MONUMENTS AND SOCIAL COMPLEXITY: A NEW LINE OF ENQUIRY?

Summary. Studies of prehistoric monuments have suggested that there may be a relationship between the amount of labour needed to build them and the complexity of contemporary society. To some extent such work has been influenced by the rich ethno-historical record of the Polynesian chiefdoms. This article compares the role of large monuments in Polynesia with ethnographic evidence describing monument building in an Indian tribe. It concludes that an important contrast between the two examples is that in simpler societies monument building may be essentially an 'event', whilst in more complex societies monuments can be maintained for a substantial period after their erection.
Similar contrasts can be found in the archaeological record in Britain and suggest that whilst Neolithic earthworks may have made greater demands on human labour, it was only in the Iron Age that society possessed the capacity to undertake regular maintenance of large monuments.     

THE DATE AND SEQUENCE OF USE OF NEOLITHIC FUNERARY MONUMENTS: NEW AMS DATING EVIDENCE FROM THE COTSWOLD-SEVERN REGION

Summary.   In this paper we discuss 26 new Neolithic AMS dates obtained from human and animal bone from four previously undated funerary monuments in the Cotswold-Severn region. By strategically targeting particular portions of these skeletal assemblages, a number of valuable inferences are made concerning the extent of variation in apparently co-existing burial practices both within and between monuments. Of particular interest is the observation that variations in the extent to which interments have become disarticulated cannot necessarily be equated with chronological relationships regarding their deposition. This project has also obtained dates from cremated bone, which establish that the range of funerary treatments in practice during the earlier Neolithic also included cremation. Additionally it is observed that whilst some, apparently primary, deposits may in fact be later insertions, other material in apparently secondary contexts may actually return earlier Neolithic dates.     

Fire and Memory: Transforming Place using Fire at Henge Monuments

Henges — Late Neolithic to Early Bronze Age earthwork monuments — often have long life-histories of reuse and rebuilding over generations. At some sites, fire-lighting and the deposition of fire-altered materials played a significant role in certain phases of the use of the henge. This article reviews the evidence for fire in the life-histories of four henges in Scotland, and interprets the various ways in which fire was employed at different times and at different sites. It argues that fire had a transformational effect, not only upon monuments and materials, but it also characterized and transformed people’s experiences and memories of particular sites, thus creating links between monumental sites and quotidian experience during the Neolithic and Bronze Age in Scotland.     

Normanising the North: The Evidence of Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Scandinavian Sculpture

Abstract

This Study Probes the destruction of material culture to illuminate the introduction of Norman political authority into northern England. A brief overview of Norman destruction of churches provides the background to a review of the potential relationship of Anglo-Saxon monuments with memory and identity, in the context of recent discussions of monument reuse. Durham and York, the Anglo-Saxon monastic sites at Wearmouth/Jarrow, Lindisfarne and Jedburgh, and a selection of local churchyards provide case studies. It argues that some monuments seem to have been deliberately targeted, but a wider range of factors, all ultimately derived from changing political circumstances, can be identified that explain why sculpture was removed and reused. The paper serves as a platform for further debate about the significance of monuments in the Middle Ages, and as a contribution to the broader discourse within archaeology about their social meanings.     

Wood and Fire: Scotland’s Timber Cursus Monuments

This paper offers the first comprehensive overview of Scotland’s early Neolithic timber cursus monuments. This small group of sites has, in recent years, been viewed as a significant element of the early Neolithic repertoire in northern Britain, and forerunner to the later earthwork cursus monuments found across the British Isles; but as yet their treatment has been at a largely superficial level. The article draws together the evidence from excavations, cropmarks and the authors’ own fieldwork. As well as describing the monuments, the study also offers a new interpretation of the construction, role and destruction of these monuments within the context of the woodland world of lowland Scotland in the first half of the fourth millennium BC.     

Life in the Woods: Tree-throws, 'Settlement' and Forest Cognition

The deposition of Early Neolithic material within tree-throw hollows in described, and the possible role of fallen trunks as places of occupation, settlement foci and landscape markers is discussed. Having implications for the interpretation of ubiquitous later Mesolithic pit dwellings, the evidence suggests a continuity of forest 'identity'. Accordingly, patterns of clearances are also explored in relationship to modes of occupation, and the employment of 'big wood' in Neolithic monuments discussed.     

TIMBER MONUMENTS,LANDSCAPE ANDTHE ENVIRONMENT IN THE NITH VALLEY,DUMFRIES AND GALLOWAY

This paper considers the impact of landscape and environment upon monuments built during the Neolithic period. Taking a group of timber monuments of Neolithic date in the Nith Valley region, Dumfries and Galloway, it examines their relationship to the topography and environment and seeks to explain their uniquely linear nature, a feature of timber monuments built in this region. It discusses the importance of incorporating plough‐levelled sites into landscape approaches to monuments, the potential impact of vegetation upon visibility patterns, and the value of considering the immediate locations of monuments, arguing that monuments built upon a heightened awareness of landscape topography, arising out of a long‐term relationship with place.     

