The Question posed was
"How much of a 'revolution' marked the beginning of the Neolithic Period and how convincing is the archaeological evidence for the first farmers?"
May 1994
The traditional model of the first farmers in Britain was the arrival in the 4th Millennium of pioneering, land hungry farmers from the continental mainland, who brought with them domesticated animals, seeds, pottery, a new religion and an expertise in building megalithic monuments. Indeed it was a common assumption that the early British monuments could only have been built by sedentary agriculturalists using their economic surplus[1]. An alternative model suggests continuity between the mesolithic aboriginal population, who acquired agriculture, livestock and neolithic related skills by acculturation, perhaps with small scale "direct migration"[2] from Europe.
THE MESOLITHIC/NEOLITHIC TRANSITION
The introduction of non-indigenous cereals, sheep, cattle and pigs into the British Isles during the late Mesolithic or early Neolithic is not itself in doubt. There is also evidence that the population changed from a gatherer-hunting technology of travelling light (carrying a narrow range of multi-use, microlithic tool assemblages, no pottery and a diet consisting of indigenous animal and vegetable products) ultimately, to a more sedentary life-style (enabling a wider range of tools, the regular use of pottery[3], and a diet expanded to include domesticated animals, cereals and vegetables).
When archaeology was in its infancy the British Neolithic appeared to be short (approximately 500 years) and the relatively large number of changes that occurred over that period were seen as a 'revolution', indeed the evidence was seen as very convincing. However, new dating techniques have forced a review of the time span for the 'revolution', which was, more realistically, a slowly developing change (over a period of around 3,000 years), and seen in this context the evidence for early farmers prior to the middle bronze age, circa 1,500 BCE, is very scattered, both geographically and through time.
THE EVIDENCE FOR CULTIVATION
There is some evidence in the pollen record for a very early introduction of cereals[4] (particularly in Ireland and the Scottish Islands), later evidence includes carbonised seed and plant remains (emmer wheat, einkorn wheat and six-row barley), impressions of cereals in pottery before firing[5], the remains of non-indigenous domesticated breeds of animals, agriculture related equipment (e.g. querns and sickles, which could alternatively, have been used to harvest wild crops) and the habitat of molluscs. The best evidence includes a late fourth millennium field system at Carn Brae, Cornwall (dated to 3,300-3,000 BCE[6], osteoarthritis found in cattle at the neolithic enclosure at Maxey, Etton[7], large quantities of emmer wheat at Aston on Trent, Derbyshire, early third millennium samples recovered at Balbridie, Grampion and over 300 seeds (mostly barley) as Isbister, Orkney. Analysis by Ann Lynch showed that samples included "weeds commonly found in cultivation plots"[8]. Some 'weeds' may have been deliberately introduced as a food source[9]. There are also the ard marks found beneath South Street long barrow (though a variety of alternative interpretations have been made about this) and extensive field systems beneath a peat bog in County Mayo, Ireland[10].
THE EVIDENCE FOR DOMESTICATED ANIMALS AND HERDING
There is relatively more data to support the clearance of large areas for use as grazing (in some cases following a short period of cultivation)[11]. In Wiltshire buried soils beneath henge monuments show short term cultivation, followed by lengthy pre-henge grassland usage as pasture (for 500 years). Pollen data from Wingham and Frogholt, and molluscs from Julliberries Grave offer a similar picture of open grasslands in Kent[12]. Grasslands were created naturally along the western seaboard of the British Isles, which were exploited by neolithic peoples[13]. At one time it was believed that clearance by neolithic people caused a decline in elms and that the resulting reduction in tree cover caused extensive soil erosion, this was accepted as a major proof of massive clearances for farming. This is no longer held as valid of pre-decline soil deposits from West Heath, Hampstead (by Margaret Girling), revealed the beetle responsible for Dutch Elm Disease[14], suggesting that the decline was natural and neolithic people were responsible only to the extent that they exploited the clearance, by grazing cattle and sheep, thus aiding nature in the process of soil erosion. Once clearance had taken place large herds of cattle could have been supported[15] and the more open grasslands would have favoured the introduction of a larger number of sheep.
Instead of an agricultural revolution, what could have happened was an early phase of small scale migratory animal husbandry and casual cultivation, giving way to large scale herding with a reduced emphasis on cultivation, and that the change occurred through a combination of natural events, in combination with human and animal activity[16]. Studies by Winifred Pennington suggest that the elm "decline involved sufficient interference ..... to initiate soil erosion" which was then exacerbated by animal grazing which leached calcium, phosphate and nitrogen from the soil. The existence, or level, of erosion depending on the nature of grazing, low intensity and free range being less destructive than high intensity grazing, particularly if accompanied by night time coralling[17].
