In the same way, some of the last
daggers produced during the previous phase are not only found in graves, they
also occur in the River Thames (Gerloff 1975). That development prefigures
a more dramatic change during the Later Bronze Age.
Of course this did not take place in isolation. The deposition of metalwork
in rivers was well established on the Continent, although it appeared in different
manifestations at different times and in different places (Bradley 1998a).
For the most part it alternated with the deposition of similar artefacts in graves.
Relations with the European mainland were important in another way. Chapter
Three ended by discussing how access to metal may have changed. After
a period of stability in which southwest Ireland provided a major source of
copper, there was more diversity, with mines in mainland Europe supplying some of the raw material, whilst more came from a series of sites in Ireland,
Wales, and northern England. By 1500 BC, the exploitation of insular ores
appears to have been reorganised, and most of those mines went out of use.
This did not apply to the large complex at Great Orme which achieved a
brief ascendancy, but from about 1400 BC it seems as if the inhabitants of
both islands depended on more distant sources as metalwork was increasingly
imported across the English Channel and along the Atlantic coast (Northover
1982; Rohl and Needham 1998). This was only the last stage in a series of
fluctuations in the supply of bronze, but it was certainly the most lasting.
It is another feature that helps to establish the distinctiveness of the Later
Bronze Age.
How significant were these developments? For many years studies of this
period were divided between groups of specialists, all with interests of their
own. As a result they developed completely different interpretations from one
another. At its simplest the contrast was between those researchers who postulated
a social collapse around 1500 BC, and those who envisaged a more radical
transformation. The evidence of mortuary rites was critical in this regard. Considered
in isolation, it suggested that two processes were taking place during
the later second millennium BC. Older round barrows were being reused,
while newly constructed mounds made fewer demands on human labour.
During this period isolated ‘single’ burials were rare and cemeteries were often
organised around groups of cremations which were usually accompanied by
pottery vessels. The rich graves that had been such a feature of the earlier
period virtually disappeared (Bradley 1998a: 99–100). It was easy to suggest
that this reflected a wider change in which the differences of wealth and status
expressed by the burial rite lost their original importance. Rather than expressing
social distinctions, there was a new ethic of equality. Perhaps the power of
a traditional elite was diminishing. Proponents of this view could draw attention
to the limited range of variation among the excavated settlements of this
phase.
Bronze Age metalwork had often been studied for its own sake, as a selfcontained
field of research that had little contact with the results of field
archaeology. That is not surprising, for, apart from the grave goods of the
Earlier Bronze Age, little of this material came from excavated contexts. Even
so, it is clear that bronze artefacts give a different impression of the transition.
Such items are less often associated with the dead, but their overall frequency
increases. It is simply that their contexts change from an emphasis on round
barrows to deposits in liminal locations. Although there are many exceptions,
tools were generally deposited in hoards on dry land, ornament hoards might
also occur in bogs, whilst weapons were most often deposited in rivers (Bradley
1998a: chapter 3). Many of these types are the direct successors of those associated
with Earlier Bronze Age burials, but the shift of location meant that
they were not always compared with one another. In fact a greater amount of metalwork entered the archaeological record. That seems inconsistent with
the idea of a social collapse. The burials and the portable artefacts supported
very different interpretations.
In fact the significance of metalworking may have been changing at this
time. It has been all too easy to suppose that collections of bronze artefacts
were buried for practical reasons and that it was a matter of chance that they
were never recovered. Some collections include newly made objects which
had yet to be finished, some contain worn or broken objects that could have
been melted down, whilst others incorporate the residues of metalworking
itself: casting jets, ingots, moulds, droplets, and slag. The connection with
metallurgy is clear; the problem is to determine whether the transformation of
the metal should be viewed as a purely mechanical process. That is inconsistent
with ethnographic accounts of the social position of the smith (Budd and Taylor
1995), and certainly does not account for some of the anomalies illustrated by
the hoards: the occasional finds of human or animal bones in these deposits;
the discovery of certain of these collections in remote and inaccessible places
(Bradley 2000b: chapter 4); the representation of broken objects, parts of which
are missing (Bradley 2005b: chapter 5); even the violence with which some of
these items had been fractured (Nebelsick 2000). It may be wiser to suppose
that the process of working the metal was attended by special protocols. It was
ritualised, and some of the material associated with the transformation of the
raw material appears to have been buried as a votive offering (Bradley 2005b:
163–4). Although many of these elements can be recognised during the Earlier
Bronze Age, they assumed an even greater significance after that time.
THE INITIAL TRANSFORMATION: THE MIDDLE BRONZE AGE
(1500–1100 BC)
For many years the remains of field systems had been recognised as earthworks
in southern England, and from as early as 1925 there was evidence that the first
of them must have been established during the Bronze Age (Toms 1925). On
the other hand, archaeologistswere so sure that the majoritywere of Iron Age or
Romano–British date that they became known as ‘Celtic’ fields to distinguish
them from the ‘English’ fields attributed to the Anglo-Saxons (H. C. Bowen
1970). This term soon took on a life of its own, making it hard to accept
that many of these land divisions predated the Celtic invasions described by
Classical writers in the later first millennium BC. The term was also adopted in
The Netherlands, North Germany, and South Scandinavia which, it is generally
agreed, were beyond the area occupied by any ‘Celts’.
Now a new problem arises. Regular systems of square or rectangular fields
obviously developed during more than one period of prehistory. They were
present in the west of Ireland at an early stage of the Neolithic, and they
were established on Dartmoor and perhaps on the southern margin of Wessex towards the end of the Earlier Bronze Age. Recent research, much of it a byproduct
of developer-funded excavations, shows that such systems were widely
distributed in lowland England and extend into areas in which no earthworks
survive (Fig. 4.4). These were established at various times during the Later
Bronze Age, but nearly all of them went out of use after that phase (Yates
1999, 2001). The only Celtic fields that can definitely be attributed to the Iron
Age belong to the later part of that period and remained important during the
Roman occupation (Fulford 1992). Some are in the same places as the Bronze
Age systems, but others have a much more extensive distribution, reaching
into northern Britain.
There are several reasons for beginning with this evidence. The first is to
make the point that the establishment of the larger field systems, especially those
on Dartmoor, took a considerable effort. It is easy to be misled by the evidence
of burial mounds which becamemuch smaller during this phase, for the amount
of labour invested in the subdivision of the land was probably equivalent to
that devoted to monument building during earlier periods. It would be quite
wrong to suppose that workforces could no longer be mobilised for largescale
projects – it is the nature of those tasks that had changed. This is most
apparent from the sheer scale of some of these projects, which might involve
the organisation of entire landscapes around a series of parallel boundaries.
Some of the dominant axes travel a considerable distance, and, as if to echo
older concerns, they could be orientated on the winter or summer solstice
(McOmish, Field, and Brown 2002: fig. 3.4 and 153). That is particularly
revealing where they cut across the grain of the local topography, with the result
that certain plots were left in shadow. Another connection with established
practice is the way that some of the field boundaries run up to older mounds,
cairns, or the remains of houses. It is usually supposed that this was done for
practical reasons, that the barrows provided landmarks on which they might
be aligned, but a number of these features cannot be seen from far away,
suggesting that it was the associations of such monuments that were more
significant (Bradley, Entwistle, and Raymond 1994: 141).
That connection is particularly plausible since the first field systems seem to
have been established whilst large round moundswere still being built. Thatwas
obviously the case on Dartmoor where the landscape was reorganised during
the Earlier Bronze Age, but it may also apply to the information from other
areas, includingWessex. There is a small overlap between the radiocarbon dates
associated with fields and settlements on the southern English chalk and those
from the last rich burials of that period. Although the evidence is unsatisfactory,
it seems quite possible that these two elements were linked with one another
and that the first stages in the enclosure of the landscape were overseen by the
people commemorated in these graves. If so, the process certainly continued
after mortuary practices had changed.
One reason for suggesting that these developments played a part in the political
process is that the newly created field systems are so poorly integrated with the settlements; it is difficult to regard them as a unified design (Evans and
Knight 2000: 83–6). Although the rectilinear field systems may have grown
over a significant period, the houses and enclosures found within them do not
conform to the overall layout. Rather, they are scattered at irregular intervals
across their area, and the evidence of excavation suggests that they were sometimes
a secondary development. That is fascinating, for it raises the possibility
(which has still to be tested by fieldwork) that the earliest dwellings in these
places may have been ephemeral structures of the kind already identified in the
Earlier Bronze Age. Another possibility, first raised by David Field (2001), is
that these changes were implemented from settlements which lay outside the
areas with coaxial fields. The land divisions were clearly of special significance,
for at Gwithian in Cornwall they were associated with cremation burials (C.
