Tuesday, January 12, 2016

Bronze Age ... Going Backward? Why Not?

Look who I found. I've seen this guy before and every time I think, 'What the heck, Danann!' He's very much our own Danann of Perth, mate to the first Mamm of the Mamm Books, founders of the family of SONG - at least as far back as the books have taken us so far ...


Here's a link to an article I like, one that might begin a journey further back in time ... to the Bronze Age maybe ... 

Francis Pryor of Peterborough has had a busy life it seems. Click on the above link and see what he's found!

And onward we go. I'm going to put links in here, mainly so they'll be handy for when I want them, just a heads up on that ... :) 

HERE is a link to the Peterborough Visitor's Page or some such.

Ah! A local NEWSPAPER is always a good resource!

And the first seeds of fascination are sown HERE in this link that gives a bit of the history of Peterborough. Some of the interesting references:
 -Medeshamstede prior to Wm the Conqueror
- second to fourth centuries, Durobrivae
- the River Nene
- between 4,000 and 3,000 BC the area was first settled and farmed
-  fenland, good water, ploughlands, woodlands, *meads* (meadows), and pastures
- Iron Age settlement
- Roman times
- "It was from the fortress at Longthorpe that the legendary Legio IX Hispana (Ninth Legion of Spaniards) set out to battle Queen Boudica when her Iceni tribe rose in revolt against the Romans in 61. And it was back to Longthorpe that the legion fled after being ambushed by Boudica, with 80 per cent of its soldiers dead. Its general Quintus Petillius Cerialis realised he would be unable to hold the fort with such diminished manpower, so a smaller stronghold was built inside the original, less than half its size."
- Pottery
- Anglo-Saxons
- " ... Pagan king Penda from 626 to 655, but his son Peada introduced Christianity to the Middle Angles, the region in which future Peterborough lay. Admittedly, his faith was perhaps less about true belief and more a desire to marry into the affluent Northumbrian Royal house but nevertheless, he founded a monastery in 655 named Medeshamstede."
- Vikings
- Black Shuck, a huge phantom dog with eyes weeping fire, who has haunted the area since 1127
- Normans
1348 to 1350 Black Death outbreak
- Bridge Fair – still takes place today. It can trace its origins right the way back to 1439, when it was granted to the abbey by King Henry VI
- "The power of the abbey came to an abrupt end in 1539, after King Henry VIII’s break with the Roman Catholic Church and the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Peterborough was more fortunate than most – instead of being sold and destroyed as many religious institutions were, it became a cathedral instead, with the town becoming a city by default, despite a population of only about 1,500. However, the influence of the religious establishment was still strong, with the Dean and Chapter becoming Lords of the Manor of Peterborough, and the Churchwardens serving in much the same capacity as a modern local authority."
- outbreak of the plague in 1574 
- English Civil War of 1642 to 1651, Oliver Cromwell
- prosperity from the wool and cloth trade
- 1845 railway
- Rolls-Royce
- brick-making

Don't give me that look.

How was I supposed to know I was going to delve into the history of this place? It was all right there in that article (and more!) so what the heck. I just kept reading.

As for why I want to know anything about Peterborough in the first place, I guess it's because it's the place that caught my attention and drew it to the Bronze Age.

Why our Characters would be interested ... maybe because they're as curious about the people who lived that long before them as we are ... and of course they would have known something about it. Boudicca wasn't exactly an unfamiliar figure to the Younglings, for one thing.

It wouldn't surprise me to find that there's something way back in the mists of time that might bind this place to one or more of our Characters, as Lindesfarne impacted Brann, Dothann, and Rua ... but of course much further back than our earliest stories in the Mamm Books ... 

My best guess is that at one time long past the population of this isle and of Eire was one culture, fluidly coming and going at will, maybe especially in the eastern parts as the mountains create a natural barrier most may well have steered clear of ... and we're talking way back here, before the Bronze Age, like back to the time of the Elder Folk, ancestors of our own Dedan and Saba.

Plus, you know, Brann does leave his forge eventually with his wife to travel to her home in Cornwall. More on that later ... for now ...

BRONZE AGE SCOTLAND might give us a few ideas about how it all links together ... I tell ya : ya gotta love BBC History !! 

Well, well, what have we here? MEADOWSWEET found in burials. Yep. Makes sense to me. A close relative to our very own familiar spirea, and apparently beloved of druids ... 


Onward.

Found a Bell Beaker Blog I did - Here

What pulled me out of an ordinary web search was a glimpse of something unusual enough to make me blink, then smile, then feel kind of bad. It's a photo of what I can't help thinking of as a happy skeleton. Here's the photo; see what you think. Really, as skeletons go, it does seem to be happy.


Hmmm ... in the fourth paragraph of THIS is something good to know. Stone molds ... thank you Britain Express for an idea that will come in right handy.

Then things got fancier. "By the last phase of the Bronze Age (900-400 BCE) elaborately decorated tools, jewellery, weapons, and pots were being produced all across Scotland."

And that's just about enough of that for the time being. My education can wait until I can grab another few hours to continue it!








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