In the late neolithic-early bronze age, there is evidence of woodland regeneration, which coincides with an increase in pig eating. The two factors may be associated as pigs prefer woodland which may have been managed by people in order to breed pigs for ritual and/or feasting[18].
ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF FARMING
The picture that emerges for the neolithic and early bronze age, is of an indigenous people skilled at adapting new ideas and technologies to the environment at hand. There were no populations pressures requiring high levels of agricultural output. Trade links with the continent (where it is probable that cattle herding was replacing farming) enabled mesolithic gatherer-hunters from the British Isles to learn about agriculture as practiced in Europe, and exploit the parts that fitted with their ideas of a good life. To the non-farming onlooker, agriculture has few advantages, lots of hard work, crop failures leading to hunger, high sickness/mortality rates due to a less nutritious diet and increased risks of infectious diseases[19]. The advantage of agriculture being able to support more people, in more or less permanent settlements, may not be appealing to a people used to moving around[20]. Instead of transporting a developed agricultural system to Britain the people saw advantage in adapting the process to supplement a gathering and hunting economy. The import of cattle, which could move around with small groups of people, would have cost very little in human labour (indeed could be an economically useful task for children) and reduce the need for hunting, leaving more time for other activities (such as ritual, monument building).
Farming was also adapted to a nomadic (or semi-nomadic) pattern. The hardy grains introduced from the continent could be planted and virtually left to look after themselves, until the community returned on the migratory cycle to gather in the harvest [21]. The advantage of such a system is that the gatherers of the group have a known resource of food, which requires minimal effort to gather in and released yet more time for alternative economic or social strategies. In addition to cereals legumes and root crops could have been grown to supplement the results of gathering a "wide range of wild foods"[22]. The lack of consistent evidence for 'farming' could be due to the adoption of a system of long fallow, which is consistent with the pollen record[23] and of early cultivation beneath neolithic monuments, rather than a "complex system of fixed crop rotation"[24], which would have been more likely to have left tangible physical traces.
THE COST OF ADAPTING
A major problem with this scenario is that it does not provide for an explanation for major changes between Mesolithic and Neolithic cultures. Mesolithic people probably travelled very light over large distances and could not have carried unnecessary bulk or weight. Thus pottery would be useful but an extravagance, as would heavy stone querns, cumbersome tepees, large tool assemblages or too many young children. Such groups tend to be equipped with a limited range of multi-use tools, would use locally available materials for shelter (e.g. benders or open air encampments[25]) and practice some form of birth control. The final factor would result in a low population increase with little demographic change. Neolithic people used a wide range of tools, which increased in size over the period of study, and shifted from a narrow to broad blade technology, which, according to Julian Thomas[26], suggested a reduction in mobility, itself consistent with a change from wide ranging gatherer-hunting, through seasonal movement with herds, to a more sedentary pattern emerging in the late neolithic and early bronze age.
Other reasons to suspect a relatively tight migratory cycle, is the introduction of pottery and stone querns, which are both bulky and heavy. Pottery is mainly found at ritual sites, but is present in more domestic contexts. People who have reduced mobility to a seasonal pattern of movement can carry more goods and chattels during the shorter, less frequent periods of travel. This, in itself, could lead to a demographic change in the age composition of the population causing pressure to settle and thus encourage a move to sedentary farming. A people that can carry pots, querns, large tool kits can also accommodate more small children (reducing the value of birth control - more children provide an increased survival factor for parents as they age), and sick/elderly adults. This would turn migratory movement into a comparatively major organisational event, rather than a five minute job stowing gear and moving off.
THE COST OF DEMOGRAPHIC CHANGE
The low levels of population posited by Fowler, of between 10,000 and 14,000, at the beginning of the bronze age[27] (fig.1) would not have provided sufficient pressure to change the economic base of society drastically (from herding, supplemented by casual cultivation and fishing, never mind gathering/hunting) to the settled farming communities that became increasingly common by the middle bronze age. The British Isles could have comfortably supported a gatherer-hunter population of 500,000[28] and an even higher population of herders. There is no suggestion in the literature that the population reached these levels so early. However, demographic change could have had an effect at a much lower level of population.
THE ROLE OF TRANSPORT IN PREHISTORIC DEMOGRAPHIC CHANGE
The actual level of demographic change would depend on the ratio of mobile to non-mobile people. This ratio would have become less favourable with the introduction of animal transport. This is where the osteo-arthritic cattle at Maxey become of interest[7]. Cattle that have been used for haulage can have more mundane domestic uses than pulling stones or ploughs, they can be exploited to transport domestic gear during seasonal migrations (tepees, pots, querns, sleeping furs, crops, slated/smoked fish/meat, and people). It is also probable that the riding horse and the wheel were introduced prior to 1,500 BCE[29], both of which could have had major implications for demographic change in a seasonally migratory people. The lower ratio of mobility to non-mobility the more favourably sections of the group would view a settled way of life (perhaps for others rather than themselves) with an increasing pattern of sedentation occurring over a relatively long period of time, until the norm changed from herders with semi-settled kin to sedentary communities owing a kin relationship to small bands of 'wild' herders (possibly many of them young men and women)[30].
