Prehistoric Britain Research Articles

What have Reconstructed Roundhouses Ever Done for Us..?

The reconstructed roundhouse is everywhere: on the television, in the literature, in the landscape. It has powerful currency in both the public and academic understandings of the vernacular architecture of later British prehistory, in particular for the Iron Age. However, because the focus of these reconstructions is normally on technologies and engineering principles on the one hand, or on the experience of their occupation on the other, the roundhouse reconstruction — even after more than 30 years research around them — in fact currently tells us remarkably little about the past and a great deal about who we understand ourselves to be. This paper will explore what insight roundhouse reconstructions currently do and do not give into later British prehistory and what they may be able to indicate if the act of building is taken as a theme over the technologies of their construction or the experience of their space.

Bridging the Two Cultures – Commercial Archaeology and the Study of Prehistoric Britain

This paper was given at a meeting of the Society held on 12 January 2006 and it discusses the relationship between academic research and developer-funded archaeology in Britain today, highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of each. It considers the relationship between archaeological theory and practice and discusses the changing roles of academics, fieldworkers and managers. It argues that important issues need to be resolved, including the dissemination of information from recent archaeological fieldwork and the use of ‘grey literature’ in informing more ambitious interpretations of the past.

In Darkest England: European exploration in Africa and its effects on 19th- and 20th-century perceptions of prehistoric Britain

ABSTRACT From the sixteenth century, antiquarians regarded the ‘savage’ inhabitants of remote ‘uncivilised’ countries as a model for the inhabitants and the landscape of ancient Britain. At the end of the nineteenth century important figures in the newly emerging discipline of archaeology were influenced both by contemporary accounts of equatorial Africa and the tenets of Darwinism. This led them to propose that the apparent concentration of prehistoric monuments on chalk and limestone uplands resulted from the whole of prehistoric lowland Britain being covered by a dense, impenetrable and uninhabitable jungle, which remained in existence until it was cleared by the Anglo-Saxons. This model, although contested by some from the 1930s onwards, remained a central principle of archaeological thought until the 1970s, by which time evidence from palaeobotany, aerial survey and surface collection rendered it untenable.

Processing of milk products in pottery vessels through British prehistory

By extracting residues from pottery sherds the authors show that it is possible to say whether they had contained dairy or carcass fat residues. Correlation with faunal assemblages showed a good match between the incidence of dairy fat in pottery which implied a strong dairy fraction in the diet and a milking herd implied by the animal bones. They also show that dairy fat was more likely to be found in the smaller pots while carcass fats occurred in the larger ones. The method has demonstrated dairying in England from the fifth millennium BC, and offers a novel way of studying economies with pottery but few animal bones.

Experiencing the past? The development of a phenomenological archaeology in British prehistory

In recent years the development of a phenomenological archaeology has provoked considerable discussion within the discipline, particularly within British prehistory. This paper provides a review of this challenging body of research, outlining its problems and potentials and setting it within its broader disciplinary context. Phenomenology has been used to great effect to critique the Cartesian rationalism inherent in traditional archaeological approaches, encouraging imaginative and valuable reinterpretations of the architecture and landscape settings of different monuments. Nonetheless, there are a number of significant problems raised by this work. The suggestion that the archaeologist’s embodied engagement with an ancient monument or landscape can provide an insight into past experiences and interpretations is critically considered. The epistemological status of the knowledge-claims made, including how and whether the patterns identified should be verified, is discussed. The contribution of phenomenology to postprocessual debates surrounding concepts of the self, the individual, embodiment and emotion are also explored. The work of key proponents of phenomenology such as Tilley and Thomas provides a particular focus, although a range of other authors are also considered.

Midden cultivation in prehistoric Britain: arable crops in gardens

This paper summarizes some of the geoarchaeological evidence for early arable agriculture in Britain and Europe, and introduces new evidence for small-scale but very intensive cultivation in the Neolithic, Bronze Age and Iron Age in Scotland. The Scottish examples demonstrate that, from the Neolithic to the Iron Age, midden heaps were sometimes ploughed in situ; this means that, rather than spreading midden material onto the fields, the early farmers simply ran an ard over their compost heaps and sowed the resulting plots. The practice appears to have been common in Scotland, and may also have occurred in England. Neolithic cultivation of a Mesolithic midden is suggested, based on thin-section analysis of the middens at Northton, Harris. The fertility of the Mesolithic middens may partly explain why Neolithic farmers re-settled Mesolithic sites in the Northern and Western Isles.

