Neolithic Trade and Industries
Attractions of Ancient Britain--Romans search for Gold,
Silver, Pearls, &c.--The Lure of Precious Stones and
Metals--Distribution of Ancient British Population--Neolithic
Settlements in Flint-yielding Areas--Trade in
Flint--Settlements on Lias Formation--Implements from
Basic Rocks--Trade in Body-painting Materials--Search for
Pearls--Gold in Britain and Ireland--Agriculture--The Story
of Barley--Neolithic Settlers in Ireland--Scottish Neolithic
Traders--Neolithic Peoples not Wanderers--Trained Neolithic
Craftsmen.
The "drift" of peoples into Britain which began in Aurignacian times
continued until the Roman period. There were definite reasons for
early intrusions as there were for the Roman invasion. "Britain
contains to reward the conqueror", Tacitus wrote,[56] "mines of gold
and silver and other metals. The sea produces pearls." According to
Suetonius, who at the end of the first century of our era wrote the
_Lives of the Cæsars_, Julius Cæsar invaded Britain with the desire
to enrich himself with the pearls found on different parts of the
coast. On his return to Rome he presented a corselet of British
pearls to the goddess Venus. He was in need of money to further his
political ambitions. He found what he required elsewhere, however.
After the death of Queen Cleopatra sufficient gold and silver flowed
to Rome from Egypt to reduce the loan rate of interest from 12 to 4
per cent. Spain likewise contributed its share to enrich the great
predatory state of Rome.[57]
[56] _Agricola_, Chap. XII.
[57] Smith, _Roman Empire_.
Long ages before the Roman period the early peoples entered Britain
in search of pearls, precious stones, and precious metals because
these had a religious value. The Celts of Gaul offered great
quantities of gold to their deities, depositing the precious metals
in their temples and in their sacred lakes. Poseidonius of Apamea
tells that after conquering Gaul "the Romans put up these sacred
lakes to public sale, and many of the purchasers found quantities
of solid silver in them". He also says that gold was similarly
placed in these lakes.[58] Apparently the Celts believed, as did the
Aryo-Indians, that gold was "a form of the gods" and "fire, light,
and immortality", and that it was a "life giver".[59] Personal
ornaments continued to have a religious value until Christian times.
[58] _Strabo_--IV, c. 1-13.
[59] _Satapatha-Brahmana_, Pt. V, "Sacred Books of the East",
XLIV, pp. 187, 203, 236. 239, 348-50.
[Illustration: FLINT LANCE-HEADS FROM IRELAND (British Museum)]
[Illustration:
Photo Oxford University Press
CHIPPED AND POLISHED ARTIFACTS FROM SOUTHERN ENGLAND (British
Museum)]
As we have seen when dealing with the "Red Man of Paviland", the
earliest ornaments were shells, teeth of wild animals, coloured
stones, ivory, &c. Shells were carried great distances. Then arose
the habit of producing substitutes which were regarded as of great
potency as the originals. The ancient Egyptians made use of gold to
manufacture imitation shells, and before they worked copper they
wore charms of malachite, which is an ore of copper. They probably
used copper first for magical purposes just as they used gold.
Pearls found in shells were regarded as depositories of supernatural
influence, and so were coral and amber (see Chapter XIII). Like
the Aryo-Indians, the Egyptians, Phoenicians, Greeks, and others
connected precious metals, stones, pearls, &c., with their deities,
and believed that these contained the influence of their deities,
and were therefore "lucky". These and similar beliefs are of great
antiquity in Europe and Asia and North Africa. It would be rash
to assume that they were not known to the ancient mariners who
reached our shores in vessels of Mediterranean type.
The colonists who were attracted to Britain at various periods
settled in those districts most suitable for their modes of life.
It was necessary that they should obtain an adequate supply of the
materials from which their implements and weapons were manufactured.
The distribution of the population must have been determined by the
resources of the various districts.
At the present day the population of Britain is most dense in
those areas in which coal and iron are found and where commerce is
concentrated. In ancient times, before metals were used, it must
have been densest in those areas where flint was found--that is,
on the upper chalk formations. If worked flints are discovered in
areas which do not have deposits of flint, the only conclusion that
can be drawn is that the flint was obtained by means of trade, just
as Mediterranean shells were in Aurignacian and Magdalenian times
obtained by hunters who settled in Central Europe. In Devon and
Cornwall, for instance, large numbers of flint implements have been
found, yet in these counties suitable flint was exceedingly scarce
in ancient times, except in East Devon, where, however, the surface
flint is of inferior character. In Wilts and Dorset, however, the
finest quality of flint was found, and it was no doubt from these
areas that the early settlers in Cornwall and Devon received their
chief supplies of the raw material, if not of the manufactured
articles.
In England, as on the Continent, the most abundant finds of the
earliest flint implements have been made in those areas where the
early hunters and fishermen could obtain their raw materials. River
drift implements are discovered in largest numbers on the chalk
formations of south-eastern England between the Wash and the estuary
of the Thames.
The Neolithic peoples, who made less use of horn and bone than
did the Azilians and Maglemosians, had many village settlements
on the upper chalk in Dorset and Wiltshire, and especially at
Avebury where there were veritable flint factories, and near the
famous flint mines at Grimes Graves in the vicinity of Weeting
in Norfolk and at Cissbury Camp not far from Worthing in Sussex.
Implements were likewise made of basic rocks, including quartzite,
ironstone, green-stone, hornblende schist, granite, mica-schist,
&c.; while ornaments were made of jet, a hydrocarbon compound
allied to cannel coal, which takes on a fine polish, Kimeridge
shale and ivory. Withal, like the Aurignacians and Magdalenians,
the Neolithic-industry people used body paint, which was made with
pigments of ochre, hæmatite, an ore of iron, and ruddle, an earthy
variety of iron ore.