Thomas 1958; Nowakowski 2006: 16), and at Twyford Down on the chalk
of Wessex one was marked by a line of pits, some of them containing human
remains (Walker and Farwell 2000: 21). The sequence needs more investigation,
for there are even cases in which the enclosed settlements associated with
field systems may have been created at a time when some of these landscapes
were already going out of use (Barrett, Bradley, and Green 1991: 151–3).
There is also a mismatch between the extent of the larger enclosed landscapes
and the small size of the first settlements that have been identified within them (Fleming 1988: chapter 5; Evans and Knight 2001). In some cases the houses
form a dispersed pattern, with different buildings inside individual plots or
attached to their boundaries. In other instances, a single field has been occupied
by a settlement, but even here the number of houses is limited (Barrett, Bradley,
and Green 1991: 153–6). Indeed, the dwellings of the Middle Bronze Age seem
to have shifted their locations, giving the illusion of a larger unit than was
actually the case (Br¨uck 1999). For instance, the well known ‘village’ at Itford
Hill in southern England was nothing of the kind. It was a small cluster of
houses defined by an embanked enclosure which changed its position on three
separate occasions (Ellison 1978). What was really new is that the sites of the
older buildings were not removed by the plough.
In lowland Britain the domestic buildings were usually round houses
(Fig. 4.5). There are few signs of specialised facilities such as stables or byres, and
the only ancillary structures may have been small granaries or storehouses. This
suggests that the circular buildings played a variety of roles, and it is certainly
true that they often occur in pairs, one of them a more substantial structure
than the other (Ellison 1981). It often included a series of storage pits beneath
its eaves, whilst its neighbour may have been associated with craft production,
particularly weaving. There can be several of these modules within a single settlement.
Whether or not individual sites were enclosed, the domestic dwellings
seem to have been accompanied by a variety of other features. Often the area
around them was defined by a fence, a low earthwork or perhaps a hedge, and
they can be associated with carefully constructed ponds or waterholes. These
appear to be a new development in the Later Bronze Age. The same probably
applies to wells, and in each case this would suggest that people were living
in the same place for a significant period of time. They would also have been
able to occupy locations that could not have been settled before (Chris Evans,
pers. comm.).
The evidence for sustained occupation contrasts with that from the individual
dwellings, which may have been abandoned every generation. Those
dated to the Middle Bronze Age tended to be replaced in a different position,
and, when this happened, the site of the older building was often marked
by an animal burial, a deposit of pottery, human bones, or perhaps a metal
artefact (Br¨uck 1999). Sometimes the remains of earlier houses were covered
over, and in south west England the hollows left by their floors were carefully
refilled (Nowakowski 2001). At Callestick, the outline of an abandoned house
was marked by pieces of quartz (A. Jones 1999), and at South Lodge Camp
in Wessex the site of a similar building was commemorated by a low mound
(Barrett, Bradley, and Green 1991, 158). At Bestwall Quarry in the same region
an abandoned housewas formally closed by a heap of burnt stone thatwas probably
connected with cooking food. A bronze bracelet was deposited just outside
the building, and another in the middle of its floor (Ladle and Woodward
2003). Such practices were not peculiar to England. In the Outer Hebrides the successive house floors at Cladh Hallan were associated with groups of metal
artefacts and the burial of mummified corpses (Parker Pearson, Sharples, and
Symonds 2004: 60–79). Metalwork has been found in houses in Northern
Ireland (Suddaby 2003). In Orkney domestic buildings are often associated
with deposits of stone ard shares (Downes and Lamb 2000: 126).
It is not uncommon for several groups of dwellings to occur within the same
field system, and that also applies to the insubstantial enclosures connected with
some of the settlements. This evidence is not easy to interpret. On the one
hand, the regular replacement of houses means that certain of the sites may have
been used in succession over a relatively short period; the intervals between
these occupations may be too short to measure by radiocarbon dating. On the
other hand, the small scale of these different units is occasionally at odds with
the extent of the surrounding fields, suggesting that a single block of land may
have been worked by several communities. That makes it still more difficult
to decide how the field systems had been established, but there is another
problem as well. There is nothing to show how many individual plots were in
use simultaneously, and in theory large parts of landscape may have lain fallow
at any one time.
There is evidence for cereal cultivation, with barley as the main crop, but
it is only possible to find direct evidence of cultivation where fields survive as
earthworks or where they have been deeply buried. A good example of the
latter process is at Gwithian in southwest England where large areas of plough
marks had been preserved beneath blown sand, together with a series of field
boundaries and some evidence of spade cultivation (C. Thomas 1958). On
the other hand, many of the field systems recently identified in lowland river
valleys may have been used for raising livestock. There are many arguments
for this. They often include paired ditches which can be interpreted as droveways
communicating between different parts of the landscape; such features
are normally integrated with ponds and water holes, and the environmental
evidence recovered from those features often suggests that they were located
in pasture. These landscapes were best suited to cattle raising, but the only
direct evidence is provided by animal bones, although hoof prints have been
identified by excavation alongside one of the Bronze Age land boundaries on
Dartmoor (K. Smith et al. 1981: 214). The increasing importance of livestock
may account for the earliest evidence of salt production at a number of places
on the coast.
In fact the evidence is likely to introduce certain biases. By their very nature
the waterholes will be associated with areas of pasture rather than cultivated
land. Most excavated settlements produce carbonised grain, and there is little
to suggest that it had been brought there after it was processed. Moreover,
some of the chalkland settlements show a stronger emphasis on sheep than
other animals. This is a largely new feature at this time. It may be connected
with the discovery of artefacts associated with textile production, principally spindle whorls and loom weights. They raise further problems as they are not
uniformly distributed around the landscape, so that entire groups of settlements,
like those on the Sussex chalk or their counterparts in the Middle Thames,
provide large numbers of these finds, whilst there are other areas, like the
downland of southern Wessex, in which they are unusual. It is clear that some
settlements had a more specialised economy than others.
There is also a possibility that larger settlements existed at the same time,
although the clearest indication of this comes from Dartmoor where the dating
evidence is meagre (Fig. 4.6). The edges of the high ground were divided into
a series of separate territories by the continuous boundaries known as reaves
(Fleming 1988). They may have originated as fences, but today they can be
recognised as low walls. They occur in the areas which are more sheltered
and have the most productive soils. The larger settlements are usually found
beyond their limits, but it is not clear how this is to be interpreted (A. Fox
1973: 100–12). They may represent the surviving fraction of what was once a
wider distribution of houses and irregular enclosures that had been established
during the Earlier Bronze Age. If so, further examples may have been removed
when more regular field systems were established. Alternatively, they may have
been located in areas of pasture beyond the regions in which crops were grown.
They could have been occupied seasonally and by only part of the population.
That might explain why the associated houses are unusually small. On the other
hand, there are cases in which irregular enclosures of this kind were respected
when the reaves were established, and there may even be instances in which
similar structures were tacked on to the newly constructed boundaries.
A few enclosures were built on such a large scale that they might have
been high-status settlements. At present, they seem to be peculiar to southwest
England, but other sites were defined by an unusually substantial perimeter.
At places like Grimspound on Dartmoor, this was a massive stone wall (Butler
1991: 143–5), but on the chalk of southern England significantly smaller enclosures
could be bounded by a considerable ditch. These stand out from the
slighter compounds associated with the remaining settlements of this date. Such
enclosures are by no means common, and for a long time they were thought
to have been intended for livestock. That was based on the apparent absence
of domestic structures inside them, but re-excavation of one of the type sites,
South Lodge Camp, has shown that the post holes of wooden houses were
missed by the original excavator (Barrett, Bradley, and Green 1991: 144–53).
In fact it contained a pair of circular buildings like those on other Middle
Bronze Age sites. Its main distinguishing feature was the enclosure ditch which
was excavated two metres into the bedrock. This earthwork was approximately
square and conformed to the layout of an existing group of fields. Perhaps more
important, it may have been built as occupation was coming to an end. A comparable
sequence was identified on a nearby site at Down Farm, Woodcutts,
where the final phase of activity was marked by the demolition of two of the round houses and their replacement by a massive rectangular building whose
closest parallels are among the long houses of The Netherlands (ibid., 183–211).
This is one of a small group of rectangular structures recognised during recent
years. A very similar long house has been identified at Barleycroft in the Fenland
(Evans and Knight 1996). Again it is associated with an enclosure and a co-axial
field system (Fig. 4.7).
The second unusual feature of the Dartmoor landscape was the creation
of large territories based on the valleys radiating out from the higher ground
(Fleming 1988). This is like the system postulated for the North York Moors
during the Earlier Bronze Age (Spratt 1993: 116–20), but in that case it was represented by a distribution of round barrows rather than a continuous barrier.
