Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7fkt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T08:45:47.459Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Fieldwork at Great Langdale, Cumbria, 1985-1987: Preliminary Report

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 April 2011

Summary

The Lake District mountains have long been known as the source of Neolithic artefacts belonging to petrological group VI. The study of their wider distribution has played a central part in investigations of the ‘axe trade’. Unfortunately, it is not clear that all Group VI axes originated in this area and in any case it is now known that there is no direct relationship between different fall-off patterns and the processes that led to their creation. At the same time, it is not possible to compare work at Neolithic flint mines with current knowledge of how non-flint axes were distributed. Recent fieldwork, in the wake of a survey carried out by the National Trust and the Cumbria and Lancashire Archaeological Unit, has tried to investigate the ways in which stoneworking at Great Langdale was organized and the relationship between methods of exploiting the raw materials on site and changes in the distribution of Cumbrian axes across Britain as a whole. This has involved experimental archaeology, technological analysis, environmental investigations and small-scale excavation. This work has resulted in the recognition of two distinct modes of production. These are discussed in relation to the environmental history of the surrounding region.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1988

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Annable, R. 1987. The Later Prehistory of Northern England, Brit. Arch. Rep. 160 (Oxford).Google Scholar
Bradley, R. 1984. The Social Foundations of Prehistoric Britain (London).Google Scholar
Bradley, R and Ford, S. 1986. ‘The siting of Neolithic stone quarries—experimental archaeology at Great Langdale, Cumbria’, Oxford J. Arch, v, 123–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bunch, B. and Fell, C. 1949. ‘A stone axe factory at Pike of Stickle, Great Langdale, Westmor-land’, Proc. Prehist. Soc. xv, 120.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burl, A. 1976. The Stone Circles of the British Isles (New Haven, Conn.).Google Scholar
Chappell, S. 1987. Stone Axe Morphology and Distribution in Neolithic Britain, Brit. Arch. Rep. 177 (Oxford).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark J. D., G. 1965. ‘Traffic in stone axe and adze blades’, Econ. Hist. Rev. (2nd ser.) xviii, 128.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clough, T. 1973. ‘Excavations on a Langdale axe-chipping site in 1969 and 1970’, Trans. Cumber-land & Westmorland Arch. Soc. lxxiii, 2546.Google Scholar
Clough, T. and Cummins, W. (eds.) 1979. Stone Axe Studies, Counc. Brit. Arch. Res. Rep. 23 (London).Google Scholar
Collins A., L. 1893. ‘Fire setting: the art of mining by fire’, Trans. Federal Inst. Mining Engineers, 8292.Google Scholar
Collins, M. 1975. ‘Lithic technology as a means of processual inference’, in Swanson, E., Lithic Technology–Making and Using Stone Tools (The Hague), 1534.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Craddock, P., Cowell, M., Leese, M. and Hughes, M. 1983. ‘The trace element composition of polished flint axes as an indication of source’, Archaeometry, xxv, 135–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cummins, W. 1979. ‘Neolithic stone axes: distribution and trade in England and Wales’, in Clough, and Cummins, (eds.) 1979, 512.Google Scholar
Davis R., V. 1985. ‘Implement petrology: the state of the art—some problems and possibilities’, in Phillips, P., The Archaeologist and the Laboratory, Counc. Brit. Arch. Res. Rep. 58 (London), 33–5.Google Scholar
Edmonds, M. and Thomas, J. 1987. ‘The archers: an everyday story of countryfolk’, in Brown, A. and Edmonds, M., Lithic Analysis and Later British Prehistory, Brit. Arch. Rep. 162 (Oxford), 187–99.Google Scholar
