DeDanaan

Filed by Aine MacDermot

The Production and Exchange of Goods: The Bronze Age (approximately 3,000 BC to 700 BC)

The Bronze Age in Europe was an era in which occurred a number of major advances and which saw major transformations in the Neolithic world of all people in prehistoric Europe, including the Celts and those in Southwest Asia and other regions. The years between 3000 BC and 700 BC represent a crucial phase of development for social, technological, and economic systems. At the beginning of the Bronze Age, life revolved around the common needs of subsistence, production, and shelter, centered within the environment of a simple agricultural settlement. (1)

At first, these settlements were nothing more than a vast area of undefended fields with scattered mud huts within areas that were favorable for cultivation, grazing, foraging, hunting and fishing, or in the case of the more western regions, caves which had been previously occupied by hunter-gatherers, with adjoining forests, waters, and fields. The early farmers, knowing nothing about fertilizer or land improvement, would cultivate a certain area until it was no longer productive, and then move on to some other more productive area, all the while continuing to supplement their food supply with herding, hunting, fishing, and continued foraging of whatever was available. This was, in part, the cause of the geographic spread of agriculture from its origins in Southwest Asia.

Between the late Neolithic and early Bronze Age, due to an increasing population and, in turn, increasing pressures on limited resources (productive lands, for example), it became necessary to defend these agricultural settlements against neighboring peoples and invading marauders. The development of fortified settlements of different kinds, and battle axes and other weapons, reflect an increased level of aggression and competition amongst groups of people for limited resources.

During the period between the late Neolithic and early Bronze Age, massive henges and palisades were erected across the continent, and in Britain and Ireland, indicating a change in societal structure and ritualistic beliefs. Farming communities began to develop as defended settlements, scattered throughout the countryside. “Individual farmsteads and occasional small villages were scattered among the fields. In certain areas it seems probable that a hill-fort may have served as a focus of social organization.” (8, p.137) These defended farmsteads are generally called forts. The forts were mainly circular in design and the lands within the circle contained living quarters and food storage areas, as well as buildings for animals, and ceremonial and communal activities (such as grain grinding). The forts were surrounded by an earthen bank or stone wall and ditch. The lands outside the fort were used for cultivation and also for domestic animal grazing. There was only one entrance into the fort, which was closed at night, and the domesticated animals (cattle, pigs, horses, sheep, etc.) were brought inside every night to keep them safe from the attacks of wild animals and thieves. The remains of over thirty thousand Irish ring forts have been found, and it is possible to trace these forts from townland names. In Ireland, different terms were used for the forts, depending on the construction technique and the available building materials used: “dun”, “rath”, and “lios” for earthen banked forts, and “cathair” and “caiseal” (anglicized to cashel, and later to castle) for stone banked ones.(6) These “raths” and “caiseals” apparently contained two, three, and four houses apiece, but they were not the “only” types of dwellings in ancient Ireland.

Other ancient Irish lived on “crannogs” which were either artificial islands or natural islands improved by artificial means in the middle of lakes or bogs. These crannogs / islands were built up with layers of different materials, usually peat and brushwood, but logs, stones, straw, rushes, and animal bones were also used. Crannogs, which commonly contained only one house, were surrounded with fencing made of timbers, with extra timbers driven in to help support the foundation. These crannogs were also used by important people in times of trouble, because they were easy to defend. The remains of over two hundred crannogs have been found throughout Ireland, but only a few of these have been excavated: at Lough Gara (during a drainage project) and Ballinderry Lough. Because the crannogs tend to be rather damp, the moisture in the ground has preserved many artifacts which would have completely decayed under drier conditions.

Archaeologists investigating the crannogs have found wood and leather objects and even the remains of fabric; the timbers used in crannog construction were able to be dated fairly accurately by counting the tree rings in each piece of wood, and through the use of radio-carbon dating. Objects that were used in the smelting of metals have also been discovered, and it seems likely that the inhabitants of the crannogs, raths, and caiseals made all of their own weapons and tools. During this period the two-wheeled horse- or pony-drawn cart was also developed, which in Ireland was called a “carbat”, later translated into English as “chariot”. (7) Water transport, by this time was very well-developed both by sea and via rivers and lakes.

