Prehistoric
Cheshire by VICTORIA AND PAUL MORGAN
Landmark Collectors Library. 2004.
192 pages, many illustrations. ISBN 1-84306-140-6. (£19.95)
First impressions of this volume are that is well
presented, clearly laid out, with a wealth of original photographs and
drawings. Aimed at the general, non-specialist reader, the book intends
to focus on the long barrows and chambered tombs, henges, stone circles,
round barrows, standing stones, ancient settlements and hillforts of
the region in an attempt to raise the profile of the county, overlooked,
as it often is, by the more archaeologically visible landscapes of the
neighbouring Peak District. The authors claim that, despite the ravages
of agriculture, industry and antiquarian excavation ‘for those
who know where to look there remains a rich prehistoric landscape’
within Cheshire.
The book is well organised and deals with the landscape
of the county before moving on to consider the archaeological evidence
from the Mesolithic through to the Iron Age. This is followed by a handy
gazetteer, a list of useful addresses and a selection of references
and further reading. One immediate irritation is the lack of the use
of any referencing system in the text, making the arguments put forward
by the authors difficult to disentangle from those made by others.
The introduction covers a very brief consideration
of archaeological techniques and dating methods, a summary of previous
research in the county and a time scale. The summary of previous research
does not, however, explain the context for modern archaeological work
and gives the impression that the last piece of research into the county’s
prehistory was undertaken in 1980. Although finds from metal detecting
surveys are illustrated in the text, there is no mention of the Portable
Antiquities Scheme (apart from as a place to view recent finds on p.75).
Administrative boundaries and the physical characteristics
of the county are broadly outlined in Chapter 2, before a consideration
the evidence from the Mesolithic period in Chapter 3. The major sites
from the county are outlined, and we swiftly move on to the Neolithic
evidence. The Neolithic and Bronze Age periods form the bulk of the
book, taking up over 100 pages, most of which contain a photograph,
diagram or distribution map. Chapter 4 considers the Neolithic evidence
and swiftly dispatches with the changes in material culture (Grimston,
Peterborough and Grooved Ware are dealt with in three short paragraphs)
which characterise the period.
The authors appear more at home when discussing the
burial and ritual monuments of the period, which they divide into ‘Monuments
of the Living’ (henges and causewayed enclosures) and ‘Monuments
of the Dead’ (long barrows, mortuary enclosures and chambered
tombs). Only a single ‘Monument of the Living’ is considered:
a roughly circular earthwork adjacent to the Leek Old Road at Gawsworth,
near Macclesfield. The authors offer three strands of evidence which,
they believe, suggest the site might have been a henge. First, it is
located close to a findspot of Neolithic pottery and only 7.5km from
the chambered tomb of the Bridestones. Second, the site is central to
the distribution of a number of round barrows and third, the entrances
are on a similar alignment to those at other henges in the region, such
as Arbor Low. The fact that Cheshire lies outside the known distribution
of causewayed enclosures is not mentioned, and none are identified by
the authors.
Monuments of the Dead are discussed in rather more
detail and divided into chambered tombs and long barrows. Three long
barrows from the county are considered which include two unconvincing
sites, one of which, measuring c. 90m long, 40m wide and 7m high, was
considered for scheduling as a long barrow in the 1960s before being
rejected as a natural mound of glacial origin (Anon 1961). The third
site considered as a long barrow has also been interpreted by John Barnatt
(1996) as a round barrow situated on a natural outcrop. Barnatt is a
source frequently cited elsewhere in the book, but not here. Later on
(p.115), the same site is considered as a round barrow, this time quoting
Barnatt and mentioning the Roman material found within and around the
mound.
The description of the Bridestones, the only convincing
chambered cairn in the county, dominates the Neolithic section of the
book and there are extensive quotes from antiquarian investigations.
The site is an impressive one and one which raises interesting questions
about megalithic tomb typology and chronology outside of well known
areas of Scotland, Wales and southern England. One of these questions,
the similarity with the ‘Clyde Cairns’ of Scotland, is raised
but left not addressed. An intriguing attempt at dating the Bridestones
is, however, offered. This applies an argument forwarded by Burl (2000)
for the construction of typologically early cairns in SW Scotland below
46m, with later cairns being constructed on higher land ‘on soils
less easy to till’. This is applied to the Bridestones which,
being located at 250m aOD, must therefore belong to the middle of the
3rd millennium BC.
The Calderstones are the final burial monument to
be considered and the story of their discovery and subsequent removal
to a greenhouse in a suburban Liverpool park is recounted. One finishes
the consideration of the Neolithic evidence, which promised to examine
the henges, causewayed enclosures, long barrows, mortuary enclosures
and chambered tombs of Cheshire, with the impression that, rather than
the rich, unexplored landscape promised at the start, there exist various
unconvincing examples of some of these monument types within the county,
and none at all of others. Perhaps the Bronze Age evidence will have
more to offer?
