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The Presidential Address for 1933: The distribution of Man in East Anglia, c. 2300 B.C.—50 A.D. A Contribution to the Prehistory of the Region

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 October 2013

Cyril Fox
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Extract

I desire first of all to express my appreciation of the honour you have done me in electing me President of the Society. Faced with the necessity of choosing a subject suitable for a Presidential Address, it occurred to me that a brief survey of the distribution of Man in East Anglia during the Neolithic, Bronze and Early Iron Ages might be appropriate. Selection of the region wherein the Society was born, and which inspired the fruitful work of its founders and their successors, is intended as a tribute of gratitude from one who has profited by the study of the many important Papers published in its Proceedings.

The general principles, recognized as governing Man's distribution under uncivilized or semi-civilized conditions in Britain, may first be summarized.

In the Lowland area to which East Anglia belongs soil is the chief determinant. There are two main types of soil: pervious, such as that overlying chalk, sand, gravel; impervious, as that overlying clay. The pervious soils induce an open type of country, or carry forest with relatively thin undergrowth; the rapidity with which such soils dry up after rain, the ease with which a scratch agriculture can be practised on them, their suitability for pastoral life, the ease of movement on them—all these factors render them attractive to early Man. As a group they form the Area of Primary Settlement. The impervious clay soils, on the other hand, carry forest with dense undergrowth, are difficult to clear, and when cleared difficult to cultivate with primitive tools. To the physical unsuitability of such soils for settlement there is added a second deterrent; water-laden soils under the conditions of savage life produce disease in man and beast. But when cultivation of such soils is possible they are found to yield the heaviest crops to tillage, being especially good for corn-growing. They are, then, utilized when civilization reaches a certain level, and have accordingly been grouped as the Area of Secondary Settlement.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society of East Anglia , Volume 7 , Issue 2 , 1933 , pp. 149 - 164
Copyright
Copyright © The Prehistoric Society 1933

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References

page 149 note 1 Wooldridge, and Linton, , Antiquity, 1933, p. 297 ff.Google Scholar See also Fox, ibid., pp. 473-5.

page 151 note 1 In the N.E., further geo-physical changes have transformed the drowned river valleys of the Waveney-Yare-Bure system into a linked series of shallow broads.

page 152 note 1 ¼-in. to the mile: Sheets 12, 16, 20 and 24 of the Geological Survey.

page 152 note 2 All these actual or potential traffic routes were controlled by castles in the Middle Ages, e.g., Castle Camps on the watershed between the Stour and the Granta.

page 152 note 2 Fox, , Personality of Britain, pp. 56–57Google Scholar.

page 152 note 3 “Comparative”; because there is evidence for slight subsidence in the region of the Lower Thames since Roman times (Wheeler, , Antiquity III, p. 28Google Scholar) and slight changes—now under investigation—have also taken place in the Fenlands.

page 153 note 1 In connection with “stone” distributions, Mr. Miles Burkitt has been most helpful.

page 153 note 2 It should be added that, in prolific areas, numerous finds in all periods fail to be recorded for lack of space. Once an area is completely covered by symbols, no more finds can be shown. Thus it is a constant error that the contrast between thinly-occupied and densely-occupied areas is inadequately shown. The extent of error is in inverse proportion to the scale of the map employed, as can easily be seen if the maps accompanying this Paper be compared with the massed Bronze Age Map in The Personality of Britain, Map C.

page 154 note 1 In this and subsequent periods the majority of the finds from the Lower Thames comes from the bed of the river. But some are certainly related to riverside settlements.

page 154 note 2 Archaeology of the Cambridge Region, Maps 1–5, p. xxiii.

page 154 note 3 Forde, C. Daryll, J.R.A.I., LX. 1930, p. 211 ff.Google ScholarOn the use of Greenstone (Jadeite, Callais, etc.) in the Megalithic Culture of Brittany.

