History and Prehistory

1. History and Prehistory Their pottery was important to them. They spent hours decorating it. They used it in religious ceremonies. They were buried with it, sometimes they were buried IN it... They had knowledge but no writing. They had weapons but no warfare. They travelled across Europe without the wheel or sail. They had a hazy knowledge of rich and exotic lands beyond their reach, we’ll be looking at those lands next time... If you want to start early, read up on: The city of Babylon Ancient Greece The Roman Empire Minoan Crete In our first session we looked at our earliest ancestors. Hunter-gatherers started farming in England about 6,000 years ago. They were living in small villages and they built stone circles, usually small ones, as community spaces. They also made our first pots and fired them in open fires. They learned how to do this from people on the continent. They had complex ideas about the sun and stars, but we can only guess at what they were...

2. Sticks and Stones Stone, wood and bone were the main building materials, the stone tools they made survive best in the archaeological record. Pottery also survives well, and it has helped us to learn that they drank beer, cremated their dead and had an appreciation for art. Pottery was locally distinctive, each area made it’s own type. Finding this pottery allows us to understand how they traded and interacted with each other.

3. Bronze Age Settlements The artefacts we looked at relate to Bronze Age sites in Wiltshire and Norfolk. Many of these sites, sometimes called ‘Middens’, are not well understood and various explanations have been put forward: a village, an area of ritual feasting, a local trade hub or a rubbish dump. Pottery The pottery we saw is mostly ‘Courseware’ meaning it was used for cooking and eating, not displaying or trading. The clay was mixed with crushed shell, flint and quartz and fired in open firepits. Burned Flint We saw rocks that had been heated in a fire, and are found on many prehistoric sites. We’re not sure why this happened, they may have been used to heat water or simply to contain the firepit. Bronze was made from a mix of around 15% Tin and 85% Copper, both had to be mined and smelted by hand in ancient times.

4. Timelines Don’t forget… Because farming and Bronze working spread slowly through Europe, the Bronze Age starts at different times in different countries. In England, it starts in 2500 BC… But we’re way behind Egypt and Crete, where it starts in 3500 BC.