At 78 pages, the Bronze Age section of the book is
the longest and considers life and settlement, copper mining and metalworking,
stone circles, round barrows and cairns and standing stones. The chapter
begins with an explanation of social change at the end of the Neolithic
which is entirely driven by climatic change. People brought Beakers
and metals from the Continent into rainy Britain and a settled economy
allowed a more settled society. A brief exploration of Bronze Age material
culture (3 pages) includes a consideration of Iron Age spindle whorls
and Medieval log boats. The end of the Bronze Age is again explained
as entirely due to a climatic down-turn which ‘eventually led
to the onset of the Iron Age’ (p.64).
A brief interlude by ‘local Macclesfield Historian’
Dorothy Bentley Smith explains the introduction of copper metallurgy
in the Near East and its eventual, inevitable spread to Britain. It’s
reassuring that, in these pages, the Phoenicians and Early Greeks are
alive and well and trading for tin with Cornwall in the Bronze Age.
The Morgans soon have the narrative back on track with an account of
the 19th century discoveries at Alderley Edge and a brief review of
the evidence for Bronze Age extraction at the site. No mention is made
of Gale’s extensive work at Engine Vein (Gale 1986; 1989; 1990),
and mention of the Alderley Edge Landscape Project is also conspicuous
by its absence.
Bronze metalworking and artefacts are covered in two
pages which include a description of a (stone) shafthole axe. The crucible
and refractory fragments found during excavations at Beeston Castle
are described as being almost unique, with the exception of similar
finds from Cadbury Castle in Somerset. No mention is made of the material
from Dainton (Needham 1980), Norton Fitzwarren (Ellis 1989), Springfield
Lyons (Buckley & Hedges 1987), Mucking North Ring (Bond 1988) or
Grimes Graves (Needham 1991), or other well known sites which have produced
either mould fragments, refractory debris, or both. The introduction
of lead into the mixture for bronze in the Late Bronze Age is described
as having been pioneered in North Wales and the climate is once again
blamed for the instigation of the deposition of metalwork in watery
places during this period.
‘Five or six possible known examples of stone
circles’ from Cheshire are considered next, the raison d’être
for the practise of constructing these monuments explained as ‘perhaps’
the result of an asteroid or comet flying close to, or colliding with,
the earth sometime around 2,300BC. The parallels drawn with Scottish
Neolithic monuments is revisited here as an explanation for the Bullstones,
a rather enigmatic monument in the east Cheshire uplands. Although this
stone, surrounded by a cairn, has similarities to the Scottish monuments
described by Burl as centre-stone circles, it was ‘excavated’
in the 19th century and cannot be considered to be in its original form.
The site at New Farm, Henbury is described as a stone circle, despite
there being no evidence for the excavated pits at the site ever having
contained stones. Evidence instead comes from stones lying in nearby
hedges and used to construct stile. These stones are described as ‘glacial
erattics around 30 to 40 centimetres in diameter’ (p.81). All
well and good (if a trifle small), until one learns that the pits at
the site were 60 centimetres deep (p.82). Three further sites are considered
to be stone circles. One at Delamere is 2m in diameter and subsequently
described as a kerb cairn, another at Grapenhall is also clearly a cairn
which covered the burial of a Food Vessel (Archaeological Surveys 1976).
The stone circle at Alderley Edge, we are informed, is a Victorian folly.
Clearly much work has gone into the 41 pages of description
of round barrows and cairns which follows, with many sites having been
visited, photographed and relationships between the sites and the landscape
explored. A selection of the more complex excavated examples are covered
in some detail before five barrow cemeteries are considered. The plan
of the Seven Lows cemetery in Delemere Forest is compared to that of
the constellation of the Pleiades and, ‘although the two plans
by no means match exactly’, the question is raised if it was possible
that the constellation played a role in the lives of the communities
living in Cheshire (p.95).
There follows a detailed selection of individual barrows
which are ‘interesting either because of their position within
the landscape or because they have been subject to investigation….’(p.100).
The majority of these sites are in the Macclesfield area, coincidentally
the town in which the authors live. The high land to the east of Macclesfield
is also the location of several standing stones considered in the succeeding
section. The standing stones are beautifully photographed but again,
few appear convincingly prehistoric with parish boundary stones, gateposts
and rubbing posts for cattle all uncritically included. A short section
on christianised stones makes no mention of the presence of a number
of Anglo Saxon carved stone crosses in the county, preferring instead
to suggest that all carved stones are of prehistoric date, and subsequently
re-used. There is no consideration of any monuments, sites or material
culture later than the end of the Early Bronze Age in this chapter,
despite the presence of burnt mounds, metalwork and settlement sites
of Middle and Late Bronze Age date across the county. Rather, we rush
on into the Iron Age.
The weather raises its deterministic head once again
at the end of the 1st millennium BC with the high quantities of rain,
and an apparent scarcity of copper and tin, by 600BC leading to the
introduction of iron working. Despite the damp conditions, Iron Age
people wore colourful, chequered clothes, had long hair and wore sandals.
The social complexity of groups living in north west England during
the Iron Age is considered in a single page before salt production and
exchange is examined in detail. Much is made of Morris’ work on
Cheshire and Midland VCP, although more questions are raised than answered.