page 154 note 4 Clark, Grahame, Antiquity, 1931, p. 415Google Scholar, & P.P.S.E.A., VI, 356. Over a dozen sites have been added to his list.

page 154 note 5 Warren, Hazzledine, J.R.A.I., new series, XV., p. 91Google Scholar, and P.P.S.E.A. III, p. 94 ff.

page 155 note 1 Fox, and Grimes, : Arch. Camb., 1928, p. 150Google Scholar, fig. 7.

page 155 note 2 O.G.S. Crawford first worked out the distributions: Geog. Journ., XL, 1912, p. 186Google Scholar, Fig. 2.

page 156 note 1 Fox, , Archaeology of the Cambridge Region, p. 64Google Scholar.

page 156 note 2 See Archaeology of the Cambridge Region, p. 20.

page 156 note 3 This invasion has been discussed by many writers. For the most recent analyses see Evans, Estyn, Antiquity, IV., p. 157 ffGoogle Scholar; Preston, and Hawkes, , Antiq. Journ. XIII, (1933), especially pp. 434–440Google Scholar; and Wheeler, , Antiquity, III, p. 20 ff.Google Scholar

page 156 note 4 See Personality of Britain, pp. 57–8, for the general importance of the Thames as a highway in this phase of the Age.

page 157 note 1 In the Personality of Britain, p. 57, it is shown that inhospitable country on a line of route does not yield evidence of traffic. Evidence is found only at spots convenient for halting places or for settlement—in this case on either margin of the “bad lands.”

page 157 note 2 Page 52, paras. 4–5, and p. 320.

page 157 note 3 The distribution on the continent and in Britain, of one sword-type, the “carps-tongue,” has been worked out by Evans, Estyn, Antiquity, IV, 1930, Fig. 2, p. 161Google Scholar.

page 157 note 4 Antiquity, IV, p. 157 ff.Google Scholar

page 158 note 1 O. G. S. Crawford was the first to plot these. L'Anthropologie, 1913, p. 649Google Scholar and fig. 4.

page 158 note 2 The distinctiveness of this type has not hitherto been recognized, so far as Miss Chitty and I are aware.

page 158 note 3 These may have been only small groups of military adventurers, who controlled and gave their name to the northern half of East Anglia.

page 159 note 1 The significance of this development was emphasised in 1923, Archaeology of the Cambridge Region. p. 315.

page 159 note 2 Caesar, Cf., De Bello Gallico, VI, 23Google Scholar. Civitatibus maxima laus est quam latissime circum se vastatis finibus solitudines habere. Hoc proprium virtutis existimant, expulsos agris fmitimos cedere, neque quemquam prope audere consistere; simul hoc se fore tutiores arbitrantur repentinae incursionis timore sublato.

page 159 note 3 Brooke, G. C., Antiquity, 1933, p. 268 ff.Google Scholar and Map XII.

page 159 note 4 A few coins of Cunobeline reached the Iceni along this route. Brooke, loc. cit., Map XI.

page 159 note 5 “The explanation of the distribution of population” (in this period) “may be found in the importance which agriculture attained.” Arch. Camb. Reg., p. 116. The immediate cause may have been the introduction of the wheeled plough, coulters for which have been found in the native (Romanized) town of Great Chesterford, Essex, Karslake, , Antiq. Journ., 1933, p. 455 ff.Google Scholar

page 160 note 1 See Wheeler, , Antiquity, 1933, p. 33Google Scholar.

page 160 note 2 Wheeler, ibid., p. 30.

page 160 note 3 Brooke, G. C., Antiquity, 1933, p. 268 ff.Google Scholar, and Num. Chron., 1933, p. 2 ff.Google Scholar

page 163 note 1 Early Iron Age II does not of course afford a further comparison, for conditions are changed; the backwater is by way of becoming a desirable area.

page 163 note 2 See Personality of Britain, Fig. 34.

page 163 note 3 Ptolemy placed Londiniujn in the territory of the Cantii.