Monuments and miniatures: representing humans in Neolithic Europe 5000–2000 BC

Representing Humans in Neolithic Europe 5000–2000 bc Chapter 2 Monuments and Miniatures: Representing Humans in Neolithic Europe 5000–2000 bc Chris Scarre The production of anthropomorphic images among other areas? A scatter of broadly similar figurines, generally belonging to the earlier stages of the Neolithic (sixth/fifth millennium bc), extends across central Europe and into eastern and southern France. In the Rhineland, they made a brief appearance during the late sixth millennium and then disappeared. In the Paris basin, they were produced during the late fifth millennium and then abandoned. Such figurines are altogether absent from the greater part of northwest Europe, and that contrast poses intriguing questions about the role of figurative traditions in these different societies. Is it possible that human representations were made in perishable materials that have not survived the passage of time? Figurines are of course only one of the kinds of human representation that were produced by Neolithic societies, and while northwest Europe lacks figurines it does have depictions of the human body in other media. These include the rock engravings of the Alps and Scandinavia, and the rock-shelter paintings of Levantine Spain. Furthermore, along the Atlantic façade and around the west Mediterranean, standing stones carry anthropomorphic carvings or are shaped in human form. The most elaborate are those carved in the round, such as the south French statue-menhirs of the Rouergat group. It is important to recognize also that even standing stones that are unshaped and undecorated may represent humans, as analogies from Madagascan ethnography suggest (Parker Pearson & Ramilisonina 1999). Thus the many thousands of standing stones in Atlantic Europe might each have stood for an individual person. The iconographic distance that separates the unshaped menhirs of western Europe from the fired clay figurines of the southeast renders hazardous any attempt to treat these human representations together as parts of a single unified belief system. Yet that was the approach favoured by Marija Gimbutas. In The Gods and Goddesses of Old Europe (Gimbutas 1974) she the early farming communities of Europe was highly variable. In some regions, notably the Balkans, such images seem to have been relatively common, and fired clay figurines are regularly discovered both in graves and settlements (Bailey 2005; Chapman this volume). In many other regions of Europe, by contrast, Neolithic human representations are exceedingly scarce. Such is the case in Britain and Ireland, where despite the well-known carvings on exposed rock surfaces and megalithic blocks, the motifs employed are apparently non-figurative, consisting mainly of spirals, cup marks and geometric forms. Was there, as some have suggested, a taboo on representations of the human form in certain areas of western Europe? Human imagery during the Neolithic period falls into distinct categories. In first place are the firedclay figurines, familiar from the Balkans but found also through central Europe westwards. Whether these figurines were all in some way part of a single tradition, or are manifestations of convergent trends among unconnected societies, is open to debate. A second category of human imagery is the series of monolithic (often megalithic) representations found mainly in south-central and southwestern Europe in the form of carved stone stelae or statue-menhirs. These too form a broad family of related images, some perhaps drawing upon each other, others independent in origin. Finally there are the human depictions in the rock art of the Alpine zone, southern France, Iberia and Scandinavia. They include the ‘hunter’s art’ of northern Scandinavia, although the majority of the famous south Scandinavian examples belong to the second millennium bc or later, as do many of those in the Alps. The variable distribution of human representations across Neolithic Europe must hold considerable significance. Why are there so many fired clay figurines in southeast Europe, and so few of them in 17 Chapter 2 0 bodies make us see our own bodies in particular ways, either through likeness or contrast (Bailey 2005, 141). Thus rather than manifestations of belief systems, it may be more rewarding to ask of them what they can tell us about the attitudes to the body of those societies that produced them. Furthermore, rather than shoe-horn the entire European corpus of Neolithic figurative and non-figurative motifs into a single overarching religious scheme we should perhaps seek to learn from the diversity. How were human images used in particular communities or contexts, and why, in many places, were they absent? The approach proposed by Marija Gimbutas may itself be flawed but it allows us to highlight the problems associated with a series of key issues surrounding the significance of figurines and human representations. Why are they found where they are found, and why are they so much more common in some regions or periods than in others? Do they represent a unified phenomenon? Finally, what does the mode of representation convey? The aim of this paper will be to explore these three questions through two separate sets of material: the fired clay figurines of central and western Europe, and the statue-menhirs and related stelae of Mediterranean France and the western Alps. The objective is not so much to ask what they represent as how they represent. The two categories of representation are so different in style, scale and medium that there need have been no connection between them. They constitute very different ways of depicting the human body and must have been produced and deployed within very different social and cultural contexts. Nor need either of the two categories have been internally coherent within itself: these are not monothetic visual traditions. Yet consideration of the contrasting materializations may help us to explore the ways that human bodies were visualized, displayed and exploited in their respective societies. 