History in other regions of the world have shown that mankind does not automatically jump from nothing to wooden boats, they use other materials, such as water reeds, which grow in abundance anywhere were shallow water lays, to form by just gathering and tying small single man boats. These reed boats obviously do not survive the passage of time, but yet we have found boats of reeds dating back to 5000 BCE in Kuwait and from inscriptions on temple walls we know they were common in ancient Egypt. Strangely, archaeologists are aware that our ancestors had access to reeds, but only used them for the roofs of the ‘mud huts’ they occupied.
If you can gather reeds to waterproof the roof of your round house - you can also make a boat!
Star Carr - Planking 8500 BCE
The discovery of this water-based lifestyle changes our perception of prehistoric man, from a dirty hunter-gatherer dressed in fur to a boat-dweller living in a stable, idealist society with ample food and water. We should never forget the everyday essentials of life - not just food and water, but sanitary requirements too. Water is not only a great way of washing your clothes, but also of removing waste products and rubbish. Why dig a hole and bury waste in a pit for the insects or wild animals, when you can just dump it overboard?
One of the greatest archaeological mysteries has always been the lack of evidence for Mesolithic civilisation. We have always wondered why there is so little evidence of human habitation before the Iron Age, and clearly now we see houses and occupation aside from the occasional cave such as Cheddar Gorge. In some locations, flakes from stone knapping have been found, and it was imagined that these sites were ritual feasting locations for the nomadic Mesolithic tribes. Undamaged tools and trinkets discovered at the end of walkways were interpreted as sacred offerings to the water gods.
This is, of course, complete bunkum!
These items simply fell off the boats that were the Mesolithic people’s homes, and could not be retrieved. By the same logic, you don’t really pay homage to the great god of the sofa by offering him your small change! If you spend a lot of time on a boat, you get used to looking for a harbour when night begins to fall. The simple reason is that you need to meet some basic requirements in life. Firstly, you need to stock up with provisions. You may be sailing on the water, but you need to stop and obtain fresh water for drinking and cooking. You may also need some other foods as you will sometimes require or desire more than fish for your diet.
The second requirement is shelter. Boats don’t do well in storms, and a harbour is the safest way of riding out any bad weather. The third requirement is company. Again, this is a basic human habit, and people who sail boats (particularly around the Mediterranean) always end up in a harbour at night with other people, as we are a species of social animal that loves to communicate and trade.
Ancient Philippine Balangay
Harbours
We have found 3 harbours in this region (as seen in our earlier case studies). The one with the clearest evidence is Durrington Walls; as we have seen in our case study, it does not have a flat ground level. The semi-circle has a distinct ‘V’ shape, making it impractical to build houses there – but it is a perfect harbour. The banks were built up around it to protect the boats from the wind and rain, then crannog-like structures were built at the groundwater’s edge to moor the boats and provide accommodation.
Next to the mooring site at Durrington Walls is the famous Woodhenge. Wooden henges were quite common in prehistoric times, and their purpose has always been marked down as religious or ceremonial – ‘don’t know’, in layman’s terms! Lots of pits with animal bones have been found here, and burnt hearths without any associated houses – so, to archaeologists, they are ceremonial feasting stations! I suspect that these were just markets or trading stations where people congregated at night to eat, drink, talk and trade. Woodhenge is thought to have been roofed; what I believe is that it was more likely a tower with a roof, as it was next to a harbour and we know from ancient written books that this was common place.
Maybe Woodhenge even had a tower with a fire at the top, to signify that the site was open for business, which would have shone like a beacon at night to attract all those who needed food and shelter. Today we think of lighthouses as serving to warn boats of possible dangers, but they could have originated in the Mesolithic to attract boats to harbours. The earliest recorded lighthouse was built in about 300 BCE, on the island of Pharos at Alexandria in Egypt. I see no reason why such a monument couldn’t have existed before that time. It is a fact that most lighthouses are situated on islands or at the end of peninsulas.
To prevent the wooden tower burning down, all you would need is a flat roof with a stone-lined fire pit under the hearth. The oldest surviving lighthouse in Britain is a Roman ruin at Dover. In antiquity, a lighthouse functioned more as an entrance marker to ports than as a warning signal, unlike lighthouses today. In our case study of Silbury Hill, I deliberately did not mention our interpretation of the true purpose of this largest man-made object in Europe. I thought I’d save that fact to discuss here, because we believe that the hill was one the world’s first ever lighthouses (Woodhenge was the other).
Silbury Hill Lighthouse
The height, size and shape of the hill allows the occupants to place a massive beacon of fire on its flat top, which would have been seen for hundreds of miles across Mesolithic Britain. Avebury, as we have seen in the case study, was another massive inland port with islands and a gigantic stone circle where people met and traded; it is, again, a natural harbour, as it’s at the end of a waterway. When you consider the lack of archaeological evidence under the mound, and the groundwater that surrounded this eccentric flat-topped construction like an island, it’s no wonder that the purpose of Silbury Hill has baffled archaeologists. There were no dead bodies, no gold, no treasure of a great king – it’s much more valuable than that, for it was a beacon that shone to gather together a great civilisation in what became the dawn of mankind.
