Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-5g6vh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-27T04:08:10.675Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Use and Character of Wood in Prehistoric Britain and Ireland1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 May 2014

J. M. Coles ,
S. V. E. Heal  and
B. J. Orme
J. M. Coles
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge
S. V. E. Heal
Affiliation:
Darwin College, Cambridge
B. J. Orme
Affiliation:
Department of History, University of Exeter
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Wood was one of early man's most valuable and important raw materials. It furnished him with shelter, heat and a range of tools and weapons necessary for his survival. It was perhaps the first material to be employed for tools, even before stone was actively worked, yet wood hardly figures in the minds of many archaeologists, and it plays no part in the traditional, outmoded but convenient Three Age system of European Prehistory: Stone-Bronze-Iron. Yet there is hardly a tool or weapon used by Stone Age, Bronze Age or Iron Age man or woman which did not have a wooden part, and it is the purpose of this paper to point out the wealth of information that is available, or could be obtained, from studies of wooden artifacts.

The reason for neglect of such studies is obvious. Wood is perishable; it decays if left exposed, it is easily broken, it burns to nothing, it rots in the soil, it loses its surface in moving water. Its survival for long periods of time is exceptional, and requires certain conditions of deliberate or accidental burial. Yet wood as a fact and a feature of prehistoric economy cannot be disputed. Without the survival of wooden remains, our knowledge of the Neolithic and Bronze Age lake-side settlements in Switzerland would be quartered, and our information about the Iron Age villages at Glastonbury and Biskupin would be substantially reduced. Only in circumstances where conditions are exceptionally favourable has wood survived in an identifiable state, and in these situations it can tell us much about economic life. Grahame Clark expressed the view long ago that ‘less attention (should be) paid to amassing residual fossils from sites unfavourable to the survival of the organic materials which play so important a part in the economy of simple societies, and more to exploring sites where these materials are likely to survive’ (Clark 1940, 58).

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society , Volume 44 , December 1978 , pp. 1 - 45
Copyright
Copyright © The Prehistoric Society 1978

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Anderson, J., 1886. Scotland in Pagan Times. The Bronze and Stone Ages. Douglas, Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Annable, K. and Simpson, D. D. A., 1964. Guide Catalogue of the Neolithic and Bronze Age Collections in Devizes Museum. Devizes.Google Scholar
Armstrong, E. C. R., 1933. Guide to the Collection of Irish Antiquities. Catalogue of Irish Gold Ornaments. 2nd ed. Stat. Office, Dublin.Google Scholar
Ashbee, P., 1960. The Bronze Age Round Barrow in Britain. Phoenix, London.Google Scholar
Ashbee, P., 1963. ‘The Wilsford shaft’, Antiquity 37, 116–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Best, E., 1927. ‘The Pa Maori’, Dominion Mus. Bull. 6. Wellington.Google Scholar
Birks, H. J. B., Deacon, J. and Peglar, S. 1975. ‘Pollen maps for the British Isles 5000 years ago’, Proc. Roy. Soc. London B 189, 87–103.Google Scholar
Blundell, O., 1910. ‘On further examination of artificial islands in the Beauly Firth …’, PSAS 44, 12–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
British Museum, 1953. Later Prehistoric Antiquities of the British Isles.Google Scholar
Bulleid, A. and Gray, H. St G., 1911. The Glastonbury Lake Village. Vol. 1. Glastonbury Antiq. Soc.Google Scholar
Campbell, J., 1968. ‘Territoriality among ancient hunters: interpretations from ethnography and nature’. In Meggers, B. (ed.), Anthropological Archaeology in the Americas. Anth. Soc., Washington.Google Scholar
Chagnon, N., 1968. Yanomamo: the Fierce People. Holt, Rinehart & Winston, New York.Google Scholar
