Book Review Time...

Another book review, in the non-fiction stable this time...

A few weeks ago, I mentioned my purchase of a rather off-beat volume at the pottery conference I attended.  It goes by the title Guidestones to the Great Langdale Axe Factories: Ancient ways to stone axe working sites in the English Lake District, and it's by Gabriel M Blamires (Published by Gabriel Blamires, 2005).

My principle reason for buying this book was as a handguide for exploring the axe factories of the Langdales.  I haven't used it for this purpose as yet, but I'm sure it will functional fairly well in this role when it's required to.

Blamires has presented a radical interpretation of the Lakeland landscape.  He argues that in Neolithic times, the routes to and from the axe factories were deliberately signposted by the erection of standing stones at various points along the route.  These stones can be differentiated by their form, location, markings and, sometimes, by the addition of carvings such as cup-and-ring markings.

It's a nice idea in principle, but when I finished the book, I still wasn't convinced.  There's the slight problem of chronology, first of all: embellishing the landscape through the addition of standing stones, stone settings, etc. was a practice which came into its own in the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age, whereas the stone axe factories reached the peak of their popularity far early, in the Middle Neolithic, meaning there's a time gap of up to two thousand years between the two practices.

I also wasn't convinced that the boulders highlighted as placed by man were anything other than the fortuitous results of glaciation or rock fall.  Walking through Langdale and the Lakes only served to fuel my skepticism.  There are large boulders everywhere.  You can interpret them in any way you want to.  A dozen people would find a dozen different routes, taking them in a dozen different directions - it's only when you come pre-armed with the knowledge that Here There Be Axe Factories that you're automatically drawn to the Langdale Pikes.

I feel that in this instance a perfectly reasonable argument has been taken too far and used to explain too much.  I have absolutely no doubt that in the Neolithic, the landscape was dripping with meaning.  Every peak, every boulder, must have been given a name and a place in the order of things.  I'm also certainthat someone moving across this landscape would have used these features in order to find their way.  Routes may have become enshrined in myth, and the stories would have been passed down through the generations.  But I can't accept that the landscape is as heavily modified as Blamires would have us believe.

It was a fun little read, and it's made me pay more attention to the 'interesting boulders' (as Wainwright would call them) that litter the Lakeland landscape, though I'm afraid I don't see the Hand of Man in many of them...  Nonetheless, the author has put a lot of work into the project and for the sheer accumulation of data, his efforts should be applauded.  

I'll end with the 'Interesting Boulders' to end all 'Interesting Boulders'.  They're in Far Easdale, and the one in the distance, with its attendant dorsal hedge, is sufficiently distinctive to be described as an 'interesting boulder' in the Wainwright Central Fells volume:-

Perhaps in Neolithic speak, the addition of a snazzy leafy topknot is meant to say 'Hey!  You're hopelessly lost.  You're in completely the wrong place.  Langdale's THAT Way!!!'

We shall never know...

Book Review Time...

Another book review, in the non-fiction stable this time...

A few weeks ago, I mentioned my purchase of a rather off-beat volume at the pottery conference I attended.  It goes by the title Guidestones to the Great Langdale Axe Factories: Ancient ways to stone axe working sites in the English Lake District, and it's by Gabriel M Blamires (Published by Gabriel Blamires, 2005).

My principle reason for buying this book was as a handguide for exploring the axe factories of the Langdales.  I haven't used it for this purpose as yet, but I'm sure it will functional fairly well in this role when it's required to.

Blamires has presented a radical interpretation of the Lakeland landscape.  He argues that in Neolithic times, the routes to and from the axe factories were deliberately signposted by the erection of standing stones at various points along the route.  These stones can be differentiated by their form, location, markings and, sometimes, by the addition of carvings such as cup-and-ring markings.

It's a nice idea in principle, but when I finished the book, I still wasn't convinced.  There's the slight problem of chronology, first of all: embellishing the landscape through the addition of standing stones, stone settings, etc. was a practice which came into its own in the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age, whereas the stone axe factories reached the peak of their popularity far early, in the Middle Neolithic, meaning there's a time gap of up to two thousand years between the two practices.

I also wasn't convinced that the boulders highlighted as placed by man were anything other than the fortuitous results of glaciation or rock fall.  Walking through Langdale and the Lakes only served to fuel my skepticism.  There are large boulders everywhere.  You can interpret them in any way you want to.  A dozen people would find a dozen different routes, taking them in a dozen different directions - it's only when you come pre-armed with the knowledge that Here There Be Axe Factories that you're automatically drawn to the Langdale Pikes.

I feel that in this instance a perfectly reasonable argument has been taken too far and used to explain too much.  I have absolutely no doubt that in the Neolithic, the landscape was dripping with meaning.  Every peak, every boulder, must have been given a name and a place in the order of things.  I'm also certainthat someone moving across this landscape would have used these features in order to find their way.  Routes may have become enshrined in myth, and the stories would have been passed down through the generations.  But I can't accept that the landscape is as heavily modified as Blamires would have us believe.

It was a fun little read, and it's made me pay more attention to the 'interesting boulders' (as Wainwright would call them) that litter the Lakeland landscape, though I'm afraid I don't see the Hand of Man in many of them...  Nonetheless, the author has put a lot of work into the project and for the sheer accumulation of data, his efforts should be applauded.  

I'll end with the 'Interesting Boulders' to end all 'Interesting Boulders'.  They're in Far Easdale, and the one in the distance, with its attendant dorsal hedge, is sufficiently distinctive to be described as an 'interesting boulder' in the Wainwright Central Fells volume:-

Perhaps in Neolithic speak, the addition of a snazzy leafy topknot is meant to say 'Hey!  You're hopelessly lost.  You're in completely the wrong place.  Langdale's THAT Way!!!'

We shall never know...