The issue that I have with this report is the assumption that
pastoralists were roaming at all. That may be an option in the
tropics were it becomes necessary to move out of locales during the
rainy season. It is not when you have to provide winter fodder and
must harvest fodder in the early summer. At best, you can go to
higher elevations for better late summer pasture as is done in
Switzerland. However, the last time I checked, there is a distinct
lack of high country in Britain.
What is true is that the core agricultural life way was built around
cattle beginning at least 9000 years ago. This life way needed open
fields for pasture and quality fields to produce hay. This leads
naturally to additional crop production when appropriate seeds become
available. I think that this story held true throughout Europe
generally.
Recall that a single cow can generally do much to support a family
and produce its replacements and all that. At the same time it does
not compete for food. Any other way of making a living in this
primitive society entailed a great deal more effort and risk. That
is why young boys were sent out to keep the cow company.
Once one understands the centrality of cattle culture, then all other
crops can be understood as optional depending on locale and general
conditions. It would be easy for old grain fields to shift back into
pasture and hay if new owners came along. This would be particularly
so if fertility fell too much.
Thus interpreting the archeological record is way more chancy than
indicated here and it is too easy to fall into the trap of assuming
apparent change means anything at all.
Herders, not
farmers, built Stonehenge
Posted by TANN,
The ancient builders
of Stonehenge may have had a surprisingly meaty diet and mobile way
of life. Although farming first reached the British Isles around
6,000 years ago, cultivation had given way to animal raising and
herding by the time Stonehenge and other massive stone monuments
began to dot the landscape, a new study finds.
Agriculture’s
British debut occurred during a mild, wet period that enabled the
introduction of Mediterranean crops such as emmer wheat, barley and
grapes, say archaeobotanists Chris Stevens of Wessex Archaeology in
Salisbury, England, and Dorian Fuller of University College London.
Farming existed at first alongside foraging for wild fruits and nuts
and limited cattle raising, but the rapid onset of cool, dry
conditions in Britain about 5,300 years ago spurred a move to raising
cattle, sheep and pigs, Stevens and Fuller propose in the September
Antiquity.
With the return of a cultivation-friendly climate about 3,500 years ago, during Britain’s Bronze Age, crop growing came back strong, the scientists contend. Farming villages rapidly replaced a mobile, herding way of life.
Many researchers have posited that agriculture either took hold quickly in Britain around 6,000 years ago or steadily rose to prominence by 4,000 years ago. In either case, farmers probably would have assembled Stonehenge, where initial work began as early as 5,500 years ago, with large stones hauled in around 4,400 years ago (SN: 6/21/08, p.13).
But if Stevens and Fuller’s scenario of British agriculture’s ancient rise, demise and rebirth holds up, then small groups of roaming pastoralists collaborated to build massive, circular stone and wood structures, including Stonehenge. Shifts from farming to pastoralism, sometimes accompanied by construction of stone monuments, occurred around the same time in parts of Africa and Asia, the researchers say.
“Part of the reason why pastoralists built monuments such as Stonehenge lies in the importance of periodic large gatherings for dispersed, mobile groups,” Fuller says. Collective meeting spots allowed different groups to arrange alliance-building marriages, crossbreed herds to boost the animals’ health and genetic diversity and hold ritual feasts. At these locations, large numbers of people could be mobilized for big construction projects, Fuller suggests.
“A predominantly pastoralist economy in the third millennium B.C. accords well with available evidence and provides a suitable backdrop to the early development of Stonehenge,” says archaeologist Timothy Darvill of Bournemouth University in England. But he believes many large stones were brought to Stonehenge during a later upswing in cereal cultivation, as pastoralism receded in importance.
Stevens and Fuller compiled data on more than 700 cultivated and wild food remains from 198 sites across the British Isles whose ages had been previously calculated by radiocarbon dating. A statistical analysis of these dates and associated climate and environmental trends suggested that agriculture spread rapidly starting 6,000 years ago. About 700 years later, wild foods surged in popularity and cultivated grub became rare.
Several new crops — peas, beans and spelt — appeared around 3,500 years ago, when storage pits, granaries and other features of agricultural societies first appeared in Britain, Stevens and Fuller find. An influx of European farmers must have launched a Bronze Age agricultural revolution, they speculate.
Stevens and Fuller’s analysis offers only a general breakdown of how farming and pastoralism developed in Britain, asserts archaeologist Alasdair Whittle of Cardiff University in Wales. The scale of cultivation, even during times characterized by relatively abundant remains of domesticated plants, remains uncertain, Whittle says.
Even if farmers didn't built Stonehenge, cultivators erected plenty of massive stone monuments, Whittle holds.
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