1000 km Figure 2.1. Groups of fired clay figurines and statuemenhirs discussed in this paper: A) Southeast Europe; B) Bandkeramik figurines; C) Paris basin figurines; D) stelae and statue-menhirs of southern France and the western Alps. argued that the figurines of southeast Europe and southern Italy (the area she designated ‘Old Europe’) were evidence of a prehistoric religion concerned with fertility in which goddesses played the primary roles. It was these goddesses and their acolytes (together with occasional male consorts) that the figurines were intended to depict. In her later writings, Gimbutas extended this theory to encompass western and northern Europe also, where designs in rock art and megalithic art were interpreted as symbols of goddess-worshipping matriarchal societies. Even such seemingly inscrutable objects as the backstone of the Table des Marchand passage grave in southern Brittany were interpreted by Gimbutas as depictions of the Goddess (Gimbutas 1989, 289). This ambitious scheme demands many interpretative leaps from its adherents and the diversity of the evidence on which Gimbutas selectively draws is itself a strong argument against her approach. Her approach assumes that early European farming societies had developed from the outset the concept of deities whom they visualized and portrayed in human form. The figurines would accordingly represent the materialization of those concepts. This assumption overlooks the varied contexts in which images have been produced and deployed within betterdocumented societies. It also draws attention away from the anthropomorphs themselves, and the manner in which they depict the human body. Images of Figurines: people of clay In central Europe, the earliest human representations are the fired clay figurines of the Bandkeramik complex, a series of early farming communities that spread relatively rapidly from an origin in eastern Austria or western Hungary c. 5650 bc, reaching the Rhineland some three centuries later, and subsequently appearing further west in the Paris basin around 5100 bc (Gronenborn 1999, 153–6; Dubouloz 2003; Fig. 2.1). This may represent a colonization phenomenon involving groups of pioneer farmers moving west and north along the major river valleys, but a measure of regional diversity in material culture and burial practices suggests the absorption or recruitment of 18 Representing Humans in Neolithic Europe 5000–2000 bc indigenous local communities. In the Paris basin, for example, the flint arrowhead types are derived from indigenous Mesolithic forms (Allard 2005, 233–9). The contention that the Bandkeramik absorbed local communities has gained support from recent dietary isotope studies that have shown that individuals in several Bandkeramik cemeteries had passed the earlier parts of their lives in neighbouring upland areas (Price et al. 2001; Bentley et al. 2002; 2003). There are, however, no figurines or other human representations within the indigenous Mesolithic tradition of this region; the obvious parallels for the Bandkeramik figurines lie instead in the Early Neolithic of southeast Europe. Studies of the Bandkeramik material have focused on the morphology of the figurines and have paid little attention to the contexts of discovery, though few appear to have come from graves and most are settlement finds. Some are clearly marked as female by the presence of breasts, and a few are clearly male, but many are fragmentary or ambiguous as to the sex represented. The surface decoration of incised lines might represent clothing or body paint, but while necklaces and belts are sometimes shown the position and nature of many of the motifs may have little to do with the appearance of living individuals. The schematic rendering of the faces argues against any suggestion that the figurines functioned as recognizable depictions of real people, but that does not preclude the possibility that they stood (for example) for deceased ancestors or indeed for living people. Like many of the Balkans figurines, they may have been produced and used within domestic settings. In the Bandkeramik case this would have meant the longhouses and associated buildings. There may have been shrines, but it is perhaps more plausible to envisage the figurines operating within a domestic context, in the new private world of house and household created by early farming communities (Wilson 1988). It is in this novel setting that the human miniatures of fired clay seem to have been displayed and used. One of the puzzling features of the Bandkeramik figurines is their relative scarcity. Höckmann has questioned how the tradition of producing figurines could have been maintained given the vast area occupied by the Bandkeramik, and a time span of half a millennium or more. If the fired clay examples that have been discovered are any indication of their original frequency, most inhabitants of Bandkeramik settlements are likely never to have seen one. Höckmann suggested that the tradition of representation may in fact have been complemented in other materials that have not survived, notably wood, though he also mysteriously notes that we cannot rule out representations in bread (Höckmann 1988, n.4). Figure 2.2. Anthropomorphic vessels in central and eastern Europe: Banderkamik vessel from Erfurt, Germany (above); Late Neolithic vessel from Hódmezövásárhely-Kökénydomb, Hungary (below). (From Höckmann 1965.) The earliest Bandkeramik developed in the Hungarian Plain at the margins of the Starčevo-Körös-Criš complex. This Early Neolithic complex shares with the rest of the southeast the distinction of a relative abundance of fired clay figurines. In the Bandkeramik, by contrast, human representations are rare: they occur at few sites and generally in small numbers, save only in Lower Austria, Moravia and western Hungary which are the Bandkeramik areas closest to southeast Europe. Are the Bandkeramik figurines, then, to be seen merely as a westward extension of the southeast European figurine area? That argument finds support in the similarity of figurine forms. The Bandkeramik examples are usually preserved in only a fragmentary state, with arms, legs and other anatomical features modelled in the round, and in some cases with surface decoration of incised lines. The hollow cylindrical bodies and triangular flattened heads are features shared with figurines from Körös sites in the Balkans (Höckmann 1965). Others have preferred to draw parallels between these features and the figurines of the early Vinca cul19 Chapter 2 by Kaufman as evidence of the direct import of religious beliefs from the Carpathian basin (Gronenborn 1999, 179–80). In western Hungary, Bánffy has identified a number of sites with mixed assemblages of late Starčevo and early Bandkeramik type. One of these sites, Szentgyörgyvölgy-Pityerdomb, had head and foot fragments of a fired clay human figurine and an almost complete bovid figurine (Bánffy 2003). There were also two fragments of a clay altar. Bánffy interprets these mixed assemblages as evidence of interaction between late Starčevo and early Bandkeramik groups in western Hungary, with influences passing in both directions. As far as the figurines are concerned, however, the direction of influence seems to have been only one way — from the Balkans to the Bandkeramik, rather than the reverse. 