Home | Category: Early Settlements and Signs of Civilization in Europe
FIRST BRITONS
The first people to live in Britain were Stone-Age hunter-gatherers. During much of the Stone Age, Britain was connected to the European continent by a land bridge. People traveled back and forth between the two region, following the herds of deer and horses which they hunted. Britain became permanently separated from the continent by the English Channel about 10,000 years ago. Cheddar Man, a 9,000-year-old skeleton, was found near Cheddar, England. [Source: “Life in the United Kingdom, a Guide for New Residents,” 3rd edition, Page 15, Crown 2013 /]
Hunter-gatherers dressed in animal skins roamed around Hampstead Heath near London around 8,000 years ago. Numerous prehistoric sites between 4000 B.C. and 1500 B.C. have been discovered around Britain and Scotland. Many parts of Britain contain Neolithic burial mounds and standing stones, the most famous of which is Stonehenge. In 1997, scientists found a site twice as large as Stonehenge, with stone circles remains of timber temples, at Stanton Drew in Somerset. Archeologist have found evidence that bridge made from oak crossed the Thames, where Parliament now stands in 1,500 B.C. The bridge was two feet wide and stretched at least a third of the way across the river.
Around 4,000 years ago, people in Britain learned to make bronze, marking the beginning of the Bronze Age there. At that time people lived in roundhouses and buried their dead in tombs called barrows. They were skilled metalworkers who produced bronze and gold objects, including tools, ornaments and weapons. During the Iron Age that followed, people learned how to make weapons and tools out of iron. They continued to live in roundhouses but they were grouped together in larger settlements, and sometimes were defended by hill forts. A hill fort from this era can still be seen today at Maiden Castle, in Dorset. Most people spoke a Celtic language and were either farmers, craft workers or warriors. Celtic languages were spoken throughout Europe and one closely linked to those spoken in Britain are still spoken today in some parts of Wales, Scotland and Ireland. Iron Age Britons produced the first coins to be minted in Britain, some inscribed with the names of Iron Age kings. By some reckonings, this marks the beginnings of British history. /
One of the oldest surviving breeds of domestic cattle is found in a walled park at Chillingham in the Cheviot Hills in Britain. Dating back to the 13th century and believed to be related to aurochs, the wild animals from which cattle were domesticated, these animals are smaller than aurochs but still retain an element of wildness. The males are still very aggressive. If they are threatened they form a ring and charge any perceived threat. One dominate male rules the herd, mates with the females and fights off male rivals. Each dominant male hold his place for two or three years.
Good Websites Archaeology News Report archaeologynewsreport.blogspot.com ; Anthropology.net anthropology.net : archaeologica.org archaeologica.org ; Archaeology in Europe archeurope.com ; Archaeology magazine archaeology.org ; HeritageDaily heritagedaily.com; Livescience livescience.com/ ; British Archaeology magazine british-archaeology-magazine ; Current Archaeology magazine archaeology.co.uk
Did Britain Experience Waves of Settlers?
