Land, Power and Prestige

Bronze Age Field Systems in Southern England

David T. Yates

• Publisher: Oxbow Books
• Year: 2007
• ISBN:
  9781782974246
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Ancient History
• Index: History

A major phase of economic expansion occurred in southern England during the second and early first millennium BC, accompanied by a fundamental shift in regional power and wealth towards the eastern lowlands. This book offers a synthesis of available data on Bronze Age lowland field systems in England, including a gazetteer of sites. The research demonstrates the importance of large-scale animal husbandry in the mixed farming regimes as evidenced in the design of the field systems which incorporate droveways, stock proof fencing, watering holes, cow pens, sheep races and gateways for stockhandling. It is argued that the field systems represented a form of conspicuous production, an "intensification" of agrarian endeavour or a statement of intent, to be understood in relation to the maintenance, display and promotion of hierarchical social systems involved in exchange with their counterparts across the English Channel.

CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION

1.1 Living on the edge

European communities three to four and a half thousand years ago are said to have experienced the first golden or international age. The period of time between 2500–750 BC saw exceptionally rapid economic developments and social changes in comparison with anything that had gone on before. During this European Bronze Age, widely spaced parts of the continent were drawn together by an expanding communications network resulting in the rapid spread of new ideas, technological advances, material wealth and the movement of people (Harding 2000). Eastern Mediterranean civilisations of great refinement flourished during this era leaving behind a rich archaeological record. These palace ruins and the legends preserved in the Homeric epics have continued to capture the imagination of scholars and the general public alike. The legacy of these civilisations on Crete and mainland Greece is still accessible. A much more challenging problem arises in attempting to unravel the achievements of societies on the fringes of Europe. This outer zone never achieved the splendour of the Aegean dynasties but it did experience a remarkable pace of change and extraordinary wealth and richness of artefacts between 1500–700 BC: a period of time that has been called the Later Bronze Age. British archaeologists face a major challenge in trying to determine how closely the fortunes of our isles were tied to the economic and social dynamism evident on the Continent. What economic power existed here to enable leaders to attract in vast supplies of bronze metalwork from the continent? What produce was returning by way of reciprocal gift exchange?

Britain and Southern Scandinavia share much in common within the European scheme of things. Both are “offshore” land blocks separated from the European mainland by their own difficult but navigable sea crossings. Analysis of the archaeological record for both the Nordic group of states and the British Isles suggests that there is a common explanation or model of how resources, ideas and people were flowing back and forth to central Europe in the Later Bronze Age. Archaeological discoveries in Sweden, Denmark and Britain suggest that the continuity of power for ruling elites in temperate Europe was directly dependent on participation in a larger continental network of alliances and exchange.

Kristiansen explores the nature of central and marginal areas during the Scandinavian Bronze Age. He suggests that on a regional scale there is a distinction between southern, central, and northern Scandinavia, reflecting a declining degree of complexity and dependency (1987, 82). So in the Late Bronze Age, distinct enclaves of power emerge in southern Scandinavia around Stockholm on the Baltic coast, the Oslo fjord region, Bohuslän and Scania in Sweden (ibid. 83). These regionally important niches are characterised by a close correlation between agricultural expansion, intensified settlement, the ritual deposition of metalwork, the use of complex ritual gear and the occurrence of elaborate rock carvings (ibid. 83). In other words they had many of the flamboyant trappings of political power. Heading further north away from these flourishing southern Scandinavian power centres, there is less abundance of metal weaponry, more local imitation and less complexity in ritual and rock carvings.

The southern regional centres could not, however, afford to be complacent for they were entirely dependent on the maintenance of an inter-regional exchange network linking them to Denmark, Germany, Poland and a wider world. In this respect successful farming and diplomacy were essential in their dealings with distant elite centres in Continental Europe; failure on either count threatened access to exotic ritual information and prestige goods (ibid. 83) i.e. some of the props of their continued political fortune. The struggle for subsistence had been replaced by a struggle to maximise productive capacity. Just as in modern western societies, growing affluence, associated with economic dynamism, provided a new freedom of association where people gained status through consumption. Individual image projection was central to this new creed. Part of this ostentatious display may have been to rub home the lesson of a new parity. In this culture, admiration for economic success and displays of wealth won the respect of others in an increasingly cosmopolitan world.

For Kristiansen social organisation was based on a close relationship between prestige goods exchange and a complex ritual system which perpetuated an elite ideology. Ritual, social and economic dominance guaranteed success in the new hierarchical society, producing the necessary surpluses so essential in alliances and exchange. Kristiansen notes, however, the scarcity of evidence on the nature of the surplus being generated. He speculates that the extra-ordinary wealth from Scandinavia to Central Europe depended on home-produced cattle, sheep, dried fish, furs and seal oil/skins (ibid. 83).

