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  Copper has one major problem. Unless alloyed with tin or arsenic to make bronze, it is very soft. A copper awl or punch simply bends, and a copper dagger or axe would have a limited life if it was actually used for chopping or cutting. For that reason, copper, which would have been very shiny and attractive when new, was used mainly for ornaments to demonstrate that the wearer had access to an exotic material. Tools made from copper, while functional up to a point, were probably more valuable as status markers than for felling trees. The good thing, however, is that copper can be melted down and reused, thus making it a durable material for Stone Age farmers who wished to acquire tangible objects of value.

  The famous ice mummy known as Ötzi, or The Iceman.

  The Iceman’s story

  In September 1991, two German hikers walking in the Alps on the border between Austria and Italy made a grisly discovery that transformed our understanding of life in prehistoric Europe during the fourth millennium BC. Protruding from slush in an icy gully were the head and torso of a male corpse. Now, 25 years after his discovery, the Iceman, as he is known, continues to provide scientists with new evidence about his life and times.14

  Although the corpse was roughly handled by well-meaning responders, not until after it was transported to Innsbruck in Austria and the site was examined forensically did it begin to dawn that the Iceman might be a prehistoric person. Artefacts found with the corpse included objects of wood, leather, flint and grass, along with a metal axe. Based on the shape of the axe, it was initially believed that the corpse was about 4,000 years old. Even such a dating would have made it exceptionally old, so efforts were made to preserve it, and samples were sent for carbon-14 dating.

  The radiocarbon dates caused a sensation. All pointed towards a date of about 3300 BC. Moreover, metallurgical testing of the axe showed that it was pure copper, consistent with the age indicated by the carbon-14 dating. Thus, the Iceman turned out to be someone who lived during the Stone Age, during the fourth millennium BC, when copper was just coming into use in southern Europe. Other objects found in the gully turned out to be things that the Iceman was carrying or wearing. Most had been never been encountered previously by archaeologists. The Iceman himself posed many questions: Where did he come from? Where was he going? Why was he so high in the Alps? How did he die?

  The establishment of the Iceman’s age resulted in extensive media coverage, and the 5,300-year-old corpse became a celebrity. Since he was found near the Ötztaler glacier, he was nicknamed ‘Ötzi’ in the German-language press, although archaeologists still refer to him as the Iceman. After some time it was determined that he had actually been found on the Italian side of the poorly marked border, so after study in Innsbruck, the Iceman and his belongings were returned to Italy and placed in a museum in Bolzano.15

  Details about the Iceman himself soon emerged. He had been short, about 160 centimetres (5 ft 3 in.) tall, and weighed about 50 kilograms (110 lb), but was relatively old for his time, at over forty. On his back, knees, ankles and left wrist were tattoos, made by rubbing charcoal into small cuts: when the cuts healed, charcoal dust remained in the skin. The tattoos are in groups of short lines, and on one knee they formed a cross. Although his teeth were worn, he had no cavities. Yet, Ötzi had lived a hard life. Various bones had been broken and healed, and he suffered from arthritis. His toes had been frostbitten repeatedly. His lungs had been blackened by a lifetime of inhaling smoke, and his arteries were clogged. Recently, the bacterium Helicobacter pylori has been identified in the Iceman’s stomach, which could have caused inflammation.16

  The contents of the Iceman’s digestive system yielded a mixture of meat and wheat, along with other species of plants.17 The wheat provided clear indication that he came from an agricultural community, but the meat was from red deer and ibex rather than domestic species. His last meal consisted of Alpine ibex meat, consumed an hour or less before he died. Pollen in Ötzi’s digestive tract included hazel, birch, pine and hop hornbeam. Hop hornbeam grows south of the Alps, so it is clear that the Iceman had been in a valley in northern Italy before he died. In addition, the presence of hop hornbeam pollen shows the season in which Ötzi died, for this tree flowers in the spring.

