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The Neolithic in The Cambridgeshire Fens

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

J. G. D. Clark  and
H. Godwin
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Extract

By common consent the spread of Neolithic culture has been one of the first objectives of radiocarbon dating in north-western Europe. This is due primarily to the intrinsic historical importance of this process, but the fact that the inception of husbandry has left clear indicators in the palaeobotanical record means that decisive samples are readily available. In the present paper an account will first be given of the reinvestigation of the site on Peacock’s Farm, Shippea Hill, Cambridgeshire, a locality where in 1934 Neolithic pottery had been found stratified in a vertical sequence between Mesolithic and Early Bronze Age remains, each in deposits with fossil pollen. In view of the stratigraphical importance of the site it may be appropriate in this same context to review the radiocarbon dates for the inception of Neolithic culture in the British Isles as a whole. The excavations were undertaken during June, 1960, by the Cambridge University Department of Archaeology and Anthropology with the support of the Crowther-Beynon Fund. Samples were collected for pollen analysis and radiocarbon age determination and the laboratory work was carried out in the University Sub-department of Quaternary Research at Cambridge.

Type
Research Article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 36 , Issue 141 , March 1962 , pp. 10 - 23
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 1962

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References

1 ‘Report on an Early Bronze Age Site in the South-Eastern Fens’, Ant. J., XIII, 1933, 266-296; ‘Report on Recent Excavations at Peacock’s Farm, Shippea Hill, Cambridgeshire’, Ant. J., XV, 1935, 284-319. Note: During the 1960 excavations levels were taken from the O.S. bench-mark on Peacock’s Farm rather than that on the School used in 1934, this latter having been cancelled in the meantime. Careful checking has shown that in the 1935 publication the surface of the Fen Clay was given approximately 2⅔ ft. (c. 0.8 m.) too low.

2 For general references to ‘roddons’, see Gordon Fowler, Geogr. J., vol. 79, 1932, 210-212 and 351-352; vol. LXXXIII, 1934, 30-39 and Godwin, Geog. J., 1938, 241-50. For the extinct course of the Little Ouse, see Gordon Fowler, ‘Fenland Waterways. Past and Present. South Level District. Part II’, Comb. Ant. Soe. Cornm., XXXIV, 1934, 17-33: see especially pp. 28-29 and folding map.

3 Ant. J., XIII, 283.

4 Although the Mesolithic flint industry was described in the original report (Ant. J., XV, 304) as Late Tardenoisian, this classification has since been revised in the light of a more extensive assemblage and of the progress and clarification of French research. The British industries with small and often geometric microliths combine distinctive features of their own with certain characteristics in common with the French Sauveterrian. See J. G. D. Clark, ‘A Microlithic Industry from the Cambridgeshire Fenland and other Industries of Sauveterrian Affinities from Britain’, P.P.S., xxi, 1955, 3-20.

5 See Dr and Mrs Godwin’s pollen-diagrams from both sites on fig. 18 of Ant. J., XV, 315.

6 Johs Iversen, Landnam i Danmarks Stenalder, Copenhagen, 1941.

7 Gordon Fowler, ‘Shrinkage of the Peat-covered Fenlands’, Geogr. J., LXXXI, 1933, 149-150. As Fowler later agreed, the term ‘wastage’ would more accurately have described the process by which to a large extent peat wastes from the surface downwards as water is drained off.

8 See folding plate XLVI of Ant. J., XV. The datum grid is marked in feet at the top of this plate as well as of pl. XLII and XLIV and figs. 5 and 7.

9 Kindly identified by Mr E. S. Higgs of the University Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Cambridge.

10 A pollen-zonation scheme for the Fenlands was developed in the late 1930’s and was published in: Godwin, H. (1940), ‘Studies of the Post-glacial History of British Vegetation. III. Fenland pollen diagrams’, Phil. Trans., B. 230, 239. The main zones are identical with those which became standard for England and Wales, but the sub-division of zone VII is different.

11 The basic pollen-zonation for England and Wales was proposed in 1940: Godwin, New Phytol., 39, 370. It has subsequently been applied generally to the British Isles as a whole, although with more or less important modifications.

12 The microscopic recognition of the pollen of the two British species of Tilia has been worked out by Dr Vishnu Mittre and is described in his Cambridge University Ph.D. thesis, 1960.

13 Godwin, H. and Willis, E. H. (1961), Cambridge University Natural Radiocarbon Measurements. Ill Am. J. Sci. Radiocarbon Suppl., 3, 60.

14 Godwin, H. and Willis, E. H. (1960), Cambridge University Natural Radiocarbon Measurements. II. Ibid., 2, 62.

15 The current evidence for the absolute dating of pollen zone boundaries and in particular the VIIa/VIIb boundary that appears to coincide with the beginning of the Neolithic period was considered in Godwin, H. (1960), Radiocarbon dating and Quaternary History in Britain—the Croonian Lecture, Proc. R.S. Lond., B. 153. 287.

16 Attention has already been drawn to the likelihood that there was a widespread phase of dryness at the close of the Boreal Period in pollen-zone VIc (Godwin, History of the British Flora, 1956; Godwin, Danm. Geol. Underseg, II R, 80, 22).

17 A good deal of the radiocarbon evidence for the dating of phases of Fenland stratigraphy will be found in Godwin, H. and Willis, E. H. (1961), Radiocarbon Suppl., 3, 60, and in Willis, E. H. (1961), Ann. New York Acad. Sci., 96, no. 1.

18 Compare Professor R. de Valera in P.P.S., XXVII, 1961, 236 f.

19 Thus, whereas even the revised date for the earliest Funnel-neck Beaker culture of Denmark is no earlier than 2820 ± 80 B.C. (K-123-129, 131-132), for Finistère we have dates of 3210 ± 60 and 3140 ± 60 B.C. (ANTIQUITY, 1960, 147, no. 1) for a cultivation horizon and a settlement site respectively.

20 As noted in the report on ‘Excavations at the Neolithic Site at Hurst Fen, Mildenhall, Suffolk’, P.P.S., XXVI, 1960, pp. 242-243.

21 The published dates for Grimes Graves are as follows: BM-87, Charcoal, pit 15 (14 ft. deep), 2310 ± 150 B.C; BM-88, Antler, pit 15 (II ft. deep), 2090 ± 150B.C.; BM-93, Antler, pit 10, 1940 ± 150B.C.; BM-97, Antler, pit 12, 1870 ± 150 B.C.; BM-99, Antler, pit 14, 2080 ± 150 B.C.