NEOLITHIC IRELAND and BRITAIN (Part 1)

NEOLITHIC IRELAND AND BRITAIN (Part 1) By Mike McPhee [Text of an address to the Sydney Unitarian Church on 21 February 2021.] When I chose this title, all that ‘Neolithic’ meant to me was the New Stone Age – and all I knew about that was that it was a period when the most advanced stone tools were developed and when the megalithic structures you’ll be seeing today were constructed. However, it turns out that there is much more to the Stone Ages – just looking at Europe, they were: 1. the Paleolithic Era (Old Stone Age) from 1.6 million years ago to 15,000 years ago 2. the Mesolithic Era from 15,000 to 5000 years ago; and 3. the Neolithic Era from 7000 to 1700 BCE (The dates are necessarily approximate and there is some overlap because the progression moved more rapidly in Southern Europe than in Northern Europe.} It will be clear from the dates that the Paleolithic Era began before modern humans evolved. This should not surprise us, as it is known that our precursors, such as Homo erectus and Homo heidelbergensis used tools made from stone, wood and bone. However, the earliest stone tools were fairly simple, consisting of core tools and the flakes that were broken off them. Similarly, the first wooden tools, such as spears, were merely shaped with stone hand-axes or knives: It should be added that the end of the Paleolithic Era corresponds to the final phases of the Pleistocene Ice Age, which lasted from 2.6 Mya to 11,700 BP. Over that time, the quality of stone tools progressively improved and the first artwork emerged in the forms of figurines and cave paintings. Modern humans arrived in Europe from Africa about 50,000 years ago to find it already occupied by the Neanderthals, who had evolved there. The Mesolithic Era, while brief, marked major advances in both technology and lifestyle. In Europe, the end of the Ice Age and the extinction of megafauna such as mammoths caused a shift in hunting practices and a broader approach to gathering. Most notably, we see the development of more sophisticated and typically smaller stone tools and weapons with wooden or bone handles. (A burin is a tool with a narrow sharp face at the tip used for engraving and other fine cutting.) It was during this time that pottery and textiles were developed in certain regions, as well as the beginning of agriculture. Primitive dwellings were built before that time and those were greatly improved with the use of more advanced tools. The more permanent settlements tended to be close to the sea or inland waters, offering a good supply of food. (This is to say that not all people were nomadic at this time.) Mesolithic societies are not seen as having been very complex and burials were fairly simple, though primitive cemeteries from that period have been found. Instead of cave paintings, there was rock art on cliff faces that depicted clothed people dancing, fighting, hunting and food-gathering. Understandably, the Mesolithic technology moved from south to north over time, as a combined function of migration and cultural exchange. The same progression was even more dramatic in what is aptly called the Neolithic Revolution, which transformed human society forever. By 10,000 BCE, the domestication of animals and plants had reached an advanced stage in Mesopotamia (also Egypt, India and China), from where it spread to the Levant and Anatolia, also resulting in larger and more permanent settlements than ever before. A people known only as the Early European Farmers moved in from Anatolia, eventually overwhelming the indigenous hunger-gatherers in numbers. As the map shows, they progressed westward and northward at an average rate of one kilometre per year for the next 5000 years. These pre-Indo-European people brought with them yet more sophisticated stone tools – to the point of polished axes – pottery and artwork. Those axes were used to clear large areas of land for farming, though much of that deforestation was accomplished through ringbarking and burning. The cultivation of cereal grains also required the development of grinding tools, which were also used to crush nuts and other vegetable products. The new abundance of food resulted in a population explosion across most of Europe. So, finally we can look at Britain and Ireland, though I must first explain that both islands were heavily glaciated during the Ice Age. Any traces of previous habitation in Ireland would have been pulverised under ice sheets 3 km thick, though there is little reason to think anyone got there before the Mesolithic Era. In the south of Britain, pre-human fossils have been found dating back to 900,000 years ago. Modern humans arrived 40,000 years ago but, even as the ice sheet was receding, the climate in Britain and Ireland was that of arctic tundra – therefore, their occupations were brief and intermittent. However, the region was very different from what we see today because Ice Ages cause the sea level to drop dramatically – in this case, by 120 metres, which was enough to leave the continental shelves and most of the North Sea exposed. The resulting geography was truly fascinating, as we see the courses of familiar rivers extending far across the continental shelves. Where the North Sea is now was a region known as Doggerland (after the Dogger Bank between England and Denmark), which connected Britain to the mainland. Doggerland is known to have been inhabited by modern humans from at least 10,000 years ago because artefacts have been recovered from the sea bottom. While the region was probably marshy tundra, it is thought to have been the richest hunting, fowling and fishing ground in Europe at the time. People would have been able to reach Britain via that area without the need of boats. Lasting settlement of Britain began about 12,000 years ago and extended into Ireland not later than 7000 BCE. Mesolithic sites have been found in Britain from the north of Scotland to the south of England but there are no particular concentrations of them. By contrast, while such sites are found all over Ireland, the majority of them are in the northeast, which must have been where people first entered the island. (Ireland was detached from Britain by this time but the northeast is separated from Scotland by a mere 20 km even today.) The Early European Farmers started arriving in Britain around 5000 BCE, bringing their domesticated animals and plants with them. As in Europe, they proceeded to clear forests to create farming land and they spread across the island fairly quickly, entering Ireland in about 4500 BCE. Most importantly, they brought with them the practice of building stone structures known as megaliths, some 35,000 of which are located in Europe from the Mediterranean to Sweden. Looking now at Ireland, the appearance of megalithic tombs was both sudden and prolific, which indicates that an abundant food supply afforded the people a fair amount of spare time for such projects. However, those people would also have needed a reason for what they were doing and the largest of these tombs were clearly places of religious and ceremonial importance to the Neolithic population. In most of the tombs that have been excavated, human remains – usually, but not always, cremated – have been found. Grave goods such as pottery, arrowheads, beads, pendants, axes, etc., have also been uncovered, indicating a belief in life after death. These megalithic tombs, more than 1200 of which are now known, can be divided into four broad groups, all of which would originally have been covered with earth. In many cases, that has been eroded away to leave the impressive stone frameworks. The first – and probably oldest – style was the court cairn, such as this one at Creevykeel in Co. Sligo. Also known as chambered cairns or gallery graves, these tombs are rectangular burial chambers with a roofless oval forecourt at the entrance. Large slabs of rock were used to make the walls and roofs of the very basic burial chamber which, although usually blocked after use, could be immediately accessed from the courtyard. They usually had two functions: the chamber to serve as a tomb and the courtyard to accommodate a ritual. This is an aerial view of the Creevykeel tomb. The court is among the largest of its type in Ireland, measuring 15 metres long by 9 metres wide. From the court is the entrance to the burial gallery, which is divided by up- right stones into two chambers and was originally covered by a corbelled (arched) roof. Another early style was the portal tomb, also known as a dolmen. This was a single chamber, usually consisting of two or more vertical slabs supporting a large flat horizontal capstone. As needed, small pad-stones would be wedged between the cap and supporting stones to achieve a level appearance. This one is known as the Pounabrone Dolmen at the Burren in Co. Clare.). These dolmens are generally all regarded as tombs or burial chambers, despite the absence of clear evidence for this. Human remains, sometimes accompanied by artefacts, have been found in or close to them which have been scientifically dated, but that does not prove that the stones were set in place at the same time. A later development (from perhaps 3000 BCE) was the passage tomb, which consisted of one or more burial chambers covered in earth or stone to form a mound with a narrow entrance. The actual passage would be built first, using large stone slabs, and then the mound would be formed over and around it.

Load more