Woodland Dwelling in the Neolithic of Northwest Europe: Archaeological Perspectives

Around 6,000 years ago in northern Europe human lifeways based on hunting and gathering that had endured for thousands of years were rapidly replaced by subsistence practices centred on the cultivation of a new range of domesticated crops and animals – a period known as the Neolithic (Bradley 1998; Hodder 1990; Larsson 2014; Whittle 1996). The dramatic changes associated with the Neolithic in northern Europe took place in environments that were radically different to those that survive in almost all areas of Europe today. Many landscapes of the Neolithic would have been dominated by woodland with giant oak trees and other species towering over human activity in the landscape below. Working with the environment to create conditions suitable for agriculture would have been one of the major challenges of establishing a Neolithic way of life.
The picture of the Neolithic environment we are able to reconstruct has been made possible due to over a century of palynology, the study of pollen from lakes and bogs, which has provided a rich picture of the environmental setting of Neolithic life (Iversen 1941, 1969). Yet these studies are rarely incorporated into
social accounts of this important period. This is despite the fact that woodland would have been a fundamental material constituent of life. Forested landscapes heavily influence human perception and movement across the landscape. Creating garden plots for horticulture and grazing for animals would have
required the removal of woodland and this would have required incredible effort and constant maintenance. The raw materials of the woodland were also essential for Neolithic lifeways – timber formed one of the main mediums of Neolithic architecture and material culture. Neolithic people also created great monuments out of giant wooden tree trunks – in some cases the dead literally resided within the heart of these giant trees, cut down from the forest around.