Prehistoric Europe

371 Pages·2009·38 MB·English

by  T.C. Champion

PREHISTORIC
EUROPE

PREHISTORIC
EUROPE
Timothy Champion
Clive Gamble
Stephen Shennan
Alasdair Whittle
~ ~:st
~Press
Inc.
Walnut Creek, California
Left
~
Coast
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LEFT COAST PRESS, Inc.
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Copyright © 2009 by Left Coast Press, Inc.
Originally published in 1984 by Academic Press under ISBN 0-12-167552-1
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any
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without the prior permission of the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data available from the publisher.
ISBN: 1-59874-463-1
978-1-59874-463-7
Printed in the United States of America
@TMThe paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American
National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library
Materials, ANSIINISO Z39.48-1992.
09 10111213 5 4 3 2 1
Preface
This book owes its existence to a need felt, we believe, by many people who are
trying to teach European prehistory, for an elementary textbook suitable for
students taking their first course in the subject with little or no previous
experience in archaeology. Several years of struggling with the literature in its
present form finally convinced us that there was no alternative but to write it
for ourselves. The primary evidence, where published at all, is notoriously
scattered through a bewildering range of books, pamphlets and journals, written
in almost every European language and in any case frequently unobtainable
except in a few specialist libraries. For some areas and periods secondary works,
sometimes excellent. exist, but their coverage is far from complete and they are
mostly at too advanced a level for first-year students. Some general books exist,
but none covers the chronological and geographical range that we thought
desirable, with a proper concentration on the themes characteristic of modern
archaeology at a level suitable for our intended readership.
It was clear from the outset that the book should have as long a
chronological range as possible. The earliest evidence for man in Europe forms
an obvious starting point, but the finishing point is more problematical. The
unfortunate distinction between classical and prehistoric archaeology, with
the' late Bronze Age and eady Iron Age of Italy and Greece sitting
uncomfortably on the fence, has obscured the essentially similar nature of
developments in Mediterranean and temperate Europe, and we have
therefore adopted the somewhat unusual path of including some periods that
many would not regard as prehistoric. On the other hand, from a northern
European point of view. prehistory would not end until well into the second
half of the first millennium AD, and we have therefore, by ending our coverage
at the beginning of that millennium. omitted some periods that could be thought
prehistoric. There is perhaps no solution to this problem that would satisfy
everyone.
It was also clear that within the scope of this book it would not be possible
to expound and illustrate the full complexities of the established regional culture
sequences of prehistoric Europe. It has not been our intention to do that, nor
v
vi Prefaoe
would we regard it as an essential or even desirable aim in such a book. We
have no doubt, nevertheless, that we will still incur the criticism of some of our
colleagues for paying too little attention to the material of Prehistoric Europe.
Our answer is that it has not been possible since the days of Gordon Childe to
do so on a European scale, that we have not been tempted to rewrite The Dawn
of European Civilisation, and that such studies are often better pursued at a
more advanced stage and through books dealing with particular periods and
areas. We hope through the text, illustrations and chronological charts to be
able to show the general nature of the existing evidence on which our arguments
rest, and to provide a sufficient basis of information for students to be able to
use the more detailed books satisfactorily.
We have chosen instead to organize our treatment of European prehistory
around the discussion of certain themes, especially those which have been most
prominent in recent research. This means, in particular, a study of settlement,
subsistence, technology, exchange and social organization. In order to focus on
these ideas, it has been more convenient to abandon the traditional Three Age
System of Stone Age, Bronze Age and Iron Age for the main division of the
book into chapters, though the terms remain invaluable for other purposes.
We have not attempted to impose any sort of undue uniformity on our
treatment of the various themes in the different periods. The very varied nature
of the evidence and of research makes this impossible. Thus within each chapter
we have not tried to give complete geographical coverage, because in many areas
the evidence does not exist or has not been adequately exploited. Similarly, there
are differences between the various chapters in the importance attached to each
theme. In the earliest periods studies of subsistence and technology predominate,
and the evolution of human society has not always formed a major focus of
research. At the other extreme, studies of subsistence in the first millennium,
though becoming more common, are not as numerous and have not had the
impact that they have in earlier post-glaciaJ times, and studies of social
organization have been correspondingly more important. Within the general
approach adopted for the book as a whole, we have therefore allowed the
particular circumstances of the current nature of research to determine the
priority of different themes.
The sheer quantity of information on prehistoric Europe is now so great that
it is almost impossible for a single person to have an equal command of it all;
hence the collaboration of four authors. The initial idea and subsequent
organization and editing were the responsibility of one person (TCC) and
individual chapters were written by single authors. Drafts were circulated for
comment by other authors and we hope we have in this way achieved a certain
uniformity, coherence and continuity, and that, despite the inevitable differences
in style, the joints are not too disturbing to the reader. It is part of the concept
of this book that it should be presented as a whole, as the collaborative work of
the authors rather than as an edited collection of papers.
We would like to thank Academic Press for their help and patience in
Preface vii
completing a somewhat complex operation, Marlin Oake and Michael Jones for
producing many of the drawings, and a of people, especially Susan
Stephenson, Anke Elborn and Sabina Thompson, whose typing skills made
order out of chaos. We hope that they think it has all been worthwhile.
Figure 6.9 is reproduced the courtesy of the Committee for Aerial
Photography. University of Cambridge; Figs 9.7 and to.5 courtesy of the
Trustees of the British Museum; Fig 10.4 by the courtesy of the Ashmolean
fv1useum, Oxford (photograph by Major Allen); the photograph of Stonehenge
on p.173 by courtesy of I'vleridian Airmaps Ltd; Fig. 6.23a is from an original
by Roger Gorringe.
Tce
March 1984

Contents
Preface v
The Study of European Prehistory
2 Earliest Humans in Europe 17
3 Subsistence and Society in Palaeolithic Europe 59
4 Post-glacial Developments: Hunters, Gatherers and Beyond 89
5 Early Farming Societies: Seventh to Fourth Millennia Be 113
6 Settlement, Expansion and Socio-economic Change:
3200-2300 Be 153
7 Prestige, Power and Hierarchies: 2300-1400 Be 197
8 The Rise of the State in Mediterranean Europe 239
9 Competition and Hierarchy in Temperate Europe 269
10 Town and the Slate in Temperate Europe 297
References 327
Index 351
ix