Making Ones Way in the World: the Footprints and Trackways of Prehistoric People
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Making ones way in the world: the footprints and trackways of prehistoric people Book Accepted Version Bell, M. (2020) Making ones way in the world: the footprints and trackways of prehistoric people. Oxbow Books, Oxford, pp304. ISBN 9781789254020 Available at http://centaur.reading.ac.uk/67596/ It is advisable to refer to the publisher’s version if you intend to cite from the work. See Guidance on citing . Publisher: Oxbow Books All outputs in CentAUR are protected by Intellectual Property Rights law, including copyright law. Copyright and IPR is retained by the creators or other copyright holders. Terms and conditions for use of this material are defined in the End User Agreement . www.reading.ac.uk/centaur CentAUR Central Archive at the University of Reading Reading’s research outputs online Making One’s Way in the World: The footprints and trackways of prehistoric people By Martin Bell 2019 Contents Acknowledgements List of Figures List of Tables List of Supplementary Tables (on WWW) Chapter 1: Steps towards understanding: routeways in practice, theory and life Background Introduction False paths Talking stock and steps forward Environmental and geoarchaeology Landscape archaeology Theoretical perspectives Anthropology: the contribution of Tim Ingold Landscape change and clues to movement Agency and niche construction: human and non-human Cognition: thinking through things How literature and art help us think about movement Timescale, dating and spatial scale Terminology Conclusions Chapter organisation Chapter 2 Walks in the temperate rainforest: developing concepts of niche construction and linear environmental manipulation Introduction: Why the American North West coast? The Douglas Map The area and its archaeology Trails and prairies Plant utilisation Elsewhere in North America Palaeoenvironmental perspectives The social significance of routes Conclusions Chapter 3 Niche construction and place making: hunter-gatherer routeways in north west Europe Introduction Anthropological perspectives Topographic factors and ‘natural’ routeways The wildwood, disturbance factors and routeways Woodland manipulation and management The broad spectrum revolution and niche construction Hunter-gatherer plant use Hunter-gatherer vegetation disturbance in Britain Star Carr Case Study: Kennet Valley Case Study: A Welsh model of river valley based mobility Continental Europe Mobility and Sedentism Artefact areas and ‘monuments’ Isotopes and mobility Material culture and movement Conclusions Chapter 4 Footprints of people and animals as evidence of mobility Introduction Trace fossils Formation processes and terminology Recording methodology Dating and timing Identification and interpretation Associated animals Palaeolithic footprint-tracks on open sites Volcanic and related contexts Coastal and riverine contexts Aeolian contexts Travertine Caves Holocene hunter-gatherer-fishers Case Study: Mesolithic paths in the Severn Estuary Footprint-tracks in later prehistoric contexts Case Study: Seasonal pastoralists in the Severn Estuary Other later prehistoric examples Footprint-tracks in the Americas Footprints: perceptual and symbolic aspects Conclusions Chapter 5 Early farmers: mobility, site location and antecedent activities Introduction Case Study: The Ice Man Skeletal, isotopic and DNA evidence for Neolithic mobility Neolithic landscapes in Britain Neolithic monuments in Britain Megalithic tombs in Britain Tree throw pits and causewayed enclosures Cursus monuments Henges and avenues Case Study: Avebury henge, Wiltshire Case Study: Stonehenge, Wiltshire Other henges and linear landscapes Geological evidence for Neolithic mobility Conclusions Chapter 6 Wetland trackways and communication Introduction Wheeled vehicles Trackways dates Mesolithic trackways? Neolithic trackways in mainland Europe Germany Netherlands and Scandinavia Neolithic trackways in the British Isles Somerset Levels Other British sites Bronze Age and Iron Age trackways in Northern Europe Germany Scandinavia Netherlands, Bourtranger Moor Bronze Age and Iron Age trackways in the British Isles Case Study: Somerset Levels Case Study: Severn Estuary Thames Estuary Later prehistoric trackways in Ireland Bridges, post alignments and associated ritual deposits Conclusions Chapter 7 Barrow alignments as clues to Bronze Age routes Introduction Denmark Case Study: Kilen a Bronze Age cross roads in Jutland Germany Netherlands Case Study: Veluwe barrow roads North European connections England and Wales Conclusions Chapter 8 Trackways in later prehistoric agricultural landscapes Introduction Recognising tracks in agricultural landscapes Dating tracks in agricultural landscapes Agents of transformation: horses, carts