Movement, Exchange and Identity in Europe in the 2nd and 1st Millennia BC

Anne Lehoërff, Marc Talon, Anne Lehoërff, Marc Talon

• Éditeur: Oxbow Books
• Année: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781785707179
• Sujet: Histoire
• Sous-sujet: Histoire de l'Europe

This collection of papers by an international chort of contributors explores the nature of the maritime connections that appear to have existed in the Transmanche/English Channel Zone during later prehistory. Organised into three themes, 'Movement and Identity in the Transmanche Zone'; 'Travel and exchange'; 'Identity and Landscape', the papers seek to articulate notions of frontier, mobility and identity from the end of the 3rd to the beginning of the 1st millennium BC, a time when the archaeological evidence suggests that the sea facilitated connections between peoples on both sides of the Channel rather than acting as a barrier as it is so often perceived today. Recent decades have since a massive increase in large-scale excavation programmes on either side of the Channel in advance of major infra-structure and urban development, resulting in the acqusition of huge, complex new datasets enabling new insights into later prehistoric life in this crucially important region. Papers consider the role of several key archaeologists in transforming our appreciation of the connectivity of the sea in prehistory; consider the extent to which the Channel zone developed into a closely unified cultural zone during later Bronze Age in terms of communities that serviced the movement of artefacts across the Channel with both sides sharing widely in the same artefacts and social practices; examine funerary practices and settlement evidence and consider the relationship between communities in social, cultural and ideological terms; and consider mechanisms for the transmission of ideas and how they may be reflected in the archaeological record.Brings together leading scholars from the UK and northern Europe in a thought-provoking and revealing new examination of the relationship between communities in the 'Transmanche Zone' in the Bronze and Iron Ages. The premise is that the English Channel was a conduit for connectivity and exchange of ideas, artefacts and social practices and rather than a barrier or frontier that had to be overcome before such connections could be fostered.

1

To think of leaving: mobility and identities in Western Europe during the Bronze Age

Anne Lehoërff

‘There are three kinds of men: the living, the dead and those who sail the sea’
Quote attributed to: Aristote, Plato or Anacharsis

Keywords: mobility, exchange, frontiers, Bronze Age, identities

Human mobility

The Europe of ancient oral societies, before Classical Antiquity, is sometimes perceived as a closed world, stable – immobile even. This widespread perception, inherited from 19th century historiography and nourished by classical texts such as the Gallic War by Julius Caesar, seeks to limit the people of these bygone times to their birth places, when not conjuring up an image of their all too miserable way of life. However, nothing is less true than the idea of static communities over the millennia of Protohistory, from the Neolithic to the end of the Metal Ages (Lehoërff 2009; 2011).

In 1992, the discovery of a Bronze Age boat in the port of Dover (Kent, UK) was a revelation for many, even if, for the archaeological specialists of this period, this type of discovery was only down to a matter of time (Clark 2004a; 2004b).

For decades, archaeologists have studied human mobility through time (Scarre and Healy 1993). During prehistory (the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic periods), populations moved from one place to another following the rhythm of the places they lived, the seasons and the changing climate, seeking out food to eat and essential materials. This mobility, be it over short or long distances, leaves tenuous traces often difficult to interpret, precisely because they are inherent to this way of life. It constitutes nevertheless a scientific challenge for scholars studying these very ancient times, focussing on seasonality, for example, or on the relationship between people and their environment drawing together the threads of influences leading to Homo sapiens.

Agricultural mobility

The beginning of Protohistory heralded new relationships between individuals, space and time. In choosing to become farmers, people tied themselves to the land, but this did not mean that society in general was a prisoner. The process of Neolithisation itself is defined by movements of people, of ideas, by the adoption of new subsistence practices (production, storage, consumption) and more generally by the emergence of new types of societies. The creation of an agricultural Europe was ‘arythmic’ (Guilaine 2015), taking place over the course of millennia, but nevertheless permanent. The rhythm of this revolution, marked by episodes of stasis and then rapid expansion, was largely dependent on the rhythm of human movement and the capacity of communities to develop new ways of life within each new territory, some of which were already populated by nomadic or semi-nomadic groups. In this context, one cannot explain everything by imagining that people had chosen simply to walk (Lehoërff 2016a, 225–61). Sea level was already high because of the melting ice and coastal areas were thus far apart from one another. To cross these spaces without boats was impossible. It follows that the success of Neolithisation was dependant on seafaring. Taking this evidence into account we must recognise that people probably navigated the sea from very early on, from at least the Neolithic if not before (in Europe the first dug out boats date to the Mesolithic), which leads us to two questions: the first concerning the peoples of the past, and the second to the scholars who study them.