FROM HERDING TO FARMING
To begin with settlements would have been small and easily subsist locally with additional variety provided by nomadic kin/visitors. As the climate was warm there is no reason to suppose that these sites would comprise of substantial structures though some may well have been[31]. The settlements could have fulfilled useful economic roles in providing labour for pig breeding in the summer grazing uplands and ritual centres[32]. Drying and smoking fish in coastal settlements and carrying out other chores in the grazing/cultivation grounds in valleys and coastal basins. Eventually settlement populations may have had to enlarge their level of cultivation.
The increased investment in agriculture could have led to a build up of resentment toward semi-nomadic herders (whose kinship to sedentary people may have grown less immediately recognisable), resulting in restriction or even refusal of passage across land. The imposition of restrictions and refusals would have increased the propensity of herders to settle[33]. The landscape would have changed to show evidence of farming as people used land more intensively (i.e. changing from long to short fallow systems)[34]. Some of the most complete evidence comes from Dartmoor which, by 1,300 BCE, had been divided into Reeves[35] (fig.3).
SUMMARY
I hope I have demonstrated above that there was no 'revolution' at the beginning of the Neolithic, though there is evidence of cultivation combined with small scale cattle herding, the evidence is sparse and either the plots were in areas that have not yet been found, or they were used so infrequently (long fallow) that they left few visible traces, the change over at the time was probably seen as a non-invasive convenience by the people adopting the new practices. Over a long period the original wide ranging gatherer hunter society was transformed into seasonally migratory people with a fairly limited geographical range. Human, cattle, natural elm decline and the formation of western coastal grasslands, favoured increased cattle-herding and shepherding. This new emphasis may have led to a reduction in cultivation and regeneration of woodlands, which in turn encouraged an increase in pig breeding. Although this transformation was dramatic, it occurred over a long period of time, a 'revolution' needs to be remembered as the experience of someone known. Something that happened gradually over 1,000-2,000 years is not likely to be perceived this way.
However, there was a potentially more revolutionary period between approximately 2,000 and 1,5000 BCE, when demographic restructuring of the population began to really bite, resulting in a propensity to settle. Sedentism could have become more generally acceptable, leading to localised population pressures intensifying cultivation (short fallow) and the real 'first farmers', who are definitely evident in the landscape from around 1,500 BCE. (fig3).
NOTES:
1. Richard Bradley on P17 of 'The Social Foundation of Prehistoric Britain' argues that a long period of sedentary agriculture must have preceded the building of the long barrows, as they are on marginal land in areas that would have been subject to later settlement.
2. Timothy Darvill 'Prehistoric Britain' "at least some of the first farmers in Britain were colonists". P48/9
3. Michael Parker-Pearson on P15 of 'Bronze Age Britain' commented on a late 4th millennium date for finds along the Somerset Levels 'Sweet Track' of stone axes, pottery, broad and long bladed flint technology "associated with farmers and which were very different from the small delicate flints (microliths) of gatherer-hunters".
4. Martin Jones 'England Before Domesday' P51/2 "the first hint ..... comes in the first half of the fifth millennium BC, with the trace of pollen at one or two sites".
5. On display at the Avebury Museum.
6. Michael Parker-Pearson 'Bronze Age Britain' P40
7. Taken from lecture notes. Have been unable to find anything in the literature that confirms the cause of osteo-arthritis in cattle as being due to usage as draft animals (pulling ploughs etc.), but as it seems a reasonable assumption I have used the implications in this essay.
8. According to Timothy Darvill 'Prehistoric Britain' P52/3 chickweed, curled dock and corn spurrey.
9. Martin Jones 'England Before Domesday' P59/60 add cleavers, vetch, black bindweed, knotgrass, brome grass, fathen and wild oat, some, like the cereals themselves, are not indigenous and "many are known to have been eaten in various parts of the world in more recent times".
10. John G Evans 'The Environment of Early Man in the British Isles' P121
11. P J Fowler on Page 7 of 'The Farming of Prehistoric Britain' suggests that permanent grasslands were established in the 3rd millennium.
12. John G Evans 'The Environment of Early Man in the British Isles' P119/20 "Pastures and the grazing of stock were clearly of importance on the chalk ..... (with) ..... a similar pattern ..... for Kent"
13. John G Evans 'The Environment of Early Man in the British Isles' P119/20
14. Michael Parker-Pearson 'Bronze Age Britain' P20/1
15. on P129 of 'The Environment of Early Man in the British Isles' Evans cites Andrew Flemings assertion that two square kilometres of woodland grazing would be required per annum for 20-30 head of cattle, which would favour a relatively high investment in cultivation.