  Prior to the discovery of the Iceman, archaeologists had no idea of what Stone Age people wore. Ötzi was dressed for the cold. His cap and the soles of his shoes were made from bear fur. A coat, leggings and a loincloth were made from goatskin, while deer hide was used for the upper parts of his shoes. His belt and a pouch were made of calfskin. The most unusual discovery was that the Iceman was wearing a sleeveless cloak made from tufts of Alpine grass bound together with grass twine. This was worn on top of the other garments and probably would have been warm and water-repellent.

  Each article of clothing had some unusual feature. The coat is made of small pieces of goatskin sewn together, while a deerskin strap had been attached to the leggings to keep them from riding up. The calfskin belt that held up the loincloth was long, about 2 metres (6½ ft), so it must have gone around Ötzi at least twice. His bearskin cap had two leather straps that tied under the chin. The shoes were complicated, consisting of an oval leather sole, a net of twisted grass around the foot, grass insulation held in place by the net and a piece of deerskin across the top. They were probably difficult to put on but look warm.

  The Iceman was carrying a lot of equipment. His copper axe had been set in a handle made from a yew branch about 60 centimetres (2 ft) long with a shorter branch extending from one end. The short branch had been split to hold the axe blade, which was anchored in place with birch pitch, then wrapped tightly with leather straps. Ötzi was also carrying a yew bow, which was curiously unfinished. A quiver made from chamois skin held fourteen arrows made from a tough wood known as viburnum. Only two had points attached. It appears that the Iceman was carrying a backpack with a hazel frame covered with leather, although it was in such fragmentary condition that reconstruction is difficult.

  The Iceman’s copper axe-head.

  Ötzi’s death has been the subject of morbid fascination. The initial hypothesis was that he had simply been caught in a snowstorm and died of exposure. Then, a decade after he was found, a CT scan of his left shoulder discovered a small flint arrowhead that had been hidden from X-rays by his shoulder blade.18 A tiny unhealed entrance wound indicated where it struck him. The arrow lacerated his subclavian artery, resulting in massive bleeding and eventually cardiac arrest.

  Who shot Ötzi? During his final two days, according to study of the pollen in his intestine, he was first in an area of pine and spruce forest. Then he descended to a valley in which hop hornbeam grew. Several hours before he died, he trekked upwards again, through the pine and spruce woods and then beyond the tree line, where he ate his last meal before being shot. Was he being pursued? If so, why did he stop to eat? Did someone ambush him there? If so, why did they not take his valuable copper axe? Was he killed in retribution for a crime or in a feud?

  All these questions are motivated by the fact that we know so much more about the Iceman than about any other person of his time, and these details have permitted a narrative to be spun around him. His death reflects the violence endemic in Stone Age society, but he lived in a technologically advanced world, as indicated by his copper axe and yew bow. Note the tremendous diversity in the species of wood used for his equipment and of animals used for his clothing. Ötzi’s tattoos carried a message for other people in his community. He was mobile and accustomed to moving around in the valleys, foothills and peaks of the Alps. Thanks to Ötzi, we can now glimpse the people behind the potsherds, flint tools and early metal artefacts.

  Testimony of the stones

  While Ötzi was living and dying in the Alps, and while people in southern Germany and Switzerland built their lakeside dwellings, the inhabitants of northern and western Europe erected burial monuments from large stones. These stones were set vertically to form corridors and chambers, which were then roofed with more flat stones be
fore the whole structure was covered with a mound of earth and rocks. These constructions are known as passage graves and dolmens, both of which are types of ‘chambered tombs’ that, in turn, along with standing stones, constitute the scope of megalithic monuments, or megaliths (from the Greek for ‘large stone’). They are the most visible traces of the Barbarian World from the fourth and third millennia BC in northern and western Europe.19

  Several regions of northwestern Europe are especially luminous when it comes to megalithic monuments, although many have been destroyed over the last five millennia. In Ireland, passage graves are clustered into several groups, called megalithic cemeteries, while others lie on isolated mountaintops. Brittany is a megalithic paradise, with complicated passage graves and standing stones known as menhirs. The Orkney Islands far to the north are dotted with passage graves and stone circles. Denmark and Sweden also have concentrations of passage graves and dolmens, while across the Netherlands and northern Germany, large graves known as Hunebedden are found in forests and sandy areas. Dolmens occur down the Atlantic coast as far as Spain and Portugal.