Very similar systems have been identified in other parts of Britain, but their
chronology is uncertain. They were usually defined by linear ditches, and there
are a few cases in which they seem to have been integrated with enclosures or
field systems established during the Middle Bronze Age. On the other hand,
this development is more often associated with the Late Bronze Age and even
the Iron Age (Bradley, Entwistle, and Raymond 1994), and for that reason it
will be considered in more detail in a later section of this chapter. These early
beginnings are important mainly because they emphasise that the evolution of
local landscapes may have moved at different paces from one region to another.
That is especially true outside lowland England. One of the most remarkable
results of recent fieldwork has been to show that the distribution of enclosed landscapes was confined to the south and east. Co-axial field systems are ubiquitous
on the chalk and the river gravels, extending in a broad swathe along
the North Sea coastline from the Welland valley to the north as far as Kent to
the south. They are uncommon over large parts of the midlands but probably
extend along the English Channel as far west as Devon or Cornwall (Bradley
and Yates in press). Beyond that restricted area, settlements may take a similar
form, but do not seem to have been associated with ditched fields. It may be
that these landscapes were characterised by more ephemeral boundaries, but
it also seems as if the density of settlements was lower. Those that have been
discovered show the same range of variation as the examples considered so
far. Some were small groups of round houses and others were associated with
earthwork enclosures. Although longer boundary earthworks are known in
these areas, none so far has been dated to this early phase.
Such contrasts extend to northern England, Wales, and Scotland, but they
may prove to be more apparent than real. One reason is that there have been
fewer developer-funded excavations here. That is important as small open
settlements are most likely to be found in large stripped areas and will rarely
be discovered by more modest site evaluations. That is amply demonstrated
by large scale fieldwork in West Yorkshire (Roberts, Burgess, and Berg 2001:
49–54, 258–60) and by current work at Kintore in northeast Scotland where a
continuous sequence of round houses, extending from the Earlier Bronze Age
to the Iron Age, has been identified in excavation (Cook and Dunbar 2004).
Although the evidence is limited, it already suggests that in northern Britain
and in Ireland the houses and settlements of this period had more in common
with those of the Earlier Bronze Age than their counterparts in the south. A
serious problem is that the clearest ceramic sequence is in lowland England,
and in other areas the coarseware associated with such sites is very difficult to
define. Only the routine application of radiocarbon dating is likely to improve
the situation. That is certainly what is happening in Ireland, where round
houses of this period are being identified in developer-funded excavations. This
evidence may well take a distinctive form, for recent excavation at Corrstown
on the north coast has revealed an extraordinary complex of forty Middle
Bronze Age houses (Conway, Gahan, and Rathbone 2005). It remains to be
seen whether this will happen more extensively, although it may be relevant
that large settlements of similar date are being discovered in the Western Isles
(Parker Pearson, Sharples, and Symonds 2004: chapter 5).
Another development in Ireland was the production of a wide variety of gold
ornaments, including discs, neck rings, and torcs, during the thirteenth and
twelfth centuries BC (G. Eogan 1994: chapter 4). They were surely made from
native metal and form part of a more extensive tradition which is represented
along the Atlantic coast from Portugal to northwest France. The products of the
Irish industry are also found in Britain, with distinct concentrations in Wales,
the Severn estuary, and southern England. They also suggest close connections between northern Ireland and northeast Scotland. A few of these artefacts have
been found in graves, but most of them were deposited in hoards and often
in bogs. It is not clear how their production was related to the settlement sites
of this period, but their chronology may overlap with the development of the
fortified enclosures in Ireland, discussed later in this chapter. For example, there
are finds of gold from Haughey’s Fort, which was in use by 1100 BC (Mallory
1995).
The mortuary rituals of the Middle Bronze Age pose many problems
(Fig. 4.8). From the Yorkshire Wolds to the English Channel coast, cremation
cemeteries are quite easy to identify because they are associated with
readily recognised styles of pottery. The same is true in the southwest, but
beyond these areas the ceramic evidence is so unsatisfactory that at different
times the same kinds of vessels have been attributed to every phase from the
Neolithic to the Iron Age.
It was not until 1972 that it was possible to link a Middle Bronze Age
settlement with its cemetery (Holden 1972). A group of cremations associated
with a small round barrow was discovered close to the excavated site at Itford
Hill in Sussex. The connection between them was confirmed when it was
realised that a sherd associated with one of the houses fitted a broken vessel
associated with the burials (Holden 1972). Subsequent fieldwork has shown
that cemeteries of this kind are regularly associated with settlement sites, and
there are other burials among the dwellings themselves (Br¨uck 1995). The
main groups of cremations are usually located behind the living area but within
about two hundred metres (Bradley 1981). This hypothesis has been tested by
excavation and is supported by radiocarbon dating.
The links between these settlements and their cemeteries extend to other
features. It is sometimes claimed that the pottery associated with Earlier Bronze
Age burials was rather different from that employed in settlements. That is
controversial (Healy 1995), and it was certainly not true during this phase
as the ceramics associated with cremation cemeteries are indistinguishable in
type, fabric, and decoration from those used in the houses. In the same way,
the occasional metal items found with cremation cemeteries are of the same
types as the artefacts deposited in settlements, often when individual structures
were built or went out of use. There are even cases in which the layout of an
individual cemetery reflects that of the domestic buildings. Newly constructed
barrows were of about the same size as the houses of the same period, and
sometimes both kinds of structure had an entrance to the south or southeast.
It was often on this side of the mound that the main group of burials was
concentrated. In such cases it seems as if the settlement and its cemetery were
mirror images of one another (Bradley 1998b: 148–58). The distribution of
cremations can often be divided into a series of separate clusters, although it
is impossible to say whether these represented individual households (Ellison
1980). Certainly, it is clear that these deposits did not exclude any section of the population; the cremations include men, women, and children. What is really
striking is that so little was done to distinguish one burial from another. There
is little sign of the complex spatial organisation that typifies the cemeteries of
the Earlier Bronze Age. Rather, it seems as if social distinctions were being
suppressed.
In certain cases it even appears that the burials were organised according
to a similar principle to the houses. For example, at Kimpton in Wessex the
successive clusters of cremation burials resemble the sequence of dwellings
within a settlement (Dacre and Ellison 1981). Similarly, at a number of places
in the Thames Estuary the burials were associated with groups of small ring
ditches rather like the individual buildings found on an occupation site (N.
Brown 2000). This was a practice that may have continued on a reduced scale
during the Late Bronze Age. Yet another configuration has been identified
at Bromfield in the West Midlands where the burials describe an enormous
arc, rather like one section of a circular enclosure (Stanford 1982). Another
possibility is that the cemetery formed around a barrow which has since
disappeared.
Until recently, it would have been difficult to discuss the northern and
western British equivalents of these practices. That was partly because of the
problems posed by the pottery of this period, but also because there were few
radiocarbon dates. The situation has improved considerably as a result of new
excavations. The direct dating of cremated bone from older projects has made
a special contribution to Scottish and Irish archaeology (Sheridan 2003c).
For a long time it had seemed likely that the practice of cremation burial,
which was such a feature of the Earlier Bronze Age, continued into later
prehistory, although the evidence for this interpretation was very limited. Cremation
pyres had been identified at the settlements of Gwithian in southwest
England (C. Thomas 1958) and Cladh Hallan in the Hebrides (Parker Pearson,
Sharples, and Symonds 2004: fig. 29). InWales standing stones were erected on
the sites of earlier houses and could also be associated with cremation burials
(G. Williams 1988). Otherwise the evidence was difficult to evaluate. There
have been three crucial developments. The first has been a campaign of dating
human remains from reliable contexts. This has produced unexpected evidence
that during the Later Bronze Age a whole variety of Scottish monuments were
reused, often as cemeteries or pyres. These are monuments built during the
Later Neolithic or the Earlier Bronze Age periods, including stone circles,
ring cairns, and Clava Cairns. There seems to have been a peak of activity
during the Middle Bronze Age, but it continued into the Late Bronze Age too
(Sheridan 2003c). A similar development has been identified at some of the
henges of northeast England, which appear to have been reused at about this
time (Gibson 2002b).
The second result is equally challenging, for it has shown that the rather
nondescript pottery associated with these developments (‘flat-rimmed ware’) had a finite currency. Itwas not in use for as long as had once been supposed, and
in most areas it was made between about 1500 and 800 BC. That is important
because it suggests that still more monuments were reused as cemeteries during
this phase. It also raises the possibility that other structures which had been
assigned to earlier periods were actually built during the Middle and Late
Bronze Ages. In the north, traditional forms of public monument retained
their importance for longer than had once been supposed. A ring of pits or
posts in the settlement at Billown on the Isle of Man is interpreted as a shrine
(Darvill 2002: 10–15), and even in southern England it seems possible that post
circles and timber avenues remained important (Bradley and Sheridan 2005).