Clive Ruggles. Astronomy in Prehistoric Britain and Ireland. x + 285 pp., illus., figs., tables, apps., bibl., index. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1999. $65.

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook ReviewsClive Ruggles. Astronomy in Prehistoric Britain and Ireland. x + 285 pp., illus., figs., tables, apps., bibl., index. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1999. $65.Gail Higginbottom Gail Higginbottom Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Isis Volume 95, Number 4December 2004 Publication of the History of Science Society Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/432290 Views: 20Total views on this site Citations: 1Citations are reported from Crossref PDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article: Stephen P. Weldon Current Bibliography of the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences 2005, Isis 96 (Oct 2015): 1–242.https://doi.org/10.1086/isis.96.3652364

British Identities and English Renaissance Literature (review)

Reviews 175 Parergon 21.2 (2004) Reviews Baker, David J. and Willy Maley, eds, British Identities and English Renaissance Literature, Cambridge, Cambridge UP, 2002; cloth; pp. xvi, 297; 10 halftone illustrations; RRP A$140, US$60, £42.50; ISBN 0521782007. This volume aims to provide a new multi-focal perspective of early modern literature and culture, one that actively engages with recent developments in historical research into the diverse significance and contradictions attached to ideas of Britishness in that period. It focuses not only on England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, but also beyond their frontiers, on continental Europe and the New World, wherever people hailing from these territories – with a range of competing political and religious allegiances – happened to be. Challenging and wide-ranging, the 15 essays in this volume have been organized around the primary camps of history and literature, but by further addressing a series of themes, such as ‘Contested Peripheries’, ‘Union Questions’, and ‘Britain’s Brave New Worlds’, they fulfill the editors’ aims to promote ‘disciplinary cross-pollination’ founded on a ‘flexible, trans-island paradigm’ of British history ‘that is capable of highly nuanced elaboration’ (p. 2). The project to elaborate on, or complicate, grand narratives is evident in ‘Revising criticism: Ireland and the British model’, in which Andrew Murphy challenges the ‘Atlanticist’ model of Ireland’s colonization in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, whereby Ireland and the Irish were shown to have been counterparts of the NewWorld and its natives.Arguing Ireland’s distinctly European identity in early modern English colonial discourse, Murphy also positions his work in contrast with both the New Historicism and Cultural Materialism, both of which he suggests ‘engage primarily with large-scale structures and systems of power within cultural history’ (p. 33). One of the most fascinating essays in the collection is Christopher Highley’s discussion of the intersections between religious and nationalist modes of collective identity as manifested in rivalries between Welsh and English Catholics in Rome. By extension, Highley addresses the predominance of nationalism – even of localism – in preventing successful collaboration between English Catholics and their counterparts, not only in Spain and France, but also in Ireland and Scotland and Wales. 176 Reviews Parergon 21.2 (2004) The section on ‘British Shakespeare’ is a mixed bag. Matthew Greenfield presents an interesting discussion of 1Henry IV, which addresses its ambivalent, pluralist treatment of the national-imperial motif, and the range of shifting communities and alliances illustrated in the play, the essay preceded by a suggestion that ‘we will not have fully demonstrated the new British history’s value to literary critics until we can bring it to bear on Twelfth Night as well as Henry V’ (p. 71). Patricia Parker’s reading of the latter play, ‘Uncertain Unions: Welsh leeks in Henry V’fails to rise beyond the inevitable quibbling about ‘leeks’and ‘leaks’, or ‘breaches’; but, by contrast, Mary Floyd Wilson’s discussion of Cymbeline and the implications of the of the Briton acceptance of Roman rule and civilization as a ‘model of submission for Scotland to emulate in its union with England’ (p. 108), is a fine example of interdisciplinary work. There are significant points of convergence between some of the diverse essays in the collection, continuities which shed light on the merits of the mode of research proposed in this collection. Thus,Andrew Hadfield uncovers a similar use of the theme of the Roman colonization of ancient Britain in early modern justifications of the British colonization of the New World (pp. 164-9). Titled ‘Historians respond’, the closing section of the book provides some of the even-handed criticism of the limitations of this project. Thus, Derek Hirst argues the need for historians to incorporate some of the methodologies already established in literary study, by being ‘open to the permeability of generic and disciplinary distinctions among texts’ (p. 256). Jane Ohlmeyer, in turn, questions the perhaps excessive attention paid to Shakespeare in the volume in preference to non-canonical literature, while she also stresses the need to pay much more attention to polemical material in the Gaelic languages – and in Latin (pp. 2479 ). This is, of course, a bias which is...

