The Wessex culture is the predominant prehistoric culture of central and southern Britain during the early Bronze Age, originally defined by the British archaeologist Stuart Piggott in 1938.[1]
The culture is related to the Hilversum culture of the southern Netherlands, Belgium and northern France, and linked to the Armorican Tumulus culture in northern France[2] and the Unetice culture in central Germany. It is prototyped with the Middle Rhine group of the Bell Beaker culture and commonly subdivided in the consecutive phases of Wessex I (2000–1650 BC) and Wessex II (1650–1400). Piggott attributes the origin of this culture to an "actual ethnic movement" from Northern France.[3] Piggott describes the culture as composed of an underlying substratum, similar to the contemporary food vessel culture found further north, and an intrusive ruling class who opened trading networks with France and central and northern Europe, and imported bronze tools and probably also artisans.[4]
The first phase, Wessex I, is characterised by rich depositions in the graves of chieftains, including gold artifacts, and crouched inhumations under barrows (e.g. the Bush Barrow).[5] This period is closely associated with the construction and use of the later phases of Stonehenge.[6] The second phase, Wessex II, is characterised by less rich grave goods without gold and a resurgence of cremations, believed to be a return to the previous funerary practices of the British Neolithic.[7] They appear to have had wide ranging trade links with continental Europe, importing amber from the Baltic, jewellery from modern day Germany, gold from Brittany as well as daggers and beads from Mycenaean Greece and vice versa. They produced characteristic pendants in the shape of halberds, with handles made from gold or amber, or a combination of these materials.[8]
It has been speculated that river transport allowed Wessex to be the main link to the Severn estuary.[9] The wealth from such trade probably permitted the Wessex people to construct the second and third (megalithic) phases of Stonehenge and also indicates a powerful form of social organisation.[10]
When the term 'Wessex Culture' was first coined, investigations into British prehistory were in their infancy and the unusually rich and well documented burials in the Wessex area loomed large in literature on the Bronze Age. During the twentieth century many more Bronze Age burials were uncovered and opinions about the nature of the early-mid Bronze Age shifted considerably. Since the late 20th century it has become customary to consider 'Wessex Culture' as a limited social stratum rather than a distinct cultural grouping, specifically referring to the hundred or so particularly richly furnished graves in and around Wiltshire. The culture group, however, is named as one of the intrusive Beaker groups that appear in Ireland.[11]
Notes
↑ The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology – Timothy Darvill, 2002, Wessex culture, p.464, Oxford University Press, ISBN0-19-211649-5
↑ The Armorican Tumuli of the Early Bronze Age, A Statistic Analysis for Calling the Two Series into Question -Mareva Gabillot et al.
↑ SHERRATT, ANDREW (1996). "WHY WESSEX? THE AVON ROUTE AND RIVER TRANSPORT IN LATER BRITISH PREHISTORY". Oxford Journal of Archaeology. 15 (2): 211–234. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0092.1996.tb00083.x.
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Stuart Ernest Piggott,, FRSE FSA Scot was a British archaeologist, best known for his work on prehistoric Wessex.
Sir John Grahame Douglas Clark, who often published as J. G. D. Clark, was a British archaeologist who specialised in the study of Mesolithic Europe and palaeoeconomics. He spent most of his career working at the University of Cambridge, where he was appointed Disney Professor of Archaeology from 1952 to 1974 and Master of Peterhouse from 1973 to 1980.
The Overton Period is the name given by archaeologist Colin Burgess to a division of prehistory in Britain covering the period between 2000 BC and 1650 BC.
John Frederick Smerdon Stone was a British archaeologist, most famous for his work in and around Wiltshire, especially at Stonehenge and the Woodhenge area.
This page concerns the prehistory of Brittany.
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Bronze Age Britain is an era of British history that spanned from c. 2500–2000 BCE until c. 800 BCE. Lasting for approximately 1,700 years, it was preceded by the era of Neolithic Britain and was in turn followed by the period of Iron Age Britain. Being categorised as the Bronze Age, it was marked by the use of copper and then bronze by the prehistoric Britons, who used such metals to fashion tools. Great Britain in the Bronze Age also saw the widespread adoption of agriculture.
Bush Barrow is a site of the early British Bronze Age Wessex culture, at the western end of the Normanton Down Barrows cemetery. It is among the most important sites of the Stonehenge complex, having produced some of the most spectacular grave goods in Britain. It was excavated in 1808 by William Cunnington for Sir Richard Colt Hoare. The finds, including worked gold objects, are displayed at Wiltshire Museum in Devizes.
The Insular Celts were speakers of the Insular Celtic languages in the British Isles and Brittany. The term is mostly used for the Celtic peoples of the isles up until the early Middle Ages, covering the British–Irish Iron Age, Roman Britain and Sub-Roman Britain. They included the Celtic Britons, the Picts, and the Gaels.
The stone circles in the British Isles and Brittany are a megalithic tradition of monuments consisting of standing stones arranged in rings. These were constructed from 3300 to 900 BCE in Britain, Ireland and Brittany. It has been estimated that around 4,000 of these monuments were originally constructed in this part of north-western Europe during this period. Around 1,300 of them are recorded, the others having been destroyed.
Cecily Margaret Guido,, also known as Peggy Piggott, was an English archaeologist, prehistorian, and finds specialist. Her career in British archaeology spanned sixty years, and she is recognised for her field methods, her field-leading research into prehistoric settlements, burial traditions, and artefact studies, as well as her high-quality and rapid publication, contributing more than 50 articles and books to her field between the 1930s and 1990s.
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Barbara Bender is an anthropologist and archaeologist. She is currently Emeritus Professor of Heritage Anthropology at University College London.
The Armorican Tumulus culture is a Bronze Age culture, located in the western part of the Armorican peninsula of France, in a region commonly called Lower Brittany. It is known through more than a thousand burial sites covered by a tumulus or otherwise. The culture is renowned for some exceptionally richly endowed burials of chieftains of the time, which are contemporary with the elite of the Wessex culture, in England, and the Unetice culture, in Central Europe.
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