This model envisages an integration of the entire Scandinavian region into an international core-periphery network linking through eventually to the Aegean. It was a network, the collapse of which in the Iron Age transition caused the emergence of new fragmented, self-sufficient communities no longer tied to the pressures and gains of a dynamic extended European economy.

One other aspect of the Baltic power bases is of particular interest to our own investigations. The Nordic power centres are located on the most fertile agricultural areas and in strategically advantageous locations controlling the flow of international exchange and trade. In effect Southern Scandinavia controls the movement of ideas, people and produce between Northern/ Central Scandinavia and Europe, the most important link being the crossing which now links the modern cities of Malmo in Sweden and Copenhagen in Denmark.

1.2 Southern England and the Atlantic economy

Kristiansen’s analysis of Southern Scandinavia demonstrates how resources, ideas and people were flowing back and forth between “offshore” Nordic and European mainland communities. A similar movement of ideas, people and produce was also occurring across the English Channel with long distance exchange linking the “offshore” land block of Britain into a wider cosmopolitan world. Rowlands in 1980 offered a theoretical model of the social structure of Southern England to explain these European links; a model which can now be reconsidered with the newly available data from commercial archaeology.

For Rowlands, Southern England formed one part of a larger economy (the Atlantic Region) uniting southeast England and northeast France. It was a region of varying economic fortunes in which communities of different sizes and power vied with each other to gain political and economic advantage. Despite fierce competitive rivalry, all the communities on either side of the English Channel were closely bound within a highly stable and expansionist hierarchy of alliance and exchange. So close were those ties that effectively the south east became more “Europeanised” and increasingly segregated from other parts of Southern and Northern England (Rowlands 1980, 37). This resulted in a community or people straddling the English Channel and united by a common culture. Just as with the Nordic regional economy identified by Kristiansen (1987; 1998, 64), the Atlantic region including Southern England would have an archaeologically recognisable geographic limit. That was certainly the case in Southern Scandinavia, for Kristiansen was able to map a definite zone of complexity–the wealth of metalwork and rock carvings simply tailed off in a northerly direction. If Rowlands is right, the symbols of regional ideology should also peter out in England as we progress further from the main hub of the exchange network i.e. the Thames Valley and its estuary and the Fenlands. As we head north away from the identifiable core areas of maximum growth in the south east, we should encounter a different pattern of settlement.

Within the South East corner of England, Rowlands suggested that there was a hierarchy of exchange. Of paramount importance may have been exchange between twinned coastal populations on either side of the Channel. In effect, there were cross channel gateways for the flow of specialist resources, people and new technology. Next may have been the exchange between centres along specific coastlines, followed by inland networks linking the coasts and river valleys to their hinterlands (1980, 38). Location on key points was essential to ensure access to a wider exchange and alliance network, preferably dominating the best possible soils (ibid. 34). The better the location, with access to external trade, the greater was the likelihood of local political dominance. Rowlands used the evidence of pottery, metalwork and burial distributions alone to suggest flourishing and densely populated zones in riverine settlements along the Thames, the English Channel coast and the East Anglian Fens (ibid. 34).

These specialist enclave economies had varying degrees of dominance and success. Their political power ultimately depended on the ability to accumulate, display and distribute wealth. Successful management of available resources including the mobilisation of labour would have transformed the nature of the lived environment. For Rowlands it was the seaboard and river elites that engaged in long distance alliance formation and exchange. Such densely populated niches or enclaves benefited from a centralisation of wealth and power greater than that in upland settlements. Rowlands admitted that there was little evidence besides the metalwork to gain any firm insight into the success of their long distance alliance formation and exchanges other than that “they must have been producing some kind of surplus in exchange” (ibid. 34).

