New Light on the Neolithic of Northern England

Gill Hey, Paul Frodsham, Gill Hey, Paul Frodsham

• Publisher: Oxbow Books
• Year: 2021
• eBook ISBN: 9781789252675
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Archaeology
• Index: Social Sciences

These papers highlight recent archaeological work in Northern England, in the commercial, academic and community archaeology sectors, which have fundamentally changed our perspective on the Neolithic of the area. Much of this was new work (and much is still not published) has been overlooked in the national discourse. The papers cover a wide geographical area, from Lancashire north into the Scottish Lowlands, recognising the irrelevance of the England/Scotland Border. They also take abroad chronological sweep, from the Mesolithic/Neolithic transition to the introduction of Beakers into the area. The key themes are: the nature of transition; the need for a much-improved chronological framework; regional variation linked to landscape character; links within northern England and with distant places; the implications of new dating for our understanding 'the axe trade; the changing nature of settlement and agriculture; the character early Neolithic enclosures; the need to integrate rock art into wider discourse.

1

Langdale and the northern Neolithic

Richard Bradley and Aaron Watson

Summary

In the 1980s and 1990s, stone axes made in the Cumbrian mountains provided some of the best evidence for the extent of long distance contacts in the northern Neolithic, but now these artefacts must be viewed in a different light. New radiocarbon dates from the Langdale fells show that most of them were made between about 3800 and 3330 cal BC, and a review of the contexts in which the finished products are found suggests that they were losing their significance by the late Neolithic period. If so, their connection with stone circles or henge monuments was not as close as was once believed. More of them are likely to be contemporary with earlier structures: long barrows, round barrows, causewayed enclosures and cursuses.

New work has been carried out at Copt Howe, a rock art site in the valley below the Langdale Pikes. Two decorated boulders were associated with a glacial mound, and a new study of the pecked motifs shows that they are very similar to designs found in Irish passage tombs around 3000 BC. Thus they could postdate the main period of production of stone axes. Instead, they were associated with a new social network illustrated by the use of Grooved Ware.

Introduction

This is not the first study to investigate the Neolithic period through the production and distribution of Cumbrian axes. It was one of the aims of fieldwork undertaken at Great Langdale between 1985 and 1987, and when the results of the project were published as Interpreting the Axe Trade (Bradley and Edmonds 1993) the book attempted to interpret them in a regional framework (Fig. 1.1).

In one sense little happened over the quarter century that followed. Other axe quarries were investigated, notably Graig Lwyd and Mynydd Rhiw in north-west Wales, Creag Na Caillich, Perth and Kinross, North Roe, Shetland, Rathlin Island, Northern Ireland and Lambay Island, County Dublin. Irish axeheads were characterised in particular detail, but work in north-west England has been on a less ambitious scale. More stone sources have been located (not all of them of Group VI tuff); additional flaking floors were recorded when they were exposed by footpath erosion, and Mark Edmonds has conducted a detailed study of the technology and morphology of roughouts distributed across the Langdale Pikes (Edmonds 2004; Davis and Edmonds 2011, 172–6). The conclusions of the original project have not been questioned until now. The one unexpected development was the identification of rock art at Copt Howe in the valley below the stone source (Beckensall 2002; Edmonds 2004, 92; Sharpe and Watson 2010).

The Langdale complex in 1993

The conclusions of the original fieldwork are easily summarised (Bradley and Edmonds 1993, chapters 7–9). The Cumbrian Mountains (the Langdale Pikes, Scafell Pike and Glaramara) provided a major source of raw material throughout the Neolithic period, but axes were made in two different ways. In one case, the stone was extracted at the quarries, roughly shaped at the site and then removed to more sheltered locations for further treatment. At that stage, the artefacts were ready for grinding and polishing in the lowlands. This work was undertaken with limited success, and many tools were abandoned partly made. Alternatively, tuff was quarried with the aid of fire-setting, all stages of production were undertaken at the stone source, and carefully selected hammerstones were introduced to help with the work, which was undertaken with considerable skill. In one case, artefacts may have been made in the course of transhumance during the summer months; in the other, expeditions were undertaken with the specific aim of working the rock. It seems to have been important to use stone found in remote and dangerous locations (Bradley and Watson 2019). People knew how to reach them, and these places were unlikely to be discovered by strangers. Stratigraphic evidence from the opencast quarry at the head of Dungeon Ghyll suggested that the two ways of making axes were used in succession, and that the major quarries might have been employed at a later stage than more informal extraction sites, but no dating evidence was found in the excavation of this particular feature.

Figure 1.1 Places mentioned in the text.

