THE EARLY HISTORY OF BARLICK (3)

[Stanley]

THE EARLY HISTORY OF BARLICK (3)

16 October 2001

Our gallop through 5,000 years of history last week brought us up to about 3,000BC. Let’s have a look at how this translates to Barlick. Remember that at this time the climate was much warmer, something like present day south of France but with more rainfall and better soil. If we go across and look at Middop there is a very large earthwork there which I have always assumed was about 2,000BC, I have no evidence for this and might be wrong, it could easily be earlier. Let us assume there was habitation there in 3,000BC. While I was working at Pendle Heritage, a man came in and showed us a beautiful ceremonial stone axe head he had found at Blacko so we can assume there was habitation there at about the same time.
Looking at these two pieces of evidence and the fact that the track from Middop runs right through the centre of Barlick, I can’t believe we had no habitation here. Add to this the fact that Barlick is more sheltered as it is on the lee side of Weets and I think we can be sure that we had Late Stone Age inhabitants, the trouble is that there is no obvious sign of their presence. This doesn’t mean to say that there isn’t any, simply that we have not found it.
Forget about the buildings in Barlick and just look at the ground. The most obvious site for a settlement is where Townhead is today. It is up on the hillside, has good views all round, lies dry and yet is close to what is now Calf Hall Beck and there are springs in the fields. The track from Middop cuts across the top side of it. At Townhead you are low enough to get the advantage of good fertile soils and the slope catches the sun from first thing in the morning until late in the afternoon. Not surprisingly, this is near the place where in later days the Cistercian monks decided to build their monastery, perhaps they couldn’t build in the more favoured position because the land was already occupied. I think the main settlement would be at Townhead and was in fact the foundation of the Barlick we know today. There would be more than one site. I have an idea I could pick out a few more but I’ll leave it to you to use your imagination. Remember you are looking for somewhere that is slightly elevated, near running water and with good views to give warning of attack.
The later mediaeval roads followed the course of existing tracks and the road out of Barlick to Foulridge and Colne via Upper Hill is a case in point. Virtually anywhere on the side of that road would be a good place for a farmstead. Looking again at the old track from Middop, there is one other powerful argument for Barlick as a settlement on an important route. If you lay a ruler on the map, the old track is heading as straight as an arrow for the most northerly low level crossing of the Pennines at Kildwick. This was tremendously important in the days before bridges and roads, it is the obvious route east to west.
It’s probably time we said something about weaving. The problem with cloth is it doesn’t last in the ground. As far as I can make out the Egyptians are thought to have started weaving cotton about 3,000BC. There is little doubt it was earlier in India and China but we have no certain knowledge. Sometime between 8,000 and 4,000BC sheep were domesticated in the Middle East and it seems to me to be a fair bet they had got to The Isles by sometime around 3,000BC, this is a guess but won’t be a long way out. The point is that sheep naturally shed their wool every year and I can’t see our late Stone Age women missing the chance to collect this useful stuff and sitting there pondering on what to do with it. I won’t hazard any guesses as to when they started weaving but I’ll lay a small bet it didn’t take long. Until anyone tells us any different, let’s assume they were weaving in Barlick sometime between 1,500 and 1,000BC.
So, let’s recap where we are. Around 2,500BC I reckon that we could see the shape of the Barlick we know today on the ground. There would be a track coming down off the Weets where Forty Steps is now and on the level ground to the North of it would be some fields and a small settlement of wood huts with wattle and daub infill round about where Townhead and the bottom of Esp Lane is today. The people would be farmers and hunters, they used flint tools and arrow heads, wore skins and had some domestic animals. They might have had dogs, they were first domesticated before 10,000BC in the Middle East. They could have had goats, sheep and pigs, these were all domesticated before 7,500BC, again in the Middle East.
To our eyes, their life would be hard but compared to their ancestors, they were doing well. The climate was good, food plentiful and they had decent shelter. We shouldn’t lose sight of the fact however that they would be plagued with toothache and any injury, no matter how slight, would be life threatening. Inside the family there would be the same mix of emotions and events that we have today, joy at birth, sadness at death, anger at times and kids running about and getting under the feet. There was no marriage as we know it but couples would tend to stick together if only on the grounds of practicality. Every now and again someone would stray and cause a scandal, jealousy would provoke quarrels and there might even have been murder. In short, the glorious human turmoil that we still enjoy today.
There would be alarms about bands of marauders. I can’t believe that there weren’t men about who would rather use violence to steal than settle down and work the land. These would most likely come from the north where they lagged behind as regards progress. The most likely crime would be stealing animals, a bit like the Wild West when you think about it.
