British Neolithic Axehead Distributions and Their Implications

Abstract

Neolithic stone axeheads from Britain provide an unusually rich, well-provenanced set of evidence with which to consider patterns of prehistoric production and exchange. It is no surprise then that these objects have often been subject to spatial analysis in terms of the relationship between particular stone source areas and the distribution of axeheads made from those stones. At stake in such analysis are important interpretative issues to do with how we view the role of material value, supply, exchange, and demand in prehistoric societies. This paper returns to some of these well-established debates in the light of accumulating British Neolithic evidence and via the greater analytical power and flexibility afforded by recent computational methods. Our analyses make a case that spatial distributions of prehistoric axeheads cannot be explained merely as the result of uneven resource availability in the landscape, but instead reflect the active favouring of particular sources over known alternatives. Above and beyond these patterns, we also demonstrate that more populated parts of Early Neolithic Britain were an increased pull factor affecting the longer-range distribution of these objects.

Evaluating machine learning techniques for archaeological lithic sourcing: a case study of flint in Britain

“…While the methodology here is applicable for prehistoric research more broadly, it may be most keenly felt within Mesolithic Studies, where a concerted effort by contemporary researchers is being made to move on from the abstract modelling and generalisation of previous generations, to more nuanced and specific social histories of the period 66 – 68 . For the Neolithic, this increased resolution towards the procurement of flint may perhaps place the distribution, trade, and exchange of objects such as axes 58 , 59 , 69 , 70 in greater context, as well as help towards a more granular understanding of mobility for the period 71 .…”

Cycles in Stone Mining and Copper Circulation in Europe 5500–2000bc: A View from Space

“…Our rationale for choosing this 200km spatial focus is that, since the deposition locations of most products from a given stone source fall within a 200-km radius of the source (e.g. Schauer et al, 2020) (with the exception of jade axes, treated separately here), and areas more than 200 km away from a source would be unlikely to be exerting a direct demand on source production in any case, it is necessary to focus on the occurrence of copper finds within a 200 km radius of the stone sources if we are to assess the potential impact of copper circulation on the exploitation of the stone sources. The SPDs of stone sources within the region are plotted against this hinterland.…”

Neolithic Art at European Flint Extraction Sites

“…Chronologies for Neolithic flint mining in Europe were until recently broad and imprecise, relying largely on historic radiocarbon dates with broad standard deviations, or dates obtained from bulk samples of charcoal (Whittle et al 2011, 257). A recently completed project led by Stephen Shennan (Schauer et al 2019a;2019b;Edinborough et al 2020) has attempted to determine the main phases of Neolithic mining in northwest Europe. They have ascertained that there are two such phases of mining at c.4200-3800 cal BC and 3500-2900 cal BC (Schauer et al 2019a, 158), with the first phase taking place around the same time as the expansion of farming from northern France and Belgium (Crombé et al 2020, 1).…”

“…It has been proposed that the flint extracted from mines was used to manufacture axes for forest clearance during the primary phase of land cultivation at the beginning of the Neolithic, a view which seems to be increasingly supported through new dates on the beginnings of agriculture (Sørensen and Karg 2014;Gron and Sørensen 2018;Schauer et al 2019a;Edinborough et al 2020). Therefore, flint mines are likely to correspond with the wider European technological developments associated with the adoption of pastoralism and agriculture (Schauer et al 2019b). An increasing number of studies indicate that the migration of people prompted this spread of Neolithic subsistence strategies in northern Europe (for an overview, see Shennan 2018;Brace et al 2019;Gron et al 2020) and that sea travel may have played an important role in the adoption of ideas such as earthen long barrows (Rassmann 2010) and megalith building (Schulz Paulsson 2019).…”