  The Irish cemeteries

  Chambered tombs are found throughout Ireland, but four clusters of passage graves stand out from the others. At Carrowmore near Sligo, a megalithic cemetery lies in the shadow of a huge passage grave on top of Knocknarea Mountain. The view from Knocknarea in the other direction looks out over the wild Atlantic. About 30 kilometres (19 mi.) southeast at Carrowkeel, several peaks are covered with small tombs. To the east, 75 kilometres (47 mi.) from Carrowkeel, more than thirty passage graves dot several hilltops at Loughcrew. Finally, another 50 kilometres (30 mi.) east lie the celebrated passage graves of the Boyne Valley, including New-grange, only a few kilometres inland from the east coast of Ireland. These four large megalithic cemeteries form a belt across Ireland from west to east, all dating from the second half of the fourth millennium BC.20

  The Boyne Valley group is the most famous Irish passage grave cemetery.21 At a bend in the river Boyne, called Brú na Bóinne in Irish, the tombs of Knowth, Dowth and Newgrange form focal points of a vast mortuary and ceremonial complex that flourished around 3200 BC. Of the three, Newgrange is the best known, for both its size and architecture, as well as for the fact that on the winter solstice the rising sun shines directly down its passage into the central chamber. Newgrange is a round mound about 85 metres (280 ft) in diameter and 11 metres (36 ft) high, outlined by 97 large blocks of stone, some decorated with engraved spirals. Based on interpretation of rocks scattered around the tomb entrance, the southern facade of Newgrange was reconstructed in the 1980s as a wall of bright white quartz and grey granite boulders. As a result, it now looks unlike any other passage grave, and the highly improbable reconstruction has been widely criticized. Nonetheless, the modern appearance of Newgrange, whether it reflects prehistoric reality or the imagination of an archaeologist, has become fixed in the public perception of how it should look.22

  Entering the tomb and half-crawling, half-slouching down the passage, past upright stones called orthostats averaging about 1.5 metres (5 ft) high, the visitor reaches the chamber, which is about 5.2 × 6.6 metres (17 × 22 ft). Here it is possible to stand. Looking up, one can see the corbelled roof, in which courses of flat stones were laid progressively closer to the centre until the ceiling was closed about 6 metres (20 ft) above the floor. Cells opening off the main chamber give it a cross-shaped plan.

  We know little about what the burial chamber contained. Newgrange has been entered by visitors since at least 1699, and only a few cremated bones remained until modern times between the stones. Based on what we know from undisturbed Irish passage tombs, such as the Mound of the Hostages at Tara,23 the chamber and side cells probably contained cremated burials, as such was the burial rite at this time in Stone Age Ireland, along with an assortment of pottery and enigmatic artefacts known as ‘mushroom-headed pins’ made from animal bone.

  The most important aspects of Newgrange are its location and orientation. Its hilltop site made it visible from a great distance, whether or not it had a shiny facade. We can assume that it was a centre of communal ritual and mortuary activity. The orientation of the entrance so that the sun shines down the passage on the winter solstice is clearly deliberate. From 19 to 23 December, starting at dawn and lasting about seventeen minutes, a beam of sunlight shines through an opening above the entrance and moves up the floor of the passage into the chamber. Stone Age builders must have determined this alignment in a previous year, marked it and then consciously incorporated it into the design of the tomb.

  The passage grave at Newgrange with its reconstructed, and improbable, quartz facade.

  Entrance to the passage grave at Newgrange showing the carved entrance stone and the opening above, into which the sun shines at dawn on the winter solstice.

  The other exceptional feature of Irish passage graves is the appearance of an ornate style of carving and pecking on rocks to produce curvilinear, zigzag and especially spiral motifs. This is the celebrated ‘megalithic art style’ seen in modern evocations of the ‘Celtic’ spirit on everything from Irish sugar packets to the stage scenery of Riverdance. The spiral motif is the most common. Although the kerbstones that surround the mound at Knowth have the greatest single concentration of megalithic art in Ireland, the ornate entrance stone at Newgrange is perhaps the most memorable example of this abstract style of ornament.