Glaciers and land brdiges during the last Ice Age
Dr Simon James wrote for the BBC: “The story of early Britain has traditionally been told in terms of waves of invaders displacing or annihilating their predecessors. Archaeology suggests that this picture is fundamentally wrong. For over 10,000 years people have been moving into - and out of - Britain, sometimes in substantial numbers, yet there has always been a basic continuity of population. [Source: Dr Simon James, BBC, February 28, 2011. Dr James is Senior Lecturer in Archaeology at the University of Leicester. He specialises in Iron Age and Roman archaeology, Celtic ethnicity and the archaeology of violence and warfare.|::|]
“The gene pool of the island has changed, but more slowly and far less completely than implied by the old 'invasion model', and the notion of large-scale migrations, once the key explanation for change in early Britain, has been widely discredited. Substantial genetic continuity of population does not preclude profound shifts in culture and identity. It is actually quite common to observe important cultural change, including adoption of wholly new identities, with little or no biological change to a population. Millions of people since Roman times have thought of themselves as 'British', for example, yet this identity was only created in 1707 with the Union of England, Wales and Scotland. |::|
“Before Roman times 'Britain' was just a geographical entity, and had no political meaning, and no single cultural identity. Arguably this remained generally true until the 17th century, when James I of England and VI of Scotland sought to establish a pan-British monarchy. Throughout recorded history the island has consisted of multiple cultural groups and identities. Many of these groupings looked outwards, across the seas, for their closest connections - they did not necessarily connect naturally with their fellow islanders, many of whom were harder to reach than maritime neighbours in Ireland or continental Europe. It therefore makes no sense to look at Britain in isolation; we have to consider it with Ireland as part of the wider 'Atlantic Archipelago', nearer to continental Europe and, like Scandinavia, part of the North Sea world.”“|::|
First Settlers of Britain
The first 'Britons' were an ethnically mixed group Dr Simon James wrote for the BBC: “From the arrival of the first modern humans - who were hunter-gatherers, following the retreating ice of the Ice Age northwards - to the beginning of recorded history is a period of about 100 centuries, or 400 generations. This is a vast time span, and we know very little about what went on through those years; it is hard even to fully answer the question, 'Who were the early peoples of Britain?', because they have left no accounts of themselves. [Source: Dr Simon James, BBC, February 28, 2011 |::|]
“We can, however, say that biologically they were part of the Caucasoid population of Europe. The regional physical stereotypes familiar to us today, a pattern widely thought to result from the post-Roman Anglo-Saxon and Viking invasions - red-headed people in Scotland, small, dark-haired folk in Wales and lanky blondes in southern England - already existed in Roman times. Insofar as they represent reality, they perhaps attest the post-Ice Age peopling of Britain, or the first farmers of 6,000 years ago. |::|
“From an early stage, the constraints and opportunities of the varied environments of the islands of Britain encouraged a great regional diversity of culture. Throughout prehistory there were myriad small-scale societies, and many petty 'tribal' identities, typically lasting perhaps no more than a few generations before splitting, merging or becoming obliterated. These groups were in contact and conflict with their neighbours, and sometimes with more distant groups - the appearance of exotic imported objects attest exchanges, alliance and kinship links, and wars.” |::|
Cheddar Man and Humans Who Lived in Britain 20,000 to 10,000 Years Ago
Cheddar Man skull
Ian Sample wrote in The Guardian: “In 1903, field researchers working in the cave’s entrance uncovered Cheddar Man, the oldest complete skeleton in Britain at more than 9,000 years old. A painting of a mammoth was found on the wall in 2007. Other artefacts from the site include an exquisitely carved mammoth ivory spearhead. [Source: Ian Sample, The Guardian, February 16, 2011 |=|]
“Cheddar Man would have lived a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, making sharp blades from flints for butchering animals, using antlers to whittle harpoons for spear fishing and carving bows and arrows....Individuals inhabiting Gough’s Cave 5,000 years earlier... appear to have performed grisly cannibalistic rituals, including gnawing on human toes and fingers – possibly after boiling them – and drinking from polished skull cups. |=|
“The cave dwellers were among the first humans to return to Britain at the end of the last ice age. The island was unpopulated and almost completely under ice 20,000 years ago, but as the climate warmed, plants and animals moved across Doggerland, a now submerged land bridge that linked Britain to mainland Europe. Where food went, early humans followed and brought art, craft and toolmaking skills with them. |=|
“The ages of the remains at Gough Cave suggest it was home to humans for at least 100 years. The cave is well-sheltered and, with skin flaps over the entrance, would have made a cosy abode, Stringer said. The residents were ideally placed to hunt passing deer and wild boar, while up on the Mendip Hills roamed reindeer and horses. In the 1900s, several hundred tonnes of soil were removed from the cave to open it up as a tourist attraction, a move that may have destroyed priceless ancient remains. The skull cup and other bones unearthed in 1987 survived only because they were lodged behind a large rock.” |=|
Neolithic Revolution in Britain
Kate Ravilious wrote in Archaeology magazine: “The so-called “Neolithic Revolution” started in the British Isles around 6,000 years ago, when new ideas arrived from the continent. Gradually, hunter-gatherers settled down in small villages, adopted new stone tools, and began farming. These agricultural communities were centered in the most productive areas: southwest England, eastern England, eastern Scotland, Orkney, and Ireland. [Source: Kate Ravilious, Archaeology magazine, January-February 2013]
“Remains of these communities are relatively rare, as most British Neolithic dwellings were built from timber and do not survive. Orkney, however, has few trees, so more, though not all, of their buildings were made of stone. Stone villages, such as the Knap of Howar on one of Orkney’s outlying islands, Skara Brae on the western shores of the Orkney mainland, and Barnhouse, just southeast of the Tait’s farmhouse, have provided archaeologists with insights into the domestic lives of these farming communities.