The understanding of the Iron Age population throughout
this chapter of the book is one almost entirely derived from classical
writers such as Strabo, Caesar and Tacitus with a pinch of Living
in the Iron Age thrown into the mix. Hillforts are considered at
length, enclosed settlements less so, until finally we arrive at ‘Death
in the Iron Age’ and the exciting discoveries at Lindow Moss.
The various bog bodies are considered in both their British and European
context and the usual stories of ritual sacrifice and dark deeds are
rehearsed. Then the book ends. There is no conclusion as such, rather
two short paragraphs entitled ‘The Lindow Legacy’, where
it’s a relief to hear that ‘it is now possible to say that
Cheshire was very important’ during prehistory (p.169).
Although the book is lavishly illustrated and the
photographs and figures of excellent quality, there are points at which
this standard unfortunately slips. The figures of Neolithic and Bronze
Age pottery on pages 30 and 87 seem to have been executed in a hurry
and those of Bronze Age metalwork on p.74, although giving a general
feel for the material, are poorly drawn. There are two Figures 18 and
several geographical errors: Maxey is relocated to Wessex from Cambridgeshire,
and Droitwich to Shropshire from Worcestershire. The tone of the book,
aimed at the general reader, is the realm of ‘prehistoric man’
and sites are always ‘interesting’ or ‘mysterious’.
The weather is the determining factor throughout the book, being used
as an explanation for cultural change throughout prehistory, with little
consideration of the European, or frequently the British, context. In
terms of regional context, the authors continually refer to sites in
the Peak District (subject of their previous book, Rock Around the
Peak) or Scotland, but not to those in Shropshire, Staffordshire,
Lancashire, Cumbria or North Wales. Indeed, the approach is very similar
to that of Varley (1964) which sees Cheshire as an ‘outlier’
of the more sophisticated, monument-rich area immediately to its east.
Both ignore the presence of the equally monument rich area of NE Wales
to the west and the similarities in landscape and monumental traditions
(or the lack of them) in the area to the south of the county boundary.
In conclusion, this book is a well produced, useful
source of data, much of which is derived from the county SMR and antiquarian
sources. Aimed at the general reader, rather than an academic audience,
it may be guilty of over simplifying some of the more complex issues
such as social structure and social change. However, what it may lack
in theoretical complexity it more than makes up for in enthusiasm. The
focus on the monumental, rather than material culture, is a product
of this enthusiasm, with a strong element of ‘go and see for yourself’
underlying the entire text. This can surely be no bad thing. It is a
shame, however, that this enthusiasm has, in places, led to a degree
of over-excitement and a suspension of critical judgement which undermines
much of the data presented here.
David Mullin
Gloucestershire County Council Archaeology Service
References
Anon .1961. Supposed Barrow in Dunham New Park. Journal of the Chester
and North Wales Architectural, Archaeological and Historical Society
48, 45
Archaeological Surveys, 1976. The Archaeology of Warrington's Past.
Warrington Development Corporation
Barnatt, J., 1996. Barrows in the Peak District: a review and interpretation
of extant sites and past excavations, in Barnatt, J. and Collis, J.(eds),
Barrows in the Peak District, pp.3-94
Bond, D., 1988. Excavations at the North Ring, Mucking, Essex. East
Anglian Archaeological Report 43
Buckley, D & Hedges, J., 1987. The Bronze Age and Saxon Settlements
at Springfield Lyons, Essex: An interim report. Essex County Council
Occasional Paper 5
Burl, A., 2000. The Stone Circles of Britain, Ireland and Brittany.
Yale University Press
Ellis, P., 1989. Norton Fitzwarren Hillfort: a report on the excavations
by Nancy and Philip Langmaid between 1968 and 1971, Proceedings
of the Somerset Archaeology and Natural History Society 133, 1-74
Gale, D., 1986. Recording an Elevation of a Copper Mining Face at
Engine Vein, Alderley Edge. Undergraduate Dissertation, Department
of Archaeological Sciences, University of Bradford
Gale, D., 1989. Evidence of Ancient Copper Mining at Engine Vein, Alderley
Edge, Cheshire, Bulletin of the Peak District Mines Historical Society
10(5), 266-273
Gale, D., 1990. Prehistoric Stone Mining Tools from Alderley Edge, in
Crew, P. & Crew, S., Early Mining in the British Isles
pp. 47-8
Needham, S., 1980. An Assemblage of Late Bronze Age Metalworking Debris
from Dainton, Devon, in Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 46,
177-215
Needham, S., 1991. The Grimes Graves Metalwork in the Context of other
Middle Bronze Age Assemblages, in Longworth, I., Herne, A., Varndell,
G. & Needham, S., Excavations at Grimes Graves Norfolk 1972-1976.
British Museum Fascicule 3, 171-180
Varley, W., 1964. Cheshire before the Romans.
Cheshire Community Council
Review Submitted: October 2004
The views expressed in
this review are not necessarily those of the Society or the Reviews
Editor.
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