16. John G Evans 'The Environment of Early Man in the British Isles' P129 "Once concentrations of domestic animals are introduced into an area ..... the destruction of woodland will automatically ensue."
17. John G Evans 'The Environment of Early Man in the British Isles' P139
18. John G Evans 'The Environment of Early Man in the British Isles' P122 and 129
19. Andrew Chamberlain P26 and Julian Thomas 'Rethinking the Neolithic' P22
20. Lewis R Binford in 'Pursuit of the Past' provides examples of modern gatherer-hunters e.g. Inuits, Australian aborigines and !Kung Bushmen, who do not want to settle.
21. Julian Thomas 'Rethinking the Neolithic' "modern communities who combine cultivation with gathering often exhibit scant concern for their crops" e.g. Ones Valley Paiute and the Siriano of Bolivia P21
22. Julian Thomas 'Rethinking the Neolithic' P20
23. John C Barratt 'Fragments from Antiquity' long fallow is also consistent with ideas of 'tenure' rather than 'ownership' of land, though this does not necessarily mean that long fallow and ownership of short fallow and tenure can be used as mutually exclusive categories P20
24. Julian Thomas 'Rethinking the Neolithic' P20
25. The weather was warmer than it is now
26. Julian Thomas 'Rethinking the Neolithic' P18/19
27. P J Fowler 'The Farming of Prehistoric Britain' P32/6
28. Lewis B Binford 'In Pursuit of the Past' P209
29. Timothy Darvill 'Prehistoric Britain' P125/6
30. I have read a book (which I cannot remember the title or author of) which reported the history of the Romanies in the process of becoming sedentary. All the history related was within the life span of an older Rom who remembered being nomadic or was passing on narrative of a Rom known to him/her, who had experienced nomadism.
31. It should perhaps not be surprising that substantial stone structures have been found in coastal regions e.g. Cornwall, the Orkneys and Ireland
32. Julian Thomas sensibly points out on page 10 of 'Rethinking the Neolithic' that pig breeding is unsuited to a nomadic life-style
33. Pressure to settle by restriction of movement is being used today against travellers
34. The bible gives many graphic details of a nomadic people experiencing problems within an increasingly sedentary landscape. Abram had settled kin in Harran, to whom he sent his son to find a wife. He and Lot had to arrange with settled communities for burial sites, access to water and grazing, temporary encampments, were subject to limitations in transit through settled territories and had to make unspecified promises to the settled communities.
35. Timothy Darvill 'Prehistoric Britain' P108/9; Michael Parker-Pearson 'Bronze Age Britain' P97/8 and Martin Jones 'England Before Domesday' P74/81.
ILLUSTRATIONS:
1. Artists impression of an indigenous encampment much like those that may have been common in these Isles.
2. A Possible population curve for Britain PJ Fowler 'The Farming of Prehistoric Britain' P34
3. Gatherer-hunter population densities Lewis B Binford 'In Pursit of the Past' P209 4. Neolithic/bronze age Reeve System on Dartmoor Martin Jones 'England Before Domesday' P76
BIBLIOGRAPHY: BARRETT, John C Fragments from Antiquity: An Archaeology of Social Life Blackwell 1994
BRADLEY, Richard The Social Foundation of Prehistoric Britain: themes and variations in the archaeology of power Longman 1992
BRINSFORD, Lewis R In Pursuit of the Past: Decoding the Archaeological Record Thames and Hudson 1988
CHAMBERLAIN, Andrew Inperpreting the Past: Human Remains British Museum 1994 DARVILL, Timothy Prehistoric Britain Batsford 1993
EVANS, John G The Environment of Early Man in the British Isles Paul Elek 1975 FOWLER, P J The Farming of Prehistoric Britain University of Cambridge 1983
JONES, Martin England Before Domesday Batsford 1986
PARKER-PEARSON, Michael Bronze Age Britain THOMAS, Julian Rethinking the Neolithic University of Cambridge 1991
TUTORS COMMENTS:
The reason that there are so few comments or (?) on the essay are that I found little to disagree with. You have read widely and (?) and have introduced some of your own ideas and evidence which help to liven the arguments. A very good essay - Julian Richards (Meet the Ancestors)
Some more up to date books to read on this subject:-
PRYOR, Francis Britain BC Harpers Collins 2003
PRYOR, Francis Farmers: In Prehistoric Britain Tempus 1998
For a World perspective I found the following book fascinating, though it must be rather dated by now
COHEN, Mark Nathan The Food Crisis in Prehistory Yale University Press 1977
Could only find one website with open access on this subject
http://www.britarch.ac.uk/ba/ba12/BA12FEAT.HTML
Enjoy!
