Facial reconstruction of British Neolithic "Whitehawk Woman" following new DNA analysis
Soon after the disaster of the Storegga Tsunami, the earliest stone structures began to appear along the Atlantic coasts of Europe, and the people of the Atlantic Facade eventually established a major centre at Carnac on the Northwest coast of France, where the biggest collection of 3,000 standing stones, stone circles and passage graves in the world can now be found, and from where they built a trading and cultural ‘Empire’ in coastal regions of Europe stretching from the eastern Mediterranean to the Atlantic and the North Sea. But who were these people, and where were they from? According to recent genetic analysis, they originated in the Near East at the very dawn of the Neolithic Revolution.
Part of the excavation at Gobekli Tepe (Wikimedia commons)
Genetic evidence now tells us that the people of the Atlantic Façade originated in the Near East where, around 11,500 years ago, the earliest-known megalithic monument in the world was erected near the border between present-day Turkey and Syria at a site called Gobekli Tepe. This ancient site consists of at least 20 rings of massive limestone pillars and was used over a substantial period of time for large ceremonial gatherings. Curiously, every few decades a stone circle would be buried and a second, and sometimes a third, smaller circle of stones was erected inside the buried circle. Finally, the whole ring structure would be buried completely and another begun nearby, a sequence which apparently continued for centuries.
Detail of column from Gobekli Tepe
(Wikimedia commons)
The makers of this impressive megalithic monument were the very people who, along with others in the Fertile Crescent of the Near East, were the earliest-known Neolithic farmers. As populations of these early Neolithic farming communities grew, those that had specialised in herding and animal husbandry became more nomadic, and some spread northwards towards the Russian Steppe, while others spread into Anatolia (modern-day Turkey), carrying with them their culture of megalithic monumental building.
The Fertile Crescent, showing major archaeological sites (Martin Sweatman)
Other Neolithic groups, like the ancestors of the Atlantic Facade people, spread towards the Mediterranean, carrying with them the culture of megalithic stone-building into the Levant and the Nile Valley. Whilst some groups of Neolithic farmers took an overland route into Europe via the Balkans, it is now emerging that the ancestors of the Atlantic Façade people became advanced seafarers, establishing colonies all along the northern Mediterranean coast and into Iberia as far as the Atlantic coast. And it was in Southern Portugal that the earliest stone structure of the Atlantic Façade appeared, around the same time as the Storegga Tsunami had devastated Mesolithic settlements in the North Sea.
Stone circles and passage graves
The earliest stone structures of the Atlantic Façade had similarities with constructions already common in Mesolithic Ireland, Britain, and coastal France. For example, the Almendres stone circles of Portugal, which started life as two or three concentric circles of stones around the time of the Storegga Tsunami, eventually developed, around 300 years after the colonisation of Britain and Ireland, into large concentric ellipses of megaliths that were eventually arranged, like the wood circle at Warren Field in Britain, to align them with the Spring and Autumn equinoxes. The other typical megalithic structure of the Atlantic Façade was the large earth-covered stone tomb or dolmen, containing multiple burials. These tombs eventually developed into sophisticated passage-graves, with forecourts suitable for large gatherings of people, and may have been inspired by the local marine-based Mesolithic practice of interring people under in large mounds of sea shells.
Almendres Circles (Mario Varela Gomes)
Tumulus de Kercado, Portugal
(Michael Kranewitter)
The Atlantic Façade people colonise Ireland and Britain
By 6,300 years ago the people of the Atlantic Façade had established sheep and cattle-farming on the Dingle peninsula of Ireland and went on to found further colonies on the western and northern coasts of Britain.
Stone house on Scara Brae
(wikiimedia commons)
Although the early Atlantic Façade farming settlements in Britain and Ireland were in areas also popular with the native Mesolithic peoples, some seem to have been little affected by the new settlers. For example, on the northwest coasts of Scotland a genetically distinct maritime Mesolithic community co-existed with the new Neolithic farmers for a few centuries.
It has been suggested that Mesolithic communities like these were already fairly sophisticated by the time the farmers arrived, and the two cultures may have found mutual benefit in their coexistence. In other parts of Britain, too, like the upper Thames area and the Fens, both lifestyles were practiced for around 500 years, suggesting each economy was equally successful, and perhaps mutually advantageous, but even so, it seems their DNA did not become intermixed. So why did British and Irish Mesolithic DNA disappear? There are, as usual, a number of theories. Perhaps the hunter-gatherers just died out due to natural causes, or maybe they were wiped-out by force or by foreign pathogens. But it may have been an altogether more mundane scenario. Perhaps the population of Atlantic Façade farmers in Britain was very much larger than that of the Mesolithic population, and repeated reinforcement by waves of further settlers caused the DNA of the island-bound Hunter-Gatherers to simply become overwhelmed by that of the new settlers.
Enclosures and henges
The Neolithic settlers soon advanced onto the light soils of the British uplands, creating clearances in the forests and building large circular earth and ditch enclosures. The enclosures with ditches on the outside were probably defences against raiders or wild animals, while those with the ditch on the inside of the bank are known as henges. After the Mesolithic site at Blick Mead on Salisbury Plain was abandoned, a henge was constructed nearby that formed the first stage of Stonehenge around 5,500 years ago. A number of flint tools together with old (sacred?) deer and ox bones were buried there, and later 56 pits were dug around the outer edge of the enclosure and the cremated remains of 63 women, men, and children were placed in the holes. We now know that many of the cremated remains were of people who had lived near to the quarry in Wales that supplied the large ‘bluestones’ that form part of modern Stonehenge, indicating a social link between the two communities, but also a sophisticated technical arrangement for transporting these massive stones from Wales to Salisbury Plain, probably by boat. Other cremated remains were later deposited in the holes, the ditch, and around the enclosure, suggesting it was at that time a cremation cemetery as well as a major ceremonial place.
By around 4,600 years ago two concentric rings of Welsh bluestones were erected in the centre of Stonehenge and the northeast entrance to the henge was widened, with two portal stones that precisely match the midsummer sunrise and midwinter sunset. But then this phase of building then seems to have been abandoned unfinished.
Drawings of first and final stages of Stonehenge
(Adamsan)
It was after this period that signs of change were once more apparent in Ireland and Britain, and the age of stone began to make way for the Age of copper, bronze, gold and silver.
References:
Lazaridis et al., The genetic structure of the world's first farmers. bioRxiv preprint, posted June 16, 2016, doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1101/059311
Paulsson, B. Schulz (February 26, 2019). Radiocarbon dates and Bayesian modeling support maritime diffusion model for megaliths in Europe. PNAS. 116 (9): 3460-3465. doi:10.1073/pnas.1813268116
Brace S., Diekmann Y., Booth T.J. Ancient genomes indicate population replacement in Early Neolithic Britain. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-019-0871-9 Published: 15 April 2019
See also:
The disappearing genes of Britain and Ireland
Mesolithic Britain and Ireland
The Bronze Age comes to Britain and Ireland
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