Ancient and ArchaeologyÌý permalink
Abergele-Great Orme-Iberia??
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Message 1.Ìý
Posted by henvell (U1781664) on Wednesday, 29th November 2006
The Great Orme copper mines yielded about 200 tons of metal during the second millennium BCE.S Oppenheimer's [2006],STR,Y chromosome studies revealed that about 39% of the present day male population of Abergele,Wales,can trace their ancestry to migrants,who arrived after the Mesolithic.This is exceptionally high for a Welsh population.Oppenheimer commented that the 56% of male R clusters [STR] in Abergele are more typical of Galicia-Valencia,Spain [mining areas] than of the Basques.
Are there any archaeological or other indications that Iberian miners "might" have come to the Great Orme Area? -
Message 2
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Wednesday, 29th November 2006
The "flat axe" evidence suggests it also, and not only that Iberians mined in Wales but that they had come via Ireland.
Ross Island in Kerry is the oldest known copper mine on these islands, with a dateable origin of mid-3rd millennium BC. In the 1990s archaeologists found the remains of human settlement there from the same period and, for the first time, conclusive proof through pottery that the inhabitants were Iberian, or at least that their culture was. There also was found the richest (outside of Spain) concentration ever of the distinctive 'flat axes' associated with Iberian mining, and immediately a chronological trail of these 'flat axes' could thus be traced from known finds in Munster, Cornwall, Wales, and parts of England and Scotland. That the axes came from Munster were evidenced by the distinctive levels of their arsenic, antimony and silver impurity pattern, and that people followed with the axes is a very logical presumption, given the fact that the mining techniques and the ore being sought were both consistent in all locations and almost exclusively specific to the areas thus far excavated.
Irish mythology abounds with reference to strangers from Iberia, and their actions and movements in mythology mirror very closely the migration pattern of a mining community. The association with earth and underground is there, as is the fact that they were largely uninterested in integarting with the locals, but tended to drift ever onwards. On a more pragmatic level it has long been accepted that southern Ireland and western parts of Britain played host to a commercial maritime enterprise in antiquity that seems almost to have been a 'thing apart', traditionally associated with the continental fringe areas of coastal France, Spain and Portugal - even north Africa. That this commerce must have been in the trading of the valuable ores extracted from Ireland, Wales and Cornwall, is again a logical presumption (and borne out by archaeological evidence abroad). How long the trade remained an 'international' venture is unknown, but there is little doubt now that it was just such trade - and associated migrations - that brought advanced copper mining technology to these parts, along with a considerable injection of Iberian DNA to the gene pool. -
Message 3
Posted by henvell (U1781664) on Thursday, 30th November 2006
Nordmann,thanks a tonne for the information.
Bob -
Message 4
Posted by priscilla (U1793779) on Friday, 1st December 2006
Really interesting stuff, I agree. Thank you. I shall ask a question and doubt it will be answered - am still curious about the Arras lot on another discusion.
So these ancient Iberians were possibly from where? Migration interests:- of people, skills, knowledge and ideas.
Regards P.
Ps This is a gunfree zone. -
Message 5
Posted by RainbowFfolly (U3345048) on Friday, 1st December 2006
Hi Priscilla,
I always think of the Iberian Peninsula as comprising modern-day Spain and Portugal, so I guess that's where the Iberians came from. You also had the Celtiberians from the same area in the Roman's day.
Cheers,
RF -
Message 6
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Friday, 1st December 2006
The era with regard to the mining in question predates the Romans by quite a bit RF, and no one knows how these people thought of themselves. The term Iberian is used only to denote that they can be traced back to the peninsula and no further.
I'm not sure Priscilla what you mean by your question. Very little can be deduced about these people, what motivated them to export their culture along with themselves, in what numbers they travelled, to what extent they assimilated or were assimilated as they went along, or whether the mining was in fact the main reason behind these apparent migrations, or simply the most discernible trace of them today. -
Message 7
Posted by RainbowFfolly (U3345048) on Friday, 1st December 2006
Thanks Nordmann,
I always wondered about the naming of people/tribes going back into prehistory. Is the earliest known location normally used?
Cheers,
RF
p.s. Based on the time I spent as a child on holiday in North Wales in the 1970's I would offer Scousers as another source of migration to the area...
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Message 8
Posted by henvell (U1781664) on Friday, 1st December 2006
Genetic studies suggest that the early Iberians came from the east.There was a significant influx of people from the Gravettian culture on the east European [Russian] plain.During the last glacial maximum [ca 23000-16000BCE] many individuals sought refuge in Iberia and SW France.They expanded to the north and NE,when temperatures moderated.