Interpreting the Neolithic: The Monuments of North Yorkshire

Recent interpretations of the British Neolithic either consider the shared beliefs of this period or the short-term engagement of individuals with their material surroundings. This paper argues that, while both approaches provide exciting agenda, they fail to address the marked regional differences which exist within the range of monuments, and indeed have actually shifted Neolithic studies away from a consideration of such variability. A comparison of the monuments from North Yorkshire with similar evidence elsewhere in lowland England illustrates the value of an approach which concentrates on long-term trends in the continuity or transformation of social structures. It is proposed that the absence of causewayed enclosures and the early development of single-grave burials demonstrate a distinct social trajectory which continued with the construction of the later henges. The monuments are therefore seen to reflect long-term continuities in the social history of North Yorkshire.     

The Mesopotamian frontier of the Arabian Neolithic: A cultural borderland of the sixth–fifth millennia BC

The material culture of coastal Arabian Neolithic sites of the sixth–fifth millennia BC contains a range of small Mesopotamian-style objects, in addition to Ubaid pottery. There is a significant concentration of such objects at the Kuwaiti sites, H3 and Bahra 1, with lesser amounts in the Central Gulf region and virtually none in the Lower Gulf. The combination of material and symbolic culture at the Kuwaiti sites indicates that their inhabitants could communicate with both Ubaid and Neolithic peoples with equal facility, implying a key role in the region’s earliest experiments in maritime trade. Moreover, the presence in southern Iraq and at Susa of distinctive arrowheads, and possibly Arabian Coarse Ware ceramics, suggests that the range of eastern Arabian Neolithic peoples extended all along the ancient shoreline to the vicinity of the Mesopotamian Ubaid settlements, and even Susiana. The bifacial pressure-flaked arrowheads are of two different types that are well attested in eastern Arabia, though one type is more common in southern Iraq and Susiana, hinting at a local population related to the Arabian Neolithic. These finds are quantified and illustrated in this paper, and indicate a cultural borderland stretching for around 300 km north of Kuwait.     

Learning by Experience: The Flint Mines of Southern England and Their Continental Origins

Since the discovery of prehistoric flint mines across Europe during the nineteenth century, mining has been recognized as a central component of the Neolithic ‘package’. In the south of Britain a small group of mines date to the early fourth millennium BC, posing a problem for traditional interpretations of the Early Neolithic, as they appear a significant period of time before other Neolithic monuments. This paper will look at evidence preserved in the mines of southern England, examining whether these sites demonstrate flint‐mining techniques already practised in Continental Europe. Central to the research is a notion that complex activities, such as mining, involve long periods of trial and error before evolving into an accomplished working methodology.     

The Age of Clay: The Social Dynamics of House Destruction

This study provides some fresh insight into Neolithic domestic architecture through the analysis of architectural technology and the control over the practice of house construction and destruction. Examined on a regional or local level, architecture of the Neolithic is often presented as a fairly homogenous social practice over the large area of Southeast Europe. In viewing the Neolithic houses as homogenous and uncontroversial material culture, archaeologists have overlooked not only the possible variation and multimeaning of the Neolithic houses but also their striking and extensive means of destruction. The role of house conflagration, a practice that lasted during the entire Neolithic of Southeast Europe, has not been addressed in archaeological investigations. Indeed the phenomenon of burned houses has been treated as a series of lucky accidents during the Neolithic, which are primarily responsible for the preservation of Neolithic sites. Contrary this view, I argue that it is unlikely that the houses were burned as a result of a series of accidents or for any structural and technological reasons but rather that they were destroyed by deliberate burning and most likely for reasons of a symbolic nature. The causes for the practice of house firing and house abandonment as observed through the architectural evidence at the site of Opovo are believed to have been related to the need for house replacement and securing its postutilitarian visibility in order to show social and material continuity of the Neolithic society. In my view, a struggle for social and material continuity might have been a leading mobilizing force in creating and maintaining social practices and beliefs in the Neolithic society.     

A Bayesian Radiocarbon Chronology of the Early Neolithic of Yorkshire and Humberside

The Mesolithic-Neolithic transition is one of the mostly hotly (and vociferously) debated periods of British prehistory. Chronology has been key to this discussion. Informal ‘visual’ interpretations of radiocarbon data used both to argue for a rapid uptake of Neolithic practices by indigenous Mesolithic populations, and for the introduction by Continental settlers and then the rapid acculturation by local populations. This paper offers new evidence for the timing of the beginning of the Neolithic in Yorkshire and Humberside, an area with a range of monuments that have been a focus of research into early Neolithic communities. From this new synthesis it is possible to suggest implications for our understanding of ‘neolithization’, but also as to provide the basis for critical future research themes.     

