Hostname: page-component-7f64f4797f-g5lq8 Total loading time: 0.001 Render date: 2025-11-04T05:02:32.884Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Building Stonehenge? An alternative interpretation of lipid residues in Neolithic Grooved Ware from Durrington Walls

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 July 2019

Lisa-Marie Shillito
Lisa-Marie Shillito*
Affiliation:
School of History, Classics and Archaeology, Newcastle University, Newcastle Upon Tyne NE1 7RU, UK (Email: lisa-marie.shillito@ncl.ac.uk)
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Lipid residues identified in Grooved Ware pottery from Durrington Walls have been interpreted as evidence for large-scale feasting associated with the construction of Stonehenge, around 2500 BC. While a function related to food consumption is possible, other explanations may be equally plausible. An alternative interpretation not previously considered is that these residues may be related to a non-food use of animal resources, such as in the production of tallow. Such an interpretation would support the ‘greased sled’ theory for the transport of the megaliths for Stonehenge.

Keywords

Neolithic BritainDurrington WallsStonehengelipid residues

Information

Type
Debate
Information
Antiquity , Volume 93 , Issue 370 , August 2019 , pp. 1052 - 1060
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd, 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Adams, R.L. 2009. Transforming stone: ethnoarchaeological perspectives on megalithic form in Indonesia, in Scarre, C. (ed.) Megalithic quarrying—sourcing, extracting and manipulating the stones (British Archaeological Reports International series 1923): 83–92. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports.Google Scholar
Albarella, U. & Serjeantson, D.. 2002. A passion for pork: meat consumption at the British Late Neolithic site of Durrington Walls, in Miracle, P. & Milner, N. (ed.) Consuming passions and patterns of consumption: 33–49. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.Google Scholar
Albright, S.L. 1982. An ethnoarchaeological study of Tahltan subsistence and settlement patterns. MA dissertation, Simon Fraser University.Google Scholar
Bevins, R. & Ixer, R.. 2018. Retracing the footsteps of H.H. Thomas: a review of his Stonehenge bluestone provenancing study. Antiquity 92: 788–802. https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2018.10Google Scholar
Copley, M.S., Berstan, R., Dudd, S.N., Mukherjee, A.J., Straker, V., Payne, S. & Evershed, R.P.. 2005. Dairying in antiquity. III. Evidence from absorbed lipid residues dating to the British Neolithic. Journal of Archaeological Science 32: 523–46. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2004.08.006Google Scholar
Craig, O.E., Shillito, L.-M., Albarella, U., Viner-Daniels, S., Chan, B., Cleal, R., Ixer, R., Jay, M., Marshall, P., Simmons, E., Wright, E. & Pearson, M.P.. 2015. Feeding Stonehenge: cuisine and consumption at the Late Neolithic site of Durrington Walls. Antiquity 89: 1096–1109. https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2015.110Google Scholar
de Beaune, S. 1987. Palaeolithic lamps and their specialization: a hypothesis. Current Anthropology 28: 569–77. https://doi.org/10.1086/203565Google Scholar
Donahue, R.E. & Burroni, D.B.. 2004. Lithic microwear analysis and the formation of archaeological assemblages, in Walker, E.A., Wenban-Smith, F. & Healy, F. (ed.) Lithics in action: 140–48. Oxford: Oxbow.Google Scholar
Dudd, S.N., Evershed, R.P. & Gibson, A.M.. 1999. Evidence for varying patterns of exploitation of animal products in different prehistoric pottery traditions based on lipids preserved in surface and absorbed residues. Journal of Archaeological Science 26: 1473–82. https://doi.org/10.1006/jasc.1998.0434Google Scholar
Dunne, J., Evershed, R.P., Salque, M., Cramp, L., Bruni, S., Ryan, K., Biagetti, S. & di Lernia, S.. 2012. First dairying in green Saharan Africa in the fifth millennium BC. Nature 486: 390–94. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature11186Google Scholar
Dunne, J., Grillo, K.M., Casanova, E., Whelton, H. & Evershed, R.P.. 2018. Pastoralist foodways recorded in organic residues from pottery vessels of modern communities in Samburu, Kenya. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 26(2): 619–42. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-018-9384-0Google Scholar
Edwards, A. & Horne, M.. 1997. Animal bone, in Whittle, A. (ed.) Sacred mound holy ring: Silbury Hill and the West Kennet palisade enclosures: a Later Neolithic complex in North Wiltshire: 117–29. Oxford: Oxbow.Google Scholar
Evershed, R.P. 2008. Experimental approaches to the interpretation of absorbed organic residues in archaeological ceramics. World Archaeology 40: 26–47. https://doi.org/10.1080/00438240801889373Google Scholar
Fernandes, R., Eley, Y., Brabec, M., Lucquin, A., Millard, A. & Craig, O.. 2018. Reconstruction of prehistoric pottery use from fatty acid carbon isotope signatures using Bayesian inference. Organic Geochemistry 117: 31–42. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.orggeochem.2017.11.014Google Scholar
Frith, J., Appleby, R., Stacey, R. & Heron, C.. 2004. Sweetness and light: chemical evidence of beeswax and tallow candles at Fountains Abbey, North Yorkshire. Medieval Archaeology 48: 220–27.Google Scholar
Harris, B. 2016. Profile: moving Stonehenge. Public Archaeology 15: 148–56. https://doi.org/10.1080/14655187.2016.1261250Google Scholar