After the axes had been ground and polished at settlements in less mountainous areas, the finished objects were widely distributed, with a particular concentration along the North Sea coast. Others were taken across the Solway Firth or travelled along and across the Irish Sea. The 1993 study followed Isobel Smith’s hypothesis that at first axes circulated over a limited area (Smith 1979). The few dates obtained from the Langdale Pikes raised the possibility that their distribution expanded during the earlier 4th millennium BC when axes from north-west England were deposited at causewayed enclosures in the south. A similar pattern extended into the earlier 3rd millennium BC, when these artefacts were associated with late Neolithic pottery, especially on the Yorkshire Wolds (Manby 1979). Following Aubrey Burl’s suggestion (2000, 114–17), it seemed likely that axes had changed hands in the course of meetings at henges and other monuments. These structures cluster on either side of the Pennines, with one group close to Penrith and another across the high ground in the Vale of Mowbray. Despite the fieldwork carried out since 1993, this interpretation has remained unchallenged. That is a little surprising as the age of henges and stone circles has been reconsidered, and so has the chronology of other monuments. Yet more importantly, the dating of Neolithic pottery has been revised during recent years.

The Langdale complex in 2017

Over two decades later, there were reasons for doubting this outline. An increasing number of radiocarbon dates had been obtained from quarries and mines where Neolithic axes were made in Britain. The great majority fell within the first half of the 4th millennium BC (Kerig et al. 2015, fig. 3); the one major exception, at Grimes Graves, was a source of arrowheads and knives as well as axes. It seemed that different locations were favoured for making late Neolithic artefacts. They extended from Beachy Head to Flamborough Head, and probably further to the north (Durden 1995; Gardiner 2008).

At the same time, the dating of Cumbrian axes had to be reconsidered. When the large collections from northeast England were first studied by Terry Manby (1979), it seemed as if they occurred in both early and late Neolithic contexts, the most recent of which were characterised by Peterborough Ware; only a few examples were found with sherds of Grooved Ware. At one time, it was thought that these ceramic assemblages were used in parallel and in different contexts, but subsequent work has shown that they date from separate phases: Peterborough Ware (now referred to as Impressed Ware) was made by the mid-4th millennium and Grooved Ware by 3000 BC (Ard and Darvill 2015; MacSween 2016). The results of the new work have serious implications for the chronology of Cumbrian axes. Most of the associations fall within the early and middle Neolithic periods between about 4000 and 3000 BC, and those artefacts that were found as reused fragments may have been of some antiquity when they were deposited. Perhaps the latest secure dating evidence is provided by the distinctive Seamer/Duggleby types which were made from Group VI tuff (Manby 1979, 69). New dates from Duggleby Howe suggest that they can be assigned to the period between about 3300 and 3000 BC (Gibson and Bayliss 2009, 68).

There is new information from the Langdale complex itself. It comes from two separate sources. The first is the discovery of an important series of pecked motifs at Copt Howe, a cluster of massive boulders that command a direct view of the stone source on Harrison Stickle (Sharpe and Watson 2010). These images had not been recognised in the 1980s. Had they been known then, they would probably have been assigned to the Bronze Age. More recent work suggests that most prehistoric rock art dates from the late Neolithic period (Bradley 1997). When these images were first identified it was tempting to relate Copt Howe to the later use of the Langdale quarries, for this might have been the time when henges and stone circles were built. Similar designs had been recognised around Penrith where there was a concentration of these monuments (Beckensall 2002). The designs resembled those in distant parts of Ireland and Britain. Perhaps they could be explained by Isobel Smith’s idea that Group VI axes were distributed over an increasing area during the late Neolithic phase (Smith 1979).

There matters stood until Stephen Shennan embarked on an investigation of stone axe production in Neolithic Europe. By good fortune, charcoal samples were still available from the 1985–87 excavations at Langdale and it was possible to date those from reliable contexts. Technical developments in radiocarbon dating since the 1993 publication meant that smaller samples could be processed than before and that it was no longer necessary to employ a mixture of charcoal taken from short-lived species to provide enough material for analysis. Even so, the results of the new dating programme are consistent with those from the original fieldwork. In keeping with practice at the time, few dates were obtained during the original project. Now there are sufficient to identify some striking patterns (although it would still be desirable to extend this work to the smaller workshops on Scafell Pike and Glaramara).