There are fewer radiocarbon dates from Irish sites, but it seems possible that the
same happened there. In Scotland it is clear that stone circles were still being
built during the Later Bronze Age (Bradley and Sheridan 2005).
Such evidence suggests a close connection between the sequences in Scotland
and Ireland. There is a striking resemblance between the smallest Scottish
‘henges’ and a series of Irish earthworks known as ‘ring barrows’ (Waddell
1998: 173). These are not really burial mounds but circular enclosures defined
by an external bank and a wide internal ditch. Sometimes there is evidence
for an eastern entrance that seems to have been blocked. The British monuments,
which are mainly in the north of Scotland, have very similar features,
but at present none is adequately dated. In Ireland, the situation is slightly more
encouraging, and it is clear that these sites are among the principal mortuary
monuments of the Later Bronze Age and, indeed, the Early Iron Age. Until
about 1300 BC there were burials with grave goods similar to those of the
Earlier Bronze Age, but after that time barrows and other monuments rarely
contained more than a token collection of burnt bones from the pyre. As in
Britain, the treatment of the dead seems to have changed.
How are the developments in the landscape related to the deposits of metalwork?
The most important point is that some of the types of artefacts which
had previously been placed in graves were deposited in other locations. During
the Middle Bronze Age ornaments were often buried in hoards, either in dry
ground or in bogs. The evidence is unsatisfactory, but it is clear that some of
these collections were accompanied by bones, but they do not seem to have
been formal burials. Detailed analysis of the associated artefacts suggests that
they were sets of personal equipment. Different items were worn to different
extents, raising the possibility that they had been accumulated during the
course of people’s lives and may even have been deposited when they died
(R. Taylor 1994: 101). Something similar happened with the bronze weapons
of this period. Most of the daggers are found in Wessex barrows, but their
direct successors were usually deposited in water. The Thames has produced
the largest number of examples (York 2002), but in Ireland there is another
concentration of these finds in the Shannon (Bourke 2001).
It must be more than a coincidence that as elaborate artefacts disappear from
the funerary record, they occur with increasing frequency in other contexts. The connection between these deposits is especially obvious in the case of
daggers, dirks, and rapiers (Gerloff 1975; Burgess and Gerloff 1981). The dagger
had been one of the main artefacts associated with Earlier Bronze Age burials,
and it is generally agreed that it provided the prototype for these other weapons.
Most of the daggers have been found in graves, but the latest examples are
also discovered in rivers (Gerloff 1975). The two groups of finds have mutually
exclusive distributions. Those associated with barrows are mostly fromWessex;
the river finds are from the Thames. Very few dirks and rapiers are associated
with human burials, and the number of river finds increases sharply. Thus
the rate of consumption increased as barrow building was coming to an end
(Bradley 1998a: 140–1).
On one level this evidence suggests that the cemeteries provide a misleading
impression of Middle Bronze Age society. Overt distinctions may have been
suppressed in the mortuary rite (although nothing is known about the rituals
taking place around the pyre), and it seems as if the dead were denied the
conspicuous memorials that had been provided for earlier generations. Now
the mounds were smaller, and many sites lacked them entirely. One possibility
is that only part of the population was buried there, whilst the people who
had access to elaborate metalwork were commemorated at a different location
and in a different way. Another possibility is that the finery traditionally associated
with the dead was removed from contact with their bodies and deposited
somewhere else. If so, then it may have been the structure of the mortuary
rites that altered, rather than the structure of society.
It is difficult to decide between these models, and each of them may be more
appropriate in different areas. For example, barrow building was drastically
curtailed about 1200 BC in lowland England but continued in Ireland as late as
the Iron Age (Waddell 1998; Grogan 2004; J. Eogan 2004). Similarly, there are
flat cemeteries in the English midlands, but in the north of Scotland stone circles
and related monuments were still used at this time. One point is quite clear.
In southern Britain, the embellishment of barrow cemeteries had reached
its limit by the end of the Earlier Bronze Age. One way of considering the
problem is to suggest that these earthworks were no longer an effective way of
communicating relationships with the dead. Individual cemeteries had perhaps
become too complex or arcane for their message to be understood, and new
ways of expressing these ideas developed.
Maybe the obligations expressed by Earlier Bronze Age funerary practices
were finally coming under pressure. After a long period in which the same
places had been used for celebrating the dead, the social order could have been
under strain, for the main deposits of rich metalwork were certainly changing
their distributions. For all the biases created by antiquarian excavation, the
richest artefact assemblages of the Earlier Bronze Age come from Wessex. In
the following period they are in the Thames Valley and the Fenland. These
were surely centres of political power as the raw material had to be imported
from the Continent. But is there any evidence that the deposits of fine metalwork were associated
with the dead? It is not enough to say that their immediate predecessors had
been found in graves, for cemeteries were still being created during the Middle
Bronze Age. There are two arguments that might support this hypothesis. The
first concerns the treatment of the corpse. Although cremation was certainly
the main burial rite, there is evidence for a few inhumation burials during this
period, and also for smaller deposits of human remains (Br¨uck 1995). These are
rarely dated because they are seldom associated with artefacts. In recent years
it has become clear that unburnt bones, mainly skulls, are found in rivers or
in other watery locations, usually in the same locations as the weapons. This
raises many problems – the skulls may have been separated from the other parts
of the body as a result of taphonomic processes (Turner, Gonzales, and Ohman
2002); both weapons and human remains may have been brought together by
the action of the river – but it happens too often to be entirely coincidental.
That is particularly true of the skulls from the River Thames, some of which
have radiocarbon dates in the Later Bronze Age (Bradley and Gordon 1988).
This may be evidence for some kind of ‘river burial’. Again it could have
developed out of an existing practice, as there are Earlier Bronze Age skeletons
associated with artefacts from wet deposits in the Fenland (Healy and Housley
1992). Indeed, round barrows were sometimes built on islands within major
rivers (T. Brown 2003).
The second argument must also be rather tentative, but recent analysis of
the weapons from British and Irish rivers has shown that they had obviously
been used in combat over a significant period before they were deposited (York
2002). These objects had not been made as votive offerings, and they were only
discarded at the end of a lengthy history. That might mirror the lives of those
who had used them.
SUBSEQUENT DEVELOPMENTS: THE LATE BRONZE AGE
(1100–800 BC)
Although this chapter treats the Middle and Late Bronze Ages together, there
were important developments from the twelfth century BC. Most of these
grew directly out of existing processes of change. There is no need to postulate
a major crisis at this time.
In particular, the new practice of depositing metalwork in rivers continued
unabated. It may even have intensified, although in England its geographical
focus changed from an emphasis on the Fenland to a greater concern
with the Thames. There was more continuity in the use of other British and
Irish rivers. In some respects the deposition of weaponry underwent a subtle
modification. Throughout the Later Bronze Age it is clear that these artefacts
had been used in combat and that some of them had been repaired or
resharpened long before they were taken out of circulation. At the same time, detailed study of the metalwork from the Thames shows that they were normally
disabled before they were committed to the water. The frequency of
deliberately damaged items increased steadily through time, whilst the proportion
of artefacts showing signs of use remained at a constant level (York
2002). It was not easy to damage some of the finest swords and spears without
considerable effort. Some of these weapons had also been burnt, and it seems
possible that they had been present on a cremation pyre (Bridgford 1998).
They include examples from Duddingston Loch in Edinburgh which were
associated with human bones (Callender 1922). Late Bronze Age swords and
spearheads have also been found in rivers together with unburnt skulls, but it
is difficult to interpret their relationship to one another (Bradley and Gordon
1988).
The deposition of weaponry may have become more of a public event and
could have involved a greater spectacle than before. One reason for suggesting
this is the amount of damage inflicted on many of the weapons. Another is that
there is an increasing number of sites where such deposits seem to be directly
associated with timber structures in rivers and similar settings. Some of these
were conceived on a massive scale, and where they have been excavated in
recent years they turn out to be associated not only with finds of metalwork
but also with ceramic vessels, human remains, and animal bones. They were
clearly laid down with a certain formality. Thus entire pots could be placed
beside upright timbers (Bell, Caseldine, and Neumann 2000: chapter 5); human
and animal remains might have different distributions from one another (Pryor
2001: 427–9);wooden ard tips could be included among the offerings (T. Allen,
pers. comm.); and the faunal remains may have an unusual composition, with
an emphasis on horses and dogs that has no counterpart in the settlement sites
of the same period (Bradley 2005b: 172).