Childe, V. G. and Thorneycroft, W., 1938. ‘The experimental production of the phenomena distinctive of vitrified forts’, PSAS 72, 44–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clarke, D. V., 1976. The Neolithic Village at Skara Brae, Orkney. 1972–1073 Excavations. H.M.S.O., Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Clark, J. G. D., 1952. Prehistoric Europe. The Economic Basis. Methuen, London.Google Scholar
Clark, J. G. D., 1954. Excavations at Star Carr. University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Clark, J. G. D., 1963. ‘Neolithic bows from Somerset, England, and the prehistory of archery in north-west Europe’, PPS 29, 50–98.Google Scholar
Clarke, W., 1971. Place and People: an Ecology of a New Guinea Community. University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coles, J. M., 1962. ‘European Bronze Age shields’, PPS 28, 156–90.Google Scholar
Coles, J. M., 1968. ‘A Neolithic god-dolly from Somerset, England’, Antiquity 42, 275–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coles, J. M., 1973. Archaeology by Experiment. Hutchinson, London.Google Scholar
Coles, J. M., 1976. ‘Forest farmers: some archaeological, historical and experimental evidence relating to the prehistory of Europe’. In de Laet, S. J. (ed.), Acculturation and Continuity in Atlantic Europe. Diss. Archaeol. Gand. 16.Google Scholar
Coles, J. M. and Darrah, R. J., 1977. ‘Experimental investigations in hurdle-making’, Somerset Levels Papers 3, 32–8.Google Scholar
Coles, J. M. and Hibbert, F. A., 1972. ‘A Neolithic wooden mallet from the Somerset Levels’, Antiquity 46, 52–4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coles, J. M., Hibbert, F. A. and Orme, B. J., 1973. ‘Prehistoric roads and tracks in Somerset. 3. The Sweet Track’, PPS 39, 256–93.Google Scholar
Coles, J. M. and Orme, B. J., 1976a. ‘The Sweet Track, Railway Site’, Somerset Levels Papers 2, 34–65.Google Scholar
Coles, J. M. and Orme, B. J., 1976b. ‘The Abbot's Way’, Somerset Levels Papers 2, 7–20.Google Scholar
Coles, J. M. and Orme, B. J., 1976c. ‘The Meare Heath track: excavation of a Bronze Age structure in the Somerset Levels’, PPS 42, 293–318.Google Scholar
Coles, J. M. and Orme, B. J., 1977. ‘Neolithic hurdles from Walton Heath, Somerset’, Somerset Levels Papers 3, 6–29.Google Scholar
Coles, J. M. and Orme, B. J., 1978a. ‘Bronze Age implements from Skinner's Wood’, Somerset Levels Papers 4.Google Scholar
Coles, J. M. and Orme, B. J., 1978b. ‘Multiple tracks at Tinney's Ground’, Somerset Levels Papers 4.Google Scholar
Coles, J. M., Orme, B. J., Hibbert, F. A. and Jones, R. A., 1976. ‘Withy Bed Copse 1974’, Somerset Levels Papers 1, 29–37.Google Scholar
Cranstone, B. A. L., 1961. Melanesia: a Short Ethnography. Brit. Mus.Google Scholar
Darbishire, R. D., 1874. ‘Notes on discoveries in Ehenside Tarn, Cumberland’, Archaeol. 44, 273–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davey, P. J. and Forster, E., 1975. Bronze Age Metalwork from Lancashire and Cheshire. University of Liverpool, Department of Archaeology, Work Notes 1.Google Scholar
Davies, O., 1950. Excavations at Island MacHugh. Belfast.Google Scholar
Drucker, P., 1955. Indians of the Northwest Coast. Garden City, New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Edlin, H. E., 1973. Woodland Crafts in Britain. David & Charles, Newton Abbot.Google Scholar
Evans, J., 1881. The Ancient Bronze Implements, Weapons & Ornaments of Great Britain and Ireland. Longmans, London.Google Scholar
Evans, J., 1897. The Ancient Stone Implements, Weapons & Ornaments of Great Britain. 2nd ed. Longmans, London.Google Scholar
Evans, J. G., 1975. The Environment of Early Man in the British Isles. Elek, London.Google Scholar
Fox, C., 1926. ‘A dug-out canoe from South Wales’, Antiq. J. 6, 121–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Freeman, D., 1970. Report on the Iban. London School of Economics, London.Google Scholar
Godwin, H., 1960. ‘Prehistoric wooden trackways of Somerset Levels: their construction, age and relation to climatic change’, PPS 26, 1–36.Google Scholar
Godwin, H. 1975. The History of the British Flora. University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Gray, H. St G. and Bulleid, A., 1953. The Meare Lake Village. Vol. 2. Taunton Castle.Google Scholar
Green, H. S., 1978. ‘Late Bronze Age wooden hafts from Llyn Fawr and Penwyllt, and a review of the evidence for the selection of wood for tool and weapon handles in Neolithic and Bronze Age Britain’, Bull. Board Celtic Studies, 1978.Google Scholar
Greenwell, W., 1877. British Barrows. Clarendon, Oxford.Google Scholar