In those districts, where the raw materials for stone implements,
ornaments, and body paint were found, traces survive of the
activities of the Neolithic peoples. Their graves of long-barrow type
are found not only in the chalk areas but on the margins of the lias
formations. Hæmatite is found in large quantities in West Cumberland
and north Lancashire and in south-western England, while the chief
source of jet is Whitby in Yorkshire, where it occurs in large
quantities in beds of the Upper Lias shale.
[Illustration: Map of ENGLAND & WALES]
Mr. W. J. Perry, of Manchester University, who has devoted special
attention to the study of the distribution of megalithic monuments,
has been drawing attention to the interesting association of these
monuments with geological formations.[60] In the Avebury district stone
circles, dolmens, chambered barrows, long barrows, and Neolithic
settlements are numerous; another group of megalithic monuments occurs
in Oxford on the margin of the lias formation, and at the south-end of
the great iron field extending as far as the Clevelands. According to
the memoir of the geological survey, there are traces of ancient surface
iron-workings in the Middle Lias formation of Oxfordshire, where red and
brown hæmatite were found. Mr. Perry notes that there are megalithic
monuments in the vicinity of all these surface workings, as at Fawler,
Adderbury, Hook Norton, Woodstock, Steeple Aston, and Hanbury.
Apparently the Neolithic peoples were attracted to the lias formatio
because it contains hæmatite, ochre, shale, &c. There are significant
megaliths in the Whitby region where the jet is so plentiful. Amber was
obtained from the east coast of England and from the Baltic.
[60] _Proceedings of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical
Society_, 1921.
The Neolithic peoples appear to have searched for pearls, which are
found in a number of English, Welsh, Scottish, and Irish rivers, and
in the vicinity of most, if not all, of these megaliths occur. Gold
was the first metal worked by man, and it appears to have attracted
some of the early peoples who settled in Britain. The ancient
seafarers who found their way northward may have included searchers
for gold and silver. The latter metal was at one time found in great
abundance in Spain, while gold was at one time fairly plentiful in
south-western England, in North Wales, in various parts of Scotland
and especially in Lanarkshire, and in north-eastern, eastern, and
western Ireland. That there was a "drift" of civilized peoples into
Britain and Ireland during the period of the Neolithic industry is
made evident by the fact that the agricultural mode of life was
introduced. Barley does not grow wild in Europe. The nearest area in
which it grew wild and was earliest cultivated was the delta area of
Egypt, the region from which the earliest vessels set out to explore
the shores of the Mediterranean. It may be that the barley seeds
were carried to Britain not by the overland routes alone to Channel
ports, but also by the seafarers whose boats, like the Glasgow one
with the cork plug, coasted round by Spain and Brittany, and crossed
the Channel to south-western England and thence went northward to
Scotland. As Irish flints and ground axe-heads occur chiefly in
Ulster, it may be that the drift of early Neolithic settlers into
County Antrim, in which gold was also found, was from south-western
Scotland. The Neolithic settlement at Whitepark Bay, five miles from
the Giant's Causeway, was embedded at a considerable depth, showing
that there has been a sinking of the land in this area since the
Neolithic industry was introduced.
Neolithic remains are widely distributed over Scotland, but these
have not received the intensive study devoted to similar relics in
England. Mr. Ludovic Mann, the Glasgow archæologist, has, however,
compiled interesting data regarding one of the local industries that
bring out the resource and activities of early man. On the island of
Arran is a workable variety of the natural volcanic glass, called
pitch-stone, that of other parts of Scotland and of Ireland being
"too much cracked into small pieces to be of use". It was used by
the Neolithic settlers in Arran for manufacturing arrowheads, and
as it was imported into Bute, Ayrshire, and Wigtownshire, a trade
in this material must have existed. "If", writes Mr. Mann, "the
stone was not locally worked up into implements in Bute, it was so
manipulated on the mainland, where workshops of the Neolithic period
and the immediately succeeding overlap period yielded long fine
flakes, testifying to greater expertness in manufacturing there than
is shown by the remains in the domestic sites yet awaiting adequate
exploration in Arran. The explanation may be that the Wigtownshire
flint knappers, accustomed to handle an abundance of flint, were
more proficient than in most other places, and that the pitch-stone
was brought to them as experts, because the material required even
more skilful handling than flint".[61] In like manner obsidian, as
has been noted, was imported into Crete from the island of Melos by
seafarers, long before the introduction of metal working.[62]
[61] _Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland_,
1917-18, pp. 149 _et seq._
[62] See my _Myths of Crete and pre-Hellenic Europe_ under
"Obsidian" in Index.
It will be seen that the Neolithic peoples were no mere wandering
hunters, as some have represented them to have been, but they had
their social organization, their industries, and their system of
trading by land and sea. They settled not only in those areas where
they could procure a regular food supply, but those also in which
they obtained the raw materials for implements, weapons, and the
colouring material which they used for religious purposes. They made
pottery for grave offerings and domestic use, and wooden implements
regarding which, however, little is known. Withal, they had their
spinners and weavers. The conditions prevailing in Neolithic
settlements must have been similar to those of later times. There
must have been systems of laws to make trade and peaceful social
intercourse possible, and no doubt these had, as elsewhere, a
religious basis. Burial customs indicate a uniformity of beliefs over
wide areas. The skill displayed in working stone was so great that
it cannot now be emulated. Ripple-flaking has long been a lost art.
Craftsmen must have undergone a prolonged period of training which
was intelligently controlled under settled conditions of life. It is
possible that the so-called Neolithic folk were chiefly foreigners
who exploited the riches of the country. The evidence in this
connection will be found in the next chapter.