A History of Ancient Britain (46 page)

A few miles west of the market town of Driffield, still in the East Riding, is a Yorkshire Wolds village glorying in the unforgettable name of Wetwang. Despite what generations of comedians have
said, it might mean nothing more than ‘wet field’ – in contrast to the ‘dry field’ of Driffield. The Iron Age is thick on the ground between Wetwang and nearby Garton,
with settlements of roundhouses and a cemetery containing well over 400 burials.

During recent excavations archaeologists found three graves there of individuals who had been buried with those most enigmatic and evocative of two-wheeled vehicles, chariots. There is as much
debate about ‘chariots’ as there is about the Arras Culture itself. Many specialists object to the word, saying it is too resonant of
Ben-Hur
and sure to make people think they
were used only by warriors. Rather than mobile weapons platforms, driven into battle by spear-throwing, sword-wielding heroes, they may have been just carts for getting from A to B. It is also
argued by some that when
they are found in graves they ought to be seen first as the hearse and then as the coffin of the deceased. Suffice it to say, there is no agreement
on whether ‘chariot burials’ are always ‘warrior burials’.

The story of the Arras Culture, apparently limited to east Yorkshire, was further complicated by the discovery of a chariot burial just west of Edinburgh in 2001. A new traffic interchange was
soon to be built close to the site of a Bronze Age cairn and, given the obvious sensitivity of the site, archaeologists were brought in to carry out survey and excavation in advance of the work.
What they found on the outskirts of the Scottish capital was a chariot burial.

The Newbridge chariot had been buried intact – unlike the Yorshire examples but in keeping with the tradition in Iron Age France. Although the human remains had long since decayed, leaving
no trace, there was no doubting it was a high-status grave. Clearly at least one Continentally connected Yorkshireman had contacts in northern Britain as well.

One of the three chariot burials excavated at Wetwang was certainly a challenge to the idea they could only ever represent the rites accorded to fighting men. In grave number 2, lying on top of
the wheels and cockpit of a chariot, was the skeleton of a woman. The story of so much ancient history is the story of men. Formal burial (where it occurs), and the grave goods that accompanied it,
is usually redolent of masculinity. So often it is knives, spearheads, axes and arrowheads that go into the ground: boys’ toys.

But the so-called ‘Wetwang Woman’ was altogether different, suggesting that by 300
BC
or so, in east Yorkshire if nowhere else, the importance of the feminine
was finally being recognised as well. Analysis of her skeleton revealed she lived well into her forties at least – an older, even an elderly woman by Iron Age standards. Her teeth were in
good condition, indicating access to a privileged diet; so for all of her long life she enjoyed high status, free from the more mundane concerns of daily life 2,300 years ago.

The chariot had been taken apart before it went into the ground, the constituent parts laid out in a careful symmetry. The cockpit and central pole seem to have gone in first, before the
two-spoked wheels were laid on top along with all the horse furniture of bits, traces and the like. The woman’s body had apparently been laid down on the chariot parts towards the end of the
whole process. Burial with a vehicle speaks of a journey as well as status. Perhaps it acknowledged how far she had come in life, as well as an immeasurable distance to be travelled into the
unknown.

Wetwang Woman was also accompanied into the afterlife by several of her personal possessions. One was quickly dubbed the ‘bean tin’, and that is certainly
what it looks like. On closer inspection it turns out to be a small canister made of thin sheet bronze, richly decorated with patterns of incised curves and lines and suspended from a fine bronze
chain fixed at both ends. At the centre of top and bottom is a red enamel roundel. Fascinatingly, the bean tin is and was completely sealed. If it ever contained anything it must have been
something small and organic, because it seems utterly empty now. There has been endless speculation as to its function. Perhaps it held a handful of beans or seeds so that it could be used as some
sort of ceremonial rattle. Maybe it was fixed on her belt so that it rattled on her hip as she walked.