STR,Y chromosome,analyses [male] infer an early component from North Africa in the Iberian population. -
Message 9
Posted by U2280797 (U2280797) on Friday, 1st December 2006
Well, RF - we colonised Liverpool first. I've met several Liverpudlians who speak better Cymraeg/Welsh than I do (not that that's a great achievement). Saunders Lewis, the main founder of Plaid Cymru, was born and brought up in Liverpool; Lloyd George's family, of course, settled Manchester in search of brass.
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Message 10
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Friday, 1st December 2006
Is the earliest known location normally used?
Ìý
I think I wasn't too clear. The peninsula is still called the Iberian Peninsula and it is this current use of the term that applies in this case in order to distinguish reference to the area from any with potentially confusing geo-political connotations. Whoever these people were, they weren't Spaniards! -
Message 11
Posted by priscilla (U1793779) on Saturday, 2nd December 2006
Message posted by henvell
Genetic studies suggest that the early Iberians came from the east.There was a significant influx of people from the Gravettian culture on the east European [Russian] plain.During the last glacial maximum [ca 23000-16000BCE] many individuals sought refuge in Iberia and SW France.They expanded to the north and NE,when temperatures moderated.
STR,Y chromosome,analyses [male] infer an early component from North Africa in the Iberian population.
Interesting - thank you. What a boon DNA research and records is proving to further knowledge. The 'Iberian' migration continued long thereafter, I think. There is reference to it in several tomes - right up until Caesar stopped the Helvetii - and used it as an excuse to annex Gaul.
The eastern migrations across Central Europe - Slavic lands in particular is fascinating. I have a well researched and illustrated book on those but not with me here. That's a bane of living on two continents as the book I want is always in my other library.... I did however bring the sun with me.
So, 'Iberians' went to Britain to mine copper. How, I wonder? Land - or by sea? I asked the same about the Parisii movements to East Yorkshire. Is it feasible?
Regards P. -
Message 12
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Saturday, 2nd December 2006
So, 'Iberians' went to Britain to mine copper. How, I wonder? Land - or by sea?
Ìý
Sea. The land bridges to the continent were long submerged by then and the evidence in any event suggests they travelled via Ireland first. -
Message 13
Posted by henvell (U1781664) on Saturday, 2nd December 2006
The Iberians probably came by sea to mine minerals in Wales and Ireland.The "Sea Road" provided the easiest access.
The Lagar Velho 1 skeletal remains were discovered at Lagar Velho.Portugal,and date to 28160 BCE +/-300 years [cal'05].They belong to a 4 year old Gravettian child with a number of Neanderthal type characteristics[a hybrid?;Zilhoa & Trinkaus].The child was wrapped in an ochre painted shroud,with a shell pendant around its neck and a head dress of four reindeer canines.A juvenile rabbit was placed on the child's lower legs.
Some Homo sapiens remain[Strletskian-Gravettian]at the Sungir site,200km east of Moscow,which date to circa 28000 BCE +/-312 years [cal'05],have a few Neanderthal type features and grave goods.
Homo sapiens from eastern Europe occupied NE Spain
before the arrival of the Gravettian culture.
Whether the Straits of Gibralter were successfully negotiated by people from Morocco pre-28000 BCE is a moat point. -
Message 14
Posted by priscilla (U1793779) on Sunday, 3rd December 2006
Re 'The Sea Road'
It's a long way from Iberia to Ireland by sea - or shaped as it is now. Possibly it was shallower for a long time before ice age melt seeped back. Early sea travel - skin over frame canoes/coracles? dug out canoes?
Crossing from Africa would be easier - using the current system -which is ever interesting those waters and would be after the melt down in central Europe.
Plato even suggests that the Ocean was only mud flats - I wonder if that was an old perpetuated myth based on a truth during the ice ages - merchant men certainly had travelled into it for long before him.
A ramble, sorry, but I like to explore possibilities. I need to peruse some year dot maps of the geology, I suppose. Any advice?
regards P. -
Message 15
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Sunday, 3rd December 2006
Hi Priscilla
The topography of the western European coastline was not significantly different in 3000bc than it is now. As regards boat-building it can be assumed that the technology had advanced considerably since the 'dug out canoes' of 8,000bc and earlier. As to their exact design we have no definite idea except in that contemporary Eastern Mediterranean and Egyptian sources indicate that watertight overlapped timbers and insulation techniques had acquired an impressive degree of sophistication in that quarter, and could well have informed and dictated boat building elsewhere.