The concept of space and the study of frontiers

To travel, to cross borders and to create territories supposes that the individuals who took part in such an adventure understood space on two levels: the real and the symbolic. To dare to travel to known and unknown lands, by land and by sea, braving real and imaginary dangers (especially at sea), one must consider what lies beyond the visible horizon. It is of course difficult to address these questions for oral societies that have now disappeared. Some, however, have the temerity to tackle this fundamental subject. Working from archaeological data, together with ways of thinking about places or animals (such as birds in the sky or on the water), avenues of speculation can be proposed (Clark, Huth, this volume). Of course, this raises questions on the approaches, the methods available to archaeology, a science based on materiality, that allow it to approach the immaterial, the cognitive. When one thinks about ancient oral societies, long disappeared, that make up the greater part of our history, there are no written texts to clarify things for us. It is necessary to understand the meaning of the evidence, to interpret it, to translate it into a set of beliefs, into a language. Archaeologists are not totally bereft of help. Firstly, and most importantly, they have the archaeological record. They study and compare data, debate concepts, compare results, return to excavation, to the original data and thus work in a continually renewed dynamic. They fuel their own hypotheses with the results of others, those studying literate societies or those working in anthropology. They rule nothing out, whilst remaining wary of everything. The exercise can seem difficult. It is. But even if one does not have a mental map of maritime space of the coastal communities of the Channel, one imagines that they had some form of representation, with a system of reference points on land and sea. These clues go to demonstrate a knowledge of the stars (essential for the sailor!) and their cycles (how could it be otherwise in an agricultural society?). The Nebra disc (Germany), the metal chariots and pottery vessels decorated with birds, and the Scandinavian pictograms of boats are just some of the material evidence. So, if one has every reason to think that European Bronze Age societies had a representation of space, then one can also imagine that the question of the length of voyages was not ignored, that of the (more or less) rapid time needed to travel in contrast to the slow tempo of sedentary life in the agricultural world. Past communities gave much thought to the means of travel. Moreover, a boat like that of Dover, evidence of a craftsmanship of exceptional quality, shows that society (or at least certain individuals) had devoted an important investment to make possible the existence of such a vessel, in order to meet the essential requirements of travel (McGrail 2001; Pomey and Rieth 2005). Such expertise in boatbuilding did not come about overnight, but we know that navigation went hand in hand with the rise in sea levels in Europe and the creation of seas after the last glacial maximum and the beginning of global warming. Navigation is, profoundly, an integral part of recent humanity, of Protohistory (Cunliffe 2001; 2008), with all of its attendant constraints, from boatbuilding to knowledge of the maritime environment and its ever-present dangers. The Dover Boat provides direct proof of this reality at a particular moment in time.

In order to understand the journeys undertaken, the movement of people and territorial identities, the archaeologist relies mostly on material data, albeit indirect. This is how the idea of a Transmanche zone came into being (see below). The houses, pits, ditches and tombs brought to light by excavation were compared and an internal logic became apparent: the structures and techniques demonstrated similar choices, common identities. This one can see in the buildings, in the important rites surrounding the treatment of the dead, and which can also resonate in everyday objects such as pottery or the more exotic, such as metal objects which necessarily require systems of exchange. In addition, the importation of the same foreign materials (such as amber) for the same use (small worked objects deposited in funerary contexts, etc.) underscore certain theories and comparisons (Jennings 2014). These clues, when put together, produce distribution maps, sometimes at different scales (the distribution of everyday pottery is not that of gold objects, which covers a much larger area) and demonstrate actual, real-life borders, not just those imagined by archaeologists today. Over decades of discoveries and research, this type of territorial reconstruction has become possible at precise moments in Protohistory, with continuities and discontinuities varying according to place and time. For the Atlantic zone, if each region demonstrates its originality little by the little, and with more and more clarity, the forms of continuity from the Middle and Late Neolithic to the Bronze Age can be made out (Harding and Fokkens 2013).

