Lecture Notes on Daily Life in Neolithic Scotland: a .ppt presentation
Kevin L. Callahan Department of Anthropology University of Minnesota
References ï P.J. Ashmore (1996) Neolithic and Bronze Age Scotland. B.T.Batsford, Ltd.: London ï Graham Ritchie, ed. (1997) The Archaeology of Argyll. Edinburgh Univ. Press: Edinburgh ï Anna Ritchie (1995) Prehistoric Orkney. B.T.Batsford, Ltd.: London
John Aubrey mid-17th century "These remains are [like fragments of a shipwreck] that after the Revolution of so many Years and Governments have escaped the Teeth of Time and (which is more dangerous) the Hands of mistaken Zeale. So that the retriving of these forgotten Things from Oblivion in some sort resembles the Art of the Conjurer."
Archaeology as The Art of the Conjurer "A conjurer, who makes those walke and appeare that have layen in their graves many hundreds of yeares: and to represent as it were to the eie, the places, Customes and Fashions, that were of old Times."
Scotland before the Neolithic (Ashmore 1996) ï Pleistocene glaciers covered Scotland. ï 13,500 b.c. - temperatures warmed to like those of today. ï 11,000 to 10,000 b.c - a cold snap. ï Tundra was covered by juniper and other shrubs.
The trees march northward ï 9000 b.c. - birch forests form in So. Scotland. ï 8,250 b.c. hazel forests start in the south.. ï 8,000 b.c. birch forests reach No. Scotland ï 7,500 b.c. elms appear in So. Scotland. ï Temps were warmer. Rainfall was 90% of today.
The mixed Oak forest of Argyll ï 6,700 b.c. Oak trees start in So. Scotland. ï 6,700 b.c. - 6,200 b.c. Elms preceed Oak moving through Argyll. ï Scots Pine covers the Grampian mountains between 6300 - 5500 b.c.
The transition at 4000 b.c. ï Transition from hunting/gathering to agriculture. ï 4500-4000 b.c. Nearly all 23 Scottish radiocarbon dates are from hunter gatherer sites. ï 4000-3750 b.c. 27 Scottish dates are from sites built by farmers.
Burials 4000 b.c. ï Large burial mounds (long barrows made of earth and timber),or ï Stone-built burial chambers covered by cairns
Housing 4000 b.c. ï Building materials: stone, timber or turf ï Rectilinear timber structures
Pottery 4000 b.c. ï Round bottomed
Weapons 4000 b.c. ï leaf-shaped arrowheads ï In southern Scotland a long bow, over 6 ft. long, of imported (!) yew was dated to between 4000 and 3600 b.c.
Stone tools 4000 b.c. ï Polished stone axeheads ï (at least in Ireland) ï Scotland ?
Crops 4000 b.c. ï wheat ï barley ï none are radiocarbon dated before 3000 b.c. but fragments of fields have been found under burial mounds and shell-sand.
Landscape ï Between 4500 and 4000 b.c. the Argyll area of Scotland had a mixed oak forest. ï Scotland was not blanketed by forest. ï There were good clearings and good grazing: ï 1) on the edges of uplands, and ï 2) around lakes, rivers and marshes ï peat preserved some materials
Woodland fires 4100 b.c. Hunters fired woodland at 1200-1300ft and around the margins of some lakes and fens "to improve pasture for red deer and encourage them to concentrate at known spots." (Ashmore 1996:22).
Pop. density of hunter gatherers ï modern ethnographic analogies to people living in deciduous areas suggests: 10-20 people for every 400 sq. miles.
Marine resources ï Sea and river fish ï shellfish
Hunting ï deer ï wild cattle
Vegetable resources ï fruits ï roots ï hazelnuts (storeable against famine) ï acorns (cupmarks as mortars?)
Stone resources ï Flint and chert beach pebbles ï Rum bloodstone
Hunter-gatherer marriage & mobility "Since human groups which are successful over the long term seem to require breeding populations of a few hundred, people must have travelled long distances to find suitable marriage partners"(Ashmore 1996:22).
Who moved out when people married? ï In some H-G societies the women marry out of the family, and in some it is the men. If gathering is most important, and if women did most of the gathering then women may have had an incentive to stay where they were since they already knew where the food resources were located from growing up in the area. ï There were probably many kinship ties.
Was there a non-intensive farming period? ï Swidden type mobile/fallow farming uses 5% of the area for crops. Hoes and digging sticks are used rather than spades or plows.There is no weeding or caring for cows, sheep or goats. Hunting, fishing, and wild roots, seeds, and fruits supplied food and there is much leisure time and less work than intensive agriculture.
4000 b.c. Intensive Farming vs. H-Gís ï An alternative for the H-Gís ï trade in wild meat and raw stone? ï helping and/or fighting each other?
Elsewhere in Europe - Denmark ï Fishing H-Gís on the coast "developed pottery and bred domesticated pigs around 5000-4750" b.c. (Ashmore 1996):24-5). ï That way of life survived 1000 years before they turned to agriculture.
4000 b.c. Intensive Agriculture - Scotland ï Clearing land by fire does not kill off grasses (the roots survive). ï Plows (ards) pulled by people or draft animals are needed. ï This is more work and requires care of animals and crops. ï One hectare and half was animal fodder unless pasture was available.
4000-3500 b.c. Farms in Scotland ï Probably individual ownership of land by a family did not yet arise (Ashmore 1996:26).
Oral traditions, ceremonial structures ï preliterate; believed in an afterlife ï regional variation in disposal of the dead ï west and north Scotland had chambered tombs ï eastern and southern lowlands
Chambered Tombs ï Mounds of earth, turf or stone with burial chambers, usually of stone. ï Square, round, shoe-heel shaped or 0 shaped. ï Some opened straight outward others had passages. ï Some had compartments. ï Many were corbelled (sloped in).