Likewise, since we are not sure to what extent seafarers relied on coastal navigation, but are pretty sure that they had craft seaworthy enough to give them the confidence to undertake lengthy voyages, we can only assume that the nautical distance between Ireland and Spain was not insurmountable - and indeed might have presented a less insurmountable route than that which a reliance on movement over land would have (with the additional problem of lugging boats in and out of the water and over long terrestrial distances through territory inhabited by potentially hostile strangers). -
Message 16
Posted by TwinProbe (U4077936) on Sunday, 3rd December 2006
Hi Everyone,
This has been a most interesting thread to read but I think that the discussion has moved slightly beyond the available evidence. For example we know that copper ore was mined at the amazing site at Great Orme since antiquity, but it is possible that the earliest miners were after a pigment rather than a potential metal.
I must re-read Barry Cunliffe’s ‘Facing the Ocean’. Trips from north Spain to the West Country and Ireland don’t look quite so difficult if you rotate a conventional map of the area by 90 degrees clockwise so that Brittany is bottom centre.
It is likely that hominids, of more than one species, have migrated to Britain on more than one occasion in the Palaeolithic period. Mesolithic hunters-gatherers were present in Britain and had ample time to cross dry-shod over the land bridge with continental Europe. I understand that a land crossing is thought to have existed as recently as 6500BC.
We know that sea crossings must have been made to Britain and Ireland in the Neolithic period since none of the domesticated food animal or cereal crops are native to these countries. They must have made a sea crossing, together with a least a few human individuals who understood the new technology. There is evidence that land clearance in Ireland was occurring as long ago as the fourth millennium BC. I’m regrettably ignorant about the Irish Neolithic but the remaining monuments suggest a flourishing period which may pre-date the British Neolithic. What type of boat could have been in use during this period? Framework with a skin cover, or hollowed out tree-trunks? Both have both been suggested, but none have survived from this time.
There is only evidence for sown plank boats since the European Bronze Age, say 1500-1400 BC. North Ferriby Boat, Dover boat, and the spectacular Uluburan shipwreck 14th C BC with its cargo of tin and copper. The nature of the cargo is not wholly surprising since tin, vital for true bronze production, is a rare metal and would need distributing from its origins in Cornwall and Spain. The presence of Spanish ceramics at Ross Ireland is a finding of very great interest; Nordmann, have you a published reference I could read? I think that ceramic evidence is preferable to metallurgical since the flat axe is an common early bronze age design, and provenancing a material that is so easy to recycle can never be easy. Anyway I’d really like to pursue this further.
Other rare commodities probably reached Britain by sea. Baltic Amber could have been washed up on the East Coast of Britain and this may account for the amazing fact that amber has been located in three Mesolithic sites (Star Carr, Creswell Crags, and Gough Cave, Mendip). There was an explosion of amber use during the Bronze Age, especially in the Wessex culture of Wiltshire and some Beaker burials. It is possible that there was actual cultural contact and trade in amber during this period. Sadly there is absolutely no way of distinguishing objects manufactured in Britain from East coast amber from those objects imported as ‘made’ from N. Europe. Nor is there any way of dating the amber object scientifically.
Best wishes,
TP -
Message 17
Posted by henvell (U1781664) on Sunday, 3rd December 2006
The Ferriby boat on the Humber River bank and the Dover harbour wreck both date to about 2000BCE.They were circa 15m long and a tad less than 3m wide.They were oak plank water craft,which had 14-16 oars.They are deemed to have been relatively safe in moderate seas.They do not appear to have had provision for a sail.The Egyptians had vessels with sails 500 years earlier.Open sea travel probably commenced ca 6500 BCE,when Britain became seperated from Europe.The remains of deep sea fish,that date to this era,have been found in the Western Isles of Scotland and in Scandinavia.
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Message 18
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Sunday, 3rd December 2006
And I would qualify Twin Probe's post with two riders, the first being that no archaeological or circumstantial evidence links the 'mining Iberians' with forest clearances in Ireland. The finds in Kerry are isolated in an Irish context but commensurate with an international pattern of such activity from that period and later (between 500 and 1,000 years later).
It is generally agreed that the deforestation of Ireland began with a megalithic population who, it is less assuredly maintained, originally came to the island when it was accessible by foot. This was once accepted as fact but has been seriously challenged in recent years as a better informed picture of prehistoric nautical achievements has come into vogue in which overseas migration of a size sufficient to kick start a new 'indigenous' people in the target locations has become more than plausible as a theory. In either case, by the time the Iberian settlers arrived there would have been a well established and socially structured 'Irish' population, as indeed is evidenced by the sophisticated (in terms of engineering and purpose) passage grave tumuli in Meath that actually predated the mining exercise, if both datings can be deemed to be accurate.