0 5 cm Hence geographical distribution and morphological resemblance together argue that the Bandkeramik figurines form part of a unified tradiFigure 2.3. Paris basin figurines from Fort-Harrouard (Eure) (above) and tion with those of southeast Europe. (below) Maizy (Aisne). Inset shows figurine findspots: 1 = Fort-Harrouard; Those of the latter region are more 7 = Maizy. (From Mohen 1986; Lebolloch et al. 1986) numerous and more diverse both in their forms and in their contexts of discovery, but the ture (Bánffy 2003). On either reading there appears to Bandkeramik examples might easily be considered have been a close link between the Bandkeramik figua subset within that broader tradition. That is not to rines and those of Early and Middle Neolithic groups deny the specificity of figurine production and use at in the Balkans. The link is reinforced by the geography particular times and places, but merely to argue that of the distribution: they are much more numerous at Bandkeramik figurines were probably not produced Bandkeramik sites in eastern areas nearest to the Hunin complete ignorance of those being manufactured garian Plain. Morphological parallels extend beyond in adjacent regions. Their much smaller numbers figurines to include anthropomorphic vessels, such indicate, however, that they did not occupy the same as the hollow seated figure from the Bandkeramik symbolic or ritual context and that they may not have site of Erfurt in central Germany (Höckmann 1965, been used in the same way. Abb. 6). The Erfurt vessel finds a remarkably close The question of a unified tradition becomes more parallel in the seated figure from the settlement of problematic when we cross the Rhine into eastern Hódmezövásárhely-Kökénydomb in Hungary (Fig. France. A small number of human figurines are known 2.2). This Hungarian example is attributed to the Late from the Paris basin in late fifth-millennium (Middle Neolithic Tisza culture (Kalicz & Raczky 1987). Such Neolithic) contexts (Fig. 2.3). These are a millennium close parallels emphasize the general family resemlater than the Bandkeramik examples and occur in blance between the Bandkeramik figurines and those areas where no Bandkeramik figurines have yet been of Neolithic southeast Europe. found. The argument that there was a connection Thus the Bandkeramik figurines may represent between the two traditions remains hypothetical, not the permeation of Balkan cultic practices and beliefs to say hazardous. It is true that the French figurines among the early farming communities of central Euoccur in eastern France, in the area that had earlier rope. The discovery of a clay figurine, clay ‘altar’ and lain on the margins of the Bandkeramik zone, but bone spatulae from a site of the earliest Bandkeramik against this is the fact that figurines ceased to be prophase at Eilsleben in central Germany was regarded 20 Representing Humans in Neolithic Europe 5000–2000 bc duced by post-Bandkeramik groups in the Rhineland: the thin scatter of Bandkeramik figurines is followed by a figurative void, in contrast to the continued production of figurines by post-Bandkeramik groups (notably Lengyel) further to the east in Austria and Moravia. One of the most striking of the Paris basin figurines was excavated at the promontory fort of Fort-Harrouard in 1920 (Fig. 2.3). The breasts and swelling hips mark it as female, but the portrayal as a whole is essentially two-dimensional, with short peg-like legs and vestigial arms (the head is missing). Fragments of ten further figurines were discovered at this site (Mohen 1986). A similar figure, almost complete, was discovered at the lowland enclosure of Noyensur-Seine (Fig. 2.4). Though broken at the legs and lacking its head (which had been separately modelled and fitted into a groove in the upper torso), the breasts modelled in relief indicate that it is a female representation. The two upper fragments were found among the pits and bedding trenches of a settlement, the lowest part in a shallow pit 100 m away on the eastern margins of the site. The separate disposal of the figurine fragments may have been intentional, an attempt perhaps to neutralize a special or sacred object (Mordant & Mordant 1986). Similar figurine fragments are known from the Loire 0 50 250 m valley and Burgundy, and from the southern part of the Massif Central in the Auvergne. These broadly Figure 2.4. Fired clay figurine from Noyen-sur-Seine (Seine-et-Marne) resemble the Paris basin pieces; the (above) with (below) plan of the site. Figurine fragments (triangles) were torso fragment from Clermont-Fer- scattered across the area of occupation (hatched) within the two enclosures: rand is particularly close in style to A & B) palisade lines; C) marshy hollow. (From Mordant & Mordant 1986.) the Noyen-sur-Seine figure (Daugas The traditional appellation ‘vase-support’ is misleadet al. 1984). As at Noyen (and in other examples) the ing and it is now generally accepted that they were head had been modelled separately; an isolated head used as small braziers for the burning of aromatic or was found at Espaly-Saint-Marcel in the Auvergne. intoxicating substances. In western France they are At two Paris basin sites, figurines were associated frequently found in burial chambers but in the Paris with another category of ‘special’ artefact, known as basin they occur at enclosure sites in association with the ‘vase-support’. These are hollow ceramic cylinders figurines. At Jonquières, fragments of three figurines or cubes with a dished upper surface. Many of them and a decorated vase-support were found together in are decorated and they are often the only decorated a part of the site where they had been intentionally vessels in an otherwise plain ceramic assemblage. 