The ancient builders of Stonehenge may have had a surprisingly meaty
diet and mobile way of life. Although farming first reached the British
Isles around 6,000 years ago, cultivation had given way to animal
raising and herding by the time Stonehenge and other massive stone
monuments began to dot the landscape, a new study finds.
Agriculture’s
British debut occurred during a mild, wet period that enabled the
introduction of Mediterranean crops such as emmer wheat, barley and
grapes, say archaeobotanists Chris Stevens of Wessex Archaeology in
Salisbury, England, and Dorian Fuller of University College London.
Farming existed at first alongside foraging for wild fruits and nuts and
limited cattle raising, but the rapid onset of cool, dry conditions in
Britain about 5,300 years ago spurred a move to raising cattle, sheep
and pigs, Stevens and Fuller propose in the September Antiquity.
With
the return of a cultivation-friendly climate about 3,500 years ago,
during Britain’s Bronze Age, crop growing came back strong, the
scientists contend. Farming villages rapidly replaced a mobile, herding
way of life.