Grimes, W. F., 1951. The Prehistory of Wales. National Museum of Wales, Cardiff.Google Scholar
Hansen, H.-O., 1961. ‘Undommelige Oldtidhuse’, Kuml 128–45.Google Scholar
Harding, D. W. (ed.), 1976. Hillforts. Later Prehistoric Earthworks in Britain and Ireland. Academic Press, London.Google Scholar
Harriot, T., 1588. A Brief and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia.Google Scholar
Heal, S. V. E., 1976. Evidence for the Manufacture and use of Hurdlework in Prehistoric Britain. Unpub. B.A. diss., University of Reading.Google Scholar
Henshall, A., 1968. ‘Scottish dagger graves’. In Coles, J. M. and Simpson, D. D. A. (ed.), Studies in Ancient Europe, 173–96. University Press, Leicester.Google Scholar
Herity, M. and Eogan, G., 1977. Ireland in Prehistory. Routledge & Kegan Paul, London.Google Scholar
Jane, F. W., 1970. The Structure of Wood. 2nd ed. Black, London.Google Scholar
Lucas, A. T., 1972. ‘Prehistoric block-wheels from Doogarymore, Co. Roscommon, and Timahoe East, Co. Kildare’, JRSAI 102, 19–48.Google Scholar
Lynch, F. and Burgess, C. (ed.), 1972. Prehistoric Man in Wales and the West. Adams & Dart, Bath.Google Scholar
MacMillan, A. W., 1976. Bronze Age Metalwork. Univ. of Nottingham Mus. Handlist 1.Google Scholar
McGrail, S. and Switsur, R., 1975. ‘Early British boats and their chronology’, Internat. J. Nautical. Archaeol. 4, 191–200.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morgan, R. A., 1976a. ‘Tree-ring studies in the Somerset Levels: the Sweet track’, Somerset Levels Papers 2, 66–77.Google Scholar
Morgan, R. A., 1976b. ‘Dendrochronological analysis of the Abbot's Way timbers’, Somerset Levels Papers 2, 21–4.Google Scholar
Morgan, R. A., 1977. ‘Tree-ring studies in the Somerset Levels: the hurdle tracks on Ashcott Heath (Rowland's) and Walton Heath’, Somerset Levels Papers 3, 61–5.Google Scholar
Mortimer, J. R., 1905. Forty Years' Researches in British and Saxon Burial Mounds of East Yorkshire. Brown, London.Google Scholar
Munro, R., 1882. Ancient Scottish Lake-Dwellings or Crannogs. Douglas, Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Musson, C. R., 1977. ‘Environmental evidence from the Breiddin hillfort’, Antiquity 51, 147–9.Google Scholar
Norwich Castle Museum, 1966. Bronze Age Metalwork in Norwich Castle Museum. City of Norwich Museums.Google Scholar
Oakley, K. P., Andrews, P., Keeley, L. H. and Clark, J. D., 1977. ‘A reappraisal of the Clacton spearpoint’, PPS 43, 13–30.Google Scholar
Pearce, S., 1973. Arts of Polynesia. City Museum, Exeter.Google Scholar
Pennington, W. 1974. The History of British Vegetation. English Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Pospisil, L., 1963. Kapauku Papuan Economy. Yale Univ. Publ. Anth., 67.Google Scholar
Rackham, O., 1976. Trees and Woodland in the British Landscape. Dent, London.Google Scholar
Rackham, O., 1977. ‘Neolithic woodland management in the Somerset Levels: Garvin's, Walton Heath and Rowland's tracks’, Somerset Levels Papers 3, 65–71.Google Scholar
Rowlands, M., 1971. ‘The archaeological interpretation of prehistoric metalworking’, World Archaeol. 3, 210–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, J., 1624. The General historie of Virginia, New-England and the Summer Isles. London.Google Scholar
Tansley, A. G. 1965. The British Isles and their Vegetation. University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Troels-Smith, J., 1960. ‘Ivy, mistletoe, elm: climatic indicators—fodder plants’, Danm. Geol. Unders. iv, 4, 1–32.Google Scholar
Vulliary, G. E., 1930. The Archaeology of Middlesex and London. Methuen, London.Google Scholar
Wainwright, G. J. and Longworth, I. H., 1971. Durrington Walls: Excavations 1966–1968. Rep. Res. Comm. Soc. Antiq. London, 29.Google Scholar
Wheeler, R. E. M., 1954. The Stanwick Fortifications. Rep. Res. Comm. Soc. Antiq. London.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilde, W. R., 1857. A Descriptive Catalogue of the Antiquities in the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy, 1.Google Scholar
Wilson, D., 1851. The Archaeology and Prehistoric Annals of Scotland. Sutherland & Knox, Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Wood-Martin, W. G., 1886. The Lake-Dwellings of Ireland. Hodges Figgis, Dublin.Google Scholar
Wright, E. V., 1976. The North Ferriby Boats. A Guide Book. Maritime Mon. and Rep. 23. Greenwich.Google Scholar