Barbarians

by Peter Bogucki

  In contrast to the longhouses of the Netherlands and southern Scandinavia, roundhouses were the standard Bronze Age house form in the British Isles, often grouped into farmsteads of two to ten houses built from stakes or small timbers. Sometimes they are enclosed with a stone wall, as at Shaugh Moor in Dartmoor, where high phosphate levels in one of the structures indicate animals were kept in it. At Black Patch and Itford Hill in southeast England, small clusters of round huts about 8–12 metres (26–40 ft) in diameter were enclosed by fences to form compounds.

  The Nebra ‘sky disc’, central Germany.

  Bronze Age settlement is found in wetland areas in the British Isles, which is a bit baffling since these are not well suited for farming or livestock. At Clonfinlough, Co. Offaly, in Ireland, four wooden platforms 4–10 metres in diameter (13–33 ft) were built above a bog to support roundhouses dating to the Late Bronze Age. The platforms were connected by trackways and enclosed by an oval palisade. At Must Farm near Peterborough in eastern England, excavations in 2015 revealed that two roundhouses were built on platforms above or adjacent to an ancient stream channel, dating roughly to the same time as those at Clonfinlough.7 The Must Farm houses had burned down, probably accidentally and unexpectedly, leaving evidence of hasty abandonment in the form of wooden bowls still containing food.

  Bronze Age seafaring

  The significance of watercraft during the Stone Age of northern Europe has already been mentioned, and mobility on water developed further during the Bronze Age.8 On inland waters, dugout canoes continued in use, but the major advances came in seafaring. The transport of goods and people across straits and along coasts became commonplace. Narrow bodies of water like the English Channel and among the Baltic islands posed no obstacle. The Irish Sea has challenging conditions, but it seems that people could cross it regularly. Open seas, like the North Sea and the Atlantic between Ireland and Brittany, would have required navigation skills which were cultivated during the second millennium BC. Such transportation was necessary to link the copper and tin sources of the British Isles with the makers of bronze objects, and then to distribute finished bronze goods.

  In northern Europe, we find shipwrecks and abandoned boats (many of which are close to shore or even on shore), cargoes on the seabed presumably dropped by sinking vessels that disintegrated, rock carvings and etchings and graves surrounded by large stones to form an outline of a ship. Several Bronze Age boats have been found in the British Isles dating between 2000 and 800 BC. They have a fairly uniform construction. Oak timbers were split into long planks which were then shaped with chisels and axes to join snugly. The planks were then stitched together using strips of yew, that same strong wood that was used for the Iceman’s bow. Internal frames reinforced the shell. The use of sewn planks permitted the construction of very large boats. There is no evidence for masts or keels, so the inference is that these boats were paddled.

  In 1992, road excavations near Dover in England exposed the remains of a boat abandoned around 1550 BC.9 The recovered part was about 9 metres (30 ft) long and about 2.5 metres (8 ft) wide, but it is estimated that it originally may have been as much as 12 or even nearly 15 metres (40–50 ft) in length. Six huge sculpted planks were used for the body of the boat, two at the bottom and two on each side, with joints reinforced using additional strips of oak and caulked with moss. It is estimated that the Dover Boat held eighteen or more paddlers (and probably required more crew as bailers) and could ferry people, livestock and goods across the English Channel.

  The Straits of Dover were a crucial point for cross-Channel commerce and travel, as is the case today. Paths and roads must have funnelled into a small area on both sides. In 1974, in Langdon Bay near Dover, more than 400 worn bronze tools and weapons from France were found on the seabed. Apparently this was a shipment headed for recycling in England, but the boat carrying it sank. The vessel itself has not been found, perhaps because it came apart, but the cargo fell to the bottom.

  Dover Bronze Age boat, found during construction in September 1992 (as reconstructed).

