Food and Farming in Prehistoric Britain

by Paul Elliott

  The fields that were about to be sown with an autumn crop were treated with manure first. Sheep or cattle grazed on the fields so that they could drop manure directly where it was needed, while simultaneously rooting through the soil to dig out weeds. Ploughing had to follow quickly, lest concentrations of animal manure burned the ground (potentially leaving an infertile ‘scar’ on the field for some years to come). Weeds missed by the animals were then hoed out by hand before the soil was ploughed and furrows would then have been levelled—perhaps by dragging a log behind an ox. Once the ground had been prepared, a seed-drill ard was used to cut a fine furrow and seed would then have been planted within it.

  Families faced long, dark days ahead and any animals that could not be fed with the fodder in hand had to be killed. Sheep, cattle, and pigs not needed for breeding would be slaughtered first, although an efficient farmer would have planned to store an adequate amount of fodder and limit the number of animals that he had to cull. Older ewes and young rams would be likely candidates. Processing a butchered animal would have been labour intensive, particularly since the meat required drying, smoking, or salting; it was then stored up in the rafters of the roundhouse. For the rest of the herd, the last days of autumn were spent grazing on the fields, eating up the last of the grass in order to preserve as much winter fodder as possible.

  After the autumnal equinox, the next great festival was Samhain, which today is allocated to 1 November. Modern Halloween is now closely associated with this traditional Celtic festival, although it actually owes far more to the Christian festival of All Hallows Eve. Samhain marked the end of summer and the beginning of winter, a point that divides the warmer half of the year from the colder. It was a festival during which livestock were rounded up and decisions made about which were to be overwintered and which would be killed. It was also a time when spirits were propitiated with offerings of food and drink and where the souls of the dead revisited their homes.

  Winter

  The ferns are reddened and their shape is hidden; the cry of the wild goose is heard; the cold has caught the wings of the birds; it is the time of ice-frost, hard, unhappy.

  The Boyhood Deeds of Finn mac Cumhaill, Laud 610

  One might think that the prehistoric peasant spent his winter indoors, huddled around the fire while icy blasts of wind rattled the timbers of his house. Unfortunately, this luxury was not open to him, there were jobs to be done that he and his family simply did not have time for in the spring, summer, or autumn.

  Fallow fields, or new land that was earmarked for cultivation, had to be ploughed in order that frost action during the winter months might break down the soil. Away from the fields, a great deal of activity took place within local woodland. Trees were now bare of leaves and their sap had stopped rising. Now was the time to coppice stands of hazel and willow. A large amount of wood was needed for new fencing or for repairs. Other trees were exploited—the raw material for tool handles, hundreds of fence posts, and the timbers for any new buildings that were planned. Ash and oak would be the preferred tree for these tasks, with the offcuts going straight into the farm’s wood store.

  Daily tasks would have included general repairs around the farm, the roundhouse thatch would need regular maintenance and shelters, byres, and corrals might need constructing, repairing, or modifying. Animals required far more attention in winter than at other times of the year since they were now fed by hand from supplies of fodder, rather than left to graze freely on pasture land. Seed had to be prepared for sowing later in the year and this involved breaking it down from the reaped ear to the naked seed. This seed corn was put into storage for the coming year—without it, the community would have nothing to sow.

  Alignments at Stonehenge, Newgrange, and other Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments reflect the importance of the Midwinter solstice festival. Astronomically, it marks the shortest day as well as the longest night of the year. Our modern calendar usually places the winter solstice on 21 December; for farmers in prehistoric Northern Europe this was the darkest of times, when the long days and bountiful harvests of summer must have seemed so far away.

  Traditional festivals that involve the Yule Candle or Yule Log are almost certainly derived from a Celtic origin. Although ‘yule’ is a Middle English term, early Welsh texts (particularly the Romance of Amergin) certainly describe the Yule Log’s association with fire and its symbolic links with the sun god. Selecting, cutting, and transporting the Yule Log indoors was always done with great ceremony. The blessing of the sun god was brought indoors with the log itself, which stood as a symbol of light in the darkness of winter. Traditionally, many superstitions were associated with the Yule Log: it could be neither bought nor sold, but it could be stolen, cut from one’s own land, or accepted as a gift. It was often decorated with evergreen branches before being dragged to the house for burning, and, before it was lit, the log was sprinkled with grains of wheat or a favoured alcoholic drink. Bad luck would follow if the log failed to burn steadily or went out, and once midwinter was over, the remains of the log were stored and used to safely ignite next year’s Yule Log. These superstitions reflect rituals that have their origins in the prehistoric past.

  Now allocated to 1 February, the late winter festival of Imbolc marked the very beginning of spring. It was dedicated to the goddess Brigit, whose name was also taken up by the powerful northern tribe that called itself the Brigantes. Imbolc, like the goddess herself, was associated with childbirth and motherhood. This was a time of very obvious signs of growth and regeneration within the countryside. Shoots emerged from the ground and wild animals, such as badgers, began to stir from their slumber. Imbolc may also have been associated with the first lambing.

  Spring

  It is the month of May, a pleasant time; its face is beautiful; the blackbird sings his full song, the living wood is his holding, the cuckoos are singing and ever singing.