With regard to the design of boat that such seafarers might have used there is extremely heated debate about this very subject. Bronze Age rock carvings from Kalnes in Sweden appear to show an extremely complicated boat design of a flexible timber frame underpinning a light frame and insulated by waterproofed skins, the whole thing propelled by twin banks of oars, suggesting a craft used for medium to long range voyages. The accepted view is that if such craft were indeed used to cover large (by late Neolithic standards) distances then it is feasible to assume that the technology also travelled widely and rapidly. Nothing from Kalnes suggests the design originated there, and some recent Russian discoveries appear to corroborate the theory that the craft were used to cross maritime water as well as penetrate upriver.
That this design has echoes in other constructions known to have been used around the Mediterranean in and around the same period further justifies the theory of rapid imitative spread of the technology, and fits neatly into the timeframe around which sizeable and determined groups are believed to have launched from the Iberian Peninsula in search of mining opportunities.
My other 'rider' is simply in relation to the ore being mined. Twin Probe suggests that it was simply the pigment that was valued. Ross Island suggests anything but. The copper being mined by the Iberians was extremely rich in arsenic (ie. copper of a very maleable and pure content) and lent itself to the manufacture of copper tools and utensils - most notably the distinctive 'flat axes' that helped link the sites exploited by these migrants. Other mining operations from the same era near Mizen Head (quite near to Ross Island) contains no matching archaeology. The ore was stripped rather than dug, it is of an inferior quality (even though richer ore existed below the surface had it been developed in the same manner as Ross Island), and there were none of the distinctive Iberian axes. This appears to have been the work of the 'locals', and in fact is more typical of copper mining in Ireland and Britain from this period. In these places, pigment indeed might have been the primary yield and motivation.
An online edition of British Archaeology from 2000 covers some of the data Twin Probe. My own primary reference is a printed copy of the Irish Archaeological Review from 2005. Here is link to the BA page.
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Message 19
Posted by TwinProbe (U4077936) on Sunday, 3rd December 2006
Henvell,
The only technique that could have dated the Ferriby boats to ‘close to 2000 BCE’ is dendrochronology, and sadly I understand that wood samples were not suitable for dating by this technique. However Ferriby 1, 2 and 3 boats have recently been dated by AMS Carbon 14 dating and given calibrated dates of 1880-1680 BC, 1940-1720 BC and 2030-1780 BC respectively.
The Dover boat has been dated to 1589 BC by dendrochronology. As you will appreciate in all cases it is the dates of tree-felling that is actually being estimated, not the construction of the boats. Whatever the exact age the boats are incredibly old, but (for the reasons I have given) sea transport to Britain and Ireland must be much older still even if we only have ‘proxy evidence’.
Nordmann,
Many thanks for your reference. I’ll certainly follow it up. I wasn’t suggesting that the Iberians did the forest clearance personally, only that in Ireland the process commenced at a surprisingly early date. In fact it may be dangerous to directly equate all forest clearance with agriculture. Mesolithic hunter-gatherers may have cleared grown trees to encourage the new growth that attracts game or, if they were sedentary, they might have coppiced trees for building materials and fuel.
My other point, rather clumsily made, was that evidence of mining may not necessarily be evidence of metal production. If I remember correctly from my visit to Great Orme they have smelting evidence dating from 1500 BC, an impressive achievement sure enough. But thousands of years earlier outcroppings of malachite would have been very obvious by their colour and it is at least possible that the ore would have been first mined as a pigment or ‘keepsake’. Almost everything is older than we think.
The point about arsenic in copper is that this impurity makes the metal harder and able to take a better edge – more bronze-like in fact. Some archaeometallurgists talk of ‘arsenical bronze’. For this reason ‘rich in arsenic (ie. copper of a very maleable and pure content’ are somewhat contradictory qualities. Pure copper would have been much less use. The controversy is, rather naturally, over the degree to which arsenic (or more correctly arsenic containing copper ore) was deliberately added to the smelting, rather than being present as a happy accident. There is evidence that our ancestors knew precisely what they were doing.
Best wishes to you both,
TP -
Message 20
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Monday, 4th December 2006
Point well made and taken re the arsenic TP - I realised how silly it read after I posted it, but you understood what I meant. The point re the flat axes with the high arsenic content in any case was not so much the quality of the metal as its ditinctiveness. It was almost as if the guys had left 'calling cards' on their travels of tools forged from material unearthed first in Munster.
