Archaeology of East Midlands Class 2 Beeston Winter 2015

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An Archaeology of the East Midlands Class 2: Earlier Prehistory in the Midlands Tutor: Keith Challis east-midlands-archaeology.blogspot.co. Beeston, Winter 2015

Transcript of Archaeology of East Midlands Class 2 Beeston Winter 2015

Page 1: Archaeology of East Midlands Class 2 Beeston Winter 2015

An Archaeology of the East Midlands

Class 2: Earlier Prehistory in the Midlands

Tutor: Keith Challis

east-midlands-archaeology.blogspot.co.uk Beeston, Winter 2015

Page 2: Archaeology of East Midlands Class 2 Beeston Winter 2015

Recap: Last Week

We looked at:

•What is archaeology

•Theoretical approaches

•Different archaeological disciplines

•The physical character of the East Midland

•Fluvial Geoarchaeology

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Class Summary

• The early prehistory of the Midlands• The Neolithic and Early Bronze Age (transitions)

• Coffee Break

• Themes in Archaeological Research: Aerial Archaeology

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Section 1: The Early Prehistory of the Midlands

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The Early Prehistory of the Midlands

• How far back can we go in the Midlands?

• The Bytham River and the colonisation of England

• The end of the last glaciation– Doggerland and the changing face of the land

• The Late Upper Palaolithic of the Midlands

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The Early Prehistory of the Midlands

How far back can we go in the Midlands?

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The Early Prehistory of the Midlands

• The Bytham River• The largest river in England until

the Anglian Glaciation• Joined the Thames and Rhine

before flowing into northern North Sea

• Bytham gravels associated with very early hand axes

• The river provided a routeway for the earliest human colonists of Britain

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The Early Prehistory of the Midlands

• Brooksby Quarry, Leicestershire.

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• The Bytham deposits are covered by thick glacial Till but exposed by later rivers in some locations

• At Brooksby quarrying of the Bytham gravels has recovered hand axes and important evidence for the landscape and environment of the time

• Remains, including Beetles, point to an open very cold arctic like environment

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The Early Prehistory of the Midlands

• Brooksby Quarry, Leicestershire.

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Brooksby Lower Palaeolithic find - handaxe of volcanic rock

• These very early hand axes are of quartzite or andesitic Tuff (a volcanic rock)

• After the Anglian glaciation flint using colonist reoccupied parts of the Midlands

• Britain as a whole may have been unoccupied during the Ipswichian glaciation and interglacial

• Neanderthal colonists appear around 60000BC in the Devensian

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The Early Prehistory of the Midlands

The end of the last glaciation…•From about 10k BC warming climate melted the ice sheets of the last glaciation•This lead to dramatic sea level rises, flooding the formerly dry land of the southern North Sea and English Channel•There is compelling evidence for both the landscape, fauna and presence of people in this now lost landscape

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The Early Prehistory of the Midlands

• Doggerland

• Artefacts and faunal remains trawled up from the 1930s onward

• Bryony Coles work in the 1990s speculated on the topography of the lost land based on the present sea bed.

• She coined the name “Doggerland”

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• The Pre Inundation Landscape

• Recent work using oil industry seismic data has identified the detail of the lost landscape, including river valleys, lakes and marshes

• Coring programmes have recovered environmental samples for analysis

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The Early Prehistory of the Midlands

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The Early Prehistory of the Midlands

• Artefacts from the Sea

• Artefacts trawled and dredged from the sea include spear points, mammoth remains and parts of the skull of a Neanderthal

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LUP Bone points

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The Early Prehistory of the Midlands• The Midlands – Creswell Crags• A limestone gorge on the Notts/Derbys border• Caves seasonally occupied by late upper Palaeolithic groups • Nomadic hunter gatherers ranged widely over the Midlands probably following animal migrations

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The Early Prehistory of the Midlands• The Midlands – Farndon• Evidence for seasonal activity on wetlands over a 2000 year period from 12,700 – 10,700BP• Hearths, occupational debris and flint knapping• Rare survival of LUP flint knapping scatter – one summer afternoon 10000BP!