  There is a welcome before the brightness of the summer.

  The Boyhood Deeds of Finn mac Cumhaill, Laud 610

  Spring was welcomed—frosts were fewer, the weather was warmer, and the working day was longer. The first flowers were a sign of the coming spring and some, like coltsfoot and primrose, were a source of salves and medicines. Spiky gorse bushes erupted in yellow flowers and catkins appeared on the willow tree. These were good signs, willow was a valuable material used in basketry and fencing. The thorny gorse bush, too, could be used to quickly erect a stock proof corral.

  As the weather improved, the cattle could be led out of their byres. This gave the farmer an opportunity to clean out a winter’s worth of manure, load it onto carts, and spread it onto the land. More ploughing followed in order to mix this manure into the soil. Lambing began in spring ready to take full advantage of the long grass that had recently grown up in the pastures. Calves were also born and led to fresh pastures along with their mothers. Male calves, not earmarked as breeding stock, would be fed by their mothers throughout the summer and by the start of winter they would be fattened and ready for slaughter. Farmers had to take care, though; livestock that had spent months overwintering were susceptible to disease in the still chilly and often damp pastures.

  Each day of decent weather was exploited to the full and ploughing was soon followed by the sowing of the spring crop. Cereals like barley, oats, and spelt were sown first, followed by peas and Celtic beans. While cereals were a little hardier, legumes were more susceptible to frost, hence the need for a later sowing. Flax was most likely last in the sowing sequence, since its seedlings were extremely vulnerable to periods of frost.

  Beltane, a great end-of-year festival, was held before the year began again in Midsummer. The god Bel or Belinus was worshipped across Celtic Europe, he was the ‘Shining One’, typically associated with fire and sunlight. Beli Mawr (‘Great Beli’) appears in The Mabinogion as the founder of the Wełsh royal line and as the King of Britain. The primary ceremony, c
arried out at Beltane, involved driving the community’s livestock between two fires in order to purify and heal them. This must have been a difficult task, no doubt dogs were used to help and the entire community will have participated. Following this Druidic ritual, the sheep and cattle were taken out to new pastures.

  In late spring, the crops that now began to stand in the fields had to be frequently weeded with hoes, a vital job that ensured the crop was not swamped. The sowing of seed in narrow drills, or furrows, left dead space between them that could be weeded more effectively than a seed scatter might be. Experiments at Butser Ancient Farm have demonstrated that at least three good sessions of hoeing were needed to clean out weeds amongst a field of wheat or barley.

  Since honey provided the only real sweetener available to the Celtic tribes (other than fruit), beekeeping was practised by many communities. Bees swarmed in late spring. The imminent emergence of a new queen, raised within the hive by the worker bees, forces the old queen out and she takes with her at least half of the hive. They set out to build a new hive at this time of the year. Honey was used not just as an additive in food, but also as an essential ingredient in the fermentation of mead—a popular Celtic drink.

  5

  Tools

  Farming requires farm tools. This seems an obvious statement, but the tools required must fit the job and on any farm, whether arable or dairy (or mixed, as most prehistoric farms seem to have been), the jobs were many and varied. What tools should we expect a family engaged in mixed farming to possess? And what can be found in the archaeological record?

  Plough

  We have already discussed the development of the prehistoric plough (the ard) in Chapter 3. One or more ards would have been crucial to any mixed farming enterprise. Each ard would have been a valuable asset and its construction would have first required the careful selection of certain shapes of wood. Those parts of the ard that received the most wear and tear, particularly the share, were made of stone (and later iron).

  Spade

  Wooden spades fitted with metal ‘shoes’ that protect the cutting edge are commonly found in Roman museums across Europe. Unfortunately, finds of these useful tools are rarely represented in the prehistoric record. There are some wooden ‘spade-like tools’, but none can be definitively identified. However, spade marks have been found on several archaeological sites.

  Hoes

  Hoes are clearly depicted in one of the Val Camonic rock carvings from northern Italy. One man breaks up clods of earth behind the ard with his hoe, while another man carries his hoe ready as he leads the ox team across the field. Stone, antler, or flint heads are likely to have been mounted onto the ends of these hoes. A common type of flint tool from the Neolithic called a ‘rod’ or ‘fabricator’ is thought to have been the business end of a hoe. Each ‘rod’ is a heavy flint shape, long and narrow, with almost a square section. Mounted on a wooden handle at 90 degrees, these flint tools would have made excellent hand hoes.

  Digging sticks are primitive hoes that are still an important tool in hunter-gatherer cultures today. Essentially a sharpened and fire-hardened length of wood, the digging stick is used for digging up roots, for turning over the soil, as a spade, and as a method of digging holes for the planting of seeds. Digging sticks must have been used in the Mesolithic and doubtless continued to be useful throughout the Neolithic period. A number of ancient antler points, sporting a hole that has been bored through one end, have been interpreted as the hoe-like heads for prehistoric digging sticks.