1.3 The political ascendancy of the Lowlands of Southern England

In the same volume of the British Later Bronze Age in which Rowlands published his analysis, a number of fellow contributors presented new sites and new interpretations that supported his model for an emerging hierarchical society in the eastern lowlands. The new sites were located directly on the Thames estuary approaches or close by to the main river. First, there was the discovery of a substantial and permanent riverside settlement at Runnymede in the Middle Thames valley, with an impressive wharf which may have been a fitting show of display for a community evidently controlling wealth along the Thames and supporting specialist industries (Needham and Longley 1980, 421). Secondly, there was a series of Late Bronze Age ringworks in Kent and the Thames estuary. These circular ditched enclosures offered segregated living or meeting spaces and were associated with metalworking (Champion 1980, 237–243). New interpretations included a reassessment by Ann Ellison of the redistributive role of regional centres in Southern England (1980, 132–134). Those data (Ellison 1980, fig. 3) are now better understood as reemphasising the degree of association of formal metal deposition with nodal points. Finally, an analysis by the editors examined a significant shift in political fortunes down the Thames in the Middle Bronze Age (Barrett and Bradley 1980c, 255–265). Barrett and Bradley’s assessment of the growing importance of the lower reaches of the Thames valley is based largely on settlement, burial and metal evidence. They suggested that the core area of the Upper Thames, which had been the dominant power base during the late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age, was supplanted by the former buffer zone of the Middle Thames in the Later Bronze Age. This former buffer zone was ideally placed for the agricultural exploitation of the valley and this, combined with its ideal location for long distance exchange, ensured its wealth and political ascendancy resulting in the relative isolation of the Upper Thames. The new power centre depended on its ability to convert an agricultural surplus into wealth and status through exchange (ibid. 260). Shortly after the publication of The British Later Bronze Age, Peter Northover was able to demonstrate a dramatic shift in metal circulation zones during the Later Bronze Age, away from the traditional reliance on native ore from the west (Ireland and Wales), out towards the continent of Europe (Northover 1982, Figs 11 and 13). Northover’s discovery of signature impurity groups and alloy types in the artefacts of Bronze Age Britain supported the case that increasingly powerful Southern English political economies were able to acquire, control and ‘consume’ status objects obtained through European long-distance alliances.

1.4 Political economies and conspicuous production

At this point we need to pause and remember that both Kristiansen and Rowlands are offering theoretical models of the Later Bronze Age. They were using the best available evidence at the time in trying to establish the nature of society within the European world. The scarcity of their evidence is most marked in respect of farming, which they both recognise to be the critical factor in the emergent political economies. In Scandinavia we are left with a lingering possibility that drying fish and seal pelts in part fuelled conspicuous consumption. Rowlands also conceded an almost total absence of data in respect of the farming regimes ‘funding’ conspicuous consumption in the lowlands of Southern England (1980, 35).

If productive success was such a decisive factor in these societies, logically there should be evidence of the new value attached to productive resources. Intensive farming may have been the basis of rapid economic growth. It follows that land would become a new commodity to define, enhance, own and protect. Signs of the agricultural or animal surpluses generated should be apparent in excavation. Lynchets would remain after intensive cultivation and large herds of cattle and flocks of sheep would have needed to be penned and corralled for selective breeding. It follows that stock enclosures and lanes or cattle runs might have been deployed. In Britain we know this to be the case, for there was a drastic reorganisation of the landscape around the needs of food production particularly during the Middle Bronze Age (1500–1000 BC) and access to the valued lands became controlled (Bradley 1991, 58). A century of upland surveys and excavation has proved the existence in England of permanent field systems, representing the greatest prehistoric input of communal effort upon the landscape. For Barrett, agricultural intensification was the defining feature of the Later Bronze Age (Barrett 1994). The history of those upland investigations is outlined in the next section. It shows how until recently the nature of lowland farming and therefore our understanding of social change in the Later Bronze Age was largely dependent on extrapolated models derived from upland excavations.

1.5 Prehistoric field systems in Southern England: a century of research

Sustained archaeological interest in English prehistoric field systems started just over one hundred years ago and for much of that time it has been largely confined to the investigation of upland earthworks. There had been passing reference to ancient land boundaries in the 18th and 19th centuries, including those by Stukeley, Cunnington, Lane Fox and Jones (Bowen 1970, 67; Holleyman 1987, 6; Fleming 1988, 13), but the first archaeological investigation and publication of a prehistoric field system in England was not made until the start of the 20th century.

Reginald Blaker of Lewes was the first to argue in detail for the existence of pre-Roman lynchetted land tenure and the first to undertake and publish a survey of one such group of fields on the chalk downlands in the parish of South Malling (1902). That Sussex discovery was the first of many to be made in the county and Sussex archaeologists, particularly members of the Brighton and Hove Archaeological Club (later Society), pioneered much of the early work on prehistoric field systems. Foremost amongst them was Herbert Toms, a founder member of the Brighton and Hove Archaeology Club and Curator of Brighton Museum. Largely without instruction, Toms developed methods of analytical field survey that he used to work out chronological relationships by surface observation (Bradley 1989, 32). His Sussex surveys produced the first detailed site plan of a prehistoric field system in which the distribution of surface pottery was plotted (Toms 1911, 413), and recorded new earthwork discoveries at Buckland Bank, Park Brow and Plumpton Plain (Bradley 1989, 39). His interests were not confined to the county for he returned to his native Dorset and with his wife Christine, reinvestigated Angle Ditch and South Lodge Camp originally excavated by Pitt Rivers. He was able to demonstrate that Deverel-Rimbury enclosures at both sites overlay earlie...