Artificial Islands Around British Isles Were Used by Elites for Ancient Parties to Show Wealth and P

[Judi Lynn]

Artificial Islands Around British Isles Were Used by Elites for Ancient Parties to Show Wealth and Power

By Louise Franco Sep 28, 2022 03:34 PM EDT

Artificial islands surrounding the British Isles in Europe could once be a site of ancient parties held by our ancient ancestors, according to archaeologists.

A new study indicates that ancient elites partied on these man-made islands around what is now Great Britain, Ireland, the Isle of Man, and other islets. Also called a crannog, the anthropogenic islands consist of a lake, wetland, and estuary built thousands of years ago.

Artificial Islands and Ancient Parties



(Photo : Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

In the new paper published in the journal Antiquity on Wednesday, September 28, Antony Brown of UiT Arctic University of Norway and his colleagues confirmed that ancient social gatherings which is equivalent to the modern term "partying" were apparently held in some of the hundreds of artificial islands created in Ireland, Scotland, Wales between the year 4,000 B.C. and the 16th century A.D.

The research team believes that elite people in the social hierarchy living in the British Isles gathered in the crannogs to display their power and wealth through the parties.

If proven, the findings will pave the way for evidence showing one of the earliest form social gatherings never seen before from previous anthropological and archaeological studies, as well as from other fields.

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More:
https://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/53342/20220928/artificial-islands-around-british-isles-used-elites-ancient-parties-show.htm

[DBoon]

1. so they created new islands just to have neolithic Isle of Wight festivals?

sweet.

[ms liberty]

2. This is interesting. n/t

[Warpy]

3. likely they also were used for different things at different times, especially the stone ones

that are offshore. They'd also have been fine places for chieftains to discuss boundaries, marriages and truces,no way to sneak up on them and do them in. Celebrations would have been after those events. However, using them to show off in front of the peasants on the shoreline would have been a pretty bad idea.

As for the burned neolithic pot shards, maybe some of them were used for firing the pottery. It makes sense, it's surrounded by water during a time the mainland was heavily forested. If the fire got out of hand, it wouldn't spread. Pots that cracked or broke, and some always do, were just tossed into the drink. There are a lot of crannogs, more than would be necessary as ceremonial or party spots. They might even have been used as habitation for shellfish like mussels, easy harvesting for the local clans.

Wooden platform houses built over still water in marshes, ponds, and lakes were something different, and were as likely to have been constructed for ease of sanitation as well as obtaining water and doing a little fishing as anything else, weirs and fish traps having been found near the excavation at Must Farm. Water during that period was seen as a highway, not a barrier, athought it would have discouraged some of the large predators that didn't swim. It wouldn't have worked on bears, they can swim, although wading would have done the trick in most cases, the water wasn't deep.

We don't know why they did crazy things like knocking themselves out making little artificial islands offshore. It's fun to speculate.