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Message 21
Posted by priscilla (U1793779) on Monday, 4th December 2006
As to the boats .... oars or paddles? Oars need a special structure (rowlock pegs or tholes as in Greek ships.) On the other hand, double banked paddles seem unlikely. That means also a difference in helming technique.
So sea migration was possible but ocean currents on the route described are tricky. The gulf stream would take effect eventually but not immediately. (Boats are more my thing than some of the other areas I dabble in on these boards amd I can read and use nav. charts.
An absorbinbg thread. My thanks.
Regards P. -
Message 22
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Monday, 4th December 2006
The Kalnes picture shows oars, though it's very basic and doesn't indicate what kind of rowlocks were used. In Ireland Tim Severin experimented with various rowlock designs when preparing for the St Brendan voyage in an ocean-going currach (not too dissimilar in construction although purportedly from a much later era) and found that the best was the most basic and most ancient of the alternatives he knew of, constructed of rope-protected cross-grained wooden eyelets with a bitumen or whale fat coating of insulation.
Since the 'Iberian' theory rests on the existence of a proto-commercial network in operation in which the smelted ore and artefacts were traded as commodities then it is as well to remember that the vessels would have been required to do much more than simply ferry their passengers on a one-way trip in one set direction. It is contended on the contrary that Ireland and Britain merely represented the northermost extents of a trading system (or several overlapping systems) that utilised the coastal waters of modern day Morocco, Portugal, Spain, France and the Lowlands as the western 'trunk' of its infrastructure. This does not preclude that its participants could not have 'dashed' across open ocean should they have needed to, but suggests that the movement - both of people and goods - was much more piecemeal and episodic, and never too far removed physically from the trading centres en route, which were after all what made the whole venture worthwhile. -
Message 23
Posted by TwinProbe (U4077936) on Monday, 4th December 2006
Hi Nordmann,
The University library has turned up trumps. In 2004 William O'Brian published the full Ross Island excavation report entitled 'Ross Island: Mining, Metal and Society in Early Ireland'. We actually had two copies, one of which I have borrowed. The book is long, sumptuously produced and full of information. I shall sign off for two evenings while I try to digest the contents. Preliminary scrutiny suggests that the Iberians may have been lost on the cutting room floor but we shall see. Anyway I am very much in your debt for the information about this crucial site, about which I was previously in a state of total ignorance.
Best wishes,
TP -
Message 24
Posted by henvell (U1781664) on Monday, 4th December 2006
The Â鶹ԼÅÄ online news reported in 2003 that a piece of wood from the original Ferriby boat had been decontaminated by a new process and had rendered an AMS calibrated age of ca 2000 BCE.The revised age determination for the Dover boat was 1950 BCE.Senile old cove may have got the two dates reversed,its grey cells are rapidly failing,but the dates are reasonably close to 2000 BCE,which is about the time that people journeyed to Great Orme from Iberia.The
Irish and possibly Cornish probably [?]used hide boats during this period. -
Message 25
Posted by TwinProbe (U4077936) on Wednesday, 6th December 2006
Hi Nordmann,
I won't claim to understand the complex Ross Isalnd site, but certainly things are now a little clearer. It would appear that in Ireland (as in Britain) copper smelting cannot have been an independant, indigenous, discovery since there are no sources of native copper available and, after its introduction, a very rapid progress of technology. In both countries there must have been external influences and, again in both, these have been linked to the users of 'Beaker' pottery.
Dr O'Brien clearly considers that Britain lies within a NW European Beaker tradition in which beakers are found in burials. Ireland, on the other hand, lies within a Western Atlantic tradition in which beakers are found in settlements and older Neolithic monuments. The oldest examples of this Western Atlantic tradition lie in Iberia sure enough, but he suggests that the tradition spread to Morbihan over several hundred years, and that it is with Brittany that the Irish first made contact.
A trade route from SW Ireland to Brittany seems eminently possible (although I am not a practical sailor!) and could conveniently include Cornwall when the value of a supply of tin was appreciated. The number of Beaker 'specialists' that visited Ireland need not have been large, and we are not looking at a 'colony' of foreign miners.
I now appreciate your point about identifying the product of Ross Island by the arsenic, antimony, and silver impurity pattern. I gather that the Ross Island mines must have provided most of Ireland's copper needs for centuries, and that a good deal found its way to west Britain.
A fascinating story.
Best wishes,
TP -
Message 26
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Wednesday, 6th December 2006
It sounds to me that you understand it about as well as it can be understood!
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