I’ve been interested in “stone age” history for many, many years and have always tried to visit neolithic sites whenever I can; my children will probably remember on numerous holidays us driving into the wilds of nowhere for me to look at a pile of rocks, or maybe just a few rocks, or maybe just a single rock… I’m not sure what the fascination is, I just feel very in tune with sch places. I don’t mean that I think I have any connection, or feel any vibe… well, actually… maybe I do… but I just think that so often modern people really underestimate how similar people who lived thousands of years before us are.
We have so much stuff… our lives are full of stuff…and so much of our stuff is actually unnecessary. I’m constantly aware of how little I have which I actually made or processed… we grow some vegetables which w eat, but the utensils we use aren’t made by use, the heat to cook them isn’t made by us, the plates we eat them off isn’t made by us…
The people who came before gathered and hunted their food; they cooked it on fires they had made from what they had collected; they cooked it in pots and ate it from dishes they had made from the clay they had found. They made their own clothes, they made their own houses… we have just been to the pub – they would have made their own drinks!
Their technology was incredible!
Looking towards the entrance… I was so excited!
Going into the barrow… I was trembling!!
How amazing! I’m in awe!
Lois Elsden 
I was a history teacher but if I chose another career it would have been archaeology or paleontology.
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Me too, Carl! I wish I could afford to go back to University to study it properly… but at least there is plenty of stuff on line now!
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I so love the Neolithic and Bronze Age landscape. You’re so right, they had do do everything. With stone. Bronze wasn’t much use apparently, according to my archaeologist chum, mostly used as ‘bling’.
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That’s true I’m sure… for most people they would have used the remarkably adaptable and renewable flint… When I was teaching I did a history project on Native Americans, and we looked at how they used the bison and literally every bit was used in someway, nothing was wasted, not even the yukky bits… I’m sure it was the same for big animal hunters over here – nothing would have been wasted… Um I seem to have diverted from bronze bling!
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Yes, bone shards for needles, icky bits for thread. W had a Neolithic day at Penmaen Burrows, a Neolithic grave site back in the Spring. Swansea University archaeologists mostly, doing things the Stone Age way, flint knapping, making deerskin clothes, cooking Neolithic stew and cakes on heated stones using local clay to make the pots ….. It was fascinating.
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I’d love to go to something like that – appeals to my historical and archaeological interests, and also my waste not want not mantra!
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They were roasting bits of deer wrapped in wild garlic leaves then encased in wet clay and put into the fire.
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I’m just drooling a little bit….
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Truly awesome 😊
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It really was – and its setting was wonderful, although it was on a hill, there was high ground all the way round, so I felt very enclosed, but in a comfortable way.
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Have you read the Songs of Albion by Stephen Lawhead? It’s a gripping trilogy and begins with an ancient burial chamber in Wales (actually the entrance to past times). My kids introduced me to it 😊
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No I haven’t… thanks for the recommendation… I’m off to find it now!! xx
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I don’t think you could call the Stone Age the good old days. When they said it’s a jungle out there,they meant it!
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It was indeed!
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…then of course there is the ‘stoned’ age!!
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I started it. Still living the dream.
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Yup!
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