“The change to a Neolithic lifestyle also brought a new form of spirituality. Many tombs were constructed during the early and middle Neolithic, and by the late Neolithic, around 2500 B.C., people were building impressive ceremonial stone circles, such as Stonehenge. Stone tombs, including the mysterious Maes Howe, half a mile southeast of the Ness of Brodgar; Unstan, across the waters of the Loch of Stenness; and many others scattered all over the archipelago, hint at elaborate burial practices. Orkney’s stone circles — the Ring of Brodgar and the Standing Stones of Stenness — provide a tantalizingly incomplete glimpse of these people’s beliefs and customs.
Stone Monuments in Britain and Ireland
Numerous prehistoric sites between 4000 B.C. and 1500 B.C. have been discovered around Britain and Scotland. The most famous site is Stonehenge, which dates back to 2500 B.C. . In 1997, scientists found a site twice as large as Stonehenge, with stone circles remains of timber temples, at Stanton Drew in Somerset.
On the Orkney Islands of Scotland, near Skara Brae are the standing stones of Stenness and the 5,000-year-old Maes Howe burial mound, described as the best preserved chambered tomb in Western Europe.
Carrowmore, Ireland is the home of the world's oldest megalithic cemetery. The cremated bodies in the cemetery were buried between 4800 and 3200 B.C. About a mile away a cemetery dating back to 4000 B.C. was found with uncremated bodies and chert arrowhead unlike those found at Carrowmore. Archaeologist Göran Burenbult told National Geographic, "This opens up a much more complex picture than we could have imagined. It's as if two separate people with different social and religious traditions lived very close together at the same time."
See Separate Articles: ORKNEY ISLANDS NEOLITHIC SITES: HISTORY, TOMBS, ART, BUILDINGS europe.factsanddetails.com ; NESS OF BRODGAR ON THE ORKNEY ISLANDS europe.factsanddetails.com
Crystals and Engraved Rocks from Neolithic England
Neolithic flint point
In 2022, Archaeology magazine reported: The largest assemblage of extremely rare worked Neolithic rock crystal was uncovered by archaeologists from the University of Manchester at the monumental complex of Dorstone Hill in Herefordshire, England. More than 330 fragments of crystal were discovered during excavations at the nearly 6,000-year-old complex, which once featured a series of long earthen mounds and large timber buildings. Rock crystal is a form of nearly transparent quartz that was coveted by Neolithic people, who likely believed it had magical properties. “In the Neolithic period, there was no glass—or any other transparent solid material—so rock crystal would have been a really distinctive and notably different material,” says University of Manchester archaeologist Nick Overton. “Quartz crystals do a few really unusual things with light. They can be used to split white light into the visible spectrum and they are also triboluminescent, which means they emit a flash of light when struck with another stone or crystal.” [Source: Jason Urbanus, Archaeology Magazine, November/December 2022]
The exotic mineral was likely transported to Herefordshire intact from a source between 80 and 100 miles away in Wales. Archaeologists do not believe that the rock crystal was ever fashioned into finished tools. Instead, they suggest that the knapping process was an important part of the early Neolithic community’s identity. The crystal fragments were collected and deposited into cremation pits containing human remains and other stone tools as a way of commemorating the dead.