One last thought, mead, an alcoholic drink made by allowing honey and water to ferment naturally, has been around for thousands of years. It would be so easy to stumble across it accidentally, a pot of honey and water would pick up wild yeast and start to ferment and before you knew it you had the technology for a hangover. I reckon that occasionally our old Barlickers might have struck t’rant, just the same as their ancestors in the twentieth century did. Again, that’s pure speculation but I’ll bet they knew about it.
We’re coming up to another big watershed now in the history of Barlick. 2,200BC is generally reckoned to be the start of the Bronze Age in The Isles. Like all these arbitrary dates you’ve got to allow a bit of latitude. Everyone didn’t start using bronze instead of flint in 2,200BC, the technologies overlapped. To give you an idea, it’s possible to identify exactly where a metal originated even if it is alloyed, or mixed, with another one. The grave of the Pharaoh Pepi who died around 2,300BC contained a bronze statue. Bronze is a mixture of copper and tin and when the metals were analysed, it was found that the tin had originated in Cornwall. So we know that Cornwall was producing tin before 2,300BC and we also know there was a trading system at work which had moved the tin from Cornwall to Egypt. There are several things we can deduce from this. Late Stone Age people weren’t dumb animals, they were capable of travel, communication and trade by barter at this time. If they had any surpluses they could trade them for something they couldn’t produce like pottery or artefacts. We know that by 3,000BC copper ingots were being used as currency in the Middle East, how long would it have been before the concept of currency reached The Isles? (Research always modifies initial conclusions. My theory about the Pepi statue took a knock when further research showed that the statue wasn't bronze but riveted copper plate. However we know tin was mined in Cornwall before 1,250BC and that Mediterranean traders were buying it in the first millennium BC so the theory still stands but at a later date.)
What we are sure about, because we have the archaeological evidence, is that the use of copper, and later bronze, became widespread in The Isles after 2,200BC if you could afford the technology. We start to see bronze axes and daggers but no swords as yet. Remember that in the early days, flint tools would be better than bronze for a lot of jobs as it was much harder, took a keener edge and stayed sharp longer. By 1,500BC bronze technology was reaching its peak and weapons made of metal more common. We have another piece of evidence from this time that gives a clue as to how sophisticated our people were. Around 1,700BC the technology was good enough to transport eighty two blocks of stone weighing fifty tons each from South Wales to Stonehenge and erect them as part of the great stone circle. Think about it, this would be a major civil engineering feat even with today’s technology. (The latest research raises the possibility the Sarsen stones may have come from closer to hand, 25 miles away on the Malborough Downs but this was still an enormous task.)
Round about this time, probably 2,000BC onwards archaeologists have noted another culture creeping into The Isles. These were the Beaker People, so called because of the distinctive pottery they used. They didn’t necessarily invade and force the older culture out but mixed in with the old who took up the new culture. We see more personal ornament and even torcs (neck bands) of gold, our Barlickers were coming up in the world! (Two torcs from this era have been found in Barlick by a metal detectorist.)
Around 1,400BC another change hit Barlick, the climate started to get colder and wetter. This didn’t happen suddenly, it gradually deteriorated until 700BC when it started to improve again. Up to this point, all the hills round Barlick were covered with trees and brush. The twin factors of worsening climate and increased use of wood by the inhabitants resulted in deforestation of the hills which upset the soil structure and the whole of the Pennines, the North Yorkshire Moors and the Welsh Uplands never recovered.
At the same time we see yet another change in the culture creeping in. This was the Urn People. They were called this because of their practice of cremating their dead and burying the ashes in stoneware urns. This same culture brought in barley and flax from the continent and so linen cloth could be produced or the fibres mixed in with wool to make what came to be called Linsey Woolsey.
Let’s drag this weeks thoughts together, we have reached about 1,400BC. Our Bronze Age Barlickers are living in substantial huts, farming the land, keeping animals, even dogs and cats by this time and engaging in trade, bartering their surplus stocks for things they couldn’t make themselves. They are not totally secure, they are occasionally harassed by rustlers and perhaps hostile neighbours. The population has been gradually rising up to this point as productivity improved and if we want to speculate we could easily be looking at a local population of perhaps 100 souls. Life was improving, footwear and clothing was getting more serviceable and there would be the occasional stew and a pint of mead. We have come a long way in the last 8,000 years but there are more great changes just round the corner.

SCG/16 October 2001