Prehistoric Flint
Good (Non-Fiction) Book On Prehistoric Britain?
Basically, I'm after some facts about the first people who lived in Britain after the ice ages and how they survived. Roughly what year did people migrate across to the British Isles and would they have lived in 'tribes'/ family groups? What were their diets like and hunting methods? Would they have had religion and/or strong similar beliefs to do with Gods and Goddesses.
I've tried looking up these things on the internet, but was wondering if there's some sort of reference book I could use; I'm writing a novel where parts are set in neolithic times - I get the basics (flint knapping for tools, hunter gathering for food e.t.c but I'm looking for more detail to make it authentic).
I've already read many novels set in neolithic times and have made notes on the techniques they used in those stories, but I'd like a 'textbook' kind of book on it if what exists?
Thanks
The first people post Ice age began to appear in Britain around 14,000 years ago.They walked across from the continent which was attached to Britain and Ireland at that time.By 10,000 years ago tthey were living in family groups in the caves at Cheddar Gorge. They may have been cannibals or eaten their dead relatives in some kind of death ritual. the famous Cheddar Man had been killed by a blow on the head. Cheddar Man's direct descendant was also founding still living in the village down the road just a few yeears ago!
Mesolithic hunter gatherers were nomadic. They were probably animistic rather than worshipping 'gods' but they seem to be intensely aware of the moon and probably worshipped it. Three huge posts some 7-8000 years old were found near Stonehenge and they may have been aligned on the maximum rising of the moon.
Other large waves of people arrived around 4000 BC, and brought farming. Their ultimate origins were in the near east but by the time they reached Britain they had been in Europe for thousands of years already. Like a good share of the earlier peoples, they primarily followed the Atlantic seaboard from Iberia through Northern France,and then sailed from there (probably Brittany) to reach the British Isles. These people started building the earliest monuments such as chamber tombs, causewayed camps, henges and the earliest stone circles. Again, they were probably more animistic in belief than worshippers of a particular god or goddess; the gods only seemed to take human forms (rather than just being the sun, the wind, or a stone) much later in the bronze age.
Some good books are
BRITAIN BC by Francis Pryor
BRITAIN 3000 BC by Rodney Castleden
All of Aubrey Burl's books on stone circles--Stone Circles of the British Isles,Rings of Stone, Stonehenge, Stonehenge People, Prehistoric Avebury, and his one on ritual, Rites of the Gods.
I'm not sure though how much you will find on 'how to' in any books,although there are craftsmen out there who do flint knapping,and also pot-making and metal working in the tradition prehistoric way. Maybe you could track them down and ask them.
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