Wood
Before we move on to discuss trade, we need to look at the ease of use and access to wood. Archaeology has given us strange ideas about the past and the people who lived in prehistoric times. We have disproved the idea of hundreds of men pulling large stones over a grassy Salisbury Plain, and replaced it with a vision of a nautical society floating stones down rivers by attaching them to large wooden rafts. Wood would be plentiful; it really does grow on trees! But again, we are left with the strange idea that prehistoric man spent hours, days and weeks cutting down these trees, which is not the case.
If you want to fell a number of trees in a short period, you don’t chop them down one by one, because it takes too long and is too exhausting. The easiest way of felling a tree is to burn its base with fire. Even the mightiest tree, such as the metre-wide trees found at the Stonehenge mooring, could be burnt down over 36 hours of intensive burning. This process allows you to fell several trees at the same time; all you need to do is maintain the fire, and make sure you aren’t under the trees when they become weakened and begin to fall! The downside to this method is that occasionally, in the dry season, the fire may spread out of control and burn through massive swathes of forest. This may give us a further clue as to why such vast areas of forest were cleared in the Mesolithic and Neolithic periods; perhaps they were burned not for farming as was first believed, but rather in the earliest industrial environmental accidents.
We know that this burning process took place, as charcoal has been found at the bases of some postholes where the builder failed to cut off all the burnt material before erecting the posts. Fortunately, because charcoal does not rot, we can still carbon date the postholes (as at the Stonehenge car park).
Trade
Man has traded almost since the dawn of his creation. The first evidence of trading has been dated to 150,000 BCE – long before the Mesolithic Period, so we can be quite assured that our ancient civilisation traded. When prehistoric man moored his boat in that safe haven, guided by the lighthouse
to show it was open, the chances are that others would be doing the same. If he had a surplus of fish, tools or trinkets he would probably end up trading.
There is no indication that money existed in those times, so we can assume that the barter system was used to trade goods – “I’ll swap you 10 fishes for that watery stuff with an added kick”, or “I’ll build you a boat in exchange for that wonderfully polished flint tool”. Bartering is a unique system that is alien to us as we live in a monetary system; history tells us that societies that used bartering systems had markets, and rules governing trade. This indicates a civilisation of great sophistication for, as we have now proved, the prehistoric Britons had what is known as an organised marketplace.
An Asian floating Market - timeless!
Non-monetary societies operated largely along the principles of gift economics. When barter did in fact occur, it was usually between either complete strangers or would-be enemies. While one-to-one bartering is practised between individuals and businesses on an informal basis, organized barter exchanges have developed to conduct third party bartering. The barter exchange operates as a broker and bank and each participating member has an account which is debited when purchases are made, and credited when sales are made. With the removal of one-to-one bartering, concerns over unequal exchanges are reduced.16
Are we seeing, in these harbours and lighthouses, a civilization with such a sophisticated bartering system that they had created the world’s first trade. A trade or barter exchange is a commercial organization that provides a trading platform and bookkeeping system for its members or clients. The member companies buy and sell products and services to each other using an internal currency known as barter or trade dollars. Modern barter and trade has evolved considerably to become an effective method of increasing sales, conserving cash, moving inventory, and making use of excess production capacity for businesses around the world. Businesses in barter earn trade credits deposited into their account instead of cash. They then have the ability to purchase goods and services from other members, using their trade credits; they are not obligated to purchase from the person they sold to, and vice versa. The exchange plays an important role because it provides the record-keeping, brokering expertise and monthly statements to each member. Commercial exchanges make money by charging a commission on each transaction, either all on the buyer’s side, all on the seller’s side, or a combination of both. Transaction fees typically range between 8% and 15%.
The ‘middle man’ of the exchange received a percentage of the value of any goods traded. This would have allowed him to barter for materials and a workforce to build the harbour and lighthouse. Or did his society understand that such a facility was necessary, and volunteer to build and use it together for the common good (making them prehistoric socialists!)? Either way, we have in one short chapter taken the archaeologists’ half-naked hairy Mesolithic man living in a cave (remember, mud huts came some 5,000 years later) and shown that in fact he was a boat-sailing entrepreneur with a marketplace to sell his goods and services. Someone is sadly deluded!
If we are right about this lost advanced civilisation, surely there must be other evidence of trade somewhere?