The wooden structures are difficult to explain. Some of them were considerable
undertakings. A great causeway at Flag Fen in eastern England linked a
platform built in open water to two areas of settled land (Pryor 2001: 421–7).
Bones were deposited on one side of this alignment, and items of metalwork
on the other. Although this was an unusually elaborate construction, there
are signs of similar features elsewhere in southern and eastern England. It is
difficult to decide whether they were provided simply as a stage for public ceremonies
or whether they might have played a more practical role as well. For
instance, Middle and Late Bronze Age finds are associated with the remains of
wooden bridges, jetties, or causeways at a number of places in England (they
belong to both phases as such structures were sometimes long-lived). They
include Testwood in southernWessex (Falkner 2004), Shinewater in southeast
England (Greatorix 2003), Greylake in the Somerset Levels (Brunning 1997),
and two sites along the River Thames, one at Vauxhall (Sidell et al. 2002:
29–30), and the other at Eton Rowing Lake where several of these structures
have been identified (T. Allen 2002). Not all these sites are associated with weapons. They do occur in most instances, but at Eton the river contained
pottery and human bones, and Greylake was associated with a broken
axehead and human remains. Chris Evans (2002) has suggested that similar
deposits were made at other places where people travelled across water, and
it certainly seems as if major deposits of metalwork were associated with the
routes leading to the Isle of Ely. There are also cases in which deposits of
weapons have been found with the remains of log boats (C. Phillips 1941).
Some of the richest collections of metalwork come from the River Shannon
in Ireland, where they are often associated with fords (Bourke 2001).
The very act of crossing the water might have been conceived as a rite of
passage.
That is still more obvious where platforms were built in the water itself,
or where small islands became a focus for human activity. The causeway at
Flag Fen provided access to one of these sites (Fig. 4.9). The platform had
a distinctive character for it was made out of reused timbers. These showed
little sign of wear, and the wood had not always been selected for its structural
qualities or for its ability to sustain a long period of use. It had originally been
employed in substantial rectangular buildings very different from the circular
dwellings of the same period. Such constructions must surely have played a
specialised role, and that may be why they lasted for such a short period before
they were dismantled (Pryor 2001: chapter 7).
In some respects the platform at Flag Fen might be compared with the
occupation of small islands during the Late Bronze Age. Two examples have
been excavated in recent years, at Runnymede Bridge and Wallingford, both
in the Thames (Needham 1991; Needham and Spence 1996; Cromarty et al.
2005). In each case an island seems to have been delimited by vertical piles
driven into the river bed. At Runnymede the site was located at a confluence
between the Thames and one of its tributaries and formed only part of a larger
complex with an enclosed settlement nearby. Both these islands were in a river
that has produced many finds of weapons, but there is no direct association
between them, and those from Wallingford seem to be earlier in date than the
finds from the excavation.
Little is known about the structures built on these sites, although it is interesting
that at Runnymede they seem to have included rectangular buildings
quite different from the round houses found with the enclosure on dry land
(Needham 1992). The feature that links this site with that atWallingford is the
presence of a midden (Cromarty et al. 2005). Runnymede Bridge also provides
evidence of metalworking. In neither case could animals have been raised on
the islands themselves, so the presence of large quantities of faunal remains
suggests that feasts were taking place there. A possible link with river finds is
the burial of a human skull (Needham 1992: pl. 2).
Another comparison is with the artificial islands known as crannogs,
although there is no evidence that structures of this kind were built in Britain before the Iron Age. On the other hand, a recent study of the Irish evidence
suggests a different situation. Christina Fredengren has undertaken a survey
of the evidence from Loch Gara in the west of the country (Fig. 4.10) and
has compared her results with those of older fieldwork. At three of the sites
that she studied structural timbers were dated by radiocarbon. In each case the
results fall between 930 and 800 BC and clearly relate to activity towards the
end of the Bronze Age (Fredengren 2002: chapter 9). That is consistent with
the results of earlier excavations on this kind of monument which also place
them in the Late Bronze Age.
Such crannogs may have played many different roles, and the same must
surely apply to the wooden platforms that were built in areas of blanket bog
(A. O’Sullivan 1998: 69–96). Their characteristics overlap, and a number of
prehistoric crannogs may actually have been built around small natural islands.
Theywere generally composed of brushwood and large quantities of stones, and
despite the good conditions of preservation the structural evidence from these
sites can be surprisingly meagre. They were apparently bounded by a wooden
barrier, and it is often assumed that they included the sites of houses, although
the main evidence is that of hearths. In some cases they would have been
under water for part of the year and cannot have been inhabited continuously
(Fredengren 2002: chapter 9). The two timber platforms at Ballinderry were
more substantial undertakings (Fig. 4.10). One of them had a foundation of
parallel beams, but again the nature of their superstructure is not clear (Newman
1997b). They seem to have been connected by a path, and something similar
has been found at Killymoon, where a platform associated with a small gold
hoard is linked to an earthwork enclosure on dry land (Hurl 1995). The contents of these sites are dominated by burnt stone and animal bones,
perhaps suggesting that, among other activities, they were used for cooking and
consuming food; there was even a flesh hook among the finds from Ballinderry.
Other associations of the crannogs are more distinctive and perhaps compare
with the British finds mentioned earlier. A number of these structures are
associated with items of fine metalwork of kinds which are rarely, if ever,
found in settlements on land. This is unlikely to reflect the unusual preservation
conditions, for some of these artefacts seem to have been formal deposits. At
Rathtinaun, for instance, a number of them had been deposited together just
beyond the limits of the platform (Raftery 1994: 32–5). They were inside
a wooden box and included bronze rings, amber beads, a pair of tweezers,
a pin, and boar’s tusks. This is particularly interesting as other Bronze Age
crannogs have produced finds of rings, as well as swords. A surprising number
of these sites also contained the moulds for making weapons (Fredengren 2002:
chapter 9).
By their very nature the crannogs were located in open water, and it seems
clear that they formed a focus for further deposits. These are of two main kinds,
and both of them recall the discoveries from Irish and British rivers. There
are a considerable number of bronze weapons, especially swords (G. Eogan
1965). That is hardly surprising since these kinds of artefacts were apparently
being made on sites like Rathtinaun (Raftery 1994: 32–5) and Lough Eskragh
(B. Williams 1978). There were also significant numbers of human skulls.
They have not been dated by radiocarbon, but their discovery is significant
for two reasons. First, their presence does not raise the taphonomic problems
that affect the finds from fast-flowing rivers. Most of these come from the
still waters of lakes, and are found in the same areas as the artificial islands.
Secondly, further skulls come from stratified contexts within the structure of
the crannogs themselves.
If weapons seem to have been discarded according to specific conventions,
it would be wrong to suppose that their main function was as votive offerings.
Their deposition is sometimes thought of in terms of a kind of ritualised
warfare, but that may impose a modern antipathy to violence on the past.
There is sufficient evidence to show that these weapons had been used. That
is most apparent from the damage that they had sustained in the course of
their history (York 2002). There are also a small number of instances in which
human remains show obvious signs of wounds, but the skulls recovered from
the Thames did not exhibit similar damage.
Another indication of the importance of conflict during the Later Bronze
Age is the earliest evidence of fortifications. This needs to be treated rather
cautiously for the terminology used by archaeologists can easily be misleading.
Near to some of the English weapon finds are the circular earthworks described
as ‘ring forts’ on analogy with post-Roman monuments of similar appearance
in Ireland (Needham and Ambers 1994). A better term would be ‘ringwork’, for it makes fewer assumptions. These sites are a recent discovery and were first
investigated because they looked like henges. Others have been discovered in
the course of developer-funded fieldwork or have been recognised through
retrospective analysis of already excavated sites. Why did it take so long to identify them? In some ways they provide an
object lesson in the dangers of air photograph interpretation. Because they
have a similar ground plan to Neolithic henges, it was tempting to link them
to an established class of monument. That was understandable in the case of Springfield Lyons which is located beside a causewayed enclosure (N. Brown
2001); the same relationship has been observed at two sites in Kent (Dyson,
Shand, and Stevens 2000). The features that first attracted attention were the
circular layout of these monuments, the presence of one or two main entrances
(although other members of this group actually have interrupted ditches),
and hints that at their centre there was a circular timber building. Before
their chronology was resolved, John Collis (1977) described them as ‘Iron Age
henges’. Now it is known that they were built and used between about 1100
and 700 BC. Most examples fall in the centuries between 1000 and 800 BC,
but at least two sites may be significantly earlier than that: the inner enclosure
at Thwing which dates from the Middle Bronze Age and resembles an older
henge (Manby, King, and Vyner 2003, 65–7), and a palisaded enclosure of
similar age at Worcester (Griffin et al. 2002).
