of the settlement from that of its neighbors. Flax was grown
and made into linen cloth. Beyond the fields were pastures for cattle
and sheep grazing. There was often an area for beehives. This was
subsistence level farming.
Pottery was given symmetry when formed with use of a wheel and
heated in increasingly hot kilns. From kilns used for pottery, it was
noticed that lumps of gold or copper ore within would melt and assume
the shape of what they had been resting on. These were the first metals,
and could be beaten into various shapes, such as ornaments. Then the
liquid ore was poured into moulds carved out of stones to make axes
and daggers, which were reheated and hammered to become strong.
Copper-tipped drills, chisels, punches and awls were also made.
The bodies of deceased were buried far away from any village in wood
coffins, except for kings, who were placed in large stone coffins after
being wrapped in linen. Buried with them were a few personal items,
such as copper daggers, flat copper axes, and awls [small pointed tool
for piercing holes in leather, wood, or other soft materials.]. The
deceased was buried in a coffin with a stone on top deep in the earth to
keep the spirit of the dead from coming out to haunt the living.
It was learned that tin added to the copper made a stronger metal:
bronze. Stone hammers, and bronze and iron tools, were used to make
cooking pots, weapons, breast plates, and horse bits, which were
formed from moulds and/or forged by bronze smiths and blacksmiths
from iron extracted from iron ore heated in bowl- shaped hearths.
Typically one man operated the bellows to keep the fire hot while
another did the hammering. Bronze was made into sickles for
harvesting, razors for shaving, tweezers, straight hair pins, safety pins
for clothes, armlets, neck-rings, and mirrors. Weapons included bows
and arrows, flint and copper daggers, bronze swords and spears, stone
axes, and shields of wood with bronze mountings. The bows and
arrows probably evolved from spear throwing rods. Kings in body
armor fought with chariots drawn by two horses. The horse harnesses
had bronze fittings. The chariots had wood wheels, later with iron rims.
When bronze came into use, there was a demand for its constituent
parts: copper and tin, which were traded by rafts on waterways and the
sea. When iron came into use, there were wrought iron axes, saws,
adzes [ax with curved blade used to dress wood], files, ploughshares,
harrows [set of spikes to break clods of earth on plowed land and also
to cover seed when sewn], scythes, billhooks [thick knife with hooked
point used to prune shrubs], and spits for hearths. Lead was mined.
There was some glassmaking of beads. Wrought iron bars were used as
currency.
Hillforts now had wooden palisades on top of their banks to protect the
enclosed farmsteads and villages from stock wandering off or being
taken by rustlers, and from attacks by wild animals or other people.
Later a rampart was added from which sentries could patrol. These
were supported by timber and/or stone structures. Timbers were
probably transported by carts or dragged by oxen. At the entrances
were several openings only one of which really allowed entry. The
others went between banks into dead ends and served as traps in which
to kill the enemy from above. Gates were of wood, some hung from
hinges on posts which could be locked. Later guard chambers were
added, some with space for hearths and beds. Sometimes further
concentric circles of banks and ditches, and perhaps a second rampart,
were added around these forts. They could reach to 14 acres. The
ramparts are sufficiently widely spaced to make sling-shotting out from
them highly effective, but to minimize the dangers from sling-shotting
from without. The additional banks and ditches could be used to create
cattle corridors or to protect against spear-thrown firebrands. However,
few forts had springs of water within them, indicating that attacks on
them were probably expected to be short. Attacks usually began with
warriors bristling with weapons and blowing war trumpets shouting
insults to the foe, while their kings dashed about in chariots. Sometimes
champions from each side fought in single combat. They took the heads
of those they killed to hang from their belts or place on wood spikes at
the gates. Prisoners, including women and children, might become
slaves. Kings sometimes lived in separate palisades where they kept
their horses and chariots.
Circles of big stones like Stonehenge were rebuilt so that the sun's
position with respect to the stones would indicate the day of longest
sunlight and the day of shortest sunlight. Between these days there was
an optimum time to harvest the crops before fall, when plants dried
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