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The Sweet Track, Somerset: a Neolithic 'Water Cult'?

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The Sweet Track, Somerset: a Neolithic 'Water Cult'? The Sweet Track, Somerset: a Neolithic ‘Water Cult’? Dr. Clive Jonathon Bond Honorary Research Fellow Department of Archaeology, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences The University of Winchester [email protected] The Sweet Track reconstruction, The Peat Moors Visitors Centre, Westhay, from left to right: summer 1999, winter 2002 and winter 2000. Abstract: The famous earlier Neolithic Sweet Track has been said to be the first trackway in Europe, dated by dendrochronology to 3806-7 BC. However, a jadeite polished axe, pottery sherds, flint flakes, a core and a chipped flint axe may imply a rather less utilitarian function. With a review of the artefacts and structural evidence, then a synthesis of earlier Neolithic activity across the immediate wet and dry landscape, this lecture will provide a rather different interpretation. This research, including primary artefact analyses (lithics and pottery) and the reconstruction of a total landscape and social prehistory are drawn from a doctorate (Bond 2006) and subsequent publications. It is argued, rather than a means of travelling from A to B, this structure and landscape setting provides a glimpse into the origins of the earliest Neolithic beliefs in South-West England. The track was anchored to a particular landscape setting, the sand island at Shapwick Burtle. This was a socially constructed place, revisited over generations, drawing on a Mesolithic hunter-gatherer biography. Therefore, understanding this structure and what it meant to those who built it is pivotal to understanding the coming of the Neolithic lifeway. References: Bond, C. J. 2003. ‘The coming of the earlier Neolithic, pottery and people in the Somerset Levels’. In A. M. Gibson ed., Prehistoric Pottery. People, Pattern and Purpose, 1-27. Oxford: Archaeopress/British Archaeological Reports International Series 1156/Prehistoric Ceramic Research Group: Occasional Publication No. 4. Bond, C. J. 2004. ‘The Sweet Track, Somerset: a place mediating culture and spirituality?’ In T. Insoll ed., Belief in the Past. The Proceedings of the 2002 Manchester Conference on Archaeology and Religion, 37-50. Oxford: Archaeopress/British Archaeological Reports International Series 1212. Bond, C. J. 2006. Prehistoric Settlement in Somerset. Landscapes, Material Culture and Communities, 4300 to 700 cal. BC. Vols. I and II and DVD. Unpublished PhD thesis. Winchester, Department of Archaeology, Faculty of Social Sciences, The University of Winchester (an accredited college of the University of Southampton). Bond, C. J. 2007a. ‘Lithics.’ In C. M. Gerrard and M. A. Aston eds., The Shapwick Project, Somerset. A Rural Landscape Explored. The Society for Medieval Archaeology Monograph Series No. 25, 687-728. Leeds: Maney Publishing. Bond, C. J. 2007b. ‘Walking the track and believing: the Sweet Track as a means of accessing earlier Neolithic spirituality?’ In D. A. Barrowclough and C. Malone eds., Cult in Context: Reconsidering Ritual in Archaeology, 158-166. Oxford: Oxbow Books. Bond, C. J. 2011. ‘The Sweet Track, Somerset, and lithic scatters: walking the land, collecting artefacts and, discovering the earliest Neolithic community.’ In A. Saville ed., Flint and Stone in the Neolithic Period, 82-106. Neolithic Studies Group Seminar Papers 11. Oxford: Oxbow Books. www Information: Somerset Historic Environment Record: Sweet Track: http://webapp1.somerset.gov.uk/her/details.asp?prn=10739 Post Track: http://webapp1.somerset.gov.uk/her/details.asp?prn=10740 British Museum: http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/pe_prb/s/section_of_the _sweet_track.aspx Digital Digging: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ARPUUjtbh8 http://digitaldigging.net/features/sweet-track/the-sweet-track.html The excavated Post Track, perhaps the earliest part of the Sweet Track, HER 10739 (Photo: Somerset County Council). A reconstructed section of the Sweet Track (Photo: The British Museum)..
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