Directionality and axiality in the Bronze Age: cross-regional landscape perspectives on ‘fire pit lines’ and other pitted connections

Abstract

A fireplace represents one of the most fundamental and time-transgressive gathering points for humans. However, when situated in pits that are organized in lines running sometimes hundreds of metres, fire pits represent a significant challenge in terms of interpretation, and may evidence a particular perception of space. This paper argues that in a Bronze Age context, pits associated with fire remains marked out directionality and axiality in the landscape as part of ceremonial events of a temporary nature. Adopting a landscape approach and going beyond regional and chronological borders, the authors argue that in northwestern Europe such events took place in relation to unbounded barrow landscapes in open spaces and could often be linked to the orchestration of funerary events. In some regions, the depositional activities evident in relation to these aligned pits have added significance. Furthermore, the authors argue that the aligning of fire pits is incompatible with divided or parcelled landscapes, thus challenging interpretations of pitted lines as territorial and field boundaries.

Current Research on Bronze Age ‘Cooking Stone Pits’ in Northern Germany and Southern Scandinavia

“…However, they belong in the same timeframe. Comparable pit alignments are also known from Great Britain (Løvschal & Fontijn, 2019: 143-44. ).…”

“…The pits’ contents are generally limited to charcoal, ash, and more or less strongly charred stones, which are densely packed in the pits’ fills (Heidelk-Schacht, 1989: 225–40; Kristensen, 2008: 9; Honeck, 2009: 10–12; Schmidt, 2014: 145; Løvschal & Fontijn, 2019: 140–41). As their name implies, the pits are interpreted as having been used for cooking.…”

Ancestral commons: the deep-time emergence of Bronze Age pastoral mobility

“…Another, more than 5km in length, is known from Trehuse, running along the Weichselian boundary (Hübner 2005). These arrangements created directionality in the landscape, working as ‘way points’ along which people could have moved (Løvschal & Fontijn 2019). Typically following ridges and naturally dry routes, they seem to direct rather than restrict movement.…”

The logics of enclosure: deep‐time trajectories in the spread of land tenure boundaries in late prehistoric northern Europe

“…In Early Bronze Age northern Europe (c. 2000‐1700 BCE), 1 the landscapes would largely have lacked any of the permanent, visible land tenure boundaries such as fences and walls that are so widespread today. However, linear features and structures were not completely unfamiliar, since enclosures and landscape lines were used to define a range of ceremonial and funerary settings (Bradley 1998; Løvschal & Fontijn 2019). People settled in small, unenclosed social units based on one or a few households (Brück & Fokkens 2013; Webley 2008), practising mixed farming with an emphasis on livestock holding and herding, including sheep/goat, cattle, horse, and pig.…”