Ancient Man in Britain

by Donald A. Mackenzie

The early Irish bronze forms were obviously obtained from Spain, while early English bronze forms resemble those of France and Italy. Cutting implements were the first to be introduced. This fact does not suggest that a conquest took place. The implements may have been obtained by traders. Britain apparently had in those ancient times its trading colonies, and was visited by active and enterprising seafarers.

Long-head (Dolichocephalic) Skull

Broad-head (Brachycephalic) Skull
Both these specimens were found in "Round" Barrows in the East Riding of Yorkshire

The discovery of metals in Britain and Ireland was, no doubt, first made by prospectors who had obtained experience in working them elsewhere. They may have simply come to exploit the country. How these men conducted their investigations is indicated by the report found in a British Museum manuscript, dating from about 1603, in which the prospector gives his reason for believing that gold was to be found on Crawford Moor in Lanarkshire. He tells that he saw among the rocks what Scottish miners call "mothers" and English miners "leaders" or "metalline fumes". It was believed that the "fumes" arose from veins of metal and coloured the rocks as smoke passing upward through a tunnel blackens it, and leaves traces on the outside. He professed to be able to distinguish between the colours left by "fumes" of iron, lead, tin, copper, or silver. On Crawford Moor he found "sparr, keel, and brimstone" between rocks, and regarded this discovery as a sure indication that gold was in situ. The "mothers" or "leaders" were more pronounced than any he had ever seen in Cornwall, Somersetshire, about Keswick, or "any other mineral parts wheresoever I have travelled".[63] Gold was found in this area of Lanarkshire in considerable quantities, and was no doubt worked in ancient times. Of special interest in this connection is the fact that it was part of the territory occupied by Damnonians,[64] who appear to have been a metal-working people. Besides occupying the richest metal-yielding area in Scotland, the Damnonians were located in Devon and Cornwall, and in the east-midland and western parts of Ireland, in which gold, copper, and tin-stone were found as in south-western England. The Welsh Dyfneint (Devon) is supposed by some to be connected with a form of this tribal name. Another form in a Yarrow inscription is Dumnogeni. In Ireland Inber Domnann is the old name of Malahide Bay north of Dublin. Domnu, the genitive of which is Domnann, was the name of an ancient goddess. In the Irish manuscripts these people are referred to as Fir-domnann,[65] and associated with the Fir-bolg (the men with sacks). A sack-carrying people are represented in Spanish rock paintings that date from the Azilian till early "Bronze Age" times. In an Irish manuscript which praises the fair and tall people, the Fir-bolg and Fir-domnann are included among the black-eyed and black-haired people, the descendants of slaves and churls, and "the promoters of discord among the people".

The reference to "slaves" is of special interest because the lot of the working miners was in ancient days an extremely arduous one. In one of his collected records which describes the method "of the greatest antiquity" Diodorus Siculus (a.d. first century) tells how gold-miners, with lights bound on their foreheads, drove galleries into the rocks, the fragments of which were carried out by frail old men and boys. These were broken small by men in the prime of life. The pounded stone was then ground in handmills by women: three women to a mill and "to each of those who bear this lot, death is better than life". Afterwards the milled quartz was spread out on an inclined table. Men threw water on it, work it through their fingers, and dabbed it with sponges until the lighter matter was removed and the gold was left behind. The precious metal was placed in a clay crucible, which was kept heated for five days and five nights. It may be that the Scandinavian references to the nine maidens who turn the handle of the "world mill" which grinds out metal and soil, and the Celtic references to the nine maidens who are associated with the Celtic cauldron, survive from beliefs that reflected the habits and methods of the ancient metal workers.

It is difficult now to trace the various areas in which gold was anciently found in our islands. But this is not to be wondered at. In Egypt there were once rich goldfields, especially in the Eastern Desert, where about 100 square miles were so thoroughly worked in ancient times that "only the merest traces of gold remain".[66] Gold, as has been stated, was formerly found in south-western England, North Wales, and, as historical records, archæological data, and place names indicate, in various parts of Scotland and Ireland. During the period of the "Great Thaw" a great deal of alluvial gold must have distributed throughout the country. Silver was found in various parts. In Sutherland it is mixed with gold as it is elsewhere with lead. Copper was worked in a number of districts where the veins cannot in modern times be economically worked, and tin was found in Ireland and Scotland as well as in south-western England, where mining operations do not seem to have been begun, as Principal Sir John Rhys has shown,[67] until after the supplies of surface tin were exhausted. Of special interest in connection with this problem is the association of megalithic monuments with ancient mine workings. An interesting fact to be borne in mind in connection with these relics of the activities and beliefs of the early peoples is that they represent a distinct culture of complex character. Mr. T. Eric Peet[68] shows that the megalithic buildings "occupy a very remarkable position along a vast seaboard which includes the Mediterranean coast of Africa and the Atlantic coast of Europe. In other words, they lie entirely along a natural sea route." He gives forcible reasons for arriving at the conclusion that "it is impossible to consider megalithic building as a mere phase through which many nations passed, and it must therefore have been a system originating with one race, and spreading far and wide, owing either to trade influence or migration". He adds:

"Great movements of races by sea were not by any means unusual in primitive days. In fact, the sea has always been less of an obstacle to early man than the land with its deserts, mountains, and unfordable rivers. There is nothing inherently impossible or even improbable in the suggestion that a great immigration brought the megalithic monuments from Sweden to India or vice versa. History is full of instances of such migrations."

But there must have been a definite reason for these race movements. It cannot be that in all cases they were forced merely by natural causes, such as changes of climate, invasions of the sea, and the drying up of once fertile districts, or by the propelling influences of stronger races in every country from the British Isles to Japan—that is, in all countries in which megalithic monuments of similar type are found. The fact that the megalithic monuments are distributed along "a vast seaboard" suggests that they were the work of people who had acquired a culture of common origin, and were attracted to different countries for the same reason. What that attraction was is indicated by studying the elements of the megalithic culture. In a lecture delivered before the British Association in Manchester in 1915, Mr. W. J. Perry threw much light on the problem by showing that the carriers of the culture practised weaving linen, and in some cases the use of Tyrian purple, pearls, precious stones, metals, and conch-shell trumpets, as well as curious beliefs and superstitions attached to the latter, while they "adopted certain definite metallurgical methods, as well as mining". Mr. Perry's paper was subsequently published by the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society. It shows that in Western Europe the megalithic monuments are distributed in those areas in which ancient pre-Roman and pre-Greek mine workings and metal washings have been traced. "The same correspondence", he writes, "seems to hold in the case of England and Wales. In the latter country the counties where megalithic structures abound are precisely those where mineral deposits and ancient mine-workings occur. In England the grouping in Cumberland, Westmorland, Northumberland, Durham, and Derbyshire is precisely that of old mines; in Cornwall the megalithic structures are mainly grouped west of Falmouth, precisely in that district where mining has always been most active."