Celtic Studies in Poland in the 20th century: a bibliography

Introduction Celtic Studies are concerned with the languages, literature, culture, mythology, religion, art, history, and archaeology of historical and contemporary Celtic countries and traces of Celtic influences elsewhere. The historical Celtic countries include ancient Gaul, Galatia, Celtiberia, Italy, Britain and Ireland, whereas the modern Celtic territories are limited to Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Isle of Man, Cornwall and Brittany. It has to be stressed that Celtic Studies are not identical with Irish (or Scottish, Welsh, or Breton) Studies, though they are, for obvious reasons, closely connected.

Scratches in the earth: the underworld as a theme in British prehistory, with particular reference to the neolithic and earlier bronze age

A number of examples where authors have invoked the concept of an underworld in explaining various prehistoric activities are catalogued and considered. In drawing this material together it is hoped that the case for exploring the underworld as a general theme in pre‐Iron Age Britain is made. In addition, the usefulness of looking at various prehistoric activities from the perspective of the underworld is considered. In particular, the phenomenon of inversion is examined.

Prehistoric Britain: The Ceramic Basis. By Ann Woodward and J. D. Hill.

<i>Prehistoric Britain: The Ceramic Basis</i>. By Ann Woodward and J. D. Hill.

:British Identities and English Renaissance Literature

Introduction David Baker and Willy Maley Part I: Opening the Field: 1. British history and 'the British history': the same old story? Philip Schwyzer 2. An uncertain union David Baker and Willy Maley 3. Revising criticism: Ireland and the British model Andrew Murphy Part II. Contested Peripheries: 4. 'The lost British lamb': English Catholic exiles and the problem of Britain Christopher Highley 5. 'Making history': Holinshed's Irish chronicles, 1577 and 1587 Richard A. McCabe Part III. British Shakespeare: 6. Henry IV: metatheatrical Britain Matthew Greenfield 7. Uncertain unions: Welsh leeks in Henry V Patricia Parker 8. Delving to the root: Cymbeline, Scotland, and the English race Mary Floyd-Wilson Part IV. Union Questions: 9. Reinventing the matter of Britain: undermining the state in Jacobean masques Jayne Elisabeth Archer and Philippa Berry 10. Mapping British identities: Speed's Theatre of the Empire of Great Britaine Christopher Ivic Part V. Britain's Brave New World: 11. Bruited abroad: John White and Thomas Harriot's Colonial Representations of Ancient Britain Andrew Hadfield 12. The Commonwealth of the Word: New England, Old England, and the Praying Indians Linda Gregerson Part VI. Restoring Britain: 13. Orrery's Ireland and the British problem, 1641-1679 John Kerrigan 14. Jacobite literature and national Identities Murray Pittock Part VII: 15. Historians respond: literature and the new British and Irish histories Jane Ohlmeyer 16. Text, time, and the pursuit of 'British Identities' Derek Hirst.

Direct chemical evidence for widespread dairying in prehistoric Britain.

Domesticated animals formed an important element of farming practices in prehistoric Britain, a fact revealed through the quantity and variety of animal bone typically found at archaeological sites. However, it is not known whether the ruminant animals were raised purely for their tissues (e.g., meat) or alternatively were exploited principally for their milk. Absorbed organic residues from pottery from 14 British prehistoric sites were investigated for evidence of the processing of dairy products. Our ability to detect dairy fats rests on the observation that the delta(13)C values of the C(18:0) fatty acids in ruminant dairy fats are approximately 2.3 per thousand lower than in ruminant adipose fats. This difference can be ascribed to (i) the inability of the mammary gland to biosynthesize C(18:0); (ii) the biohydrogenation of dietary unsaturated fatty acids in the rumen; and (iii) differences (i.e., 8.1 per thousand ) in the delta(13)C values of the plant dietary fatty acids and carbohydrates. The lipids from a total of 958 archaeological pottery vessels were extracted, and the compound-specific delta(13)C values of preserved fatty acids (C(16:0) and C(18:0)) were determined via gas chromatography-combustion-isotope ratio mass spectrometry. The results provide direct evidence for the exploitation of domesticated ruminant animals for dairy products at all Neolithic, Bronze Age, and Iron Age settlements in Britain. Most significantly, studies of pottery from a range of key early Neolithic sites confirmed that dairying was a widespread activity in this period and therefore probably well developed when farming was introduced into Britain in the fifth millennium B.C.

