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Foreign Relations in the Neolithic Period

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 October 2013

Reginald A. Smith
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Extract

In discussing the points of contact between Neolithic Britain and the Continent, it is desirable from many points of view to begin at the beginning, and to conclude with the introduction of metal. I prefer this to the method adopted in our leading text-book, even though it brings us at once into an area of conflict, where nothing should be taken for granted, and general agreement is not yet in sight. In Scandinavia there seems to be a definite terminus a quo, though even there some elements of doubt can be detected. It is generally assumed that human life began in the peninsula soon after the last or Baltic glaciation came to an end; and the first question is whether the same holds good for Britain, and if so, to what extent, for an ice-free area in the south of England is recognised by most authorities even during the severe glaciation that accounted for boulder-clay at Finchley, only three miles north of the Thames.

As will be seen later, intercourse with Scandinavia was lively during two phases of the Megalithic period, but there is nothing to shew that the Neolithic civilisations east and west of the North Sea had a common origin or began at the same date.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society of East Anglia , Volume 3 , Issue 1 , 1919 , pp. 14 - 32
Copyright
Copyright © The Prehistoric Society 1919

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References

page 16 note * Further notes on these are published in Essex Naturalist, XVI., 266 (S. H. Warren)Google Scholar.

page 16 note † Munro, R., Prehistoric Scotland, pp. 71, 83 Google Scholar; Evans, , Stone, 2nd edn. 129 Google Scholar.

page 16 note ‡ Archæological Journal, XLIL, 302 Google Scholar.

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page 17 note * Shore, and Elwes, , Proc. Hampshire Field Club, 1889, I., Part III, p. 54 Google Scholar.

page 17 note † Specimens in de Mortillet's Musée préhistorique, pl. XXXIV.

page 19 note * Mr. T. E. Peet seems, however, to countenance it in his Rough Stone Monuments, p. 152; see also de Morgan, , Les premières civilisations, p. 148 Google Scholar.

page 19 note † De Morgan adopts the theory that the idea of dolmen building emanated from various centres and spread among peoples having the same views with regard to a future life (Les premières civilisations, p. 154).

page 20 note * See ProfSmith's, Elliot thesis in Essays and Studies presented to Wm. Ridgeway (1913), p. 522 Google Scholar.

page 20 note † Grains of wheat, burnt when the clay was fired, have left their mark in several pottery vessels of this period (e.g. Abercromby, , Bronze Age Pottery, I. 69 Google Scholar; Müller, S., Mém. Soc. Ant. du Nord., 1914–1915, 36 Google Scholar).

page 22 note * For example, M. Siret's views are combated by Déchelette, in Revue Archéologique, 1908, II., 219, 390 Google Scholar.

page 23 note * This seems to be an error in Stjerna's, Före Hällkisttiden, p. 100 Google Scholar, fig. 107; see Evans, , Stone, 2nd edn., p. 404 Google Scholar, and Antiquarisk Tidskrift för Sverige, XX., 15 (Almgren)Google Scholar.

page 23 note † Louis Siret argues that the Spanish examples are whetstones ( Chronologie et Ethnographic Ibériques, I., 400 Google Scholar).

page 24 note * Correspondenzblatt, 1891, p. 102 Google Scholar.

page 24 note † Stjerna, however, includes the Scandinavian passage-graves in the Copper Age (Före Hällkisttiden, p. 101). The point is discussed by Siret, , Chronologie et Ethnographie Ibériques, I., 179 Google Scholar.

page 26 note * Archæologia, LXII., pl. XXXVII., fig. 3, p. 340. Other fragments are described by MrLeeds, in Oxfordshire Arch. Soc. Report, 1912, 114 Google Scholar.

page 26 note † Nordman, C. A. (Nordiske Fortidsminder, II., 97)Google Scholar associates it with late examples of the thin-butted celt, consequently to the late Dolmen period in Denmark.

page 26 note ‡ See MrWard's, John observations in Archæologia Cambrensis, Jan. 1918, p. 45 Google Scholar.

page 29 note * Siret, pp. 241, 425, 457.

page 30 note * Common in parts of Scotland, see ProfBryce, in Proc, Soc. Antiq. Scot., XXXVI, 74 Google Scholar, and XXXVII, 36.

page 30 note † According to de Morgan, round-heads appeared with polished stone (Les premières civilisations, p. 158).

page 31 note * de Baye, Baron devoted a chapter to it in Archéologie préhistorique, p. 213 Google Scholar; several references in Holmes', T. Rice Ancient Britain, p. 93 Google Scholar.