Megalithic manufacturing in Britain

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Re: Megalithic manufacturing in Britain

Postby hvered » 1:57 pm

Boreades wrote: Yes, any river that is being used for streaming will be flushing huge amounts of sediment downstream. There's clear historical evidence for that in many rivers in Devon and Cornwall that have been heavily silted up. As a result, the ports and docks had to move downstream closer to the sea.

The port of Plymouth or Sutton as it used to be benefited from Plympton being silted up by tin-streaming, so I'm told. The river at whose mouth it sat was the Lurie or Lary. Tin-streaming on the upper reaches of the river was a widespread practice on Dartmoor in the Middle Ages and Sutton harbour was eclipsed by the more important port upriver at Plympton, whose name apparently derived from an early farmstead (or ton) where plums were grown. At some point the river Lurie became known as the Plym* - through back-naming - but by this time the tin-streaming had so silted up the river that Plympton was losing its viability as a port. Eventually all shipping was forced to dock at the port at the mouth of the Plym, and although the old harbour there is still called Sutton Harbour, the much larger town that grew up around it became Plymouth.

* the tidal stretch that ends at Plympton is still called the Laira.

I can only see it making economic sense to our Veneti shipping magnates (to ship raw ores) if there were huge amounts of wood/charcoal in Gaul/Brittany. Or more solar henges?

It would make economic sense if there were good quality and plentiful metals. Apparently Basques and Iberians were obtaining tin from Britain and Ireland for centuries, if not millennia. And not just tin: there was an abundance of silver and copper and useful minerals. Including gold. No wonder the Romans invaded Britain.
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Re: Megalithic manufacturing in Britain

Postby Rocky » 7:18 pm

It would make economic sense if there were good quality and plentiful metals. Apparently Basques and Iberians were obtaining tin from Britain and Ireland for centuries, if not millennia. And not just tin: there was an abundance of silver and copper and useful minerals.

I don't know about anyone else but I was astonished at how widespread the metal trade seems to have been. Ireland produced a great quantity of copper I have read so a thriving trade in tin with Devon and Cornwall is unsurprising but how on earth did people from the rest of Europe not to mention the Middle East, Asia and Africa get in on the act? There were no charts so they'd hardly be in a position to just sail up the nearest river.
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Re: Megalithic manufacturing in Britain

Postby Boreades » 10:45 pm

Rocky wrote:
It would make economic sense if there were good quality and plentiful metals. Apparently Basques and Iberians were obtaining tin from Britain and Ireland for centuries, if not millennia. And not just tin: there was an abundance of silver and copper and useful minerals.


I don't know about anyone else but I was astonished at how widespread the metal trade seems to have been. Ireland produced a great quantity of copper I have read so a thriving trade in tin with Devon and Cornwall is unsurprising but how on earth did people from the rest of Europe not to mention the Middle East, Asia and Africa get in on the act? There were no charts so they'd hardly be in a position to just sail up the nearest river.


This is going to be a bit anecdotal, so please bear with me ...

My son is revising for his O-level Geography. As usual, the Mum & Dad are learning more from the revision notes than the child. (but that's another story). One of the topics is Emigration and Immigration. There is a concept called Push-Pull Factors, i.e. stuff that repels people from one area and attracts them to another. One of the case studies is the emigration of c.1/2 million people from Poland since it joined the EU.

My reading of this is that people in Poland didn't need maps to know "Something" was better "Somewhere" else. No doubt the stories that reached Poland of life in The West made it seem fantastic in comparison. So they moved west. The thing that surprised me is how much Poland benefited from this, because of Billions of Euros sent home by the younger people that had moved.

Maybe people have great loyalty to their homelands, and wealth still flows home, to support families and clanfolk left behind. Or maybe it's the young kids' egos, sending stuff to prove they've "made it". Or maybe there are loan sharks that need paying off. Whatever the reason, wealth seems to flow easily.

So what? In five thousand years, it seems human nature and personality has evolved much less than we flatter ourselves. I've no doubt that fantastic stories travelled back east via trade routes and traders of what The Megalithic West was like, being exaggerated as they went. Hills full of metal for the taking! Tin on every street corner! (or some other wild stories)

We know the ability to move long distances existed. We know the motivation to move existed. Why not put the two together?
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Re: Megalithic manufacturing in Britain

Postby Donna » 8:04 pm

I agree with Boreades. I don't know if it's relevant but one of the issues that crops up re Megalithic constructions is they must have taken x-number of man-hours, yet according to archaeologists the population was relatively small (how they know what size it was beats me). Hard-working foreign workers might have been well received though possibly not in Cornwall which is hardly noted for being welcoming to incomers.
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Re: Megalithic manufacturing in Britain

Postby hvered » 8:52 pm

Boreades makes sense to me too, the idea of a well organised trade network is what seems to most irritate academic craws. Even modern means of surveillance and communication have proved unable to count the number of people entering the country so I agree about the futility of accurately gauging earlier populations.

Being an island means porous borders, it would be impossible to man every cove and beach in Cornwall which might explain why the Cornish appear unforthcoming. In fast-becoming-forgotten folk history Cornish mines were worked by Judeans in Phoenician times and Cornish miners still tell of hearing noises underground from 'old Jews' (reminds me of the Knockers).
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Re: Megalithic manufacturing in Britain

Postby Boreades » 10:16 pm

If we accept the Trad Archeo view that coins and currency is a post-megalithic invention, then all trade beforehand must have been done by barter and promise. Barter happens when traders and customers are face-to-face, in a market place. But to attract people to come to market, attractive promises have to circulate via trade routes to find the "punters".

What better way to find a few thousand transient skilled workers than spread stories via the trade networks? "Wanted: skilled surveyors, stonemasons, earthmovers, carpenters and farmers (etc) for a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get rich. Fabled Cornish Tin and Gold and great wealth guaranteed in exchange".

The only limit then is how far the call-to-labour spreads. With an existing megalithic trade network, that could be thousands of miles. If the trade ships are working the routes anyway, to bring metals out of Devon & Cornwall, why not a human cargo in the opposite direction.

Why did I include farmers? Well someone has to grow the crops to feed a growing population. Especially barley, to make bread and to be roasted to make beer to slake the thirst of the thirsty workers.
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Re: Megalithic manufacturing in Britain

Postby Boreades » 11:17 am

hvered wrote:Seems like tin goes hand in hand with civilisation. Any connection between 'Ur' and ore?
I don't think so. The areas most associated with Megalithics e.g. Cornwall, the Orkney, are noticeably 'uncivilised' if not downright poverty-stricken.


Err, that might be because the tin isn't being mined any more (but is still there) and they've only got tourists instead?
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Re: Megalithic manufacturing in Britain

Postby Marko » 4:07 pm

Cornwall seems to have gone along with the Phoenician model. Still, being uncivilised i.e. without cities is surprising considering the interest the Romans, Normans etc. had in mining the resources.
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Re: Megalithic manufacturing in Britain

Postby Mick Harper » 4:22 pm

Why? I don't know of a mining area today that has cities. Pit villages, plenty.
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Re: Megalithic manufacturing in Britain

Postby Boreades » 9:31 pm

Marko wrote:Cornwall seems to have gone along with the Phoenician model. Still, being uncivilised i.e. without cities is surprising considering the interest the Romans, Normans etc. had in mining the resources.


Hi Marko
When you say the Phoenician model, do you mean trading ports or what?
Re being uncivilised i.e. without cities, why does it surprise you?
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