3.1
3.1 First farmers
First farmers
8000 BC
6000 BC
4000 BC
2000 BC
800 BC
0
AD
2000
Neolithic period
Around 4000 BC, something unexpected happened: a series of immigrants from what is now France, Belgium and the Netherlands arrived. They arrived in hide-covered boats, bringing with them new animals and crops. They changed life in Britain dramatically – they were Britain’s first farmers. They cleared the woodland around their settlements to make fields.
A Neolithic revolution Farmers brought crops such as spelt, beans and barley with them. They also brought animals including cows, sheep and goats. They ate A drawing of a woman cooking meat and milk, as well as cereals. They used wool and in the Neolithic period leather to make clothes. They also caught fish – cod bones were found in their rubbish pits in large numbers. Historians still debate which was more important to the first farmers – was it livestock, or was it crops grown in fields around the village? Trees were coppiced (cut down to the ground and allowed to regrow with several new shoots) to produce wood for tools, arrows and building.
Saddle quern from around 1800 BC
Why were Neolithic women so strong? A recent scientific report suggested that Neolithic women were very strong – their arm muscles were as strong as female Olympic rowers, and about 33 per cent stronger than women today. This can only be because of their workload. Someone had to grind all that grain into fl our! One of the major innovations of the time was the saddle quern, and it took two to three hours every day to produce enough fl our for baking. Look at the image of a saddle quern. Can you fi gure out how they worked? Why would it be such hard work?
Tools
Think about it!
Flint axes, blades and scrapers were still widely used, although polished stone axes have also been found. Bone was used for needles, and we have discovered the first use of sickles to harvest the crops. Birch bark was still used to make containers, but pottery, made in kilns, became widespread. Wooden shovels have also been discovered.
1. Do you think there was a revolution in Britain around 4000 BC?
Key words
2. What part did immigrants play in the introduction of farming?
sickles kilns
Grime’s Graves Flint was in such demand it was no longer enough to collect it off the beach. Quarries, such as Grime’s Graves in Norfolk, were opened up. Over 400 pits were dug into the chalk. Each pit was over 13 metres deep, and 14
then galleries were dug into the rock, following the flint. Picks made from the antlers of red deer were used to dig out the flint, and the only means of lighting was by a primitive form of candles – animal fat burning in a hollowed-out lump of chalk. To keep the ground stable, already-worked seams were filled in with rubble and rubbish from new seams.
An artist’s impression of mining at Grime’s Graves
Let’s do it! 1. Which were the new tools introduced by the first farmers? 2. Find out about other flint quarries in Britain. Were they all as big as Grime’s Graves? What does the size of Grime’s Graves tell us about the importance of flint to Neolithic people? 3. How have our ideas about the first farmers changed in recent years?
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3.2
Homes and travel
As the first farmers were living in one place, their houses became much more substantial, and leave us much more evidence to help us understand their daily lives. As with the Mesolithic period, much of the best evidence for Neolithic life comes from middens or rubbish pits! Houses were made of whatever materials were readily available. At Skara Brae, in the Orkneys, What archaeologists think an early for example, there was no timber, so Neolithic house might have looked like houses were made of stone. At Kingsmead Quarry, they were made from split oak planks with a thatched roof. In other parts of the country, houses were made of wattle and daub and thatch. The door almost always faced south, either for religious reasons or (more likely) to make the most of the sunlight and keep out the wind. It was quite common to have a lean-to hearth or fireplace outside, or adjoining the main house. There were no windows and, when there was a fire inside, smoke was expected to escape as best it could – there might be a hole in the roof to help it get out, but not always. Often a house would have a small altar or shrine to the ancestors in a niche, or corner, of the interior. Inside one of the stone houses at Skara Brae, in the Orkneys
3.2 Homes and travel
Think about it! 1. Why do you think Neolithic houses were more substantial than Mesolithic ones? 2. Why do you think they were made from whatever materials were readily available? 3. Why do you think hearths and fireplaces were often built next to the house or outside the house?
Let’s do it! 1. Study the picture of inside a house at Skara Brae. Can you identify the following? a The hearth or fireplace b Space for a bed c Storage space 2. Research both the house at Skara Brae and at Kingsmead Quarry. Make a list of similarities and differences. 3. What would it have been like to live in these houses? Write a short paragraph.
Travel People had to walk everywhere. As yet, there were no horses and no wheeled transport. Wooden trackways, like the Sweet Track, which was built in 3807 BC (precisely dated using dendrochronology), were built in wet or boggy areas. The Sweet Track covers almost 2000 metres and joins a village to a small island. Boats were used wherever possible.
Trade Polished stone hand axes were perhaps the ultimate status symbol at this time. Axes made from jadeite, found in the Alps, have been discovered right across the country. Another distinctive type of axe, made from fine-grained greenstone found only in Great Langdale in the Lake District, have been found as far north as the Orkneys and as far south as Cornwall. There was a thriving industry in Great Langdale for much of the Neolithic period. Axes were produced and traded in large quantities. Waste was dumped on the mountainside when the useful stone had been extracted. Many of these axes have been recovered from peat bogs and rivers throughout the country, where they may have been deposited as an offering to the gods.
Think about it! 4. In your opinion, how interconnected was the Neolithic world? 16
Key words dendrochronology jadeite 17
3.3
Continuity and change
Don’t forget that Stone Age to Iron Age period in Britain lasted for over 10,000 years, from the end of the Ice Age until the arrival of Julius Caesar in 55 BC. That is a very long time indeed! It would be very surprising if there was no change at all in that period. Even the name is a bit of a clue – the ‘New Stone Age’ – implies that some things had changed.
A modern image showing a successful hunt
What was ‘new’ about the New Stone Age? One way historians try to decide what happened in a period is to think about it in terms of continuity and change, and to consider which things have stayed the same and which have changed. Whether or not things have changed, Was the Neolithic period the next question is always ‘Why?’ About 4000 BC, the a time of great change in first farmers began to arrive in Britain, although farming Britain? itself started in the Middle East long before this time. By around 2000 BC, we see the beginnings of the Bronze Age – when life in Britain would change forever, with the introduction of metalworking. So what was so distinctive about the 2000 years of Neolithic Britain? Was it as new as some historians and archaeologists argue?
3.3 Continuity and change
Hunter-gatherers to farmers Hunter-gatherers, as we have already seen, knew how to manage their environment in order to make hunting easier. Early farmers concentrated more on livestock than crops. Was it such a big change from the one to the other? Does it deserve to be known as a ‘farming revolution’? How different are the tools and weapons of each group? Are there any major changes in the style or materials used in housebuilding? Is the pottery very different? How did people get about? How did they travel? How did they trade with each other? How much, in fact, stayed the same (continuity) and how much changed? Let’s try to find out. A stone axe
Let’s do it! Look back carefully over the work you have done in Units 2 and 3 (the Mesolithic and the Neolithic periods). Draw up a table, like the one below, and try to fill it in from the work you have done. The first entry has been done for you to get you started. Continuity People still needed to work hard to feed everyone.
Change Kept animals rather than hunted them for food.
Once you have completed your table, decide which of the two columns is the most important. Was there more ‘continuity’ or more ‘change’? That will help you structure your answer. There is no right answer – it depends on the evidence you use to support your ideas. 18
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