  Apotheosis of the Stone Age

  Perhaps the most iconic site of prehistoric Europe lies on Salisbury Plain in southern England. Stonehenge is celebrated in art, film,24 literature and the popular imagination. Images of the massive stones taken from the perspective of a visitor make it appear huge and monumental, which to a certain degree it is. The fact that these stones were erected using Stone Age technology baffles those who think of pre-literate peoples as primitive. From a distance, Stonehenge is still distinctive, but to a visitor coming over a rise on the A303 road, the first impression is really how tiny it is when sitting within its broader landscape.

  The surrounding landscape is a crucial part of the Stonehenge story. Its great stones can only be understood as part of an immense ceremonial landscape stretching outward in every direction towards the edge of the shallow bowl in which Stonehenge sits and down to the nearby river Avon. This appreciation of the Stonehenge environs comes from intensive archaeological investigation that ramped up in the late 1990s and continues today. New discoveries are announced almost annually, so anything written more than a year or two ago is by definition incomplete.25

  Stonehenge, so named from an Anglo-Saxon root that means ‘hanging’, perhaps due to its resemblance to a gallows,26 was always visible throughout later prehistory and medieval times, but there is no record of it being of great significance as a ceremonial site after about 1500 BC. It was ‘rediscovered’ by antiquarians of the seventeenth and eighteenth century like John Aubrey and William Stukeley, who worked it into their narratives about the early Britons. The evocative image of the standing and tumbled stones against the horizon was a favourite subject of artists like John Constable in the nineteenth century. Today, Stonehenge appears in the news every summer solstice when devotees of New Age spirituality converge at sunrise.

  The megaliths seen at Stonehenge today were erected in the second half of the third millennium BC, but it is necessary to understand that the monument had an earlier incarnation just after 3000 BC. At this time, a circular ditch with an interior bank about 100 metres (328 ft) in diameter was constructed.27 Around the interior perimeter, 56 holes were dug into the chalk. These are known as the Aubrey Holes, after the antiquarian John Aubrey, who found them in the seventeenth century. For centuries, they were an enigma, but recent investigation has shown that they were footings for small, upright stones. Known as ‘bluestones’, these came from the Presceli mountains in Wales 160–240 kilometres (100–150 mi.) away. Thus, the first edition of Stonehenge looked little like the monument on the same location today, although it ha
d counterparts in stone circles elsewhere in the British Isles.

  Recent research has shown the extent to which this first version of Stonehenge functioned as a cemetery.28 Cremated remains of over sixty individuals have been excavated from its interior. We do not know what merited their burial at a large stone circle and ditched enclosure, although the effort required to bring the bluestones from Wales clearly marked this spot as having a connection with a distant place. The cremations were deposited over the first half of the third millennium BC, although it is not yet clear whether this was episodic or continuous mortuary activity.

  About 500 years after the construction of the initial monument at Stonehenge, major expansion and remodelling took place, between 2620 and 2480 BC. First to go up was a horseshoe-shaped pattern of five immense ‘trilithons’ consisting of two upright blocks and a lintel. Erecting these presented a major technical challenge at every stage. First, the blocks of sandstone known as ‘sarsen’ had to be quarried from an outcrop, probably to the north near Avebury. Second, they were chipped and pecked into their rectangular cuboid shape with a tenon sticking out of one end. Third, they had to be transported to Stonehenge, where pits had been excavated for them. They would have been too heavy for rollers directly on soft ground, so it is likely that a wooden platform to distribute the load must have been built, which in turn was on rollers that ran on timber rails. Power from oxen was necessary. Fourth, they needed to be set upright into the pits, a dangerous process which also had to ensure that they were vertical. Finally, the lintels, with mortises cut into their undersides, had to be raised above the height of the uprights, moved over the tenons and lowered into place, with the hope that the whole edifice was balanced so it did not topple over.