Castlerigg Stone Circle in the Lake District of North-West England
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Castlerigg stone circle in the Lake District of north-west England. Photograph: Chris Scarre // Círculo de piedras de Castlerigg en el Distrito de los Lagos del noroeste de Inglaterra. Fotografía: Chris Scarre. MARKING TIME: THE PROBLEM OF CHRONOLOGY IN STUDYING EUROPEAN NEOLITHIC MONUMENTS MARCAR EL TIEMPO: EL PROBLEMA DE LA CRONOLOGÍA EN EL ESTUDIO DE LOS MONUMENTOS NEOLÍTICOS EUROPEOS Chris Scarre (Department of Archaeology, Durham. [ [email protected] ] Summary Resumen West European Neolithic monuments are durable Los monumentos del periodo Neolítico de Europa and visible marks on the landscape but have proved occidental son marcas visibles y perdurables en el often difficult to date. Early research sought to paisaje, pero a menudo ha sido difícil datarlos. La establish a chronological framework through investigación más temprana trató de establecer un studies of monument typology, or through theories marco cronológico a través de estudios de la that considered them the work of a single tipología de los monumentos, o a través de teorías ‘megalithic people’ spreading up or down the que los consideraban el producto de un “pueblo Atlantic coast. The advent of radiocarbon dating, megalítico” único que se dispersó hacia el norte o that might have been expected to resolve the issue, hacia el sur, a lo largo de la costa atlántica. El provoked further controversy through inadequate desarrollo de la datación por radiocarbono, que en attention to sample reliability and an undue principio se esperó resolviese este problema, emphasis on theories of regional independent provocó otras controversias como consecuencia de origin. Subsequently, postprocessualist approaches la insuficiente atención prestada a la fiabilidad de las in Britain focused on analysis at the level of muestras y el énfasis innecesario en las teorías de individual sites and regions, emphasising origen regional independiente. Posteriormente los differences rather than similarities, and planteamientos postprocesualistas en Gran Bretaña downplaying interregional connections. These se centraron en el análisis a escala de sitios y approaches have offered many new insights, but the regiones individuales, insistiendo en las diferencias past decade has witnessed a revival of interest in más que en las similitudes, y minusvalorando las considering the Neolithic monument tradition as a conexiones inter-regionales. Estos planteamientos widespread and potentially interconnected west han ofrecido muchas perspectivas nuevas, pero la European phenomenon. It is suggested that pasada década ha presencia un resurgimiento del chronological studies at local, regional and interés por consideran la tradición monumental interregional level each have their part to play in the neolítica como un fenómeno europeo occidental de understanding of west European Neolithic amplio desarrollo y potencialmente interconectado. monuments. En este trabajo se propone que para la comprensión de los monumentos neolíticos de Europa occidental, Keywords: Chronology, radiocarbon, calibration, los estudios cronológicos tienen un papel que jugar, megalith, burial practice, historiography. tanto a nivel local, como regional o inter-regional. Palabras clave: Cronología, radiocarbono, cali- bración, megalito, práctica funeraria, historiografía. MENGA. REVISTA DE PREHISTORIA DE ANDALUCÍA // MONOGRÁFICO Nº 01. 2011. PP. 53-74. ISBN 978-84-9959-083-7-ISSN 2174-9299 // CHRONOLOGY 53 CHRIS SCARRE 1. INTRODUCTION In contrast to tight complex sequences such as this is the increasingly widespread evidence for the Monuments – large structures of earth or stone – are recycling and reuse of individual megalithic blocks one of the most characteristic features of the within later monuments. Southern Brittany provides Neolithic period in western Europe. Paradoxically, a series of well-known examples, with earlier they are also among the most difficult to date. This standing stones (some of them decorated) has had a number of consequences, notably a dismantled and redeployed in passage tombs measure of uncertainty as to how individual (L’Helgouach, 1983, 1997; Le Roux, 1984). This may monuments or groups of monuments relate to each involve the transport of materials over distances of other. Is a typological approach a reliable basis on several kilometres, or a relatively local re-use. Thus which to place such monuments in chronological in the Boyne valley, the hidden art at Knowth and order? How close do morphological similarities need Newgrange may indicate the redeployment of slabs to be to justify interpretations of contact and filiation from earlier monuments, while at Stonehenge, the between regional monument traditions? It has also bluestones were