Farmers and monument

builders in Neolithic Europe

Introduction to the Archaeology of the prehistoric

period, Semester 1, lecture 4
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 In this lecture we will look at how
early farming communities
developed in Europe, from 5000 to
2500 BC
• Houses and villages
• Tombs – often massive in size and
complex in construction
• Ritual monuments – stone circles and
henges

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Central Europe: the “Linear
Pottery Culture”
Commonly known by its German
name Linearbandkeramik or LBK
for short

3
Linear Pottery is so called because the
round-bottomed bowls are decorated with
incised lines, usually in curvilinear designs 4
North Sea

Black Sea

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It has been known for many years that LBK sites are
preferentially sited on loess soils.
(Loess = light, glacially-derived wind-blown material 6
that forms fertile soils)
LBK settlements
are extensive
villages of long-
houses, as in this
example from
Sittard in the
Netherlands

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The same spot
could be used for
repeated house
rebuildings over
many generations

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LBK houses:
post-built, of
varying sizes

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 The colonisation of the north-west
(Britain and Scandinavia)
• How did it occur?
• Boat technology – but long history of
cross-channel contact, since ca 6500 BC
when Britain still joined to Continent
• Pioneer settlements?
• Or adaptation by existing hunter-gatherer
communities?

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Rock shelters in the Weald, as here at High Rocks, Tunbridge
Wells, may indicate the presence of early settler groups engaged
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in hunting to supplement food supply
 High Rocks
• Mesolithic occupation of rock shelters
• Some Neolithic material with an early
radiocarbon date, sealed by a rock fall
• Excavator thought ideal situation for
pioneer farmers needing hunted food
during lean months

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 Neolithic settlement in the British
Isles
• Best known from the North and West
(Scotland and Ireland)
• Stone used in northern Scotland so
excellent survival
• Wooden constructions in Ireland – many
found by chance in recent years
• This suggests the number will rise
dramatically as new discoveries are made
(eg the recent findings in Northumberland
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or near Stonehenge)
Skara Brae, Orkney mainland 14
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A reconstruction of a Neolithic settlement in Orkney 19
Scottish Neolithic houses bear many similarities to tombs
– a close correspondence between houses for the living 20
and houses for the dead?
 Neolithic tombs come in two main
varieties:

• Those made from earth and timber

• Those made from large stones, the so-called
megaliths

• There are many variants on this theme,

depending on the locally available material for
tomb construction
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 The megalithic phenomenon

• Megaliths – “megas” (large) and “lithos” (stone),

i.e. monuments built of massive stone blocks
(occasionally large monuments built up from
smaller blocks)

• Tombs
• Standing stones
• Circles of various kinds
• Rows and alignments
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Lannion Quoit, Cornwall Cairnholy, Kirkudbrightshire

Everstorf, North Germany Barnenez, Brittany 23

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 Numbers of megalithic tombs
• England & Wales: about 300
• Scotland: about 500
• Ireland: about 1000
• France: 2500-3000

• Many others in Iberia, north Germany and

Scandinavia

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 Megalithic sites:

• Date to the Neolithic in Western Europe –

but also other areas and periods (Iron Age
in N. Greece & Bulgaria)
• The large stones used were usually left
there by nature (glacial action, erosion)
• Only rarely were stones moved over any
great distance (Stonehenge)

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• The more elaborate tombs usually have a
distinct passage and chamber
• They were used and re-used over several
generations
• The bones of previous occupants were
moved aside as new bodies were added
• Rituals involving feasting took place at the
time of depositions

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The tombs go from the very simple…

Browne’s Hill, Co. Carlow 28

 to the large and elaborate

Newgrange, Co. Meath (reconstructed revetment wall) 29

and sometimes other elaborate functions are reconstructed
for the sites

Newgrange: the entrance, with “roof-box” 30

The midwinter sun
shines through the
roofbox down the
passage….

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… and illuminates the
chamber, with its
massive stone basin

32
Megalithic tombs were accompanied in some areas by their
own specific art style (Ireland, Brittany, Iberia) 33
 Social implications
• Distribution has been taken as indicating
centres of social groupings – e.g. Arran,
Rousay (Renfrew)

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Arran,
showing
putative
territories

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 Social implications
• Distribution has been taken as indicating
centres of social groupings – e.g. Arran,
Rousay (Renfrew)
• Form of some tombs suggest division –
family groups? social groups? e.g. Unstan
(Rousay, Orkney)

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The “stalled cairn” at Midhowe, Orkney 37
 Social implications
• Distribution has been taken as indicating
centres of social groupings – e.g. Arran,
Rousay (Renfrew)
• Form of some tombs suggest division –
family groups? social groups? e.g. Unstan
(Rousay, Orkney)
• Was this a “segmentary society”?
(Renfrew) How would one identify such a
thing?
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 A segmentary society is
• Not ranked (all “equal” or “egalitarian”)
• “Cellular” and “modular”, i.e.
• Clearly defined and operating
independently
• Roughly the same size
• Autonomous economically and politically
• Between 50 and 500 persons

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 Problems with Renfrew’s
interpretation:
• The territorial patterning is very suspect
(survival, contemporaneity, differences in
different regions)
• The tombs are better seen as one aspect
of constructions for the living
• Each tomb should be contextualised, i.e.
treated as a major enterprise of its own

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Megalithic monuments come in other forms too… 41
But the Neolithic phase
of Stonehenge was not
actually megalithic

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 Henge monuments (the name
taken from Stonehenge), stone
circles and alignments all indicate
related aspects of Neolithic
society

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Aerial view of Avebury, Wilts 44
Avebury - plan

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Knowlton Rings – a more typical “henge”
monument with no stones 47
Castlerigg – a large stone circle in Cumbria 48
Alignments at
Carnac, Brittany

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 Implications
• Engineering skills
• Organisation and a means of taking
decisions
• Scale of some monuments enormous
• Interest in other matters – astronomy?
– Newgrange roofbox
– Stone circles
– Claims for Stonehenge
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 All part of a move towards social
differentiation

• Finely crafted stonework in some Neolithic

tombs
• Soon to be made obsolete by metals
• Are these “Royal Tombs”, like those in the
East Mediterranean?
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