Roman invasions: the British history, Protestant anti-Romanism, and the historical imagination in England, 1530-1660

Examines how the legendary history of Britain by Geoffrey of Monmouth, continued to influence the Renaissance idea of ancient Britain

Data, Documentation and Display in Eighteenth–Century Investigations of Exeter Cathedral

Sam Smiles is Professor of Art History at the University of Plymouth. His books include The Image of Antiquity: Ancient Britain and the Romantic Imagination (Yale University Press, 1994) and Eye Witness: Artists and Visual Documentation in Britain, 1770–1830 (Ashgate, 2000). He wrote J.M.W. Turner (2000) for the Tate Gallery’s British Artists series and is currently working on a re–evaluation of Turner and his critical legacy.Antiquarian inquiries into mediaeval architecture developed new approaches in the eighteenth century. In England, empirical observation, drawing inferences from the built structure and its embellishments, was championed as a corrective to the authority of earlier written accounts. Starting in the middle decades of the eighteenth century, medievalist research was put on a new footing, with careful surveys and accurate drawings promoted as the means to recuperate the development of mediaeval building techniques and architectural style. The work done on Exeter Cathedral is an early example of this turn in antiquarian research. With two nationally important antiquarians serving successively as Deans, Charles Lyttleton and Jeremiah Milles, work on restoring and researching the cathedral was undertaken from the 1740s onwards. The Cathedral was also one of the first to be published by the Society of Antiquaries (1797), with important engravings after John Carter’s drawings, and essays by Charles Lyttleton and Sir Henry Englefield. The success of Lyttleton, especially, in overturning the received understanding of the Cathedral’s development is notable, but his terminological looseness and his respect for textual authority were to be challenged in their turn by Englefield. The clarification of the history of Exeter Cathedral can thus stand as an epitome of wider changes in method in antiquarian scholarship in the second half of the eighteenth century.

The Appropriation of the Material of Places in the Landscape: The case of tufa and springs

Springs have long been recognized as being significant places in the landscape, and there is ample evidence of later-prehistoric and Roman activity at spring sites. The Christian appropriation of springs as 'places', either indirectly by assigning their origin to saints, or directly by building chapels and churches on spring-head sites, is also well evidenced. The possibility that the material of petrifying springs - tufa - was both transplanted and appropriated, and that the symbolic properties of the material may go back well into British prehistory, is explored.

Pathways and Ceremonies: The Cursus Monuments of Britain and Ireland. By Alistair Barclay and Jan Harding. Astronomy in Prehistoric Britain and Ireland. By Clive Ruggles. Great Stone Circles. By Aubrey Burl.

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook ReviewsPathways and Ceremonies: The Cursus Monuments of Britain and Ireland. By Alistair Barclay and Jan Harding. Astronomy in Prehistoric Britain and Ireland. By Clive Ruggles. Great Stone Circles. By Aubrey Burl.Karlene Jones-BleyKarlene Jones-Bley Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by American Journal of Archaeology Volume 106, Number 1January 2002 The journal of the Archaeological Institute of America Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.2307/507202 Copyright © 2002 by the Archaeological Institute of America. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Caesar, Intelligence, and Ancient Britain

(2002). Caesar, Intelligence, and Ancient Britain. International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence: Vol. 15, No. 1, pp. 77-100.

Evidence for the possible role of beaver (Castor fiber) in the prehistoric ontogenesis of a mire in northwest England, UK

Excavation of the relict stratigraphy of a drained, agriculturally reclaimed mire in Lancashire, northwest England, has revealed evidence for prehistoric (i.e., c. 820–520 cal. bc) beaver activity in the form of gnawed timber stratified in the basal sediments. The lowest horizons of the peat deposits contained the intact root systems of a dense hazel wood, indicating that the mire probably owed its origins to the rapid flooding of a relatively dry landscape. The exact cause of this inundation remains uncertain, although beaver damming is a strong candidate. The possibility that beaver activity is implicated in the flooding of the site is potentially of great significance both palaeoecologically and archaeologically. The site may represent the first recorded example in British prehistory of a non-human animal playing a role in inducing mire development. It also adds weight to the possibility that some small-scale woodland clearances identified in British pollen diagrams (which have been attributed to anthropogenic activity) may be due to the effects of beaver.

Astronomy in Prehistoric Britain and Ireland

Do prehistoric stone monuments in Britain and Ireland incorporate deliberate astronomical alignments, and if so, what is their purpose and meaning? This work provides an account of megalithic astronomy debates and examines prehistoric man's concern with celestial bodies and events.