21 Chapter 2 broken (Blanchet 1986). Figurines and vase-supports may both have been used in specific practices, perhaps concerned with commemoration of the dead or communication with the spirit world. The Middle Neolithic fired clay figurines from France share many features with those of the Bandkeramik. The emphasis on bodies rather than faces gives them an anonymous character, and the find circumstances suggest that they may have functioned in a domestic context. They were for private use rather than public display. The occasional association with cultic equipment does not negate this reading: at Noyen-sur-Seine, the figurine fragments were scattered across the whole of the occupation area (Mordant & Mordant 1986), and there is nothing to indicate a central cult place or shrine (Fig. 2.4). The size of the figurines (10–15 cm tall) would have made them easy to handle. One feature of particular interest is the presence of a socket for a removable head on the supposedly masculine figurine from Jonquières and the supposedly female example from Noyen. This may indicate that the heads were modelled in other materials but also that there may have been a practice of mounting alternative heads on the same bodies. That should perhaps be seen alongside the absence of decoration or any indication of clothing on the French Neolithic figurines. They may essentially have been armatures, with heads and clothing added as occasion demanded, and capable of representing different individuals as required. If so, these figurines must be interpreted as generalized body images, representing them as categories rather than individuals. Furthermore, if they were indeed intended to be clothed, their nakedness takes on a special significance. The modelling of breasts and hips indicates the desire to sexualize the images, but in ways that would not ordinarily have been visible. Breasts and hips were perhaps considered so intrinsic a facet of human identity that they could not be excluded when modelling an image. The representation of hidden features of the body may also indicate a fundamental tension between private life and public display, between the naked and the clothed, in these societies. In several respects, the French Middle Neolithic figurines compare closely with those of the Bandkeramik, raising again the issue of whether there may have been a direct connection between the two traditions. Did Bandkeramik figurines directly inspire the Paris basin examples? If so, how was the continuity of tradition maintained across the gap of a millennium or so that separated them? We may posit representations in other non-durable media. It is also possible, however, that these figurines arose independently from convergent practices in societies that though separated nonetheless possessed similar conceptions of the human body. What may those practices have been? The presence of other ‘cultic’ equipment (‘altars’ and ‘vase-supports’) could be evidence for small domestic shrines. Given their scarcity, however, it is difficult to argue that each Bandkeramik household or settlement had such a shrine. The occurrence of cultic equipment and figurines is much more consistent at the Paris basin sites. Morphologically, too, the Paris basin figurines are different. One significant difference is the absence of the seated forms found within the Bandkeramik corpus. Yet they and the Bandkeramik figurines are united in their general conception — that of producing a miniaturized fired clay human — and in their association with domestic settlement contexts. They do not seem to have been items of public display, and their small size would have made them easy to handle. They invite the intimate encounter of being held in the hand and scrutinized at close quarters. Rather than the manifestation of an underlying cult or religion, however, as Gimbutas proposed, the figurines constitute a particular mode of representation, a miniaturized materialization of the human form which may have been deployed against the background of a range of different beliefs. Above all, however, they indicate a specific and widely-shared characterization of the human body, one that was appropriate only perhaps to be seen in private domestic settings. Figure 2.5. Statue-menhir of Saint-Sernin-surRance (Aveyron). The figure is carved in a block of red sandstone probably taken from a source 5 km to the northwest. Height of figure: 1.2 m. (Drawing by A. D’Anna, from D’Anna 1977.) Statue menhirs: the body as monolith The fired clay figurines of eastern and southern France are objects to be held in the hand, manipulated and observed at close quarters. They are not only anthro22 Representing Humans in Neolithic Europe 5000–2000 bc pomorphic, but miniaturized versions of the human form, and that miniaturization may in itself have particular effects upon the person who is viewing or handling them (Bailey 2005, 33–3). They are intimate models, which might well have been created for the domestic context; for display within the setting of the household. Very different are the statue-menhirs of western and southern France and the Alpine zone. These were public monumentalized displays of the human form. They were in no way intimate, and even the three-dimensionality of the human form is sometimes lost in its inscription on the block of stone. Statue-menhirs do not feature in Gimbutas’s accounts of the goddess cults of the earlier Neolithic, since they post-date the fourth-millennium watershed of ‘aggressive infiltration and settlement of semi-nomadic pastoralists’ (Gimbutas 1974, 18). According to Gimbutas, the latter replaced matriarchy with patriarchy and male deities henceforth became dominant. Once again, however, the images are difficult to read if we seek to know what they mean. It is more productive to ask what the mode of representation conveys. The most striking of the south French statuemenhirs are those of the Rouergat, on the limestone uplands of the Causses (D’Anna 1977; Serres 1997; Philippon 2002). They are unambiguously anthropomorphic, and carefully worked to give parallel sides and a rounded top. The face (eyes, nose, and more rarely the mouth) is carved in the middle of the rounded top, below the apex of the curve. In some cases the face is omitted altogether. On many of the 110 members of this group, arms and legs are also depicted, the latter in schematic fashion as two orthogonal bands descending from the belt, sometimes ending in toes. The shortness of the legs suggests that some of these may be figures in sitting position. The arms, however, are also shown much shorter than they would be in real life, and are held across the chest or stomach. Breasts identify some of the statue-menhirs as female; others, which lack these features, are thought to be male. Many of the female statues are also identified by the portrayal of a multi-stranded necklace below the face. Male figures wear a diagonal shoulder belt supporting an enigmatic ‘object’. Some also carry an axe, a bow and arrow, or both. Judged on this basis there are some 26 female statues, 40 male, and 10 which have suffered a sex-change: 9 where reworking has changed the sex from masculine to feminine by the erasure of the shoulder belt and the addition of breasts and necklace; and 1 where a female