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Section 2: The Neolithic and Early Bronze Age

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The Neolithic and Early Bronze Age

• When?• In British Isles Neolithic 4000 – 2500 BC• Some migration from Central European • Spread of agriculture and sedentary living• Ceremonial and funerary monuments

• 2500 – 800 BC• Adoption of copper and bronze working• Increased agriculture• Megalithic monuments

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The Neolithic and Early Bronze Age

• Landscape and Environment

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• Earlier Neolithic – undisturbed mixed woodland

• By third millennium BC evidence of forest clearance and cereal pollen

• Evidence for woodland clearance by burning and burning out of stumps of felled trees

• From River Trent substantial oaks with felling evidence

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The Neolithic and Early Bronze Age

• Evidence for Settlement• Debate, mobile populous and short

lived settlements or permanence?

• Lismore Field, Buxton. Three Earlier Neolithic long houses, floors, pits

• Charred plant remains from the buildings included emmer grains and chaff, flax seeds, hazlenuts and crab apple fruits and seeds.

• C14 dates ranging between 3990-3105 BC

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The Neolithic and Early Bronze Age

• Death and Burial• Long barrows and

chambered cairns in Peak District and Lincolnshire

• Long (mortuary) enclosures as cropmarks in Nottinghamshire

• Evidence for excarnation (Giant’s Hills, Lincs)

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Cropmark Neolithic Enclosures, Nottinghamshire

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The Neolithic and Early Bronze Age

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The Neolithic and Early Bronze Age

• The Cursus

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• Double ditch linear features

• Function uncertain – ritual path, linking or transitional zone, etc.

• Feature of classic Neolithic landscapes in Wessex

• Examples in Derbyshire (Aston and Potlock) and Nottinghamshire (Normanton)

• Linear post/pit alignments serve similar purpose elsewhere in Midlands

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The Neolithic and Early Bronze Age

• Potlock and Aston Cursus, Derbyshire

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The Neolithic and Early Bronze Age

• The Henge

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• Circular earthworks with bank enclosing a ditch

• Date from Late Neolithic

• Often continue in use in Bronze Age, sometimes with addition of megaliths

• Ritual, perhaps astronomical functions

• Henges (Peak District Arbor Low, Bull Ring

• Bingham and Gunthorpe, Nottinghamshire, Gunthorpe, West Ashby, Lincolnshire, Twyford, South Derbyshire

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The Neolithic and Early Bronze Age

• Group of BA round barrows

• One excavated in 1950s

• Further excavations in 1994 during construction of A50

• A spectacular hoard associated with the barrow

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• Bronze Age Burial: Lockington

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The Neolithic and Early Bronze Age

• Lockington• Parts of two pots and a dagger were also found

alongside two gold armlets.

• The dagger is an early form characteristic of Brittany and is the first example to be found in Britain.

• The pottery is interesting as it appears that the two pots were already fragmentary and weathered when they were placed on top of the hoard.

• The hoard was buried in a pit without any skeletal remains and situated on the northern edge of a funerary enclosure.

• Its position suggests that it was placed very precisely, possibly to observe some funerary rite, but at the same time allowing the option of later retrieval

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The Neolithic and Early Bronze Age

• Lockington• The embossed armlets illustrate the

great skill that was being achieved in gold-working

• On the right-hand armlet, the encircling ribs swell at intervals to form lozenge bosses, which are thought to mimic contemporary strings of beads in jet and amber.

• The surviving gold bands were

probably originally attached to an organic backing, such as leather, that has since decayed

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The Rillaton Cup

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• Assignment for next week (details on the website)

• Pick a county (Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Leicestershire)

• Read the summary• Come with thoughts on evidence for settlement

and burial and changes across the period

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Further Study