Tools
It’s almost impossible to date a flint tool, unless it’s found ‘in situ’ and we can date the layers above and below. It seems reasonable to assume that the most primitive tools are older than the most sophisticated, but it doesn’t appear to work out that way when you look at what evidence has been discovered. The first thing you will notice about Mesolithic tools is that they are sharper than the later Bronze Age tools! The counter to that is that they are more brittle. Were these tools made for the mass market?Are they the first disposable tools in history?
Why would you make such a tool?
Mesolithic microlith tools
Because, as any entrepreneur will tell you, that’s how you stay in business – by keeping people coming back for more. So, Mesolithic tools were more efficient, but Neolithic tools started to feature polished blades; these not only looked good, but could be re-polished and sharpened. The next strange item in the prehistoric tool kit is the stone axe – this was an essential item for survival in prehistory. There are three types of axe which have been dated to this period. First came the rough and ready axe with flint flakes bound to a wooden handle, very sharp, very practical.
Then came an axe which was highly polished and attached to the same type of handle; it is less sharp, but more robust, and looks fantastic. These axes show the hours of work needed to make them smooth. Archaeologists call these ceremonial axes as they show little signs of wear; alternatively, it’s possible that the axes were simply very well cared for and had all the dents removed on a regular basis – a little bit like washing and polishing your car, it’s not a ceremonial thing but a matter of pride. The third axe type is a complete mystery, and gives us an indication of the sophistication of the period. These axes were not only highly polished, but had a ‘mace’ handle cut into the stone. This may not seem such an incredible achievement at first sight, but if you’ve ever tried to drill a hole in a piece of granite, you will know just how hard it is. A civilisation that could achieve this using only basic hand tools deserves our respect.
I tried to use an electric high-speed hammer drill with a diamond head to cut a hole just 10mm into such a piece of granite. After applying the full force of my 14 stone body in the attempt, which resulted in frustration and only a tiny dent in the surface after several minutes, I gave up and called in an expert with an even more powerful machine. The truth is, no one knows, and archaeologists don’t want to ask too many inconvenient questions as according to them these primitives spent all day hunting food and living in mud huts – get the picture?
To drill these types of holes, you must have either metal or a tool called a ‘bow drill’ (or, for the larger holes in granite, a ‘pump drill’). The problem with these instruments is that according to current theories they were not used until 3000 BCE, in Egypt. So, either way, this prehistoric British civilisation had the skills and technology with which we credit the ancient Greeks and Egyptians some 5,000 years later. Is it possible that our ancestors used a simpler method?
Egyptian Bow-Drill - or was it invented earlier?
What we must keep in mind is that equipment such as drills would allow the level of sophistication in other areas, such as furniture, to evolve above all expectation. The standard of living would progress from mud huts to chairs and tables, and the evolution does not stop at housing; drills can also be used for other purposes, such as medicine.
Medicine
Dentistry has been found in a dozen or so human teeth dated to the Neolithic Period. It appears a bow drill was used to cut out decay and relieve pain as the drilling is extremely accurate. Moreover, this is an unbelievably sophisticated method; a tooth extraction is much simpler, does not require an expert, and is just as effective. That drilling was carried out instead of extraction indicates the strength of medical care in prehistoric society. Further medical evidence can be seen in one of the great untold mysteries of prehistory. Highly developed surgery methods of the Neolithic Period have been discovered over recent years
.
Scientists excavating a Neolithic tomb at Buthiers-Boulancourt, near Paris, found that its occupant had undergone a surgical amputation. The elderly man buried in the tomb had his left forearm carefully removed about 6,900 years ago, demonstrating that our ancestors had quite a remarkable degree of medical knowledge. The French National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research reports that the patient is believed to have been anaesthetised with pain-relieving plants; the conditions were aseptic enough to avoid infection; the cut was clean, and the wound was treated with herbal medicine (it’s amazing what you find when you fund archaeology correctly!).
'Expert' Neolithic Amputation
Intriguingly, the cut was made just above the ‘trochlea indent’ at the end of the bone, indicating that the surgery was ca
rried out by someone with a high degree of medical expertise. This was just one example; two other Neolithic amputations have been discovered in Germany and the Czech Republic. So, is it possible that this man travelled to Stonehenge for his treatment, or had advanced medical knowledge spread from Britain to Europe by 5000 BCE, some 3,000 years after Phase I of Stonehenge’s construction? We know that the man was well travelled, as one of his stone tools came from the stone range of the Ardennes in Belgium (at that time, Belgium would still have been connected to ‘Doggerland’, as the English Channel had not yet fully formed).
Neolithic Amputation of the arm - undertaken with ‘expert’ skill But it doesn’t end there; here is more evidence of a society that was ‘before its time’ according our present view of history. Trepanation is a surgical operation that involves the removal of a rectangle or disk of bone from the skull. The section of bone may be extracted with flint or metal blades by drilling a series of small holes, making intersection incisions, or scraping through the bone.
The Stonehenge Enigma (Prehistoric Britain Book 1) Page 17