statue has been transformed into a male (Serres 1997, 62). The most striking of the Rouergat statue-menhirs is the female figure from Saint-Sernin-sur-Rance, deeply carved in a block of red sandstone (Fig. 2.5). Figure 2.6. Decorated stele (stele 25) from monument M XI at Petit-Chasseur (Sion, Switzerland) representing individual dressed in elaborate clothing (including a belt and a possible necklace) and carrying a bow and arrow. The detailed depiction of the clothing and accoutrements is in striking contrast to the summary nature of the face. Height of stele 15.8 cm. (From Gallay & Chaix 1985.) The face is shown schematically, though parallel lines either side of the nose probably represent facial paint or tattoos. Below the face a five-strand necklace is shown, and below that again a Y-shaped object which is a pendant of which antler examples are known from third-millennium sites in this region. Arms and legs, ending in fingers and toes, are depicted schematically and short; the shortness of the legs gives the impression that the figure is seated. The rear surface of the stone is carved with a series of deep vertical grooves which pass beneath the belt and continue around the sides. They are probably the representation of a fulllength pleated cloak, hanging from the shoulders. In the middle of the rear surface a single long strand of 23 Chapter 2 hair descends, merging eventually with the folds of the garment (D’Anna 1977; Serres 1997). Like many of the statue-menhirs of southern France the Saint-Sernin example was found by accident in the nineteenth century in the course of farm work. The farmer dragged the stone to the side of his field and abandoned it there (D’Anna 1977, 41). The precise context in which these images were carved and erected remains unknown. Careful study of the findspots and their surroundings does not suggest that the Rouergat statue-menhirs were raised to mark burials, nor that there were settlements in the immediate proximity. To the west of the Rouergat, by contrast, undecorated stelae appear to have been set up within settlements. At Montaïon in Languedoc, a group of stones including a large anthropomorphic slab had stood at the centre of a large Late Neolithic settlement. At Cambous a few centuries later, stelae were reused in the foundations of houses (D’Anna et al. 1997). To the east of the Rhône in Provence the rectangular stelae of the Trets basin appear to have functioned as grave markers, as recent excavations at Château-Blanc have shown (Hasler 1998). Traces of red paint have been detected on some of the Trets stelae, but the colouring appears to have been used to pick out features of the decorative frame rather than to add details of the otherwise blank faces (Walter et al. 1997). These stelae and statue-menhirs of southern France date mainly to the third millennium bc, but their origins may lie at least 1000 years earlier. The carved and sculpted statue-menhirs have been interpreted as a late manifestation of a tradition which began with anthropomorphic slabs, chosen for their form and little altered from the natural state. This was followed by a period in which menhirs were shaped but not carved, and finally by the carving or sculpting of the surfaces (Rodriguez 1998). It is difficult to believe, however, that the statue-menhirs were merely the product of better stone-working techniques. It was not simply a question of freeing the human form from a natural block of stone. The social context was all-important. This is borne out by the symbols of power depicted on these stones, by their frequent destruction and redeployment, and by their original contexts, sometimes associated with funerary monuments, occasionally with settlements. They mark a specific social or cultural phenomenon and show much more than just the gradual improvement in sculptural techniques. Above all, they may indicate a new understanding of the decorated human body as a powerful political individual. In the Alpine region, human representations appear in the Late Neolithic or Chalcolithic and occur both as statue-menhirs and in rock art. In the western Alps the most famous statue-menhirs are those discovered at Petit-Chasseur at Sion (Valais). Excavations at this complex of ten megalithic tombs and cist graves led to the discovery of 29 statue-menhirs. They are held to be masculine on the basis of the weapons that they carry. Incision and pecking were used to represent ornate clothing, and most of the figures are depicted wearing a belt. In contrast to the elaborate representation of clothing and weapons, the faces are shown only in summary fashion. Stele 25, for example, has a rounded top with raised outer margin representing hair or eyebrows, from which descends a simple oblong to indicate the nose (Fig. 2.6; Gallay & Chaix 1985). Eyes, ears and mouth are absent. Gallay has divided the Petit-Chasseur stelae into two groups, spanning the greater part of the third millennium bc (type A: 2700–2450 bc; type B: 2450–2150 bc) (Gallay 1995). A few were simply lying on the ground where presumably they had been intentionally toppled. 24 of the 29, however, were discovered reused in the stone cists and cairns. No fewer than eight of the stelae had been reused in monument M XI, four of them forming the sides of the burial chamber, two in the blocking of the entrance, one in a cist grave and one incorporated into the southeastern horn of the cairn. Initially these stones stood in front of the monuments, their finely carved motifs visible to all; subsequently they were dismantled and reused. The fact that one of the stelae had been reused three times testifies to the power held by these images even after they had been removed from public view. A few had been recarved, and many had been intentionally damaged (often by decapitation) before they were reused (Bradley 2002, 47). The symbols of status that these figures hold — the weapons, the elaborate belts, the carefully represented clothing — suggest that they may be representations of important individuals. The erection, destruction and recycling of the stones may indeed have shadowed that of the individuals they represented: carved and displayed during their lifetime, removed and hidden away upon their death (De Saulieu 2004, 54–5). Petit-Chasseur is one of a small number of sites in the western Alps with statue-menhirs datable to the third millennium bc. Human representations are not restricted to menhirs or statue-menhirs, however, but occur also in rock art, notably in the major concentrations of Valcamonica and Mont Bégo. Among the earliest are those of the Fontanalba region of Mont