Metalworking for the production of tools and weapons became a major preoccupation for the people of the late Neolithic-early Bronze Age. The people who would later become known as the Celtic tribes were well advanced in metalworking and other skills over their more classical contemporaries, as evidenced by the complexity and technological superiority of the artifacts that have thus far been recovered from archaeological sites. The casting of copper tools became common practice after 3000 BC, and gradually various substances, tin and lead for example, were added to the copper to make it easier to cast, and also to extend the quantities of copper available. Considering the distribution of raw materials across Europe, Britain, and Ireland, it is evident that access to these materials varied, but this led to the exchange of both raw and finished materials over short and long distances to service the needs of those who had no local access to them. Gold was obtained from the Wicklow Mountains in Ireland, amber from the Baltic area and western Jutland, copper from many sources both inside and outside the islands of Britain and Ireland, and tin from Cornwall, Brittany, and Spain. (1)

As tool-making technology advanced during the mid- to late Bronze Age, agriculture also advanced with the making of metal plows and sickles, and agricultural surpluses began to occur. Trade on a large scale could only be financed by economic surpluses, which became available with the advances in agriculture. In a simple society, based mainly on subsistence farming and herding, the surplus of agricultural produce, combined with a geographic distribution of metals and other raw materials, did not go far enough to make everybody wealthy, and the emergence of a social structure began to evolve.

“From this period onwards the line of continuity which leads directly to the historic Celts may be traced in its essentials from the archaeological evidence. This continuity is identified archaeologically by the successive Únetice, Tumulus and Urnfield cultures of the Central European Bronze Age. The developed Únetice culture, named after the type-site south of Prague, appears to have emerged from the fusion of Battle-Axe and Beaker peoples and their immediate descendants, although elements developed from the former and their south Russian antecedents seem to have been the stronger of the two. Local development towards more clearly marked divisions within society was accelerated. This is shown most clearly in the disparity of grave furniture between the burials of the ordinary people and the aristocratic tombs of warriors and their consorts.” (8, p.26)

At this time there began to be a differentiation between social classes based on ordinary people, skilled workers and craftsmen, and the emergence of the ruling warrior-elite, whose power enabled them to amass fine goods and raw materials not available to most others. Evidence of the increasing complexity of burial rites can also be seen in the vast number of henges, dolmens, and mounds constructed at this time throughout western Europe and the islands of Britain and Ireland. There is evidence, too, that Bronze Age agriculture was not simply a means of subsistence, but took on a more ritual and/or spiritual significance.

“…a deposit of organic material identified as the possible remains of a brewed drink was found in a beaker at North Mains, Strathallan, during excavations in 1978/9. The site was a timber circle, bank and ditch (dated to 2330 ~ 60BC, in the transitional period between the Neolithic and the Bronze Age) together with several later Bronze Age cist burials. The beaker lay in one of these, accompanying the skeleton of a young woman aged around 25 years. The cist, situated in the centre of the timber circle, had remained partially sealed, hence the unusual survival of the organic material. Pollen analysis revealed a cereal-based drink flavoured with meadowsweet - perhaps something between mead and ale since meadowsweet is known as a flavouring of mead. The radiocarbon date was 1540 ~ 65BC. In addition, plant debris survived inside a beaker in a Bronze Age cist at Ashgrove in Fife, the slabs of which had been carefully sealed with clay. Pollen analysis revealed large amounts of immature lime pollen and meadowsweet, which again was interpreted as the possible remains of mead, but was unfortunately not radiocarbon-dated. Analysis of organic residues on pottery found near the stone circle at Machrie Moor, Arran, also revealed immature pollen - probably from broken-up flower heads - interpreted as possibly indicating the presence of mead or honey; although it was not possible to recreate recipes from the remains, nor to accurately date them. Each of these examples of the organic residues of Bronze Age brewing - the only ones I know from Britain - was found in a ritual rather than a domestic context.” (3)

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