The dates associated with axe production at Langdale have been analysed by Seren Griffiths, whose detailed study of early Neolithic chronology in northern England appears in another chapter in this collection (cf. Edinborough et al. 2020). Her analysis was limited to the period up to 3250 cal BC and did not take account of later material. Nevertheless none of the dates from Great Langdale provide any evidence for axe-making during the late Neolithic period. Of course, the sample is limited to the sites investigated in 1985–87 (Bradley and Edmonds 1993) as well as earlier work at Thunacar Knott (Clough 1973), but this result is consistent with the re-dating of the pottery associated with Cumbrian axes in north-east England. Far from showing that many of these artefacts were circulating during the late Neolithic period, new studies of the Peterborough/Impressed Ware tradition argue that it emerged about 3600 BC and was the dominant ceramic style by 3400 BC. In the North, it was replaced by Grooved Ware early in the 3rd millennium (Ard and Darvill 2015; MacSween 2016).

Nor is there any clear evidence of a sequence in which informal production methods were replaced by more efficient ways of working the stone. This is not to question the stratigraphy observed at Dungeon Ghyll (where there were no earlier prehistoric samples to date), but it does suggest that both approaches to obtaining and using the raw material were employed concurrently during the Neolithic period. Different kinds of expedition were organised to obtain axe blades and reflected the needs of particular communities (Edmonds 2004, 145–50). The only exception concerns the highest of the well-preserved quarries on the south face of Pike o’ Stickle (Site 95). This was one of the most remote and dangerous of the stone sources, and here a sequence of radiocarbon dates shows that activity extended until the second half of the 4th millennium: 3450–3190 cal BC (91.7% probability).

This broad outline is consistent with what is known from other regions. In particular, the evidence for early Neolithic axe production at Langdale is consistent with the results of large-scale fieldwork at Stainton West reported elsewhere in this volume (Brown this vol.). The new dates from the production sites at Langdale are very similar to those from contexts containing Group VI axes at causewayed enclosures in lowland England (Whittle et al. 2011, fig. 14.123), but this could be slightly misleading as the dating programme specifically targeted excavated monuments of that type. The authors of Gathering Time suggest that axe production in Britain ended around 3500 BC.

There is only one anomaly. A single date from a flaking floor on Loft Crag is early Bronze Age. This may not be related to axe production, as new fieldwork by Mark Edmonds has shown that this part of the Langdale complex was reused for making ‘wrist guards’ (Davis and Edmonds 2011, 172–6). Even so, the date is a little later than would be expected for these artefacts.

The circulation of Cumbrian axes during the early and middle Neolithic periods

It seems as if the production and distribution of Cumbrian axes was mainly a feature of the early and middle Neolithic periods. It is not clear whether these artefacts retained much importance during the late Neolithic. So far, there is no evidence of this at Langdale itself, nor are complete axe blades a regular component of the Grooved Ware assemblage. This casts doubt on the link so often suggested between the circulation of these artefacts and the construction and use of henges, but very little is known about the chronology of these monuments in the north of England; even the early dates from Ferrybridge need extend no further back than 3000 BC (Roberts 2005, 234–5). The same applies to what may have been an unusually large stone circle at Lochmaben on the Solway Firth (Crone 1983). Similar observations have been made in other parts of the British Isles, and it means that the connection between these structu...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Abbreviations
• List of Illustrations
• List of Tables
• Introduction
• 1. Langdale and the northern Neolithic: Richard Bradley and Aaron Watson
• 2. Stainton West: a late Mesolithic and early Neolithic site on the banks of the River Eden: Fraser Brown
• 3. The last hunter of a wise race: evidence for Neolithic practices in northern England: Seren Griffiths
• 4. ‘Weird and atypical, even degenerate’ … or then again, maybe not? Early Neolithic enclosures in the North: Al Oswald and Mark Edmonds
• 5. Documenting English rock art: a review of the‘big picture’: Kate E. Sharpe
• 6. New light on the Neolithic: a perspective from north-east England: Clive Waddington
• 7. Street House in the Neolithic period: Stephen J. Sherlock
• 8. Recent work on the Neolithic landscapes of Cumbria and North Lancashire: Helen Evans, Antony Dickson and Denise Druce
• 9. Out of the shadows: an emerging Neolithic in the Yorkshire Dales: Yvonne Luke
• 10. ‘A most noble work’, at the heart of Neolithic Britain. Some thoughts on the Long Meg complex in the light of recent fieldwork: Paul Frodsham
• 11. A view from north of the border: Alison Sheridan
• 12. Monumentality in Neolithic Britain: the case of south-west Scotland: Julian Thomas
• 13. A new survey of the Carles stone circle, Castlerigg, Cumbria: Al Oswald and Constance Durgeat
• 14. Two newly-identified possible‘hengiform’ monuments in the North Pennines: Stewart Ainsworth, David McOmish, Al Oswald and Andrew Payne
• 15. The end of the Neolithic? Early Bell Beaker groups in northern England: A.P. Fitzpatrick