and chariots Hollow ways Coaxial fields and tracks in the moorland Yorkshire Wolds Coaxial fields and droveways in lowland Britain Survival of coaxial field systems Ridgeways Case Study: The Wiltshire and Oxfordshire Ridgeway The Icknield Way The origins of Roman roads in Britain Conclusions Chapter 9 Maritime and riverine connectivity and the allure of the exotic Introduction Riverine transport Log boats Hide boats Sewn plank boats in the British Isles Possible wrecks round Britain Landing places in Britain Artefact distributions in Scandinavia Transported things in Britain and Europe Scandinavia: ships and rock art Conclusions: Maritime connections and cultures Chapter 10 A case study of the Wealden District in South East England Introduction The South Downs Case studies: Bishopstone and Bullock Down, ‘ghost routes’ Other Downland routes The Rother valley Land allotment, tracks and fields in the Low Weald The North Downs Case study: Multi-method dating at Lyminge , Kent Riverine and Maritime connections Conclusions Chapter 11 Conclusions: why paths matter Bodily engagement, perception, anthropology and literature Steps forward Multi-scalar and multi-disciplinary approaches Landscape structures and retrogressive analysis ‘Natural routes’ and ridgeways Droveways Ethnohistory of Lesser Transhumance Excavation Linear environmental archaeology Geoarchaeological approaches to human and landscape connectivity Movement as niche construction Critical thresholds Routes to sustainable heritage and nature conservation Bibliography Index List of Tables Table 3.1 Mesolithic sites in the Kennet valley outlining date, environmental evidence and sources. Table 8.1 Hypothetical types of later prehistoric trackways in Figure 8.2 linked to illustrated examples in Chapters 8 and 10 and other publications. Supplementary Appendices on WWW Supplementary Appendix 3.1 Mesolithic sites in Britain with evidence of vegetation disturbance: date, types of evidence , OD height, and sources. The evidence behind Figures 3.1 and 3.8. Supplementary Appendix 4.1 Catalogue of human and animal footprint tracks worldwide with evidence for Location, date sedimentary context and associations. The evidence behind Figures 4.2 and 4.15. Supplementary Appendix 6.1 Catalogue of wetland trackways. The evidence behind Figure 6.2. Making Ones Way in the World Acknowledgements Several colleagues have been kind enough to provide comments on earlier versions of some of the chapters: Prof Duncan Garrow kindly commented on the whole book; Prof Richard Bradley read Chapters 5-11; and other colleagues who have provided comments on individual chapters are Professor J.R.L. Allen, Prof John Boardman, Dr Richard Brunning, Dr Dale Croes, Dr Petra Dark, Professor Nancy Turner, Dr Darcy Mathews and Professor Nicki Whitehouse. I am especially grateful for advice from anonymous reviewers and Professor Stephen Rippon. I have benefited from discussions on mobility and collaborative fieldwork in the Vale of Pewsey with my colleague Dr Jim Leary who shares my fascination with these topics. All have been most helpful in suggesting improvements and things I had missed. Time did not allow me to follow up every one of the valuable leads they provided and I remain responsible for the limitations of what is here. My research on this topic started to take shape for a conference at Olympia, USA in 2003 and it came towards a conclusion with the presentation of some of the results at the Society of American Archaeologists conference at Vancouver, Canada in 2017; those two visits were especially stimulating, providing introductions to new research areas. Between them lectures on this topic were given at several conferences in the UK and Europe. I am most grateful for the opportunities these provided for discussions with colleagues. My research has benefited in particular from discussions with Professor Nick Barton, Dr Damian Goodburn, Dr Alasdair Barclay, Dr Mark Knight, Dr Matija Cresnar and Dr Jette Bang. Professor John Boardman has been especially helpful and stimulating in discussing our mutual interest in hollow ways, soil erosion and the Wealden evidence. Several of my PhD students have shared with me the exploration of aspects of this theme, including Dr Rachel Scales and Dr Kirsten Barr (footprints); Dr Simon Maslin (Lyminge case study); Elspeth St John Brookes (geochemistry); Dr Lionello Morandi (non-pollen palynomorphs); Dr Alex Brown (wetland-dryland relations); Dr Scott Timpany (wetland botany); Dr Chris Speed (experimental aspects); Claire Nolan (wellbeing); Katie Whitaker (stone mobility); and Dr Tom Walker (Mollusca). Dr Stuart Black and Professor Phil Toms have collaborated on dating aspects of hollow ways. The South Downs National Park, The Heritage Lottery Funded Secrets of the High Woods Project and Cotswold Archaeological Trust (especially