  Sickles

  Metal sickles were used to harvest crops and cut fodder for animals in both the Bronze and Iron Age. Prior to the metal ages, crops were either uprooted or cut using flint sickles. These earlier flint sickles were fashioned in one of two ways; the first, and most common, was the mounting of several small and irregularly shaped flint blades on to the inner edge of curved wooden handles (and such sickles are also known from ancient Egypt). During the Late Neolithic, expert flint knappers in southern Britain were able to go one step further and create beautiful one-piece sickle blades.

  With the onset of the Bronze Age a number of sickle-shaped metal blades emerge and, rather than attempt to categorize these tools by the job they may have performed, it is simpler, and perhaps more pragmatic, to accept that they served as multi-purpose tools. Bronze, and later iron, was an expensive material that will have necessitated an adaptable approach to tool use. Knobbed (or ‘button’) sickles occur in the Middle Bronze Age, while the more sophisticated riveted and socketed types are found only from the Late Bronze Age onward.

  The Iron Age led to a great variety of curved blades being used in agriculture, some of which may have been used primarily for harvesting, others for pruning and many (I am sure) for both. The emergence of the classic billhook shape appears during the British Iron Age, here the main part of the blade is straight like a heavy knife, with only the tip curved. Reaping hooks are more generally curved throughout their length. Some commentators have associated this new type of tool with a deteriorating Iron Age climate and the necessity to collect winter fodder. I believe, however, that the increased supply of iron allowed for more specialisation in blade shapes, and that, in previous ages, fodder would have been cut using the bronze sickle or its flint equivalent.

  Pitchforks

  Handling large amounts of straw and hay required the use of a rake or pitch fork. Presumably these were made of wood and so their remains are rarely discovered. Excavations on the Somerset Levels did reveal one ancient pitchfork, and although it was probably used to lift rushes rather than straw, it certainly illustrates that the prehistoric farmer had this tool in his inventory. I have used some beautifully made reconstructions, the most striking of which was a single piece of branch that had been carefully selected by its maker for the job. A single straight bough served as the fork’s handle and at its end the fork split naturally into four smaller branches. These had been shaped with steam, then shortened and sharpened to form the ‘forks’ of the pitchfork.

  The Neolithic axe quarry at Langdale Pikes in the Lake District is still littered with worked blades, fragments, and waste. Axes were produced from the fine greenstone of the mountain and then transported across Britain. While most of the stones here are blades with symmetrically worked edges, the piece on the far right is a large, 19-cm-long flake, produced during the axe-making process. (Author’s collection)

  Axes

  Axes of stone or flint were used in the Neolithic period and they served as an important multi-purpose tool, powering the agricultural way of life. Certain types of stone were especially prized as material for axe production and the quarries were located at sites in the rugged western fringes of Britain. From there axes were ‘exported’ to communities further afield. By far the most important quarry (producing perhaps the best or the most prestigious stone axe-heads) was the site atop the Langdale Pikes, a group of stunning mountain peaks at the heart of the Lake District. The grand vistas and imposing pinnacle, known as the Pike o’ Stickle at the mountain’s summit, certainly impress a visitor today. Hiking to the top, I was amazed to find thousands of waste pieces littering the summit, most chipped from roughed-out axe-heads. Langdale Pike is also remarkable for a wide grassy area close to the peak that surely must have served as the summer camping ground for the quarry workers and their families. Did western tribes make their livings from quarrying stone axe ‘blanks’ and trading them to others? Some axe finds from the Neolithic are finely polished, creating almost a work of art, a highly prized object that could be traded, given as a gift or used. Some found their way here from Ireland and a small number of exotic greenstone axes had been imported all the way from the Alps.

  Rare wooden axe hafts from the Neolithic.

  1. Shulishader, Isle of Lewis.

  2. Etton, Cambridgeshire.

  3. Edercloon, County Longford.

  4. County Monaghan.

 
(F. Pryor and A. Sheridan)

  The axe had an obvious use in felling trees either for forest clearance or timber. Boats, looms, wagons, and lathes required good timber as did the pillars for roundhouses, ploughs, and fence posts. Countless other wooden items also depended on the existence of the axe: ladders, stools, benches, beds, animal traps, shelters, bows, spears, tool handles, frames for stretching skins, and others for drying or smoking meat. Axes (probably of different sizes) were used to fell the tree, remove its branches, split logs, and shape wood. Did every adult male possess his own axe, or perhaps more than one if he was of a high status? Over 20,000 stone axes of Irish origin have already been found, many more than anticipated.

  With the onset of the Early Bronze Age, axes were cast first in copper and then in bronze. These first blades are known as ‘flat axes’ since they were simply the product of pouring molten metal into an open mould. A rapid technological progression soon followed, axes began to be cast with flanges in order that they might better grip their wooden haft, but soon palstave types and socketed types were produced. The remains of a Bronze Age timber circle, known as Seahenge, which was uncovered on a beach at Holme-next-the-Sea in Norfolk, was carefully studied by timber experts. The unique cut marks of between fifty and sixty individual bronze axes were identified on the Seahenge timbers. This probably illustrates the work of an entire community on one large project. Axes developed in the Iron Age differ little from those found in hardware stores today; there has been almost no improvement on that design in the past 2,000 years.