Post-Neolithic Western Europe

doi:10.1017/CHO9781139017831.111

3.25 - Post-Neolithic Western Europe

from VIII. - Europe and the Mediterranean

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2014

Alison Sheridan

Edited by

Colin Renfrew and

Paul Bahn

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Alison Sheridan: Affiliation:
National Museums Scotland
Colin Renfrew: Affiliation:
University of Cambridge

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Summary

This chapter covers western Europe (here defined as Iberia, Britain and Ireland, the Low Countries, France and the western Alpine area; see Map 3.25.1) from the 4th to the end of the 1st millennium bce. It takes us from the time when farming societies first started to use metal – copper and gold, then bronze (and, in a few areas and at specific times, silver) – to the realm of protohistory, when in some regions towns and complex stratified societies had developed, and by which time iron had long been the main metal in use. It spans major changes in economy and society, set against a backdrop of an ever-increasing population and a changing climate; and the people concerned have left us an exceptionally rich and varied record of their practices and beliefs, from the exquisite gold lunulae of late 3rd-millennium Ireland to the monumental stelae found in various parts of western Europe (Fig. 3.25.1; Harrison 2004), and from the imposing stone-built castros of Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Iberia to the hillforts and oppida of the Iron Age. From the second half of the 1st millennium, there are even accounts of these people, by Phoenician, Greek and Roman writers (Cunliffe 1997), and Irish legends such as the Táin Bó Cúailnge (The Cattle Raid of Cooley) offer us glimpses into the world of Iron Age Irish society, albeit through the prism of ce 7th to 10th century writers (Mallory & McNeill 1991: 168–9). The weapons used by these Chalcolithic, Bronze Age and Iron Age people speak to us of conflict (Osgood et al. 2000), with a strong emphasis on display and martial prowess (Jensen 1999; Harrison 2004), while their increasingly sophisticated means of transport (Pétrequin et al. 2006; Clark 2009), and the evidence for the long-distance (and not-so-long distance) movement of highly desirable objects, materials, people and ideas, remind us of the interconnectedness of communities and of the importance of the politics of desire (e.g., Kristiansen & Larsson 2005; Billard et al. 2005; Needham et al. 2006; Clark 2009).

Type: Chapter
Information: The Cambridge World Prehistory , pp. 1885 - 1911

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CHO9781139017831.111 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2014

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