More than 6,000 prehistoric carved rocks have been recorded across Britain, with around 2,500 of them found in Scotland. Dalya Alberge wrote in the Observer: “Most have patterns based on cup marks – circular depressions in the surface, often surrounded by concentric rings, with lines or grooves that extend from them – and are thought to date from 4000 to 2000 B.C.. Their original purpose and significance remain a mystery. Among other theories, academics have speculated that they may be territorial markers, fertility symbols, astronomical signs, or simply prehistoric doodles. [Source: Dalya Alberge, The Observer, September 17, 2016 ^^^]
“The designs and symbols appear to have been shared across Europe, Barnett said. “The cup-and-ring symbol, almost a universal symbol, is found in almost every country – France, northern Spain, Switzerland, northern Italy, Sardinia, Scandinavia. It seems that we were all in contact in pre-EU days, which is a nice thought.” She praises Currie’s solo efforts as a contribution “to scholarship, protection and conservation”.^^^
George Currie, 66, a musician and teacher, has located more than 670 Neolithic and Bronze Age carvings over the past 15 years. On finding them, he told the Observer: “In many respects, winter is the best time because the sun is lower in the sky and the light produces more shadows. That makes it easier to see rock art. It’s possible to look at a surface at midday in summer and you won’t see anything. You look at the same surface at 10am on a winter’s morning and, all of a sudden, you’re seeing something that’s entirely different. Caves are few and far between, even in the Scottish hills. It’s always a bit of a puzzle why one [rock] should be chosen over another. You might imagine that a smooth surface would be ideal to make an engraving, but very often it’s rough surfaces … Sometimes the markings actually use the contours, cracks and fissures as part of the ornamentation. It’s almost as if the engraver is working with the material and that’s really influencing their decisions.”
6000-Year-Old 'Magical' Rock Crystals Found at a Ceremonial Site in England
About 6,000 years ago, Neolithic people in what is now England sprinkled crystals over burials. More than 300 fragments of transparent quartz rock crystal had been found at the early Neolithic burial site at Dorstone Hill, sometimes in the ancient graves themselves. The crystals were likely brought to the site from a source more than 130 kilometers (80 miles) away, over mountainous terrain. It appears crystals had been carefully broken into much smaller pieces, possibly during some kind of ritual in which the crystals were regarded as have a magical properties. "You can think of it as a really special event," Nick Overton, an archaeologist at The University of Manchester told Live Science. "It feels like they're putting a lot of emphasis on the practice of working [the crystal] … people would have remembered it as being distinctive and different." [Source: Tom Metcalfe, Live Science, August 17, 2022]
Overton is the lead author of a study published in July 2022 in the Cambridge Archaeological Journal that describes the discovery of the quartz crystal fragments at a ceremonial site at Dorstone Hill in western England, about 1.6 kilometers (one mile) south of the monument known as Arthur's Stone. Tom Metcalfe wrote in Live Science: As well as being almost as transparent as water, several of the crystal fragments are prismatic, splitting white light into a visible rainbow spectrum. Quartz crystal is also triboluminescent — that is, it gives off flashes of light when it's struck — and that peculiar property must have enhanced the process of breaking the crystals into smaller fragments, Overton said. "If you bash two of these crystals together, they emit little flashes of bluish light, which is really fascinating," Overton explained. "It must have been an arresting experience — the material is quite rare and quite distinctive in this period where there is no glass and no other solid transparent material."
Archaeologists think ancient structures at Dorstone Hill and Arthur's Stone were part of an early Neolithic, or New Stone Age, ceremonial landscape built up 1,000 years before Stonehenge, which was constructed roughly 5,000 years ago on Salisbury Plain, about 80 miles to the southeast. Local legends link Arthur's Stone to the mythical King Arthur, although it would have already been thousands of years old by his time, if he ever existed. Dorstone Hill is the site of the "Halls of the Dead," three timber buildings that were deliberately burned down and replaced by three earthen burial mounds in Neolithic times, possibly after a local leader had died. Archaeologists think an earthen mound at the Arthur's Stone site once pointed to the Halls of the Dead, the remains of which were discovered in 2013. But later mounds at both structures were aligned to a prominent gap in the hills to the south.
Overton said the rock crystal fragments were scattered around the Dorstone Hill site but were concentrated in the burial mounds. Some of the largest fragments seem to have been placed as grave goods inside buried pits that also held cremated human bones. Overton said there were no local sources of rock crystal, and so it's likely that the transparent mineral originated at one of two sites known since Neolithic times: one in a cave in the mountains of Snowdonia in the north of Wales, about 80 miles away; and one at St David's Head on the southwest coast of Wales, about 100 miles (160 km) away.