  In Scandinavia, the principal evidence for seafaring comes in the form of over 10,000 recorded depictions of boats in rock carvings (discussed in greater detail below).10 Usually these are found overlooking bays and inlets. Their form is fairly consistent. Two roughly parallel lines converge at the stem and stern when the lower one, representing the keel, turns upwards. The stern is usually indicated by a schematic rudder. People on the boat are portrayed either by tick marks or sometimes stick figures. Although the boat carvings are very schematic, the consensus is that they also represent plank boats. Their inclusion in compositions with cosmological significance indicates that seafaring was not only important economically but also ideologically.

  Another indication of the importance of the boat in the cosmological order is the construction of stone settings around the graves of high-status individuals in parts of Scandinavia starting around 1300 BC, beginning a long tradition of ‘ship settings’ that lasted into the first millennium AD. In the ship-shaped graves, large standing stones have been arranged to imitate the outline of a ship in plan as well as in elevation. The tallest stones are placed at the stern and the keel, with the shortest at the middle of the boat. The ship burials usually contain the remains of one cremated individual, presumably of high social standing. Most are between about 2 metres (7 ft) and 16 metres (50 ft) long, but some very large ones are found at Gnisvärd on Gotland. Here, three large stone ships are arrayed in a line, as if sailing in formation. The largest is nearly 45 metres (150 ft) in length.

  Paddled, plank-built boats played a crucial role in Bronze Age life in northwestern Europe, and they continued to do so during the millennia that followed as boatbuilding techniques developed. They were crucial for transporting raw materials and finished products, as well as enabling people to travel long distances across straits and seas. Their role in the rock-carving displays and as the outlines of elite graves shows just how important they were, as travel and ritual frequently came to intersect in the Barbarian World.

  Death and burial in the Bronze Age

  Much of our knowledge of the Bronze Age comes from burials. This fact skews our understanding of Bronze Age life, since artefacts deposited in graves were often lavish and costly. It is important to remember that mortuary rites are largely a performance for those who are still living. They may only indirectly reflect the status of the deceased individual. Only in cases of over-the-top displays of wealth in complex burial structures can we assume that the deceased had a level of status and power above most other members of a community. Nonetheless, many Bronze Age burials contain such quantities of finely worked metals, including gold, as well as objects of materials from distant sources or which required tremendous skill to fabricate, that they can be ascribed to elite individuals. A major question, however, is whether these elite burials marked the ascent of a long-term durable social hierarchy or whether they were short-term social practices.

  At the beginning of the Bronze Age, the practice of burying individuals under mounds (also known as barrows or tumuli) that began during the third millennium BC in much of northern Europe continued. Typically, the corpse was placed in a small pit with other grave offerings, which was then covered with a mound. Over time, particular areas were defined as barrow cemeteries, such as the Haguenau forest in eastern France, where hundreds are found. In southern Scandinavia, Bronze Age burial mounds are silhouetted against the sky along higher parts of the landscape, whereas in Ireland the megalithic tradition continued in the construction of chambers known as wedge tombs, in which the slab forming the roof sloped downwards from one end to the other.

  In the area surrounding Stonehenge and Durrington Walls, Early Bronze Age barrows on the surrounding ridgelines look down towards the monuments. About 400 barrows are known, almost all of which have a line of sight with either Stonehenge or Durrington Walls. During the nineteenth century, it became fashionable to spend a Sunday afternoon digging into one
of these barrows. Although this activity was often little more than grave-robbing, occasionally some investigators had a more serious interest in finding out about these graves.

  Gnisvärd ‘ship setting’ Bronze Age burial monument on the island of Gotland.