Religious beliefs - ethnographic analogies ï The body soul - leaves upon the last breath "and returns to some universal stock of life-force" (Ashmore 1996:29). .The dream soul - remains "in the dead body until it has been completely changed by decomposition, or cremation or another process" (Id.). ï The ego soul - "which retains a sense of personal identity" (Id.).
South Scotland building - after 4000 b.c. a rectilinear timber and stone mortuary house with massive D shaped posts lined by granite boulders and a timber facade w/ two interior posts and oak plank flooring and cremated bone was found ï After it burned it was replaced with a stone burial chamber.
The material culture of the Knap of Howar houses, Orkney 3600 - 3100 b.c. (Anna Ritchie 1995) ï built of flagstones, lintel slabs over doorways, upright slabs, 2 linked houses built into a midden, ï Unstan Ware pottery (round-bottomed & decorated collar above an angled shoulder, 78+ pots), ï bones of animals (domesticated cattle, sheep and pigs;wild deer, whales, seals),
Knap of Howar - food ï birds (gannets, fulmars, guillemots, great auk - oil & meat), eggs fish (from shore, hook and line - young saithe, ballan wrasse, rockling; from boats up to 5 miles out with hook and line and baited dropnet - large saithe, ling, cod, halibut and turbot), ï marine shellfish (oysters, winkles, cockles, razorfish; limpets for bait), land snails (suggesting grassland),
Knap of Howar -water, fuel,crops ï near freshwater pools, cleared land, ï charcoal of driftwood (spruce or larch), charcoal of the midden (alder and birch), oysters, ï barley, wheat, ï tools: whalebone spatula and mallet head; small polished hand axe ï manure spreading on fields and plows have been found elsewhere in the Orkneys.
Knap of Howar - Tool manufacture ï workshop ï bone dress-pins skin-working tools: bone awls; blunt end embossing tools perhaps to decorate clothing, carpentry and flint-working? Stone knives, scrapers from flint and chert, sandstone beach-pebble hammerstones, quern-stones, pointed tools, a fine grinding-stone.
Chambered tombs ï Unstan Ware pottery was found in tombs and houses ï Tomb pottery was thicker, bigger and solid ï Home pottery was small and fiinely made.
SkaraBrae 3100 - 2500 b.c. ï stone built furniture ï timber (whale ribs) and turf roof supports ï dressers, bed heather and straw mattresses, animal skin coverings ï storage spaces sealed to hold water
Gender? right hand bed (male?) is always larger than the left (female?). Beads and paint pots were found on the smaller beds. A person always had to turn right to enter. A gendered spatial orientation?view of the universe ? Left is female?, right is male?.
Secrecy and security ï A secret space under the dresser ï A bar hole on both side of doors. ï In the interior one could stand, entrances required crawling ï A lavatory drain.
House 7 - isolated ï House 7ís door is barred from outside (!) ï Over stone built graves of 2 females buried before construction ï punishment, meditation, initiation, childbirth, menstruation? ï chert working debris Childeís "workshop" ï heating and cooling chert to improve its flaking qualities
Art,etc. ï carved patterns on the walls ï grooved ware ï bone necklaces and bone pins ï carved balls and axes ï flint/chert knives ï pumice washed up from Iceland
Organic materials ï rope made of twisted heather with a finely carved wooden handle ï Puff balls filled with a fibrous material like cotton-wool used in recent times to staunch bleeding
The houses at Rinyo in Rousay ï A clay oven ï applied and Grooved Ware pottery ï small flint tools ï polished stone axes ï broken macehead ï plain stone balls
Rinyo ï lumps of haematite polished by use ï "Skaill knives" ï stone pot-lids ï stone vessels (small) ï saddle querns ï pumice with grooves worn by bone points
Barnhouse ï houses may have been intentionally cleaned and demolished at the end of lives or periods
Totemism? - Clan symbolism ï Tomb of the Eagles - white tailed sea eagles may have lived longer than the humans (6.5 ft wingspan). ï Did birds live in the tombs? Point of Cott-36 talons ï Burray tomb - 7 dogs ï Cuween tomb - 24 Scotty dog skulls
Tomb food offerings? ï Holm of Papa Westray - 20 lbs fishbones 30 sheep ï Knowe of Yarso- 36 red deer ï Knowe of Ramsay - 14 red deer
Houses in Argyll (Graham Ritchie 1997: 44). ï The Ardnadam, Cowal houses - ~3699 - 3342 b.c. ï flood destroyed the first 2 phases (on a streamís alluvial fan) ï post-holes, cobbled areas, hearths ï about 6 by 6 meters ï a later house was oval & 12 m in length
Auchategan, Cowal between 3254 and 2500 b.c. ï 60 Neolithic vessel sherds ï on a valley terrace over the River Ruel ï post-holes, hearths, flint
Carved stone balls and traded axes ï Found in three places in Argyll
Machrie Moor, Aran - date? ï Ard marks - Machrie Moor, Arran between ï ritual timber circles & later stone circles ï stake holes for land division
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GO TO LECTURE NOTES ON DAILY LIFE IN THE NEOLITHIC - a .ppt presentation
GO TO ETHNOHISTORIC SOURCES AND RECONSTRUCTION OF THE NEOLITHIC
KILMARTIN HOUSE ARCHAEOLOGY MUSEUM(Great website on this region in Argyll, Scotland)
GO TO ANTH. 1101 HUMAN ORIGINS WEBSITE
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