It seems that the mineral was transported to Dorstone Hill in the form of large crystals up to 4 inches (10 centimeters) long, possibly through a trading network that brought them from farther afield, he said.Analysis suggests that the large crystals were then expertly "knapped" with the techniques used for flint — deliberately broken into smaller pieces — but the resulting fragments were not formed into tools afterward, he said. Rather, many of these very tiny chips were then collected and deposited at structures at the site, especially over the burial mounds, Overton said.
"The largest piece we have is 34 millimeters [1.3 inches] in length," he said. That gives the researchers an idea of how big the original crystals must have been, which could help narrow down their origin; they also hope to conduct chemical tests of the fragments that could reveal a "geological signature" of where they came from. The 337 fragments from Dorstone Hill represent the largest collection of worked rock crystal pieces ever found in Britain and Ireland, Overton said; quartz rock crystal pieces have also been found at other Neolithic burial sites in Britain and Ireland, but they've mostly been overlooked before now. "I felt it was really important to point out just how wonderful and how interesting this material is," Overton said. "And it might help us think about other aspects of [the Neolithic] period, such as connections of trade or exchange, and also the way that people think about and engage with materials."
First Farmers in Britain
The first farmers arrived in Britain about 6,000 years ago. Their ancestors are believed to have originated in southeast Europe. Early farmers chopped down trees so they could grow crops and vegetables. They kept cattle, sheep and pigs. These people began to settle down in one place and build permanent homes. These also built tombs and monuments on the land, of which the most enduring and famous is Stonehenge, thought to have been a gathering place for seasonal ceremonies. Other Stone Age sites include Skara Brae on Orkney, off the north coast of Scotland. It is the best preserved prehistoric village in northern Europe, helping archaeologists to understand more about how people lived near the end of the Stone Age. [Source: “Life in the United Kingdom, a Guide for New Residents,” 3rd edition, Page 15, Crown 2013]
According to Archaeology magazine and Associated Press report, a genetic study of human remains dating to as early as 8500 B.C. indicates that early farmers from the region around the Aegean Sea arrived in Britain some 6,000 years ago and replaced the local hunter-gather population. Previous studies have suggested these same early farmers mixed with local populations as they dispersed across continental Europe, and those who reached Britain were genetically similar to those living in Spain and Portugal. It appears, however, that the farmers did not mix with the Britons. “It is difficult to say why this is, but it may be that those last British hunter-gatherers were relatively few in number,” said Mark G. Thomas of University College London. “Even if these two populations had mixed completely, the ability of adept continental farmers and their descendants to maintain larger population sizes would produce a significant diminishing of hunter-gatherer ancestry over time.” [Source: Archaeology Tuesday, April 16, 2019]
Bruce Bower wrote in sciencenews.org: “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.” [Source: Bruce Bower, sciencenews.org, September 6, 2012 ~|~]
“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.” ~|~
See Separate Article: SPREAD OF AGRICULTURE WITHIN EUROPE europe.factsanddetails.com
Lifestyle of Early British Farmers
According to the BBC: “By 3500 B.C. people in many parts of Britain had set up farms. They made clearings in the forest and built groups of houses, surrounded by fields. The early farmers grew wheat and barley, which they ground into flour. Some farmers grew beans and peas. Others grew a plant called flax, which they made into linen for clothes. [Source: BBC |::|]
“Neolithic farmers kept lots of animals. They had herds of wild cows that had been domesticated (tamed). The cattle provided beef, as well as milk and cheese. Sheep and goats provided wool, milk and meat. Wild pigs were domesticated and kept in the woods nearby. Dogs helped on the farms too. They herded sheep and cattle and worked as watchdogs. Dogs were probably treated as family pets, like they are today. The early farmers still went hunting and gathered nuts and berries to eat, but they spent most of their time working on their farms. Clearings were made to create farmland and the wood was used to build fires to keep warm at night |::|
Neolithic people built grave mounds and stone circles. They also met for religious ceremonies on large, circular platforms that are known as causewayed enclosures. People stored the bones of the dead in large graves known as long barrows. These graves were built from stone and covered with a mound of earth. They had a central passage, with several side-chambers containing sets of bones. There were also smaller graves, with a single burial chamber. During the Neolithic period, people started to build stone circles. This practice continued in the early Bronze Age. |::|
6000-Year-Old Artificial Party Islands Around in Britain and Ireland
Crannogs — artificial islands within lakes, wetlands, or estuaries — may have been used by ancient elites to display their power and wealth through elaborate parties, a new study finds. Antony Brown of UiT Arctic University of Norway and colleagues wrote in a study published online September 28, 2022 in the journal Antiquity that hundreds of crannogs were created in Scotland, Wales and Ireland, between 4,000 B.C. and the 16th century A.D., by building up a shallow reef or an elevated portion of a lakebed with any available natural material — such as stone, timber or peat — to a diameter of nearly 30 meters (100 feet).