Later work has modified some of these clear distinctions. Not all the enclosures
are precisely circular, nor was there necessarily one central building inside
them. Some of these sites had internal ramparts with a vertical timber face reinforced
by upright posts, yet the earliest enclosure at Thwing had an external
bank like a Late Neolithic monument. Even so, several members of this group
are remarkably similar to one another. Rams Hill on the northern margin of
the Wessex chalk has a timbered rampart of almost exactly the same kind as
a recently discovered example at Taplow in the Middle Thames (Bradley and
Ellison 1975; T. Allen, pers. comm.). It also has a distinctive entrance structure
that it shares with Thwing on the Yorkshire Wolds (Manby, King, and Vyner
2003: fig. 28). Similarly, the earthwork monument at South Hornchurch is the
same size and shape as two wooden enclosures on the same site (Guttmann
and Last 2000), and there are other excavated examples in the Thames Estuary
and the Severn Valley. The unusually large round houses found within several
ringworks sometimes occur as freestanding structures, notably at Bancroft in
the south midlands (Williams and Zeepfat 1994: 21–40).
One result of the expansion of fieldwork in the last few years is that the
number of ringworks has increased and their distribution has extended from
the North Sea coastline inland as least as far asWessex. Similarly, it is clear that
their earthworks normally formed part of a more extensive landscape, including
further houses and a field system (N. Brown 2001; Manning and Moore
2003). For a long time it has been accepted that Bronze Age ringworks provided
an important focus for public events, including the provision of offerings.
Excavation outside one such monument at Carshalton shows that these activities
may have extended into the surrounding area. Here there were a number
of unusual deposits and a small semicircular enclosure associated with a horse
skull (Proctor 2002). Similar features have also been identified on a settlement
site in the Cotswolds (D. Mullin, pers. comm.).
It seems possible to interpret the ringworks in more than one way. They may
have been elite residences, cut off by earthworks from the surrounding area and possibly protected from attack. One argument in favour of this hypothesis
is that, like Irish crannogs, these sites are associated with weapon production.
Both the entrances to the enclosure at Springfield Lyons contained clay moulds
for making swords (Buckley and Hedges 1987). Another possibility is that they
were public buildings and employed in a similar fashion to the henges with
which they had been confused. Some of them contain large deposits of animal
bones and fine pottery which may result from feasting. The finds include ceramic sets suitable for the service of food and drink, and a number of sites
in southeast England produce perforated clay slabs which may have been used
in cooking.
The local setting of these earthworks is revealing, too. David Yates (2001)
has argued that they generally occur in regions with large co-axial field systems
and major deposits of metalwork, whether these are dry land hoards like those
around the enclosures at Springfield Lyons (Buckley and Hedges 1987) and
Great Baddow (Brown and Lavender 1994), or weapons like those in the
Thames near to the sites at Taplow andWittenham Clumps (York 2002). They
conform to a still more general pattern, for the distribution of the field systems
is strikingly similar to that of weapons in southern English rivers. It is certainly
true that from the twelfth century BC the lowland landscape assumed a quite
uniform character. Some of its typical features had already developed before
that time, including co-axial field systems, droveways and occasional metal
hoards, but now there is a more consistent structure to the ways in which these
areas were used.
The settlements themselves were becoming more diverse. They were no
longer restricted to small groups of houses but, like the Middle Bronze Age
site at Corrstown (Conway, Gahan, and Rathbone 2004), could extend over a
considerable area. Most of these sites were entirely open, but now the dwellings
within themwere frequently superimposed. Theywere associated with a similar
range of ancillary structures – granaries, storehouses, pits, ponds, and occasional
rectangular buildings – but they may have been occupied more intensively or
over longer periods. Many were new creations in the Late Bronze Age. They
are found with large co-axial field systems in the same way as earlier settlement
sites, and many produce finds of carbonised grain.
A number of the fields established during the Middle Bronze Age had gone
out of use by this time, and on the Wessex chalk they were supplemented and
often slighted by long linear earthworks which define the limits of a series of
territories (Bradley, Entwistle, and Raymond 1994: chapter 7). These usually
extended from the rivers onto the higher ground, but in other cases they
followed the upper limits of fertile valleys in a similar manner to the Dartmoor
reaves (Fig. 4.12). Their interpretation has always been controversial, although
it seems to be agreed that most of these developments began during the Late
Bronze Age. Such earthworkswere once described as ‘ranch boundaries’ on the
assumption that cattle raising became more important at this time. That idea has
been revived by Barry Cunliffe (2004), but other fieldworkers have suggested
that there may have been a greater emphasis on sheep, an interpretation which
is supported by faunal remains from the local settlements (McOmish 1996).
Another possibility is that land holding was reorganised around a series of
enclosed ‘estates’, each of which contained a variety of different resources,
extending from grazing land on the flood plains, through arable land on the
valley sides to summer pasture on the high downland. Recent fieldwork on Salisbury Plain suggests that each of these territories included the position
of at least one large open settlement (M. Fulford, pers. comm.). There is an
excavated example on Dunch Hill (Andrews 2006).
It is not known whether this was part of a more general development, but
something similar did take place on the Yorkshire Wolds. In this case less is
known about the location of Late Bronze Age settlements, and field systems
of this period have not been identified. On the other hand, one of the points
where several of these territories converged was the defended enclosure of
Thwing (Manby, King, and Vyner 2003: 70–8). This occupied a prominent
hilltop, but the main role of the ditched boundaries may have been to define
a series of territories based on the valleys in this area. Another vital element
was water, and some of the linear ditches may have been intended to control
access to springs (Fenton-Thomas 2003: chapter 3). Something similar may
have happened in lowland areas where long linear earthworks cut off bends in
major rivers like the Thames. Although they are usually assigned to the Iron
Age, a few are associated with radiocarbon dates that fall within this period.
There is no reason to suppose that the open settlements associated with these
land boundaries were any different from those discovered with co-axial field
systems on the lower ground, although a few examples seem to be subdivided
by fence lines, and others may even have been bounded by hedges. The recent
expansion of developer-funded excavations has helped put these sites in context.
It is clear that they contain a number of specialised deposits which recall
those of the Neolithic period. They include offerings of pottery, grain, and animal
remains which were connected with houses, pits, waterholes, the entrances
of enclosures and buildings, and even the foundations of granaries (Guttmann
and Last 2000: 354). They were not a completely new development, but their
frequency was certainly increasing. The deposits found in ponds and wells are
especially revealing for they emphasise the special importance of these places.
In one case a pond even contained a bronze weapon similar to those found
in rivers. Less is known about the open settlements in other parts of Britain
and Ireland, although their sites are gradually being discovered in excavation.
There is little to suggest that they changed their form from the Middle Bronze
Age, and in many areas the structures of these two periods can be told apart
only by radiocarbon dating. Certainly, the distribution of co-axial field systems
did not extend any further than it had done before, and few occupation sites
were enclosed until the Early Iron Age.
It is normally supposed that Late Bronze Age settlements did not have cemeteries
in the way that their Middle Bronze Age predecessors had done in
lowland England, but that is not altogether true (Fig. 4.13). Flat cemeteries
have been identified in increasing numbers by developer-funded projects in
Ireland; their positions were sometimes indicated by marker posts. Some of
the settlements in England were actually built over the remains of existing
urnfields, whilst a number of small ring ditches have been identified on the
edges of living areas or field systems in the south. Most were associated with a single cremation, and at one site in the English midlands an unusual burial
found with one of these monuments was accompanied by the remains of several
cauldrons (Palmer 1999b: 36–56). These miniature round barrows had not been
recognised until recently and their distribution has still to be worked out, but it
appears to extend across both islands. Another practice that has been identified for the first time is the deposition of small quantities of cremated human bone
in pits within the settlement itself (Br¨uck 1995). It began in the Middle Bronze
Age, and this phenomenon has now been traced across a wide area from Kent
to the Severn Valley. Detailed analysis of the contents of these features suggests
that they were no more than token deposits of material selected from a pyre
(Bishop and Bagwell 2005: 47). That implies that the burning of human bodies
may have been more common than archaeologists had supposed and that most
of the remains were not preserved.
Two other features are associated with settlement sites, but until recently they
had been treated in isolation. The first were the deposits of bronze metalwork
known as hoards. As mentioned earlier, they were often associated with the
activities of smiths, but it seems doubtful whether they were simply stores of
finished items or raw material. It seems more likely that they represent a deliberate
offering of part of the stock of metal which had been processed near the
site (Bradley 2005b: chapter 5). There were also small hoards of ornaments or
weapons which may have been connected with particular individuals. Recent
fieldwork is shedding light on the places where this happened. Although some
sites could have been genuinely isolated, others were clearly on the edge of
settlements and have been found by the open area excavation during recent
years. Perhaps the clearest example of this is at Bradley Fen in eastern England.
