Beef farmers are invited to join the OPTICK Project
To help manage tick-borne risks.
Sara Tipler
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To help manage tick-borne risks.
Sara Tipler
Development of stone tools, early human culture, agriculture and permanent settlements.
Period
In a heavily wooded landscape, people moved herds of cattle and sheep to fresh pastures, living off the land as they roamed. They created Tor enclosures on rocky hilltops with far reaching views, perhaps for seasonal meetings. These special places show a sense of belonging, and around six thousand years ago (4000BC), we see clearance and settlements for small-scale farming begin. The ground was worked with wooden stone-tipped ploughs and hoes, and the on-going struggle to clear stone from the soil created field boundaries to keep the animals out, or to pen livestock in.
As communities became fixed to the land they worked, their technology and art flourished. Distinctively decorated pottery developed in abundance, using clay from the Gabbro rock of the Lizard and traded right across southern England. Axe factories using igneous rock (often greenstone) produced polished stone axes used for tree felling and wood-working, but some were beautiful items perhaps symbolizing power and magic, prized and traded far and wide.
As the population grew, fields and farm settlements spread across Cornwall. They created Henges – circular earthworks of banks and ditches, perhaps for social and ritual use. People worked together to place huge stones (menhirs) in key places, and constructing stone circles, stone rows, cairns, quoits, and massive stone monuments. This required organized and sizeable communities wanting to mark the approach of summer or winter, their ancestral territory, and the tombs of people they did not wish to forget.
4 Monuments
9 Monuments
11 Monuments
9 Monuments
4 Monuments
1 Monuments
