A RESPONSE TO THE NEOLITHIC
Of stone and ...
We changed many millennia ago. Changed from migrating hunter-gatherers, the so called Mesolithic – following the herds of wild game and the changing of seasons. As we changed to become settled cereal farmers and animal herders, our relationship with the landscape around us also changed. We changed and entered the Neolithic.
Our sense of place changed and our response to our new world sensibility resulted in something not seen before: a marking of a permanent presence with stone – a permanent presence on the landscape.
We are now just left with our ancient legacy. We do not know the cultures, beliefs and narrative that drove us, and we never will – but we can catch a sense of that ancient response. We too can respond to the landscape and in our turn, to our ancient responses to it.
We are still builders in stone and still mark our memory of events with monumental symbols – but in 5 millennia, who will know the significance of any remains of the Gress Raiders Memorial on the Isle Of Lewis?
It is also perhaps worth pondering on the thought that the builders of the Iron Age broch of Dùn Chàrlabhaigh above, are closer in time to the builders of the Gress Memorial and to ourselves, than they were in their turn to the peoples of the Neolithic!
... and water
Bodies of water, rivers, streams and springs are all closely linked to the Neolithic stone monuments. At Calanais on the Isle of Lewis, the stone circles are set around the loch, with both loch and circles set within a natural amphitheatre of hills and mountains. The same arrangement is found at Stenness and Brodgar in Orkney, with the stone circles intimately entwined with the salt and freshwater lochs and with both water and stone lying within their natural amphitheatre.
Further afield, in and around Avebury in Wiltshire, we see the basin around Silbury Hill providing the body of water and its source: the spring, sitting along with the Avebury circles in their natural downland amphitheatre that includes the still more ancient West Kennet Long Barrow.
Water was, and still is, essential to life, and for the peoples of the Neolithic it provided food, transport and a communication artery for ideas and peoples to spread.
Leaving our mark
In general, we now construct our monuments in steel and metal.
The reasons for our statements however are not always clear and need some work to uncover. Who in the millennia to come will remember or know the reasons why we built?
Do 21st century horses have the same meaning as they once did to the ancient White Horse carvers at Uffington? I doubt it, but the impact is much the same.
Responding to the Neolithic
These images are my response to what we can see of the Neolithic culture and the landscapes that hold and define their monuments. I have attempted to not put my interpretation on a culture that I cannot possible know. To do so would undoubtably say more about myself, our 21st century preoccupations, and currently fashionable ideas than it ever could about the Neolithic. Let the monuments speak for themselves – they need not our interpretation, just our understanding.
For an exhaustive gazetteer of Neolithic and other prehistoric sites – in the UK and worldwide, visit the Megalithic Portal.