There was also a finely wrought iron object that has been called a mirror – understandably, since it has precisely the shape of the sort of thing you might find on a lady’s dressing
table. In this instance, however, there is no glass and the only reflection would have been that returned by the highly polished surface of the metal itself. It is badly corroded now, though, and
so fragile I was not even permitted to touch it for fear it might crumble in my hands.

For me the word ‘mirror’ is unsatisfactory, suggesting as it does something frivolous and vain. More recently archaeologists like Giles have suggested that such items were intended
not to reflect the likenesses and world of the living, but to provide a window on the world of the dead. Perhaps when she looked at that gleaming surface the woman glimpsed not her own reflection
but something less than sharp and not quite perfectly remembered – not her own face but that of her mother, or her grandmother. A woman in possession of such an object, able to wield the
power that comes from contact with other worlds, might have been feared and revered in equal measure.

Missing from the grave of Wetwang Woman – and most of the other chariot graves – are the horses. (The so-called ‘King’s Barrow’ appeared to have contained a pair of
animals, but that was unusual.) When we think of a time when mighty Celtic warriors roamed the land, surely we see them on horseback? We have the men and the weapons; and in Wetwang Woman perhaps
we have the wisdom and guile of the seer who sent them forth and nursed their egos on their return. It was a find made not in Yorkshire, but back in that mega hill fort in Hampshire that at last
completed the visual image of the Celtic heroes of legend.

Horses are rare throughout the prehistory of Britain, even on farms. Many horse bones, however – skulls in particular – were recovered during Sir Barry
Cunliffe’s excavations at Danebury. Often the heads had been deliberately buried as part of some or other ritual but analysis of a complete skeleton, by specialist Robin Bendrey, revealed
indications that the animal had likely been rather more than a beast of burden. ‘The lifetime activities of the horse will leave different markers in the skeleton,’ he said. He added
that a clearly visible band of white enamel on one of the animal’s teeth showed it had been made to wear a bit; but more significant by far was a gaping fracture running across the centre of
one of the vertebrae in its spine. ‘This is evidence that this horse was ridden – and this is the first evidence we have for riding in prehistoric Britain.’

More than any polished stone axe or bronze sword, the ridden horse is a symbol of power. It is said that when some of the peoples of South America first encountered mounted Spaniards in the
sixteenth century, they thought they were looking at creatures that were half-man and half-beast. The centaurs of Greek legend too are said to have been conjured up in the imaginations of the
people of the Minoan Aegean after their first sight of nomadic horsemen making forays into their territory.

But as well as commanding that first shock and awe, men on horseback would have enjoyed numerous practical advantages over those limited to two legs or being pulled on carts or chariots.
‘The horse would have allowed people to travel further and faster,’ said Bendrey. ‘The horse would also have revolutionised warfare. It would have changed raiding. People could
raid at greater distances – and faster. You could attack a neighbouring settlement, take control of their cattle. A man on a horse would have had major advantages over a man on
foot.’

With this final piece of the jigsaw in place, our image of the Kirkburn Warrior might finally match that of the mythical heroes. He died in the prime of his life and was laid to rest beneath a
green mound spiked with spears. But his comrades may have grown old and grey regaling their children, and their children’s children, with stories of the great man they remembered from their
youth. And perhaps when they closed their eyes and pictured him then, blood-soaked sword in hand, he was on horseback.

If the ridden horse was a relatively late development, then that other great companion of the hero, the hunting dog, was part of the British tradition for much longer. British dogs were famed on
the Continent and their export would have been a huge earner for those tribes that had
perfected the art of breeding the best of them. The Greek geographer Strabo wrote
about hunting dogs being exported from Britain to Rome and described them as small, strong, rough-haired, fleet of foot and with a keen sense of smell. In the third century
AD
the Roman poet Nemesianus immortalised their quality in a work he called ‘The Hunt’: ‘Besides the dogs bred in Sparta . . . you should also raise the breed which
comes from Britain, because they are fast and good for our hunting.’ They may have been related to the Gaulish hunting dogs described by another Roman writer, Arrian. He wrote that they were
called
vertragi
– a word he claimed meant ‘speed’ in the Gaulish tongue. Those beasts were muscular, lean, with broad chests and long necks and muzzles.