originally two separate stone proved difficult to locate monuments within regional circles before they came to rest in their present Neolithic sequences. Fifty years ago, for example, positions (Eogan, 1998; Robin, 2009; Parker Pearson long mounds and Cotswold-Severn chambered et al. 2009, this volume). tombs were thought to have spanned the entire Neolithic period of southern Britain, in their In these instances, durability and longevity are mortuary use if not in their construction (Atkinson, salient characteristics, yet the individual episodes of 1968). Radiocarbon dating has now narrowed both demolition and re-erection would have been specific their construction and use to a period of two or three events, remembered within the lifetimes of centuries in the second quarter of the 4th millennium individual participants. The detailed chronologies BC (Bayliss and Whittle, 2007a). It has also made that are now becoming available emphasise the clear that they (along with causewayed enclosures) human-scale, historical nature of the processes and were preceded by a pre-monument Neolithic phase practices that lie behind the Neolithic monuments of some 150 years (Whittle, 2007). In other regions of that we visit and study. These detailed chronologies Western Europe too there is evidence that the rescue the monuments from the venerable construction of monuments was an episodic rather timelessness of their romantic image, and provide a than a continuous practice, separated by breaks crucial new understanding of timing and activity at (Scarre, 2010). the microscale, offering snapshots into the prehistoric past. But they do not altogether resolve Our inability to date Neolithic monuments securely the broader question of interregional relationships and precisely has had a major impact on concepts of and connections. temporality. The durability of the monuments by their very nature has obscured the relatively rapid Significant uncertainties still surround the nature of some of the processes and activities chronology of Neolithic monuments in many areas of associated with them. Thus a complex multi-phase Western Europe. That is particularly the case in monument such as the Prissé-la-Charrière long those regions where poor preservation limits the mound in western France might conventionally be application of radiocarbon dating to closely assumed to be the product of several centuries of associated material such as human bone. That extension and modification. Some elements of the limitation applies, with exceptions, to several key sequence remain unclear, but it may have begun as areas including northwest Iberia and northwest a pair of modest scale monuments – a small closed France. It constrains our ability to address the megalithic chamber and a dry stone passage grave underlying chronological framework that lies behind standing some 50 metres apart – which were the development of Neolithic monuments in western eventually incorporated within a massive 100m-long and northern Europe as a whole. Some might cellular dry-stone cairn. Intermediate stages consider that to be less important than the study of involved the cutting and infilling of a substantial monuments in their specific local social and cultural rock-cut ditch. AMS radiocarbon dates suggest that contexts. It has been argued that macro-scale the whole sequence was completed within the space regional approaches can lead to meaningless of a few generations (Scarre et al., 2003). explanations for large-scale phenomena. Julian 54 EXPLORING TIME AND MATTER IN PREHISTORIC MONUMENTS: ABSOLUTE CHRONOLOGY AND RARE ROCKS IN EUROPEAN MEGALITHS MARKING TIME: THE PROBLEM OF CHRONOLOGY IN STUDYING EUROPEAN NEOLITHIC MONUMENTS Thomas, for example, questions “whether the shared papers was presented spanning Peru, Portugal and morphology of pots, or house plans, or metalwork different regions of France. Among the speakers was necessarily means that the significance of these Alexandre Bertrand, who discussed the distribution objects is homogeneous as well” and concludes that of megalithic monuments in western and northern “an explanation which operates at the level of shared Europe and proposed that the majority of them could material form may be no explanation at all” (Thomas, be attributed to the Neolithic. Others (notably Henri 1996: 97). This urges caution in interpreting the Martin) would not accept that megalithic monuments significance of macro-regional patterns, but the were prehistoric in date, supporting instead the long- interregional links proposed in a number of recent held view that they were the work of the Celts. Some studies – between Brittany and Britain, for example, confusion emerged as to whether the key question or between Brittany and Iberia – highlight the was the antiquity and age of the monuments, or the salience