Ericson, J. and Purdy, B. (eds.) 1984. Prehistoric Quarries and Lithic Production (Cambridge).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gardiner, J. 1984. ‘Lithic distributions and Neolithic settlement patterns in central southern England’, in Bradley, R. and Gardiner, J., (eds.), Neolithic Studies, Brit. Arch. Rep. 133 (Oxford), 1540.Google Scholar
Gregory C., A. 1982. Gifts and Commodities (London).Google Scholar
Grimes W., F. 1979. ‘The history of implement petrology in Britain’, in Clough, and Cummins, (eds.) 1979, 14.Google Scholar
Higham, N. 1986. The Northern Counties WA.D. 1000 (London).Google Scholar
Hodder, I. 1974. ‘Regression analysis of some trade and marketing patterns’, World Arch, vi, 172–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hodder, I. and Orton, C. 1976. Spatial Analysis in Archaeology (Cambridge).Google Scholar
Houlder, C. 1961. ‘The excavation of a Neolithic stone implement factory on Mynydd Rhiw in Caernarvonshire’, Proc. Prehist. Soc. xxvii, 108–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Houlder, C. 1976. ‘Stone axes and henge monuments’, in Boon, G. and Lewis, J., Welsh Antiquity (Cardiff), 5562.Google Scholar
Houlder, C. 1979. ‘The Langdale and Scafell Pike axe factory sites: a field survey’, in Clough, T. and Cummins, W. (eds.) 1979, 87–9.Google Scholar
Jope E., M. 1952. ‘The porcellanite axes ofthe north of Ireland: Tievebulliagh and Rathlin’, Ulster J. Arch, xv, 3160.Google Scholar
Le Roux, C. T. 1971. ‘A stone axe-factory in Brittany’, Antiquity, xlv, 283–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Manby, T. G. 1965. ‘The distribution of roughout “Cumbrian” and related axes of Lake District origin in northern England’, Trans. Cumberland & Westmorland Arch. Soc. lxv, 137.Google Scholar
Mauss, M. 1974. The Gift (English translation, first published 1925) (London).Google Scholar
Mayoh, H. 1976. ‘Petrological variations at the Scafell/Langdale axe factories and their implications for Group VI’, unpubl. B.A. dissertation, Department of Geology, University of Birmingham.Google Scholar
Mercer, R. 1981. Grimes Graves, Norfolk, Excavations 1971-72 (London), 1.Google Scholar
Mercer, R. 1986. ‘The Neolithic in Cornwall’, Cornish Arch, xxv, 3580.Google Scholar
Pennington, W. 1970. ‘Vegetational history in the north-west of England–a regional study’, in Walker, D. and West, R., Studies in the VegetationalHistory of the British Isles (Cambridge), 4180.Google Scholar
Pennington, W. 1975. ‘The effect of Neolithic man on the environment of north-west England: the use of absolute pollen diagrams’, in Evans, J. G., Limbrey, S and Cleere, H. (eds.), The Effect of Man on the Landscape—the Highland Zone, Counc. Brit. Arch. Res. Rep. 11 (London), 7486.Google Scholar
Renfrew, C. 1975. ‘Trade as action at a distance’, in Sabloff, J. and Lamberg-Karlovski, C, Ancient Civilisation and Trade (Albuquerque), 360.Google Scholar
Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England, 1936. An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in Westmorland (London).Google Scholar
Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments in Wales and Monmouthshire, 1956. Caernarvonshire (London), 1.Google Scholar
Saville, A. 1981. ‘The flint assemblage’, in Mercer, R., Grimes Graves, Norfolk. Excavations 1971-72 (London), 11.Google Scholar
Sheets, P. 1975. ‘Behavioural analysis and the structure of a prehistoric industry’, Current Anthrop. xvi, 369–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sieveking G. De, G., Longworth, I., Hughes, M., Clarke, A. and Millett, A. 1973. ‘A new survey of Grimes Graves, Norfolk’, Proc. Prehist. Soc. xxxix, 182218.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith I., F. 1979. ‘The chronology of British stone implements’, in Clough, and Cummins, (eds.) 1979, 1322.Google Scholar
Soffe, G. and Clare, T. 1988. ‘New evidence of ritual monuments at Long Meg and her Daughters, Cumbria’, Antiquity, lxii, 552–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Torrence, R. 1986. Production and Exchange of Stone Tools (Cambridge).Google Scholar
Walker, D. 1965. ‘The post-glacial period in the Langdale Fells, English Lake District’, New Phytologist, lxiv, 488510.Google Scholar
Williams, B. 1856. ‘Letter on some ancient monuments in the county of Cumberland’, Proc. Soc. Antiq. London iii, 224–7.Google Scholar