Here a series of single finds of spearheads had been placed along the boundary
between a field system and the edge of the wetland. Outside the enclosed area
was a hoard (Fig. 4.14). Similar evidence comes from field survey in southern
England which has investigated the findspots of other collections of metalwork.
These were originally studied for their associated artefacts, but the new work
established that they had been deposited beside streams and just outside settlement
sites dating from this period (Dunkin 2001). Other finds are associated
with occupied hilltops. Therewas a major deposit of metalwork outside the settlement
at Dinorben in NorthWales (Gardner and Savory 1964: 1), and below
the open site at South Cadbury in southwest England there was a remarkable
deposit of a shield (Coles et al. 1999). Similar considerations apply to a number
of caves in Britain and Ireland. These often produce unusual assemblages of
artefacts. They are found with human skulls at Covesea in northern Scotland
(I. Shepherd 1987).
Some collections of metalwork were close to a curious group of monuments
which are usually known as burnt mounds (Buckley ed. 1990). They have a
lengthy history, for the oldest of them belong to the Neolithic period and others
are associated with Beaker pottery, although radiocarbon dating suggests that
most examples formed during the Later Bronze Age. As their name suggests,
these are simply mounds of fire-cracked stones, although excavated examples
are usually associated with a trough and sometimes with a small building. They
are normally found beside streams and seem to result from a specific technology
in which heated stones were employed to boil large amounts of water. It is less clear why this was done. One possibility is that these sites were used to cook
joints of meat, yet very few animal bones are preserved at these locations. It
seems more likely that the main objective was to create large amounts of steam,
so that they may have been used like North American sweat lodges (Barfield
and Hodder 1987). Again there is no clear evidence of this, although the small
size of the structures associated with them might support this idea. They have
few artefact associations, but they suggest that these sites may have played a part
in specialised activities. They include fine metalwork, the moulds for making
bronze weapons, and occasional human remains. One example at Drombeg in
southwest Ireland was only fifty metres away from a stone circle of the same
date (Fahy 1959, 1960). That does not mean that the burnt mounds themselves
were used for making artefacts or for mortuary rituals. Rather, it suggests that
they were in places where such activities took place. For that reason they may
not have been accessible to everyone. Perhaps that is why they are often outside
the settlements (Fig. 4.14). InWales they can be found near to standing stones,
and in Ireland they are often close to cremation cemeteries.
Burnt mounds are particularly common in the north and west and are probably
found in their greatest numbers towards the east coast of Ireland and in
the west of Wales. They are also a common feature of the Northern Isles
where they accompany stone buildings (Hedges 1975). For a long time it was
assumed that they were related to a mobile pattern of settlement. That was
because the Irish examples were interpreted by reference to early medieval
literary sources which suggested that they were where hunting parties cooked
their prey (O’Kelly 1954). That is clearly anachronistic, and the extensive excavations
occasioned by road building in Ireland suggests that these sites conform
to the same basic pattern as their British counterparts. They are located outside,
and in between, Later Bronze Age settlements, but here they seem to
have been even more abundant.
Many of the recently excavated settlements in Ireland had been enclosed
by a circular earthwork. The smallest of these were insubstantial structures
which contained a single round house, but they really form a continuum which
extends to some of the most impressive monuments created during this period.
The only contrasts are the scale on which these enclosures were conceived and
the material richness of their contents. Again a comparison with England seems
appropriate, for the larger examples in Ireland bear a strong resemblance to the
English ringworks.
The Irish evidence is all-too-little known. Nonetheless a number of famous
settlement sites may belong to this tradition, and again they take the form of
circular ditched or walled enclosures with a central house. Perhaps the best
known of these are from Lough Gur (Grogan and Eogan 1987) where the
features associated with ‘Lough Gur Class II’ pottery have been shown to
date to the Later Bronze Age and not to the Neolithic, as had been thought
by the excavator (Cleary 2003). This echoes the situation in Scotland with ‘flat-rimmed ware’ (Sheridan 2003c). There is evidence that specialised activities
were taking place at Lough Gur. One of the enclosures provides evidence
of metalworking, another includes a series of human burials, whilst the water
of the lake beside the occupied area contains a number of weapons.
At the opposite end of the continuum are three other sites which are also
very well known: Navan Fort, Downpatrick, and Rathgall. They share the
same basic characteristic. They are circular enclosures which probably had
a round house or other structure in the centre, but in each case they have
some exceptional features. The enclosure at Navan Fort was rebuilt throughout
the pre-Roman Iron Age and eventually the site became the capital of
Ulster (Waterman 1997). Downpatrick was the findspot of an important hoard
of gold ornaments (Proudfoot 1955), and Rathgall contains an exceptionally
rich artefact assemblage, including metalwork, many mould fragments, and a
number of imported glass beads (Raftery 1994: 58). There is also a series of
cremation burials.
In some respects the Irish sites have an unusual character, for whilst they can
be compared with enclosed settlements, they include other elements which
suggest that they played a role in public ritual. That seems appropriate in
the light of another recent project. For a long time The Grange embanked
stone circle close to Lough Gur has been regarded as the most extensively
excavated Neolithic henge in Ireland, but Helen Roche’s recent reassessment
has shown that it was actually built during the Late Bronze Age (Roche 2004).
It is a circular enclosure with a recessed interior, an external bank, and a single
entrance facing east. Human skull fragments were found inside the monument,
which also included four small ring ditches that may well date from the same
period. These recall the small burial enclosures at Rathgall, whilst another
Late Bronze Age ‘henge’ at Johnstown South was associated with evidence of
metalworking (O´ ’Faola´in 2004: 186). A third site at Lugg contained a series
of houses but had a large mound at its centre (Kilbride-Jones 1950). Before its
true date became apparent, the excavator interpreted it as a henge. ‘Embanked
enclosures’ with similar characteristics are often found near to burnt mounds.
The similarity between the Irish enclosures and the English ringworks is
not so surprising, for both these groups of monuments occur in areas with
important deposits of swords and spears. They have been studied by Margaret
Ehrenberg (1989), who makes the interesting point that the contents of these
two ‘weapon zones’ have the same composition and include the same kinds of
artefacts. On that basis she suggests a close relationship between Late Bronze
Age elites in the two islands. Not only were they associated with similar earthworks
and deposits of metalwork, there may have been other links between
these areas (Fig. 4.15). The gold ring with a cremation burial at Rathgall resembles
one from a ringwork at Mucking in the Thames Estuary (Bond 1988),
and the small circular enclosures associated with that site and The Grange may
be related to those used in lowland England during the Late Bronze Age. If so, then other sites may also be relevant to the argument. The contents of Irish
crannogs are very similar to those of the occupied islands and timber platforms
used during this period, and so are the deposits found in rivers and lakes. A
striking characteristic of this evidence is the emphasis on human skulls.
At the same time, the earthwork enclosure at Rathgall is only the innermost
of three circuits defining the hilltop. Thiswas not a major concern at the time of
the original excavation, but in recent years a distinct group of trivallate hillforts
has been identified in Ireland, the best dated of which is Haughey’s Fort in the
north which was used around 1100 BC (Fig. 4.16; Mallory 1995). Other sites
have produced comparable dating evidence, including Dun Aonghasa (Cotter
1996) and Mooghaun (Grogan 1996). Again very similar elements seem to
be involved. Dun Aonghasa was associated with weapon production, and an
artificial pool outside Haughey’s Fort was used for the deposition of sword
moulds and human skull fragments (Lynn 1977). All these places were probably
inhabited, at least on a temporary basis, and Mooghaun and Dun Aonghasa
both include the remains of round houses. It is too soon to say when the
occupation of hillforts began in Ireland, although it was clearly under way by
the beginning of the Late Bronze Age, but recent work has shown that the Irish
Iron Age was aceramic. The pottery attributed to that period is actually older
than it seemed (Raftery 1995). It means that any site dated by such material
may be earlier than was once supposed. This pattern may not be limited to
Ireland. Another candidate, this time with only two ramparts, is South Barrule
on the Isle of Man (Gelling 1972).
It seems as if the creation of some of these monuments was contemporary
with the renewed production of gold artefacts in Ireland. There was a second
phase of gold working in the tenth century BC, following a hiatus of between
one and two hundred years (G. Eogan 1994: chapter 5). The scale of production
had certainly increased, and so did the quantity of gold employed in individual
artefacts and the extent to which the finished artefacts were deposited in bogs
and similar locations. Again these objects had a wider currency and certain types
have a distribution extendingwell beyond Ireland itself (Fig. 4.17). For example,
one type of gold pennanular bracelet was distributed across the entire country
as well as northern Scotland, whilst other distinctive forms resemble those in
much more distant areas. Some types share features in common with artefacts
produced in the Iberian peninsula and others suggest links with Scandinavia.
