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Chapter Three - Stonehenge

Long-Distance Exchange in Late Neolithic Britain c. 3000–2450 bc

from Part I - Exchange and Social Evolution: Forms of Trade in Egalitarian, Transegalitarian, and Chiefdom Societies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 August 2022

By
Michael Parker Pearson
Edited by
Johan Ling ,
Richard J. Chacon  and
Kristian Kristiansen
Johan Ling
Affiliation:
University of Gothenburg, Sweden
Richard J. Chacon
Affiliation:
Winhrop University, South Carolina
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Summary

Megalith construction is invariably associated with complex exchange networks, and this is undoubtedly the case with Stonehenge (Figure 3.1), built and rebuilt in five stages over a period of c. 1,300 years during the transition from stone to bronze (Darvill et al. 2012). Ethnographies living traditions of megalith building, such as in southern Madagascar, reveal exchanges between wife-giving and wife-taking lineages, between women of different lineages and clans, between quarry-workers and tomb-builders and between hosts and mobilized labour (Parker Pearson 2002, 2010). One of the major exchanges in such societies is that of labour for hospitality and for the blessing of the ancestors (Layard 1942; Hoskins 1986; Adams 2016). Hosts exchange wealth for honour and renown, both for the living and for the dead. In many cases, the exchanges are obligatory rather than voluntary, to satisfy those in power and to appease the supernatural.

Type
Chapter
Information
Trade before Civilization
Long Distance Exchange and the Rise of Social Complexity
 , pp. 40 - 52
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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