English History (Part 4): Bronze Age
Bronze Age (2500 – 800 BC)
Around 2200 BC, the first stone circle was created at Stonehenge. This change from wood to stone may have been part of a great cultural movement, one that resulted in the building of monumental enclosures in other sites; the decline of ancestor worship; and bouts of warfare between opposing groups.
The bodies of two adults (male and female) and two children have been found in a single grave in Peterborough. In Dorset, several bodies were found lying in a ditch, with a rampart fallen on top of them. One of them had been killed by an arrow.
The construction of Stonehenge was the largest program of public works in the history of England, and the most drawn-out. The stone circle built in 2200 BC was a series of bluestones, mostly igneous in origin, and considered to have magical healing properties.
Around 2100 BC, the bluestones were taken down and replaced by 30 sarsen stones, in a circle around five pairs of trilithons, which were themselves arranged in a horseshoe pattern. At around the same time, a wooden henge (a circular monument) of 24 obelisks was built less than 800m away from the stone circle. This may have been a burial centre or the site of some other ritual activity.
Bluestonehenge (another henge & stone circle) was built 1.6km to the south-east, along the bank of the Avon River. A large village was built, less than 3.2km away – this may have been a ritual centre, a place of healing, a lodging for pilgrims, or a home for those who set up the sarsen stones. Clearly Salisbury Plain was the site of communal and spiritual settlement on a very large scale.
Digital reconstruction of Bluestonehenge. No stone remains aboveground.
Also around 2100 BC, the Amesbury Archer was buried. He is also called the “king of Stonehenge”. His grave contained over 100 artifacts, including gold ornaments, copper knives, boar tusks and pots. His body was crouched in a foetal position, and flint arrowheads were scattered over him.
The Amesbury Archer would have been a tribal chieftain, but oxygen isotope analysis has shown that he grew up in the colder regions of Northern Europe. It is not known why a foreign king was buried on Salisbury Plain. His body shows evidence of an abscess and a painful bone infection. He may have been on pilgrimage, or he may have crossed the sea to be healed. Or he may have ruled here as one of the tribal chieftains who were not necessarily confined to one region (as there were no countries or nations as we have now).
The Amesbury Archer and grave-goods.
Stonehenge's last construction phase was around 1600 BC. Two circles of standing stones were planned, but only the pits/holes were dug for them. So the structure of Stonehenge has changed over 1,200 years, and possibly its purpose as well. It may have been a burial ground, a site of public ceremonial and ritual, a centre of pilgrimage and ritual healing, a great observatory and celestial clock. We do not know.
However, in all of these ears, Stonehenge is evidence of a controlling power that could organize many people in this project. There was a hierarchical society with an elite group at the top (tribal or priestly) that could force or persuade thousands of people into building Stonehenge (and other ritual sites). Stonehenge would have taken millions of hours of labour. The bluestones came from the Preseli Hills in south-west Wales, about 320km away. Land, material resources and labour were governed by some form of central control.
It is possible that during the 1,200 years of Stonehenge's construction phases, communal burials were being replaced by individual burials – the Amesbury Archer is one example. In some graves, the chieftain's body is accompanied by weapons; in others, the body is surrounded by goods. These would have been the graves of leaders and high priests, often buried with their immediate families. England had become an aristocratic society, rather than a tribal one.
The Bronze Age cultivation of the landscape can still be seen, especially from the air. The banks & ditches of hundreds of rectangular fields can be seen. They were photographed from the air for the first time in 1929, and a lost world was revealed.
The uplands and downlands of southern Britain were laid out in fields, with hedges and stone walls stretching for miles. Among these ditched fields were drove-ways and waterholes. Central planning would have been essential for this level of land planning. Thousands of square miles of land were laid out in this way.
This intense cultivation is the strongest evidence for a steady population increase. By 1900 BC (600yrs into the Bronze Age) there were perhaps a million people, and when Julius Caesar invaded in 55 BC (near the end of the Iron Age), there were over 2 million people.
England was an agricultural society, with regional variations. The cultivated land has continued to be used as productive arable land ever since. Woodland was cleared, and pastureland was created with grass. There were more sheep than there would be in 1600 AD. There was little monumental construction – working the land was now a more important activity.
There were settlements everywhere, most of them situated away from the monumental sites. Single households and small hamlets were common. Enclosures were surrounded by a fence or ditch. Hut circles were groups of round stone houses with beehive roofs. People who lived there burned peat, and the hut circles included farmyards (or perhaps they were nearby?)