Bégo, where 169 human figures have been recorded, associated with halberds, axes and plough teams. These may belong to the beginning of the third millennium bc, and are followed by carvings in the Vallée des Merveilles sector of Mont Bégo which appear to show schematic human figurines, 24 Representing Humans in Neolithic Europe 5000–2000 bc together with a smaller number of more complex representations such as the famous ‘Chef de Tribu’ which some have interpreted as gods (De Lumley et al. 1990). These figures 0 10 cm are dated through the co-occurrence on the same rock surfaces of carvings of triangular copper daggers of Remedello type. Similar daggers occur 250 km to the north on some of the Petit-Chasseur stelae (e.g. stele 7: Bocksberger 1976). Thus it is clear that rock carvings and decorated stelae formed part of the same broad world of symbols, although the location of the two groups is strikingly different: the Mont Bégo rock art in relatively inaccessible upland locations far removed from the zone of everyday life; the decorated stelae in valley and lake basins. The purpose and meaning of the two groups was also probably quite unlike. The upland carvings were the work of visitors from the settled lowland areas, perhaps even of pilgrims drawn to sacred locations, or young men engaged in initiation rituals (Barfield & Chippindale 1997). The human forms are mainly schematic, and sometimes occur in large numbers on the same rock surface, associ- Figure 2.7. The Folkton drums: carved chalk cylinders discovered by Canon ated with other motifs, though it is Greenwell in 1889 accompanying the burial of an adolescent beneath a round difficult to identify specific scenes. barrow in eastern Yorkshire. (From Kinnes & Longworth 1995.) The stelae, by contrast, may have been representations of living or figure from the Somerset Levels (the Somerset Goddead individuals, and at Petit-Chasseur, were asDolly), dated by its association with timber trackways sociated with (and later incorporated into) funerary to the middle of the third millennium bc. Carved out of monuments. ash, it portrays the head and torso of a hermaphrodite figure with breasts and a large erect penis; the legs The invisible body: Britain and Ireland may have been broken away. The surviving portion measures only 16 cm in height. It was found resting In contrast to these well-known figurative traditions, upside down beneath the Bell B trackway where it human representations are almost entirely absent had been deposited presumably as an intentional act from Mesolithic and Neolithic contexts in Britain (Coles & Coles 1986; Coles 1990; 1998). The wooden and Ireland. The famous megalithic art of the Boyne figure discovered at Dagenham on the north bank of Valley passage graves is abstract or geometrical in the Thames in 1922 is both larger (49.5 cm tall) and character, consisting of chevrons, spirals, zigzags and slightly later in date than the Somerset Levels figure. lozenges. These might represent beings of some kind, The Dagenham figure has a well-defined circular head but if so they are not portrayed in recognizably huwith eyes, nose and mouth, vestigial arms, but clearly man form. Unambiguously human representations are shaped buttocks and legs. There is a socket for the very scarce. The carved chalk figure from the Grimes attachment of a penis. The figure is carved out of a Graves flint mine is now widely dismissed as modern single piece of pine and has been AMS dated to 2351– (Russell 2000, 42–6). More interesting is the wooden 25 Chapter 2 2139 bc (Coles 1990). These wooden figures recovered from wetland contexts recall the practice of deposition in watery locations that appears to have been widespread in northern Europe throughout the later prehistoric period. Votive deposits include polished stone axes, food offerings in pottery vessels, metalwork, and the famous ‘bog bodies’ (Torbrügge 1971; Bradley 1990; Koch 1998; Van der Sanden 1996). Cultic objects may have been returned to the earth when they went out of use or were broken; the Somerset Levels figure has lost its legs and the Dagenham figure has ancient damage to the left side of the face. Altogether more enigmatic are the objects known as the Folkton drums (Fig. 2.7). These three cylinders carved from solid chalk were discovered by Canon William Greenwell in 1889 in a burial mound on Folkton Wold. They accompanied an adolescent burial in a grave towards the edge of the mound (Kinnes & Longworth 1985, 115–16). They are graded in size, measuring from 8.7 cm high and 10.4 cm in diameter (drum 1) to 10.7 m high and 14.6 cm diameter (drum 3). They are decorated in similar fashion, with a face on one side, flanked by geometrical decoration extending around the back of the drum and further geometrical decoration on the slightly domed top. The faces on drums 1 and 3 depict eyebrows, eyes and mouth, with flaring triangles expanding either side above the mouth perhaps to represent a moustache. The geometric motifs on the sides, back and top of the drums find parallels in motifs carved on Grooved Ware pottery and confirm the third-millennium date of the Folkton drums, but they remain for the present without parallel in Britain and Ireland (Longworth 1999). They may be translations into stone of objects more usually made in another material such as wood. The shape of the drums is indeed strongly suggestive of a circular wooden box with a lid. The Grooved Ware associations of the Folkton drums have been recalled by the recent discovery of a fragmentary sandstone plaque carved with a design resembling part of a human face from Rothley Lodge Farm in Leicestershire. It was found in a pit together with Grooved Ware sherds beneath the sunken floor of an abandoned house (Pitts 2005). The scarcity of human representations in the British and Irish Neolithic stands in sharp contrast to other areas of Europe. The wooden figures from Britain, however, have a special significance, leading us to suspect that many more may once have existed. The durability of the various media used for human representations has obviously played a distorting role in the formation of the archaeological record. Yet the absence of human representations in rock carvings, despite the abundance of abstract motifs, argues that human images may well have been consciously avoided in Neolithic Britain and Ireland. Rather than constituting the tip of a vanished iceberg, the Somerset Levels God-Dolly, the Folkton drums and the Rothley Lodge plaque may be just what they appear: rare exceptions in an otherwise non-iconic world. Conclusion: scale, intimacy and power Such generalized