Everyday Life
How
did the people of the Bronze Age live? What did they eat? Where did they live?
By the time Stonehenge was finished the
hunter-gatherer culture had already been left far behind, and the people
of Britain were building permanent settlements.
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Villages and small towns were situated at
commercially advantageous locations, on the forks of the main rivers
leading to the coast.
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Once the forests had been cut and cleared, the
wide-open rolling downs of Wiltshire were ideal for grazing sheep and
growing grain.
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By now different areas of the country were trading,
for example the people of Wiltshire could trade grain and wool in
exchange for tin from Cornwall or copper from North Wales.
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The bronze implements they made, such as swords and
tools, could be traded with other settlements.
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Charcoal was always needed by blacksmiths to heat
their furnaces to the high temperatures required to smelt metal ores.
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And the village people could always trade with the
coast for fish and rare seafoods.
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Hides were stretched, cured, tanned and dyed to make
jerkins, coats and leggings.
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The first attempts at weaving wool into cloth had
already begun on hand-driven looms.
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Dyes for colouring cloth were made from plants such
as woad, and just like people of the 21st century, the Bronze Age people
probably took great delight in the appearance and variety of their
clothing.
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Burial remains have suggested that the diet in the
Bronze Age was mainly vegetarian, but very varied. It is quite possible
that these people had a more nutritious diet than some of their 21st
century counterparts.
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Today's engineers calculate that it would have taken
500 men to pull one of the huge sarsens across the countryside, with an
extra 100 men to lay the wooden rollers in front.
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This suggests a very organised, capable society, who
had reached a level of comfort and culture whereby they could look
around for new endeavours, such as building Stonehenge.
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