There are even indications of regional styles within the island itself. One was
in the northeast and was closely linked to Britain and the Nordic culture
area; the other was around the River Shannon and seems to have had links to
Spain and Portugal. That is not the only indication of regional developments
at this time. In southwest Ireland the Late Bronze Age is characterised by
a distinctive range of ceremonial monuments, including small stone circles
(Fig. 4.18) and burials beneath conspicuous boulders (Walsh 1993; O’Brien
1992, 2004). Rather more is known about the social context of this second period of gold
working. Although there is little evidence of production sites, pieces of gold
and small personal ornaments are associated with a number of the monuments
discussed in this section: crannogs, ringworks, and hillforts. Most of the large
collections of goldwork come from bogs, but perhaps the largest of all these
collections was apparently associated with a burnt mound below the site of
Mooghaun (Condit 1996).
It is more difficult to establish how these developments compare with those
in Britain, but again it is clear that hilltop enclosures originated during the Late
Bronze Age and that a series of other hills are associated with metal hoards or
with large settlements. The difficulty is in establishing whether the structural
evidence is of the same date as the defences. Among the most obvious candidates
are three sites in southern Scotland: Castle Rock at Edinburgh (Driscoll
and Yeoman 1997: 220–3), Eildon Hill North (Owen 1992), and Traprain Law
(Armit et al. 2005). They all include artefacts and buildings dating from this
period. The same is true of a number of sites in Wales and northwest England
where the defences are associated with radiocarbon dates or with bronze artefacts.
The best dated examples are probably Beeston Castle (Ellis 1993: 20–5)
and the Breiddin (Musson 1991: 25–33). Again each provides evidence of
domestic occupation, as well as food storage and craft production, but in no
case is it absolutely clear that these locations were permanently occupied. In
the south there are other signs that large hilltop enclosures were established
in the Late Bronze Age, although their construction and use certainly continued
during the transition to the Iron Age. These sites can be difficult to date
because of a plateau in the radiocarbon calibration curve, but one clue to their
wider relationships is provided by the early hillfort at Harting Beacon on the
South Downs (Bedwin 1979). In its gateway was a pair of gold rings which can
be compared with those from Rathgall and the Late Bronze Age ringwork at
Mucking. Again they were associated with a human skull. As the first British
hillforts extend into the Early Iron Age they are considered in more detail in
Chapter Five.
SUMMARY: PRODUCTION, ALLIANCE AND EXCHANGE
Recent years have seen a massive increase in the amount of Later Bronze Age
material available for study. It has also become more diverse. The final section
of this chapter reflects on the significance of this evidence and provides an
interpretation.
The first question to ask is whether the change from an Earlier to a Later
Bronze Age represents a social collapse. There is no reason to take this view.
It is true that there were certain tensions towards the middle of the second
millennium BC – fluctuations in the supply of metals, changes of burial customs,
the settlement of increasingly marginal land – but it is better to think in terms of transformation rather than a catastrophe. There is nothing to indicate
that social distinctions had disappeared; rather, they were expressed in different
ways, and what did lapse was the emphasis on mortuary monuments which had
played such an important role before. Now the consumption of wealth focused
not on the grave but on different locations such as rivers and lakes. The disappearance
of mortuary monuments suggests a less stable society, perhaps one
which placed less weight on genealogy.
There is a direct relationship between these Middle Bronze Age practices and
an important change in the political geography of the prehistoric period, for
now the main deposits of portable wealth were to be found in different areas.
In Britain, they were most evident in those parts of lowland England where the
landscape was transformed by the creation of co-axial field systems, although
this evidence cannot be treated in isolation. Similar settlements can be found
in regions where these boundaries do not appear, and there are other areas
with major collections of artefacts of both bronze and gold. What is important
is that the regions over which land holding was so radically reorganised are
precisely those with the closest connections to Continental Europe, for this
soon became the source of the metalwork used during this period. Surely it
was the intensification of food production that made these changes possible,
and one wonders whether hides and textiles were among the commodities
exchanged for supplies of metal or finished artefacts. Grain was important
too, and that is why this chapter has the title ‘Ploughshares into Swords’. It is
probable that long distance exchange was managed by a social elite, but the
only evidence for its existence is provided by the bronzes, for there are no signs
of specialised or high-status settlements at this time.
In Ireland, events took a rather different course. Again the inhabitants seem
to have been dependent on foreign sources of bronze, but they had their own
supplies of gold, and during the thirteenth and twelfth centuries BC they
deployed them to spectacular effect, producing a series of personal ornaments
of the highest quality. Some of the gold was exchanged with communities
on the Continent, whilst the products that remained in the country were
commonly deposited in bogs. Environmental evidence suggests that the land
was used more intensively than before, but this process does not seem to have
involved the creation of extensive field systems or territorial boundaries. It may
be that relations with the European mainland took a different form, and it is
certainly true that the most likely points of contact would have been along the
Atlantic coastline and probably in Scandinavia.
It was during the Late Bronze Age that the settlement pattern became more
diverse, and this was when a series of largely new kinds of field monuments first
emerged in these islands: fortifications such as ringworks and the earliest hillforts;
and wooden platforms, bridges, and crannogs in the wetlands. Despite the
formal differences between these sites, they have much in common. Some of
them are associated with metal production, especially the making of weapons and they are very probably connected with feasting. They include large quantities
of animal bones, fine pottery (where it was available), the residues of craft
production, occasional items of gold, bronze metalwork, and human skulls.
Although there is similar evidence from Continental Europe, the strongest
connections may have been between the British and Irish ‘weapon zones’
identified by Ehrenberg (1989), and this may explain why these places have so
much in common. There seems little doubt that they were used by a social
elite and that members of that select group formed alliances with one another.
Some connected people in the two islands, and others linked them to groups in
Continental Europe. The close connection between production, alliance, and
exchange is illustrated by the Late Bronze Age ringworks in eastern England.
Almost all of these were located in areas with tracts of fields and large open
settlements, and it can be no coincidence that the very same areas contain the
largest number of weapon deposits, including material that had been imported
across the English Channel. A different system might have prevailed in Ireland,
where land boundaries of similar extent have still to be discovered, but here
there must have been a similar relationship between status and the conspicuous
consumption of wealth. In this case that included the fine goldwork produced
towards the end of this period.
Those changes did not extend into every region, and it is important to
remember that the settlement pattern in northern Britain shows much more
continuity than it does in the south. Here there was a more gradual increase
in the number and density of settlements and also in the evidence of personal
wealth. This may provide the background to the appearance of the first hillforts
or hilltop settlements, although the dating evidence is unsatisfactory. At the
same time, it is clear that traditional forms of public monument had not gone
out of use in the way that was once supposed. A variety of stone and earthwork
enclosures may still have been constructed during the Late Bronze Age and
represent the last stage in a sequence that had started in the Neolithic period.
The same is true in Ireland, where it is clear that henges and ringworks, hillforts
and stone circles were all used at the same time.
In many ways this interpretation is like conventional accounts of the Earlier
Bronze Age. It presupposes that developments in these islands were largely
dependent on outside sources of raw material and metal artefacts. That was
not entirely likely when southwest Ireland was an important source of copper
and Britain first developed bronze, but during the period considered here this
model is much more plausible. Metal analysis has shown that an increasing
proportion of the artefacts that circulated during the Later Bronze Age made
use of ores whose ultimate source was in the copper mines of the Alps. Most
of the metal had been recycled many times, but it is clear that much of the raw
material had been imported across the English Channel. That surely provides
a context for the recent discovery of a large Middle Bronze Age boat at Dover
(P. Clark 2004) and for possible shipwrecks, including metalwork of the same period at Langton Bay and Salcombe (Muckelroy 1981). Ireland participated in
the same process, but may have been integrated into a further exchange network
extending along the Atlantic coastline to Iberia and the West Mediterranean.
These relationships seem to have been sustained for nearly seven hundred
years, and there can be no doubt that the Later Bronze Age was a period
of growing prosperity, even if it was sometimes characterised by conflict and
competition. Only one elementwas vulnerable, precisely because itwas outside
local control. This was the supply of metalwork on which so many social
relationships seem to have been based. If this came under pressure, the situation
was liable to change. That is exactly what happened towards 800 BC, and over
a comparatively short period of time the system seems to have collapsed. The
reasons for this are complex and need to be treated in detail, but not only did
these changes undermine the developments described throughout this chapter,
they led to the emergence of a very different kind of society in the Iron Age.