observations are easy enough to make. The challenge, however, is to go beyond the recognition of difference in an attempt to interpret human representations both as culturally constrained systems of meaning and as material artefacts that functioned in specific ways in their social and cultural contexts. Let us in these concluding remarks return to the two main bodies of French Neolithic representations and consider why they are so different and what those differences may mean. The objective is to deconstruct human representations as a category. The two main bodies of human representation are the fired clay figurines and the carved statue-menhirs. They contrast in size, material, posture and find context. The fired clay figurines are small: although most survive only in an incomplete condition, the largest appear to have measured around 15 cm tall (examples complete save for missing heads from Fort Harrouard and Maizy c. 13.8 cm; nearly complete but headless figurine from Noyen-sur-Seine 12.6 cm: Mohen 1986; Mordant & Mordant 1986). They are examples of miniaturism, and the reduction in scale would have provoked conditions of intimacy in handling these objects: the viewer would have needed to hold them close up in order to inspect them. This intimate nature of the encounter provides the viewer with a new way of seeing and a new way of understanding the object and, by extension, the human body that it represents (Bailey 2005, 38). The fact that these objects are portable and could be handled is itself significant. They might have been displayed and manipulated in household contexts, and it should be noted that the majority come from sites that could be interpreted as settlements, although the presence of ditches and palisades may indicate that they also had ceremonial or defensive functions. There is no specific evidence that the contexts from which they came should be interpreted as shrines. The fragments of decorated incense-burners (the misleadingly termed ‘vase-supports’) from the same sites may also very well have functioned within a domestic context rather than a public building. A further feature shared by all the figurines is that they appear to be shown unclothed. Despite their small size the possibility cannot be excluded that they were originally dressed in some 26 Representing Humans in Neolithic Europe 5000–2000 bc way, and that the baked clay objects that survive are in fact the armatures of figurines that were more elaborate, more colourful, and altogether more striking in their original appearance. This need not imply that they were intended for public display, however, and the fact that at Noyen-sur-Seine (the site for which the best information exists) the figurines fragments were scattered across the area of the settlement is consistent with a domestic context of use. They are perhaps to be considered private, intimate, household objects. The statue-menhirs of southern France and the western Alps represent an altogether different category of the person that must have functioned in a very different social context. Some, as we have observed, were set up as grave markers; others may have stood within settlements; for yet others, including the famous Rouergat group, the original context is unclear. Yet while they are internally diverse in their morphology and in their original settings, they represent a clear contrast to the fired clay figurines. In the first place, all the evidence suggests that they were intended for public display. Even the stelae found in settlement contexts appear to have stood not in houses or buildings but in an open space within the settlement. Together with their public outdoor placement goes their size, the durability of the materials from which they were carved, and the elaborate surface decoration that many of them display. Few of them approach life-size — few of even the largest Rouergat statue-menhirs measure over 1.2 m tall — yet they are far different in character from the miniaturized fired clay figurines. They are too large and heavy to be handled and were clearly fixed in position. Unlike the fired clay figurines, where the size of the viewer places him or her in a relationship of dominance vis-à-vis the figurines, the statue-menhirs might be considered the dominant partners in the exchange of gaze with the human viewer. This relationship of dominance is reinforced by the elaborate decoration or dress, originally given even greater impact through the application of colour, and by the symbols of power or authority that many of these figures seem to grasp. If the Rouergat group does indeed include individuals portrayed in a sitting position (D’Anna 1977, 171), these may be representations of ‘enthroned’ individuals. Thus the human representations from Neolithic France fall into opposing categories of monumentalism and miniaturism: into images that were hidden away in the domestic context, and that provided the opportunity for private, intimate encounters, and those that were on public display. Within such an analysis, it becomes less important to establish whom it is (living individual, ancestor, divinity) that is being represented (Bailey 2005, 23), though that question can never be far from our thoughts. What is more important is to recontextualize the representations, to consider them just one among many expressions of materiality. In eastern and central Europe, from the sixth millennium bc, this included the radical new medium of fired clay, which offered new opportunities for expressing identity both in the shapes and decoration of the ubiquitous pottery containers and in the fired clay figurines that made use of the same materials and technology to create miniature human forms. Further west, at a slightly later date, another new medium was created through the shaping of large stone blocks to create another kind of human image. If intimacy and the domestic were hallmarks of the fired clay figurines, the large stone images worked very differently to convey public messages of power. It would be easy to read this contrast in terms of emerging leadership and social hierarchy. These are not small naked figurines, hidden from the view of all save those allowed entry into the private domestic context. The body is no longer secluded and intimate. The human body of the statue-menhirs is a public declaration, elaborately clothed, fixed in position and challenging the viewer. This is not the domestic body but the body as a political instrument, part of a changing world of social relations in which status was becoming symbolized in increasingly permanent form. These interpretations are, however, contextually