  In 1808, William Cunnington, wool merchant and amateur excavator, opened a barrow in a cluster of about forty mounds just south of Stonehenge at Normanton Down.11 The mound, known as Bush Barrow, measured about 36.5 metres (120 ft) in diameter and was about 3.3 metres (10 ft) high when it was excavated. It contained a single, male skeleton lying on its left side in a crouched position. Two very large bronze daggers were in the grave, one with a wooden handle studded with gold-wire pins believed to have come from Brittany. Lying next to the body was a macehead made of rare flecked stone from Devon, and although its wooden shaft has decayed, its carved-bone decoration survives. Three gold objects were found, the most exceptional being a large diamond-shaped piece lying on the man’s chest, decorated with delicate incised lines. Rivets and bronze fragments near the skeleton were the remains of a dagger dating 200 years earlier than the rest of the objects, perhaps the possession of an ancestor. We can say confidently that the man in Bush Barrow, as well as individuals under nearby mounds, belonged to an elite stratum of society.

  Elite burials are also found in Continental Europe. The Leubingen barrow, excavated in the nineteenth century, covers a chamber about 4 by 2.2 metres (13 × 7 ft) made with a pitched roof of oak timbers. Under the wooden tent were two skeletons. One was a man about fifty years old, while draped across him was a younger woman. At his right shoulder and at his feet were gold ornaments, bronze tools and weapons and stone axes and pottery. The Leubingen barrow, and a similar one at Helmsdorf, are dated to the beginning of the second millennium BC. Elsewhere in this general part of central Europe, however, the standard burial rite involved placing the crouched corpses in rectangular pits, which are clustered into small cemeteries. The Leubingen and Helmsdorf elite burials have no real successors, so they do not seem to be the foundation of long-term social hierarchies.

  Oak trees were used in a different way in Denmark during the second half of the second millennium BC. Massive oak trunks were split and hollowed out to create coffins whose lids formed an airtight seal, assisted by water that did not drain out of the mound interior, creating anaerobic conditions. As a result, the contents of these coffins are extraordinarily well preserved, including cloth, leather and the deceased’s hair.12

  The most celebrated Danish Bronze Age coffin burial is that of a young woman about sixteen to eighteen years old from Egtved, found in a mound excavated in 1921. Her coffin was lined with cowhide, and she was covered with a woollen blanket. Unfortunately, only her hair, brain, teeth, nails and a little skin remain of her body. Egtved Girl is most famous for her clothing, which shows what fashionable young women wore in 1370 BC: a short woollen tunic on her torso and a knee-length, wrap-around skirt made from braided cord rather than woven cloth. Her hair was held in place with a woollen headband. Lying on her abdomen was a spiked bronze disc about 15 centimetres (6 in.) in diameter, decorated with concentric bands of spirals. Also in the coffin was a bundle containing the cremated remains of a child about six years old. Given Egtved Girl’s age, it could not have been her child, so the relationship between her and the child is unknown. We know she was buried in the summer, since a yarrow flower was pressed between the two halves of the coffin when it was closed. A birch-bark container held the residue of a drink made from fermented honey, wheat and fruits, including cranberries.

  The exceptional preservation of the girl in the Egtved coffin has recently enabled researchers using modern techniques to learn more details about her life.13 As with the Amesbury Archer, strontium isotope ratios made it possible to determine where she spent her early years. But since her fingernails and hair were also preserved, it was possible to reconstruct her activities during the final months of her life. The strontium isotopes indicate that Egtved Girl was born several hundred kilometres away from where she was buried. Southeastern Germany, in the area of the Black Forest about 800 kilometres (500 mi.) to the south, has similar strontium isotope ratios, so the working hypothesis is that she came from that region. She seems to have moved back and forth between Jutland and the Black Forest regularly during her final months. Her hair, which documents her final two years, and her fingernails, which track her final six months, also show that she visited areas with strontium signatures similar to that of her homeland. The wool in which she was buried was also not produced locally.

  Later in the second millennium BC, mortuary rites across much of the Barbarian World shifted from burial of the whole body to cremation. Across much of northern Europe, the cremated bones were placed in ceramic urns and buried in immense cemeteries that often contain hundreds, if not thousands, of burials. Rather than the lavish displays of grave goods seen earlier, the artefacts found in the cremation burials are usually personal ornaments, such as bronze pins and earrings. It is likely that many urn burials were covered by low mounds, although they have generally not survived ploughing.