The Bronze Age people buried their dead in family units, cremating the bodies and placing the ashes in decorated urns. The cemeteries of the Late Bronze Age (from c. 1300 BC) are known as urn fields.
Men wore a tunic known as a “kirtle”, with a woollen cloak above it. Women wore a tunic and jacket, also covered by a woollen cloak. Their shoes were made of skin, and the men wore woollen caps. Higher-status women wore elaborate jet necklaces. One grave has evidence of a woman who had a concealed pad to bolster her hair. Higher-status men and women wore gold & bronze ornaments, and blue beads imported from Egypt. They also imported amber jewellery from the Baltic region. There was quite a lot of international trade in Bronze Age England.
The people ate soups, stews and dressed meat; and a type of porridge made of wheat, barley and oats. Alcoholic drinks such as beer and wine were an important part of their diet. They also ate hazelnuts, herbs, seaweed, and varieties of berries.
The focus of ceremony & worship shifted from the sky to the earth. The cultivation & increased use of the land would have increased the importance & significance of fertility rituals. Specific attention was given to water and watery places, including rivers, springs, marshes and fens.
Bronze Age weapons & other artifacts have been found in the Thames. The offerings of weapons, ornaments and bones were kept separate and distinct. At Eton, there are many skulls, but no metal. Tools were left in dry locations, and weapons in wet locations. Wooden platforms & causeways were built beside the river – they were part of the sacred space in which the peoples' priests dwelled.
Leaf-shaped bronze (copper-alloy) sword (Late Bronze Age).
Burial mounds and henge monuments have been located by rivers throughout prehistory. 368 Neolithic axes have been found in the Thames. The Bronze Age river offerings may have been part of a rite to gain the favour of the dead, i.e. part of ancestor worship. If the dead were believed to cross between the world of the living and the world of the dead, they would have a particular affinity with the river – the river would give access to the underworld though many passages, and it springs fresh and renewed froms its source.
During the Bronze Age, the weather was growing cooler and wetter.
Weapons have been found all over England – spearheads, socketed axes, rapiers, and (at a slightly later date) swords. Stirrups have been found; there is evidence of harnesses and bronze fittings for horses. There were chariots as well – traces of wheel ruts have been found at Peterborough that would have supported a vehicle with a width of one metre.
The evidence points to a warrior aristocracy, in a kingdom or group of sub-kingdoms stretching from Dorset to Sussex. The middle & late Bronze Age is roughly contemporaneous with the culture of Homer's Troy, with the same focus on kings & warriors, feasting and ritual battle. It would have been a warrior society with small-scale sporadic fighting between elites, gift exchanges between leaders, and tribute (in the form of food) from the subject population. This would have been one of the reasons why the land was farmed so extensively.
Defended settlements were found everywhere, as well as other enclosures that contained buildings. These were the prototypes for the Iron Age hill forts of southern England. In Dorset, a fence made out of great tree trunks was built around an area of 11 acres (4.4 hectares). It was set in a trench about 3 metres deep.
Strong regional identities & divisions were already being formed. The Thames Valley had access to the European mainland, which gave it an advantage in trade. This helped the region to eclipse the agricultural wealth of the Salisbury Plain. Northern England was focused on stock-raising, whereas southern England focused on cereal production. Trade encouraged interdependence between regions.
Commerce of all kinds was increasing, and this was very important. Trade leads to the growth of civilizations; it enables wars; it encourages technological growth; it creates towns & cities. Some types of swords were manufactured in western France, and ended up in eastern England. Also imported to England were highly-embellished barbecue spits from Spain, metalwork from Mycenae in Greece, and gold ornaments from Ireland.
In turn, England exported linen, woollen fabrics, slaves and hunting dogs to Europe. Children worked in Cornwall's tin mines, using bones and hammer-stones to dig out the ore. The metal was then sent to England's coastal ports for shipment to the continent.
When tin is added to molten copper, bronze is formed. The new technology changed everything, from cutting down forests to building houses to fighting. There were even bronze razors, with oil used as a lubricant for shaving.
Many Bronze Age settlements & cemeteries used the same sites as the Neolithic Period, and Bronze Age settlements were continuously in use throughout the Irone Age. The Iron Age people consistently respected the burial mounds and boundary lines of those who had come before them.