"How much of a 'revolution' marked the beginning of the Neolithic Period and how convincing is the archaeological evidence for the first farmers?"
May 1994
The traditional model of the first farmers in Britain was the arrival in the 4th Millennium of pioneering, land hungry farmers from the continental mainland, who brought with them domesticated animals, seeds, pottery, a new religion and an expertise in building megalithic monuments. Indeed it was a common assumption that the early British monuments could only have been built by sedentary agriculturalists using their economic surplus[1]. An alternative model suggests continuity between the mesolithic aboriginal population, who acquired agriculture, livestock and neolithic related skills by acculturation, perhaps with small scale "direct migration"[2] from Europe.
THE MESOLITHIC/NEOLITHIC TRANSITION
The introduction of non-indigenous cereals, sheep, cattle and pigs into the British Isles during the late Mesolithic or early Neolithic is not itself in doubt. There is also evidence that the population changed from a gatherer-hunting technology of travelling light (carrying a narrow range of multi-use, microlithic tool assemblages, no pottery and a diet consisting of indigenous animal and vegetable products) ultimately, to a more sedentary life-style (enabling a wider range of tools, the regular use of pottery[3], and a diet expanded to include domesticated animals, cereals and vegetables).
When archaeology was in its infancy the British Neolithic appeared to be short (approximately 500 years) and the relatively large number of changes that occurred over that period were seen as a 'revolution', indeed the evidence was seen as very convincing. However, new dating techniques have forced a review of the time span for the 'revolution', which was, more realistically, a slowly developing change (over a period of around 3,000 years), and seen in this context the evidence for early farmers prior to the middle bronze age, circa 1,500 BCE, is very scattered, both geographically and through time.
THE EVIDENCE FOR CULTIVATION
There is some evidence in the pollen record for a very early introduction of cereals[4] (particularly in Ireland and the Scottish Islands), later evidence includes carbonised seed and plant remains (emmer wheat, einkorn wheat and six-row barley), impressions of cereals in pottery before firing[5], the remains of non-indigenous domesticated breeds of animals, agriculture related equipment (e.g. querns and sickles, which could alternatively, have been used to harvest wild crops) and the habitat of molluscs. The best evidence includes a late fourth millennium field system at Carn Brae, Cornwall (dated to 3,300-3,000 BCE[6], osteoarthritis found in cattle at the neolithic enclosure at Maxey, Etton[7], large quantities of emmer wheat at Aston on Trent, Derbyshire, early third millennium samples recovered at Balbridie, Grampion and over 300 seeds (mostly barley) as Isbister, Orkney. Analysis by Ann Lynch showed that samples included "weeds commonly found in cultivation plots"[8]. Some 'weeds' may have been deliberately introduced as a food source[9]. There are also the ard marks found beneath South Street long barrow (though a variety of alternative interpretations have been made about this) and extensive field systems beneath a peat bog in County Mayo, Ireland[10].
THE EVIDENCE FOR DOMESTICATED ANIMALS AND HERDING
There is relatively more data to support the clearance of large areas for use as grazing (in some cases following a short period of cultivation)[11]. In Wiltshire buried soils beneath henge monuments show short term cultivation, followed by lengthy pre-henge grassland usage as pasture (for 500 years). Pollen data from Wingham and Frogholt, and molluscs from Julliberries Grave offer a similar picture of open grasslands in Kent[12]. Grasslands were created naturally along the western seaboard of the British Isles, which were exploited by neolithic peoples[13]. At one time it was believed that clearance by neolithic people caused a decline in elms and that the resulting reduction in tree cover caused extensive soil erosion, this was accepted as a major proof of massive clearances for farming. This is no longer held as valid of pre-decline soil deposits from West Heath, Hampstead (by Margaret Girling), revealed the beetle responsible for Dutch Elm Disease[14], suggesting that the decline was natural and neolithic people were responsible only to the extent that they exploited the clearance, by grazing cattle and sheep, thus aiding nature in the process of soil erosion. Once clearance had taken place large herds of cattle could have been supported[15] and the more open grasslands would have favoured the introduction of a larger number of sheep.
Instead of an agricultural revolution, what could have happened was an early phase of small scale migratory animal husbandry and casual cultivation, giving way to large scale herding with a reduced emphasis on cultivation, and that the change occurred through a combination of natural events, in combination with human and animal activity[16]. Studies by Winifred Pennington suggest that the elm "decline involved sufficient interference ..... to initiate soil erosion" which was then exacerbated by animal grazing which leached calcium, phosphate and nitrogen from the soil. The existence, or level, of erosion depending on the nature of grazing, low intensity and free range being less destructive than high intensity grazing, particularly if accompanied by night time coralling[17].
