Can Archaeologists Successfully Identify the Territories of our past?

 A territory to past peoples would be similar to what territory is to us today. But this made it even more important to them. We take communication all around the world for granted, but they didn’t have such a luxury. The only resources they were able to exploit were the ones within their own territory with the exception of some very small local trade. This is why territory is such an important question to archaeologists all over the world and why many of them have dedicated their lives to such projects.

To identify territories archaeologists have to work with different theories and models such as the central place theory, Thiesson polygons or the Xtent model (the later two will be explained in small detail in this article). These are each based on inferences made today, but nothing in archaeology is ever exact so if this is what we have to work with, so be it.

The first site I will look at to help make sense of this huge question is one called Jericho. Jericho is a Neolithic (late stone age) site in the Middle-East which dates to approximately 9000BC. It is the earliest evidence archaeologists have for any form of past territory. Although it is now extremely worn and damaged by tourism a mud-brick wall is still visible. This now humble mud-brick wall would have been on a monumental scale in its prime and would have been visible for miles around. This is one of the key principles for what Colin Renfrew (2008) calls ‘territorial markers’ , that they must be visible. Now the wall at Jericho was not big enough to enclose its entire territory, so if archaeologists were to try and identify the territory at Jericho it would be to use the wall as its territorial marker. As you would be able to see its wall from miles around it would be safe to say that if you were in a position to see it, then as there is no contradicting evidence to say otherwise, then you would be in Jericho territory. However, there is one key problem to this interpretation of the walls at Jericho; there is another interpretation of the walls function. It is more widely accepted that the walls at Jericho were purely for defensive reasons, and they are used to evidence the earliest warfare in the prehistory of mankind. Therefore the only territory we know that Jericho controlled was the land within its walls, and as those walls do not cover an area large enough to feed its population it is clear that we cannot tell the overall territory that was under the influence of Jericho. Because of this we can conclude that it is near impossible for archaeologists to indentify the territory belonging to those in the Neolithic Middle-East.

Renfrew wrote with his theory of territorial markers that a good example of a territorial marker is a Bronze Age Round Barrow. These Round Barrows were burial mounds for the elites of Bronze Age society. The evidence for them being territorial markers is that there are hundreds of intervisible barrows, but also, in some cases such as at Bodmin Moor, it is evidenced by a number of intervisible barrow groups. A Barrow Group is usually 3 or 4 barrows all very near one another and usually has the same type of earthworks around them. On and around St. Cleer (a hill on Bodmin Moor) there are three groups. Three groups on just one hill! Using a Thiesson Polygon model mentioned earlier it is possible to reconstruct the territory even on a small scale such as this. To recreate territory using a Thiesson Polygon you take the midpoints between each cluster of barrows and connect those mid-points, then just extend the lines backwards as far as the map you are working on goes and that will leave you with a series of larger and smaller polygons. The inside each of these polygons would be the territory that the Barrow Group local to it owns. On St. Cleer the group that has the biggest territory is called the Bodmin Barrow Group, but it is better known for its main barrow, Rillaton Barrow, as when it was excavated it produced a fine golden cup. This rich individual is evidence that both Renfrew’s theory and the Thiesson Polygons are correct as the individual buried here had more wealth than any of the other people found in any other barrow on St. Cleer. Another thing the Thiesson Polygon can tell us is that, although the landscape will have changed since the Bronze Age, we can still begin to see why the territory was divided as it was. The lake at the bottom of St. Cleer, SiblylackLake, lies on one of the territorial boundaries shown by the Thiesson Polygon. This means that we can be almost certain when we say that although the lake itself will have changed size and shape, that there was a lake there in the Bronze Age, and that it served as a natural boundary for the territories on St. Cleer. From this example we can see that it is within the scope of archaeologists to identify the territories of past peoples, however, it does rely entirely on theories and models created today when it comes to recreating the territories of Bronze Age Britain.

The final example to use is that of Iron Age Hillforts. These were monumental earthworks that started life as small animal enclosures until the emergence of leaders, called chiefs, started to emerge and compete for territory, and then they built the Hillforts up and lived on them. One of the biggest Hillforts to date is Danebury Hillfort. This, like Jericho, was a defended settlement, through the use of its huge ramparts, deep ditches and gateways. So this does provide an alternative interpretation to them being territorial markers, however, there are two intervisible Hillforts that can be seen from the top of Danebury today, and at Danebury’s peak there would have been at least 3, but some have been lost due to heavy ploughing or the earth being used elsewhere. Because of this abundance of intervisible Hillforts it is safe to say that there were territories, but unlike at St. Cleer, there was conflict over this territory, which explains the need for the Hillforts to be defended settlements. On a larger scale, by taking into account all of the Hillforts in Britain, it would be possible to use Thiesson Polygons, or another model that is fairly similar called Xtent modelling to recreate all of the territories in Iron Age Britain. However, this again relies heavily upon theories and until we get written documents of territorial disputes in history it is impossible for us to say the boundaries we identify are undisputable.

So apart from Jericho, which is mostly accepted to be a defended settlement and nothing more, it is within the scope of archaeologists to identify the territories of past peoples. However, it is entirely dependant on the theories of territorial markers explained to us by Colin Renfrew and also on models such as Thiesson Polygons and Xtent modelling being accurate. But at the end of the day, if we want to know the possible territories of past peoples, archaeologists can do a brilliant job of it.