Kristina Killgrove wrote in Live Science: A lot of trade and communication occurred along the lakes and estuaries where crannogs were built. Used as farmsteads during the Iron Age (eighth century B.C. to the first century A.D.), crannogs evolved into elite gathering places in the medieval period (fifth to the 16th centuries A.D.), according to evidence of feasting and plentiful artifacts, such as pottery, uncovered there.
Wetland sites are much more difficult to study than those on land, so the archaeology of crannogs is a relatively new undertaking. Brown and colleagues investigated one site in Scotland (500 B.C. to A.D. 10) and two in Ireland (A.D. 650 to 1300) to better understand the purpose of these crannogs. They did it by sampling each site's halo, or the spread of archaeological material from the center of the site. "The lakes are shallow around the crannog; material is quickly deposited there and never washed away," Brown told Live Science. The researchers analyzed the site halo using multiple methods, including sedimentary ancient DNA analysis (sedaDNA) — an emerging technique that enables scientists to identify all the plants and animals that contributed to the ancient environment of a site. SedaDNA analysis showed that people were cultivating cereal plants on the artificial islands, but it also revealed unusual plants like bracken (Pteridium), a type of toxic fern that was likely brought to the crannog sites to be used as bedding or roofing material, the researchers said.
SedaDNA also uncovered evidence of mammals at the sites, including domesticated cows, sheep, pigs and goats. Combining the new sedaDNA work with previous studies of pollen and animal bones, Brown and colleagues suggested they could quickly and inexpensively identify a range of activities that occurred in the past, such as animal keeping, slaughter, feasting and ceremonies.
The new study helps shed light on crannogs and their use. "Given how little we still really know about crannogs and the human activities surrounding them, the methods and results described here are very interesting," said Simon Hammann, a food chemist at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (University of Erlangen-Nuremberg) in Germany who was not involved in the study. Last month, Hammann and colleagues published a study in the journal Nature Communications on the presence of wheat in pottery residue at Neolithic crannogs in Scotland. Soil conditions do not support bone preservation at the sites Hammann works at in the Outer Hebrides off the west coast of Scotland, so he found the work of Brown and colleagues very compelling. "Inferring specific activities such as feasting is always difficult," Hammann told Live Science. but "in combination these methods seem to draw quite a conclusive picture."
The reason for the abandonment of the three sites that Brown and colleagues studied is still unknown. One tantalizing bit of evidence comes from Lough Yoan South in Ireland, where the team found two whipworm parasite eggs on the floor of the crannog there. Brown confirmed by email that these eggs are what remains of human excrement, deposited around the time the crannog was abandoned. No other human DNA or remains — such as bog bodies — have been found at crannog sites, though.
Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons
Text Sources: National Geographic, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Smithsonian magazine, Nature, Scientific American. Live Science, Discover magazine, Discovery News, Ancient Foods ancientfoods.wordpress.com ; Times of London, Natural History magazine, Archaeology magazine, The New Yorker, Time, Newsweek, BBC, The Guardian, Reuters, AP, AFP, Lonely Planet Guides, “World Religions” edited by Geoffrey Parrinder (Facts on File Publications, New York); “History of Warfare” by John Keegan (Vintage Books); “History of Art” by H.W. Janson (Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.), Compton’s Encyclopedia and various books and other publications.
Last updated May 2024