The Atlantic Bronze Age and the Transmanche area

Adopting a chronological framework for the period between the 3rd and the beginning of the 1st millennium BC meets two expectations: on one hand, it places the Bronze Age at the heart of ongoing debates consistent with the Dover Boat and its symbolism; on the other, its links this same Bronze Age to the periods (and realities) which come before and after it, the Neolithic on one side (Late Neolithic and Beaker Culture) and the Early Iron Age on the other. The discovery of a sewn plank boat in the port of Dover in 1992 throws a spotlight on the middle of the 2nd millennium BC, the Middle Bronze Age to use the technical term. This discovery was made during a period of European-wide reassessment of data relating to the Bronze Age. The development of preventive archaeology played its part but is not enough to completely explain the dynamic work during the 1990s and beyond (Chevillot and Coffyn 1990 for the concept of ‘Atlantic Bronze Age’; for more recent research, see the bibliographies in this volume). Since this date, excavations have proliferated, the methods of scientific analyses have been enriched, scientific analyses and funerary archaeology has acquired new approaches. The themes of study and research questions have evolved at the same time and particular attention is now centred on environments, territories and the opening up of large areas as well as the growing importance of palaeo-environmental studies to facilitate this perspective. The improved conditions for excavation and the interrogation of data are thus brought together to propose new theoretical models for study. We know that each generation of scholars sits on the shoulders of its predecessors. It is by combining old and new results that the concept of the ‘Atlantic Bronze Age’ has been identified as a coherent entity for a large area of Western Europe, within which the sea, from the Atlantic to the North Sea, plays a key role.

Fig. 1.1. Map of Europe inverted/Carte, Europe inversée (Belin 2016, 230).

Today, a new generation of scholars has joined the ranks of their teachers bringing with them a fresh integrative approach to the subject (Matthew, Milcent, this volume). In this vast Atlantic horizon, the boat discovered in Dover, recent excavations in the south of Britain, the coastal areas of Belgium, the north of France to the shores of Normandy, brings one to concentrate one of the foci of spatial analyses of the ‘Atlantic Bronze Age’ (which is also discussed) on the Transmanche area (Brun, Needham, Marcigny et al., this volume). Put into the perspective of the history of research (De Mulder and Bourgeois, Leclercq and Warmenbol, this volume), the recent data reinforce the idea of a common identity on either side of this narrow stretch of sea that boats, products of exceptional craftsmanship, can cross relatively easily. Furthermore, archaeology invites us to reconsider the idea of a border that has long been put forward as ‘natural’. This notion can be applied to the sea (either an obstacle or a routeway), but also to other landscape features which have equally been presented or understood as barriers, such as rivers or mountains (David-Elbiali, Huth, this volume). The study of societies over the longue durée, and in particular work on the movement of people, travel and the successive creation of territories and their shifting but never impassable borders, show that geographical determinism comes up against human free will and it is often the latter that prevails. During the 2nd millennium BC people, goods and ideas circulated over great distances. Links can be identified between the coastal areas of Portugal or Brittany with Ireland and as far north as Scandinavia. The similarities of practices and objects (especially metal objects) are unequivocal. At the scale of the narrow passage between the Channel and the North Sea, the proximity of the two facing coasts is even more marked. Exemplified by the similarities in prestigious objects (made out of gold for example), the common identity of this Transmanche zone can be seen in the choice of dwelling (Leroy-Langelin et al., this volume), funerary practices (Buchez et al., Billand et al., Issenmann et al., this volume) and at certain times, pottery (Buchez et al., Manem, Henton and Buchez, this volume).

The European project ‘BOAT 1550 BC’ provided an opportunity to assess the results in the context of the history of research during the many conferences of the project (2011–2014) and even after (Lehoërff 2016b). It has also allowed greater public awareness of old and new data brought together in a travelling exhibition in three languages (Lehoërff 2012). One of the themes specifically addressed the movement of people and voyages. The visitors, themselves mainly from the modern-day Transmanche area, were asked to think about the idea that, 3500 years ago, the sea was a route of communication and not a supposedly natural barrier. Pushing aside preconceived ideas and showing how inappropriate they are for our distant ancestors, was a clearly stated and even sought after desire, using the methods and scientific results from archaeology alone. Children were specifically targeted (in the exhibition and with the teaching kit) with a clear aim; to encourage future citizens to think about the question of space, of territories and of people’s responsibility in their creation. The project therefore included a strong emphasis on the sharing of knowledge and the links between societies of the past and those of today. Led by scientists, it also included a more specialised presentation, showing hitherto unseen results and syntheses that open up the way to new research, probably less accessible to the general public but rather dedicated to specialised archaeologists. This was the essence of the Boulogne-sur-Mer conference in 2012 (this volume) and the Dover conference in 2013: to make accessible the fruits of this research.