In the late neolithic-early bronze age, there is evidence of woodland regeneration, which coincides with an increase in pig eating. The two factors may be associated as pigs prefer woodland which may have been managed by people in order to breed pigs for ritual and/or feasting[18].
ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF FARMING
The picture that emerges for the neolithic and early bronze age, is of an indigenous people skilled at adapting new ideas and technologies to the environment at hand. There were no populations pressures requiring high levels of agricultural output. Trade links with the continent (where it is probable that cattle herding was replacing farming) enabled mesolithic gatherer-hunters from the British Isles to learn about agriculture as practiced in Europe, and exploit the parts that fitted with their ideas of a good life. To the non-farming onlooker, agriculture has few advantages, lots of hard work, crop failures leading to hunger, high sickness/mortality rates due to a less nutritious diet and increased risks of infectious diseases[19]. The advantage of agriculture being able to support more people, in more or less permanent settlements, may not be appealing to a people used to moving around[20]. Instead of transporting a developed agricultural system to Britain the people saw advantage in adapting the process to supplement a gathering and hunting economy. The import of cattle, which could move around with small groups of people, would have cost very little in human labour (indeed could be an economically useful task for children) and reduce the need for hunting, leaving more time for other activities (such as ritual, monument building).
Farming was also adapted to a nomadic (or semi-nomadic) pattern. The hardy grains introduced from the continent could be planted and virtually left to look after themselves, until the community returned on the migratory cycle to gather in the harvest [21]. The advantage of such a system is that the gatherers of the group have a known resource of food, which requires minimal effort to gather in and released yet more time for alternative economic or social strategies. In addition to cereals legumes and root crops could have been grown to supplement the results of gathering a "wide range of wild foods"[22]. The lack of consistent evidence for 'farming' could be due to the adoption of a system of long fallow, which is consistent with the pollen record[23] and of early cultivation beneath neolithic monuments, rather than a "complex system of fixed crop rotation"[24], which would have been more likely to have left tangible physical traces.
THE COST OF ADAPTING
A major problem with this scenario is that it does not provide for an explanation for major changes between Mesolithic and Neolithic cultures. Mesolithic people probably travelled very light over large distances and could not have carried unnecessary bulk or weight. Thus pottery would be useful but an extravagance, as would heavy stone querns, cumbersome tepees, large tool assemblages or too many young children. Such groups tend to be equipped with a limited range of multi-use tools, would use locally available materials for shelter (e.g. benders or open air encampments[25]) and practice some form of birth control. The final factor would result in a low population increase with little demographic change. Neolithic people used a wide range of tools, which increased in size over the period of study, and shifted from a narrow to broad blade technology, which, according to Julian Thomas[26], suggested a reduction in mobility, itself consistent with a change from wide ranging gatherer-hunting, through seasonal movement with herds, to a more sedentary pattern emerging in the late neolithic and early bronze age.
Other reasons to suspect a relatively tight migratory cycle, is the introduction of pottery and stone querns, which are both bulky and heavy. Pottery is mainly found at ritual sites, but is present in more domestic contexts. People who have reduced mobility to a seasonal pattern of movement can carry more goods and chattels during the shorter, less frequent periods of travel. This, in itself, could lead to a demographic change in the age composition of the population causing pressure to settle and thus encourage a move to sedentary farming. A people that can carry pots, querns, large tool kits can also accommodate more small children (reducing the value of birth control - more children provide an increased survival factor for parents as they age), and sick/elderly adults. This would turn migratory movement into a comparatively major organisational event, rather than a five minute job stowing gear and moving off.
THE COST OF DEMOGRAPHIC CHANGE
The low levels of population posited by Fowler, of between 10,000 and 14,000, at the beginning of the bronze age[27] (fig.1) would not have provided sufficient pressure to change the economic base of society drastically (from herding, supplemented by casual cultivation and fishing, never mind gathering/hunting) to the settled farming communities that became increasingly common by the middle bronze age. The British Isles could have comfortably supported a gatherer-hunter population of 500,000[28] and an even higher population of herders. There is no suggestion in the literature that the population reached these levels so early. However, demographic change could have had an effect at a much lower level of population.
THE ROLE OF TRANSPORT IN PREHISTORIC DEMOGRAPHIC CHANGE
The actual level of demographic change would depend on the ratio of mobile to non-mobile people. This ratio would have become less favourable with the introduction of animal transport. This is where the osteo-arthritic cattle at Maxey become of interest[7]. Cattle that have been used for haulage can have more mundane domestic uses than pulling stones or ploughs, they can be exploited to transport domestic gear during seasonal migrations (tepees, pots, querns, sleeping furs, crops, slated/smoked fish/meat, and people). It is also probable that the riding horse and the wheel were introduced prior to 1,500 BCE[29], both of which could have had major implications for demographic change in a seasonally migratory people. The lower ratio of mobility to non-mobility the more favourably sections of the group would view a settled way of life (perhaps for others rather than themselves) with an increasing pattern of sedentation occurring over a relatively long period of time, until the norm changed from herders with semi-settled kin to sedentary communities owing a kin relationship to small bands of 'wild' herders (possibly many of them young men and women)[30].