constrained, and cannot easily be read as a diachronic narrative of changing body symbolism or personhood. The fired clay figurines were fashioned, handled and displayed in the specific social circumstances of the late fifth millennium bc. The statue menhirs were in turn the product of their own time and context. Furthermore, the relative scarcity of the fired clay figurine fragments suggests that they were not ubiquitous in eastern and southern France in the way that they were in the Balkans. It is difficult to argue that fired clay figurines were in any significant sense the inspiration for the statue-menhirs, especially since, as we have observed, an alternative origin for the statue menhir tradition can be found in the selection and erection of unshaped naturally anthropomorphic blocks (Rodriguez 1998). These stood, presumably, for people, but it was only during the third millennium bc that the shaping and carving of stone blocks developed to the point of producing elaborate human representations. Many of these were essentially two-dimensional — stelae rather than statue-menhirs in strict archaeological terminology — which connects them perhaps more strongly with the contemporary rock carvings of Mont Bégo than with the fired clay figurines of an earlier period. The anthropomorphic representations of Neolithic western Europe are too patchy in their distribution 27 Chapter 2 Bentley, R.A., R. Krause, T.D. Price & B. Kaufmann, 2003. Human mobility at the Early Neolithic settlement of Vaihingen, Germany: evidence from strontium isotope analysis. Archaeometry 45, 471–86. Blanchet, J.-C., 1986. Les figurines en céramique du camp chasséen de Jonquières (Oise). Antiquités Nationales 18/19, 177–9. Bocksberger, O.J., 1976. Le site préhistorique du Petit-Chasseur, Sion, Valais, 1–2: Le dolmen MVI. Lausanne: Université de Genève. Bradley, R., 1990. The Passage of Arms: an Archaeological Analysis of Prehistoric Hoards and Votive Deposits. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bradley, R., 2002. The Past in Prehistoric Societies. London: Routledge. Coles, B., 1990. Anthropomorphic wooden figures from Britain and Ireland. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 56, 315–33. Coles, B., 1998. Wood species for wooden figures: a glimpse of a pattern, in Prehistoric Ritual and Religion, eds. A. Gibson & D. Simpson. Stroud: Sutton, 163–73. Coles, B. & J. Coles, 1986. Sweet Track to Glastonbury: the Somerset Levels in Prehistory. London: Thames & Hudson. D’Anna, A., 1977. Les statues-menhirs et stèles anthropomorphes du midi Méditerranéen. Paris: Editions du CNRS. D’Anna, A., X. Gutherz & L. Jallot, 1997. L’art mégalithique dans le Midi de la France: les steles anthropomorphes et les statues-menhirs néolithiques in Art et symboles du mégalithisme Européen: Actes du 2ème Colloque International sur l’art mégalithique, Nantes 1995, eds. J. L’Helgouach, C-T. Le Roux & J. Lecornec. Revue Archéologique de l’Ouest, supplément no. 8, 179–93. Daugas, J.-P., J.-M. Roger & G. Vernet, 1984. Les statuettes chasséennes en céramique du Massif Central (Puy-deDôme, Haute-Loire, Gard), in Influences méridionales dans l’est et le centre-est de la France au Néolithique: le rôle du Massif-Central. Clermont-Ferrand: CREPA, 185–96. De Lumley, H., J. Begin-Ducornet, A. Echassoux, N. GisutoMagnardi & O. Romain, 1990. La stèle gravée dite du ‘Chef de Tribu’ dans la région du Mont Bego, Vallée des Merveilles, Tende, Alpes-Maritimes. L’Anthropologie 94, 3–62. De Saulieu, G., 2004. Art rupestre et statues-menhirs dans les Alpes. Des pierres et des pouvoirs 3000–2000 av. J-C. Paris: Errance. Dubouloz, J., 2003. Datation absolue du premier Néolithique du Bassin parisien: complément et relecture des données RRBP et VSG. Bulletin de la Société Préhistorique Française 100, 671–89. Gallay, A., 1995. Les stèles anthropomorphes du site mégalithique du Petit-Chasseur à Sion (Valais, Suisse). Notizie Archeologische Bergomensi 3, 167–94. Gallay, A. & L. Chaix, 1985. Le site préhistorique du Petit-Chasseur (Sion, Valais), 5–6: Le dolmen M XI. Lausanne: Bibliothèque Historique Vaudoise. Gimbutas, M., 1974. The Gods and Goddesses of Old Europe. London: Thames & Hudson. Gimbutas, M., 1989. The Language of the Goddess. London: Thames & Hudson. Gronenborn, D., 1999. A variation on a basic theme: the transi- across time and space, and too varied in their material and social context, to be considered as manifestations of a single tradition. They relate to changing social practices, and very likely to changing conceptions of the body, but cannot in themselves provide a coherent narrative. The extreme scarcity of human representations in certain regions, such as Britain and Ireland, is further testimony to the variability of representational practices. Individuals — living or dead — may have been represented through other media such as standing stones or timber posts, and it may be relevant to note that folklore frequently interprets standing stones as petrified people, punished for sacrilegious acts (e.g. Hunt 1865). Yet the aniconic standing stone is a far cry from the human figurine, and we must distinguish between objects that may have ‘stood for’ people and those which were intentionally ‘shaped as’ people. It is the explicit anthropomorphism of the latter which instantly captures our attention as human observers. Through its contrasting portrayal of intimate bodies and public bodies this materialization provides insight into some of the ways in which the human body may have been seen and imagined by West European Neolithic communities. What is perhaps most striking, however, is the sense of incompleteness, that what we are viewing are scattered manifestations of a much larger set of concepts and traditions in which the explicit representation of the human form was never more than an occasional and regionally specific practice. Acknowledgements I am grateful to John Robb for his comments on an earlier version of this paper, and to Katie Boyle for assistance with the illustrations. References Allard, P., 2005. L’industrie lithique des populations rubanées du Nord-Est de la France et de la Belgique. (Internationales Archäologie 86.) Rahden: Verlag Marie Leidorf. Bailey, D.W., 2005. Prehistoric Figurines: Representation and Corporeality in the Neolithic. London: Routledge. Bánffy, E., 2003. Die balkanischen und lokalen (?) Wurzeln der Glaubenswelt des mitteleuropäischen Linearbandkeramik-Gruppen. Acta Archaeologica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 54, 1–25. Barfield, L. & C. Chippindale, 1997. 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