Current work on human mobility

To conclude, the proceedings of this international conference will be published at a time when the question of human mobility has never been more topical. And with mobility comes the question of borders. The archaeologist is not responsible for resolving the issues of the modern world except for one notable exception: when the past physically intersects with the world of today.

More generally, the archaeologist’s work is to understand the past, to give voice and words to people who are now silent, to shine a light on their history by way of buried or submerged finds, to bring knowledge to contemporary society and to put into perspective – over the longue durée – the phenomena whose traces are archaeological.

Archaeologists would however fail in their mission if they allowed us to believe that societies were in some way ‘set down’ in one place forever. Communities started to permanently claim territories about 8000 years ago in a Europe whose borders and territorial limits have not stopped moving since that time, at varying rhythms and over different spaces. The notion of irrevocable permanence does not exist within the perspective of the longue durée. At best, a period of relative stability can equate to a certain historical reality. In this context, the definition of borders becomes an ongoing territorial and social challenge. There is no evidence in relation to this question. Archaeology stresses that, for millennia at least, from the beginning of the Neolithic at the dawn of Protohistory, territories and borders are human, cultural and political constructions which constitute very strong elements of power. Nothing exists in a ‘natural’ state, written in the landscape. Natural features can create lines, ways and obstacles but not impassable barriers. Nothing, furthermore, in the reality of the shifting territories on the scale of human history (tens of thousands of years for the most recent ‘us’, Homo sapiens) could justify any form of legitimisation of original territories. In addition, has the (very) recent history of the last centuries, highly concentrated and complicated, succeeded in creating a form of spatial division whose maintenance in a crowded world can be preserved by political and territorial choices and a desire for peace?

Human society moves across the land, the sea or the mountains and creates and recreates its territories in relation to a moment in time and in accordance with its needs and possibilities. Nothing, a priori, might let us suppose that around 1500 BC the stretch of water between Britain and the continent was only a place of passage between two very similar and very close coastal worlds. The archaeological record has imposed this reality, contrary to what was expected, especially when considering today’s difficulties. Managing a cross-border project which emphasised this very long history has thus been a good scientific lesson. Working together as a group drawn from three countries on the ‘BOAT 1550 BC’ project (France, Britain and Belgium), which was broadened internationally fo...

Table des matières

• Front Cover
• Half-Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table Of Contents
• Preface
• 1. To think of leaving: mobility and identities in Western Europe during the Bronze Age
• 2. On migrations: Sigfried Jan De Laet (1914–1999): his role in Belgian Bronze Age archaeology after the Second World War and the diffusion of cultural characteristics
• 3. Marcel Édouard Mariën (1918–1991) and the metal ages in Belgium. Undoing the Atlantic wall
• 4. Transmanche in the Penard/Rosnoën stage. Wearing the same sleeve or keeping at arm’s length?
• 5. At World’s End: the Channel Bronze Age and the emergence and limits of the Atlantic complex
• 6. Rythmes et contours de la géographie culturelle sur le littoral de la Manche entre le IIIe et le début du Ier millénaire
• 7. The Atlantic Early Iron Age in Gaul
• 8. Following the Whale’s Road: perceptions of the sea in prehistory
• 9. Circular funerary monuments at the beginning of the Bronze Age in the north of France: architecture and duration of use
• 10. Evolution of rites and funerary systems during the Early and Middle Bronze Age in the north-west of France
• 11. La nécropole de Soliers ‘PA.EOLE’ (14) : nouvelles données en faveur d’un complexe medio-atlantique
• 12. Open Bronze Age settlement forms in the north of France: state of knowledge and study strategies
• 13. Les découvertes récentes de mobilier céramique Bronze ancien-début Bronze final dans le nord-ouest de la France
• 14. Bronze Age ceramic traditions and the impact of the natural barrier: complex links between decoration, technique and social groups around the Channel
• 15. Evolution des faciès céramiques au Bronze final et à l’aube du premier Âge du Fer, entre Somme, Escaut et rivages de la Manche (France, région Nord-Picardie)
• 16. The Channel: border and link during the Bronze Age
• 17. Water between two worlds – reflections on the explanatory value of archaeological finds in a Bronze Age river landscape
• 18. Le passage des Alpes : voyages et échanges entre l’Italie et la Suisse (2200–700 av. J.-C.)