FROM HERDING TO FARMING
To begin with settlements would have been small and easily subsist locally with additional variety provided by nomadic kin/visitors. As the climate was warm there is no reason to suppose that these sites would comprise of substantial structures though some may well have been[31]. The settlements could have fulfilled useful economic roles in providing labour for pig breeding in the summer grazing uplands and ritual centres[32]. Drying and smoking fish in coastal settlements and carrying out other chores in the grazing/cultivation grounds in valleys and coastal basins. Eventually settlement populations may have had to enlarge their level of cultivation.
The increased investment in agriculture could have led to a build up of resentment toward semi-nomadic herders (whose kinship to sedentary people may have grown less immediately recognisable), resulting in restriction or even refusal of passage across land. The imposition of restrictions and refusals would have increased the propensity of herders to settle[33]. The landscape would have changed to show evidence of farming as people used land more intensively (i.e. changing from long to short fallow systems)[34]. Some of the most complete evidence comes from Dartmoor which, by 1,300 BCE, had been divided into Reeves[35] (fig.3).SUMMARY
I hope I have demonstrated above that there was no 'revolution' at the beginning of the Neolithic, though there is evidence of cultivation combined with small scale cattle herding, the evidence is sparse and either the plots were in areas that have not yet been found, or they were used so infrequently (long fallow) that they left few visible traces, the change over at the time was probably seen as a non-invasive convenience by the people adopting the new practices. Over a long period the original wide ranging gatherer hunter society was transformed into seasonally migratory people with a fairly limited geographical range. Human, cattle, natural elm decline and the formation of western coastal grasslands, favoured increased cattle-herding and shepherding. This new emphasis may have led to a reduction in cultivation and regeneration of woodlands, which in turn encouraged an increase in pig breeding. Although this transformation was dramatic, it occurred over a long period of time, a 'revolution' needs to be remembered as the experience of someone known. Something that happened gradually over 1,000-2,000 years is not likely to be perceived this way.
However, there was a potentially more revolutionary period between approximately 2,000 and 1,5000 BCE, when demographic restructuring of the population began to really bite, resulting in a propensity to settle. Sedentism could have become more generally acceptable, leading to localised population pressures intensifying cultivation (short fallow) and the real 'first farmers', who are definitely evident in the landscape from around 1,500 BCE. (fig3).
NOTES:
1. Richard Bradley on P17 of 'The Social Foundation of Prehistoric Britain' argues that a long period of sedentary agriculture must have preceded the building of the long barrows, as they are on marginal land in areas that would have been subject to later settlement.
2. Timothy Darvill 'Prehistoric Britain' "at least some of the first farmers in Britain were colonists". P48/9
3. Michael Parker-Pearson on P15 of 'Bronze Age Britain' commented on a late 4th millennium date for finds along the Somerset Levels 'Sweet Track' of stone axes, pottery, broad and long bladed flint technology "associated with farmers and which were very different from the small delicate flints (microliths) of gatherer-hunters".
4. Martin Jones 'England Before Domesday' P51/2 "the first hint ..... comes in the first half of the fifth millennium BC, with the trace of pollen at one or two sites".
5. On display at the Avebury Museum.
6. Michael Parker-Pearson 'Bronze Age Britain' P40
7. Taken from lecture notes. Have been unable to find anything in the literature that confirms the cause of osteo-arthritis in cattle as being due to usage as draft animals (pulling ploughs etc.), but as it seems a reasonable assumption I have used the implications in this essay.
8. According to Timothy Darvill 'Prehistoric Britain' P52/3 chickweed, curled dock and corn spurrey.
9. Martin Jones 'England Before Domesday' P59/60 add cleavers, vetch, black bindweed, knotgrass, brome grass, fathen and wild oat, some, like the cereals themselves, are not indigenous and "many are known to have been eaten in various parts of the world in more recent times".
10. John G Evans 'The Environment of Early Man in the British Isles' P121
11. P J Fowler on Page 7 of 'The Farming of Prehistoric Britain' suggests that permanent grasslands were established in the 3rd millennium.
12. John G Evans 'The Environment of Early Man in the British Isles' P119/20 "Pastures and the grazing of stock were clearly of importance on the chalk ..... (with) ..... a similar pattern ..... for Kent"
13. John G Evans 'The Environment of Early Man in the British Isles' P119/20
14. Michael Parker-Pearson 'Bronze Age Britain' P20/1
15. on P129 of 'The Environment of Early Man in the British Isles' Evans cites Andrew Flemings assertion that two square kilometres of woodland grazing would be required per annum for 20-30 head of cattle, which would favour a relatively high investment in cultivation.
