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Did Neolithic farming fail? The case for a Bronze Age agricultural revolution in the British Isles

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Chris J. Stevens  and
Dorian Q Fuller
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Extract

This paper rewrites the early history of Britain, showing that while the cultivation of cereals arrived there in about 4000 cal BC, it did not last. Between 3300 and 1500 BC Britons became largely pastoral, reverting only with a major upsurge of agricultural activity in the Middle Bronze Age. This loss of interest in arable farming was accompanied by a decline in population, seen by the authors as having a climatic impetus. But they also point to this period as the time of construction of the great megalithic monuments, including Stonehenge. We are left wondering whether pastoralism was all that bad, and whether it was one intrusion after another that set the agenda on the island.

Keywords

BritainNeolithicBronze Agecerealshazelnutsarable farmingpastoralismmonumentality

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Type
Research article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 86 , Issue 333 , September 2012 , pp. 707 - 722
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 2012 

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