Journal
ANTIQUITY
Volume 86, Issue 333, Pages 707-722Publisher
CAMBRIDGE UNIV PRESS
DOI: 10.1017/S0003598X00047864
Keywords
Britain; Neolithic; Bronze Age; cereals; hazelnuts; arable farming; pastoralism; monumentality
Categories
Ask authors/readers for more resources
This paper rewrites the early history of Britain, showing that while the cultivation of cereals arrived there in about 4000 cal BC, it did not last. Between 3300 and 1500 BC Britons became largely pastoral, reverting only with a major upsurge of agricultural activity in the Middle Bronze Age. This loss of interest in arable farming was accompanied by a decline in population, seen by the authors as having a climatic impetus. But they also point to this period as the time of construction of the great megalithic monuments, including Stonehenge. We are left wondering whether pastoralism was all that bad, and whether it was one intrusion after another that set the agenda on the island.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available