16. John G Evans 'The Environment of Early Man in the British Isles' P129 "Once concentrations of domestic animals are introduced into an area ..... the destruction of woodland will automatically ensue."
17. John G Evans 'The Environment of Early Man in the British Isles' P139
18. John G Evans 'The Environment of Early Man in the British Isles' P122 and 129
19. Andrew Chamberlain P26 and Julian Thomas 'Rethinking the Neolithic' P22
20. Lewis R Binford in 'Pursuit of the Past' provides examples of modern gatherer-hunters e.g. Inuits, Australian aborigines and !Kung Bushmen, who do not want to settle.
21. Julian Thomas 'Rethinking the Neolithic' "modern communities who combine cultivation with gathering often exhibit scant concern for their crops" e.g. Ones Valley Paiute and the Siriano of Bolivia P21
22. Julian Thomas 'Rethinking the Neolithic' P20
23. John C Barratt 'Fragments from Antiquity' long fallow is also consistent with ideas of 'tenure' rather than 'ownership' of land, though this does not necessarily mean that long fallow and ownership of short fallow and tenure can be used as mutually exclusive categories P20
24. Julian Thomas 'Rethinking the Neolithic' P20
25. The weather was warmer than it is now
26. Julian Thomas 'Rethinking the Neolithic' P18/19
27. P J Fowler 'The Farming of Prehistoric Britain' P32/6
28. Lewis B Binford 'In Pursuit of the Past' P209
29. Timothy Darvill 'Prehistoric Britain' P125/6
30. I have read a book (which I cannot remember the title or author of) which reported the history of the Romanies in the process of becoming sedentary. All the history related was within the life span of an older Rom who remembered being nomadic or was passing on narrative of a Rom known to him/her, who had experienced nomadism.
31. It should perhaps not be surprising that substantial stone structures have been found in coastal regions e.g. Cornwall, the Orkneys and Ireland
32. Julian Thomas sensibly points out on page 10 of 'Rethinking the Neolithic' that pig breeding is unsuited to a nomadic life-style
33. Pressure to settle by restriction of movement is being used today against travellers
34. The bible gives many graphic details of a nomadic people experiencing problems within an increasingly sedentary landscape. Abram had settled kin in Harran, to whom he sent his son to find a wife. He and Lot had to arrange with settled communities for burial sites, access to water and grazing, temporary encampments, were subject to limitations in transit through settled territories and had to make unspecified promises to the settled communities.
35. Timothy Darvill 'Prehistoric Britain' P108/9; Michael Parker-Pearson 'Bronze Age Britain' P97/8 and Martin Jones 'England Before Domesday' P74/81.
ILLUSTRATIONS:
1. Artists impression of an indigenous encampment much like those that may have been common in these Isles.
2. A Possible population curve for Britain PJ Fowler 'The Farming of Prehistoric Britain' P34
3. Gatherer-hunter population densities Lewis B Binford 'In Pursit of the Past' P209 4. Neolithic/bronze age Reeve System on Dartmoor Martin Jones 'England Before Domesday' P76
BIBLIOGRAPHY: BARRETT, John C Fragments from Antiquity: An Archaeology of Social Life Blackwell 1994
BRADLEY, Richard The Social Foundation of Prehistoric Britain: themes and variations in the archaeology of power Longman 1992
BRINSFORD, Lewis R In Pursuit of the Past: Decoding the Archaeological Record Thames and Hudson 1988
CHAMBERLAIN, Andrew Inperpreting the Past: Human Remains British Museum 1994 DARVILL, Timothy Prehistoric Britain Batsford 1993
EVANS, John G The Environment of Early Man in the British Isles Paul Elek 1975 FOWLER, P J The Farming of Prehistoric Britain University of Cambridge 1983
JONES, Martin England Before Domesday Batsford 1986
PARKER-PEARSON, Michael Bronze Age Britain THOMAS, Julian Rethinking the Neolithic University of Cambridge 1991
TUTORS COMMENTS:
The reason that there are so few comments or (?) on the essay are that I found little to disagree with. You have read widely and (?) and have introduced some of your own ideas and evidence which help to liven the arguments. A very good essay - Julian Richards (Meet the Ancestors)
Some more up to date books to read on this subject:-
PRYOR, Francis Britain BC Harpers Collins 2003
PRYOR, Francis Farmers: In Prehistoric Britain Tempus 1998
For a World perspective I found the following book fascinating, though it must be rather dated by now
COHEN, Mark Nathan The Food Crisis in Prehistory Yale University Press 1977
Could only find one website with open access on this subject
http://www.britarch.ac.uk/ba/ba12/BA12FEAT.HTML
Enjoy!
