UK Countryside history - 2,000 BC
By 4,000 years ago farming systems were well developed and extended to moorland areas that even today we do not farm. Wildwood remained throughout the countryside but was being cleared rapidly on lighter land to make way for farming. The late stone age and early bronze age periods were a time of the development of many of the famous henges that are found throughout the UK and the landscape was ordered on a large scale.
- Population
During the bronze age there was significant population growth as agriculture
expanded throughout most of the country. Recent work suggests that the
population may have been much greater than we traditionally believed and
may have exceeded 1,000,000 by 2,000 BC. However, within the huge time
period of this age, population growth and subsequent decline could have
occurred many times as the fertility of farmland became exhausted and
food production fell.
- Crops
Wheat and barley were the main crops being grown for flour, straw, animal
feed and malt for alcoholic drinks. Hay was grown for animal feed while
straw was used for bedding, thatching and winter fodder.
- Livestock
Cattle, sheep, goats and pigs. Cattle had always been important with pre-historic
farmers but through the bronze age there was an increase in the importance
of sheep and goats. These would have been kept for wool, milk and meat.
The type of sheep were very similar to the Soay breed of today. Pigs and
wild boar remains have been found in farmsteads.
- Farming Systems
In the 2000+ years since the first farmers arrived large tracts of the
wild wood had been cleared and agriculture was transforming the landscape.
Evidence shows that large areas of the countryside were laid out in unenclosed
fields, usually square that reflected ploughing both ways. Tracks and
ways across the countryside allowed trade and the exchange of animals
to prevent in-breeding.
- Woodland & Hedges
The wildwood by this time probably covered 40% of the country. Linear
features (eg the Dartmoor reeves) were now common marking boundaries and
enclosing small fields.
- Social Economy
Evidence from the many famous henges that date from this period show that
society was well structured and able to call upon a significant population
resource to build the many public monuments where religion or ritual was
an inseparable part of everyday life. In everyday life pottery was now
decorated and noticeably finer and the arrival of metallurgy and the production
of bronze led to new tools as well as ornaments and symbols of status.
Trade in foodstuffs, tin, leather, tools, baskets, pots, textiles and
metal goods was have common.
- Climate
For much of the bronze age the climate was considerably warmer than today
- probably by 2° centigrade. This warmth had a significant affect on agricultural
land use and farming was able to extend into the the moors and uplands
of Britain. Late in the Bronze Age (around 1000 BC) the climate cooled
and became wetter and many of the farming settlements of the upland areas
were abandoned, not to be resettled for some 2,500 years.
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