Harris, B. 2018. Roll me a great stone: a brief historiography of megalithic construction and the genesis of the roller hypothesis. Oxford Journal of Archaeology 37: 267–81. https://doi.org/10.1111/ojoa.12142Google Scholar
Heron, C., Steele, V., Andersen, S., Fischer, A., Glykou, A., Hartz, S., Saul, H. & Craig, O.. 2013. Illuminating the Late Mesolithic: residue analysis of ‘blubber’ lamps from Northern Europe. Antiquity 87: 178–88. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003598X00048705Google Scholar
Hey, G., Mulville, J. & Robinson, M.. 2003. Diet and culture in southern Britain: the evidence from Yarnton, in Pearson, M. Parker (ed.) Food, culture and identity in the Neolithic and Early Bronze Age: 79–88. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports.Google Scholar
Layard, A.H. 1853. Discoveries in the ruins of Nineveh and Babylon: with travels in Armenia, Kurdistan and the desert. London: J. Murray.Google Scholar
Mays, S., Roberts, D., Marshall, P., Pike, A.W.G., van Heekeren, V., Bronk Ramsey, C., Dunbar, E., Reimer, P., Linscott, B., Radini, A., Lowe, A., Dowle, A., Speller, C. , Vallender, J. & Bedford., J. 2018. Lives before and after Stonehenge: an osteobiographical study of four prehistoric burials recently excavated from the Stonehenge World Heritage Site. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 20: 692–710. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2018.06.008Google Scholar
Moore, R. 1879. The universal assistant and complete mechanic, containing over one million industrial facts, calculations, receipts, processes, trade secrets, rules, business forms, legal items, etc., in every occupation, from the household to the manufactory. New York: J.S. Ogilvie.Google Scholar
Mottram, H.R., Dudd, S.N., Lawrence, G.J., Stott, A.W. & Evershed, R.P.. 1999. New chromatographic, mass spectrometric and stable isotope approaches to the classification of degraded animal fats preserved in archaeological pottery. Journal of Chromatography A 833: 209–21. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0021-9673(98)01041-3Google Scholar
Mukherjee, A.J., Berstan, R., Copley, M.S., Gibson, A.M. & Evershed, R.P.. 2007. Compound-specific stable carbon isotopic detection of pig product processing in British Late Neolithic pottery. Antiquity 81: 743–54. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003598X00095703Google Scholar
Mukherjee, A.J., Gibson, A.M. & Evershed, R.P.. 2008. Trends in pig product processing at British Neolithic Grooved Ware sites traced through organic residues in potsherds. Journal of Archaeological Science 35: 2059–73. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2008.01.010Google Scholar
Nosonovsky, M. 2007. Oil as a lubricant in the ancient Middle East. Tribology Online 2: 44–49. https://doi.org/10.2474/trol.2.44Google Scholar
Oras, E., Higham, T.F.G., Cramp, L.J.E. & Bull, I.D.. 2017. Archaeological science and object biography: a Roman bronze lamp from Kavatsu bog (Estonia). Antiquity 91: 124–38. https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2016.247Google Scholar
Parker Pearson, M., Pollard, J., Richards, C., Thomas, J., Welham, K., Albarella, U., Chan, B., Marshall, P. & Viner, S.. 2011. Feeding Stonehenge: feasting in Late Neolithic Britain, in Aranda Jiménez, G., Montón-Subías, S. & Sánchez Romero, M. (ed.) Guess who's coming to dinner: commensality rituals in the prehistoric societies of Europe and the Near East: 73–90. Oxford: Oxbow.Google Scholar
Parker Pearson, M., Pollard, J., Richards, C., Welham, K., Casswell, C., French, C., Schlee, D., Shaw, D., Simmons, E., Stanford, A., Bevins, R. & Ixer, R.. 2019. Megalith quarries for Stonehenge's bluestones. Antiquity 367: 45–62. https://doi:10.15184/aqy.2018.111Google Scholar
Richards, J. & Whitby, M.. 1997. The engineering of Stonehenge. Proceedings of the British Academy 92: 231–56.Google Scholar
Roffet-Salque, M., Dunne, J., Altoft, D., Casanova, E., Cramp, L., Smyth, J., Whelton, H. & Evershed, R.P.. 2017. From the inside out: upscaling organic residue analyses of archaeological ceramics. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 16: 627–40. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2016.04.005Google Scholar
Routh, H.B., Bhowmik, K.R., Parish, L.C. & Witkowski, J.A. J.A. 1996. Soaps: from the Phoenicians to the 20th century—a historical review. Clinics in Dermatology 14: 3–6. https://doi.org/10.1016/0738-081X(95)00101-KGoogle Scholar
Shillito, L.-M. 2017. Multivocality and multiproxy approaches to the use of space: lessons from 25 years of research at Çatalhöyük. World Archaeology 49: 237–59. https://doi.org/10.1080/00438243.2016.1271351Google Scholar
Šoberl, L., Horvat, M., Gašparič, A.Z., Sraka, M., Evershed, R.P. & Budja, M.. 2014. Neolithic and Eneolithic activities inferred from organic residue analysis of pottery from Mala Triglavca, Moverna vas and Ajdovska jama, Slovenia. Documenta Praehistorica XLI: 149–79. https://doi.org/10.4312/dp.41.9Google Scholar
Stott, A.W., Berstan, R., Evershed, R.P., Hedges, R.E.M, Bronk Ramsey, C. & Humm, M.J.. 2001. Radiocarbon dating of single compounds isolated from pottery cooking vessel residues. Radiocarbon 43(2A): 191–97. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0033822200038005Google Scholar
Viner, S., Evans, J., Albarella, U. & Pearson, M. Parker. 2010. Cattle mobility in prehistoric Britain: strontium isotope analysis of cattle teeth from Durrington Walls (Wiltshire, Britain). Journal of Archaeological Science 37: 2812–20. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2010.06.017Google Scholar