  Borum Eshøj, Denmark; 19th-century drawing by Magnus Petersen of an oak coffin containing the body of an old man.

  Woollen blouse and corded skirt worn by Egtved Girl.

  At Telgte, near Münster in northwestern Germany, excavation of a 2-hectare (5-acre) area revealed 131 cremations. Many were surrounded by small, ditched enclosures. Some of the enclosures were round or oval, but 35 of them had a ‘keyhole’ shape in which the round end circled the burial pit but the enclosure extended outwards on one side, usually on a northwest–southeast axis. Some Telgte keyhole graves had structures built over them. Perhaps this was a way of marking the distinction of the deceased during and after the burial ceremony.

  The practice in Scandinavia of marking the outline of a cremation burial with a ‘ship setting’ of standing stones has already been mentioned. It is an open question, however, whether these were then covered by a cairn or mound or whether they were meant to be seen openly. At Lugnaro in western Sweden, a ship setting about 8 metres (26 ft) long was covered by a mound. Inside were urns with the cremated remains of four individuals. One urn contained both human and sheep bones, a singed piece of wool cloth that did not get consumed by the fire and a dagger, tweezers and awl made from bronze.

  Rituals, water and performance

  With the spiritual realm already well embedded in the traditions of the Barbarian World, the ceremonialization of beliefs and relationships saw further elaboration in the second millennium BC. We have already seen how the construction of major burial monuments was part of this activity, although the other side of it was how these tombs were also designed to display wealth and status. Ritual life in Bronze Age Europe involved continued construction of monuments that formed focal points in ceremonial landscapes and the deposition of vast quantities of costly artefacts, mainly of bronze, in wet places such as swamps, bogs and rivers. In many respects, the advent of bronze metallurgy was not only a technological leap forward but also a completely new medium for consecrating offerings made to propitiate deities. It would be as if a modern cult were to hurl perfectly good smart-phones into a lake.

  Stone Age monuments such as Stonehenge continued in use well into the second millennium BC, and as seen above, hundreds of individual burial monuments were added to the surrounding ritual landscape. Timber also continued in use to make henges. At Holme-next-the-Sea in eastern England, an oval arrangement of 55 posts that were cut during the spring or early summer of 2049 BC was discovered in the intertidal zone. It appears to have been an Early Bronze Age ceremonial monument, dubbed ‘Seahenge’.14 Seahenge was relatively small, about 6.8 metres (22 ft) across, but its most impressive element was the huge stump of an oak tree that was cut or died in 2050 BC, overturned at its centre. What might have been the meaning of the stump, and what was the significance of the shoreline location of Seahenge?

  During the second millennium BC, it seems th
at just about every wet location across the Barbarian World had the potential to be a site for offerings. For example, around 1350 BC, an immense timber structure was constructed in eastern England at Flag Fen, near the town of Peterborough and not far from the newly discovered settlement at Must Farm mentioned above.15 At least 80,000 trees were cut down and their trunks sharpened into points to build five long rows of pilings that ran for over 1 kilometre (3,000 ft) across a swamp out to a small clay island. Many of these trees were oaks, not natural to the wetland environment, so they had to be brought from a distance. The exterior piles served as a sort of retaining system for the earth and timber fill between them that provided a relatively dry route across the swamp. Tree-ring dates indicate that the trees were cut between 1365 and 967 BC, suggesting that the structure was maintained and repaired over about 400 years.

  At the deepest part of the swamp, the causeway was widened to form a platform by placing timbers across yet more pilings. From this platform, wooden, ceramic and metal objects, many deliberately broken, were thrown into the swamp. Metal finds included swords, spearheads, earrings, pins and brooches. Mysterious small white stones were also gathered and thrown into the swamp. Deposits of metal items are also found along the causeway itself, but only on its southern side.