Hunting dogs from Ireland were also sought after, and on that island they were to become the stuff of legend. Warriors keen to show how courageous and loyal they were would even refer to
themselves as hunting dogs. The real name of the great Irish hero Cú Chulainn was Setanta; but after he killed the best hound of the blacksmith Culann, in self-defence, he volunteered to
serve as the beast’s replacement. From that moment he was Cú Chulainn, ‘Culann’s hound’. He chose to retain the name for all his life, long after the debt to the
smith had been repaid.

By around 200
BC
the so-called Celtic culture had spread right across Britain and Ireland. Power was increasingly in the hands of the sort of leaders able to draw
fighting men to their sides in regional centres like Danebury hill fort; it was the time of the Celtic chieftain. But always there is that same burning question: just who were the Celts?

As a Scot I am used to hearing about my ‘Celtic’ roots. I have circumnavigated the coastlines of Britain and Ireland more than once and I can safely say there is a lively sense of
Celticness in Cornwall, in Wales, all around both Irelands and drilled through much of my own homeland like veins of a precious mineral. The problem is I cannot be sure how old, and therefore how
genuine, that feeling really is. There are those who believe the Celts were united by more than culture. Some are convinced they were – and remain to this day – a separate race of
people. Proving or disproving that notion, however, is a challenge to say the least.

There is a sort of archaeology that involves digging not into the earth but inside the cells of our bodies. It is practised by scientists and they are looking for a substance called
deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). Curled inside the nucleus of every cell of every human body is an infinitesimal thread of DNA. Our bodies are built from simple proteins and it is that magical little
thread, plaited like a corn dolly, that controls the process. Whether we are tall or short; dark-haired, ginger or blond; fair-skinned or dark brown and with blue, brown or
hazel eyes – all of these and every other variation besides are the products of our DNA.

It sounds simple enough but the principal difficulty for gene scientists lies in the fact that
Homo sapiens sapiens
is a very young species of animal indeed. Modern humans began in
sub-Saharan Africa over 200,000 years ago and stayed snuggled in that warm cradle until as recently as 50,000 or 60,000
BC
. It has taken no more than 60 millennia for us to
spread across the entire planet, exploiting every nook and cranny.

From nature’s point of view, therefore, we might as well have been born yesterday. Genetic differences evolve with glacial slowness and so in most of the ways that matter we are identical
to one another – all 6.7 billion of us. From the point of view of our DNA each of us shares 99.9 per cent of the stuff with everybody else – which means the differences between a
ginger-haired Scot on the bus in Glasgow, a Japanese factory worker practising Tai Chi in a park in Tokyo and a Zulu farmer counting his goats in KwaZulu-Natal are lurking somewhere in just 0.1 per
cent of that little plait. Every one of us has three billion blocks of DNA in our blueprint and 2.997 billion of yours are the same as mine. We might as well be clones.

To make matters even worse for the DNA counters, we are the products of a tiny original population. Archaeologists and palaeontologists have found reason to believe our species came terrifyingly
close to extinction in the years before some of them chose to head north out of Africa. We may in fact be the descendants of just a few thousand survivors who clung on in the heartlands while all
around them was disease, starvation and death. We are not quite inbred, but for a while there it was a close-run thing. Small wonder that, genetically speaking, we are still so tightly bound
together.

Work carried out by geneticists over the last decade or so has already established something astonishing about the people alive in Britain today. With the obvious exception of the most recent
arrivals – people whose families came here from their homes in Pakistan, the West Indies and suchlike in the last 60 years or so – the vast majority living in these islands are the
direct descendants of those pioneers who reclaimed the land from the ice 12,000-odd years ago. There have of course been a few invaders over the years – a handful of Mediterranean Romans,
some Angles and Saxons, a few Vikings and some Normans. But the genetic fact is their DNA has
made about as much impact on the British bloodline as a few teaspoonsful of
water added to an overflowing bath.