THE NEOLITHIC of the AVEBURY AREA: SEQUENCE, ENVIRONMENT, SETTLEMENT and MONUMENTS

Summary: The implications are discussed of the first five seasons of a regional project to investigate the Neolithic sequence and environment, and the context in which monuments great and small were built, in the area around Avebury, north Wiltshire, England. A five-phase local sequence is proposed. There was a varying mosaic of clearances, and settlement density may have been low. the episodic character of monument building stands out. With the exception of Silbury Hill, none of the monuments need indicate significant social ranking, and more attention can be given to their sacred character and to the tradition which produced them.     

Points in Time: The Mesolithic–Neolithic Transition and the Chronology of Late Rod Microliths in Britain

This paper presents the results of the Bayesian statistical modelling of radiocarbon dates associated with diagnostic late Mesolithic rod microliths from England and Wales. These date estimates are compared with results for the earliest evidence for Neolithic material culture and practices in Britain (Whittle et al. 2011; Griffiths 2011; 2014; forthcoming). The chronology of some rod microlith sites indicates a potential overlap between the earliest Neolithic and latest Mesolithic material culture and practices, in the first three centuries of the fourth millennium cal BC across England and Wales. The locations of late Mesolithic sites suggest regional processes of ‘neolithization’ may have occurred. In the region where we have the best chronological evidence for late Mesolithic sites – in Yorkshire – the location of the very latest Mesolithic sites suggests these lifeways may have persisted in landscapes which had been foci of hunter‐gatherer activity for hundreds of years, and which might have been understood as ‘ancestral’ or ‘persistent’ places.     

PIT-DIGGING, OCCUPATION AND STRUCTURED DEPOSITION ON RUDSTON WOLD, EASTERN YORKSHIRE

Summary.   Excavated Neolithic pit clusters, like those found on Rudston Wold in eastern Yorkshire, have often been seen as the remains of occupation sites. The features are interpreted as possessing practical roles, including their use for storing grain, and the incorporated material culture regarded as casually discarded waste. More recent interpretations, however, have emphasized these features' functional unsuitability, rather seeing pit-digging, and the deposition of ideologically-charged objects, as a deliberate attempt to inscribe meaning across a landscape. These two different approaches are considered by a detailed examination of the Peterborough Ware and Grooved Ware associated pits, dug-out swallow-holes and hollows of Rudston Wold. It is argued that their lithic assemblage demonstrates a conventionality best understood as representing occupation at and around the features, themselves once part of small-scale dwellings, but that this material nonetheless resulted from deliberate and purposeful acts which changed during the later Neolithic.     

Bigberry Camp,Harbledown, Kent

Despite containing one of the largest stone and timber circles in Britain, the Late Neolithic monument complex at Stanton Drew, Somerset, has seen surprisingly little archaeological work. This paper presents the results of new fieldwork, which included excavation around a recently discovered recumbent stone, test-pitting on the floodplain of the River Chew and fieldwalking close to the monuments. The excavations revealed that the recumbent stone had been deliberately buried in the medieval period and also uncovered other archaeology of this date. The test-pitting exposed thick deposits of alluvium and from this it is argued that the landscape has changed dramatically since the monuments were constructed. The fieldwalking revealed a relatively low density of lithics which may indicate that activities around the monuments were carefully controlled. Also considered is the siting of the Stanton Drew monuments and their intimate relationship with the River Chew.     

Reassessing the Age,Sex and Metric Variation of Commingled Human Remains from a 1911 Excavation of a Neolithic Passage Tomb Complex in North‐West Ireland

The Neolithic passage tomb complex at Carrowkeel, County Sligo, Ireland, is one of the best preserved and most significant megalithic funerary and ritual landscapes in Europe. The most substantial archaeological excavations at the complex were undertaken in 1911, from which a relatively large sample of commingled unburnt and cremated human remains from seven chambered passage tombs was recovered. Although the archaeological value of this material is reduced as its spatial and stratigraphic context is uncertain, the skeletal remains have the potential to provide insights into how these monuments were used. This study is a quantitative reassessment of that osteological material from the passage tombs excavated in 1911, with a focus on a contextual analysis of the remains. Overall, the age‐at‐death and sex ratios do not indicate any demographic differentiation between monuments in selecting locations for the deposition of bodies, and there is no clear evidence to suggest any selectiveness of certain skeletal elements took place. There may however have been a differentiating age and gender aspect in terms of the unburnt versus cremated bone surface depositions within the passage tombs, as a higher proportion of 5+ years non‐adults and adult females were present in the cremated material. By using the log‐ratio metric scaling technique on the cremated adult material, a statistically significant difference in skeletal dimensions is observed between individual passage tombs; however, it is unclear how significant this disparity is from a biocultural point of view. Despite apparent methodological difficulties in assessing an archaeological bone assemblage collected by early 20th‐century antiquarians, the material can still yield new knowledge about the rituals conducted at Carrowkeel. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Analysis and interpretation of flint toolmarks found on bones from West Tump long barrow,Gloucestershire

West Tump is a Neolithic chambered tomb originally excavated in 1880. The mound was found to contain a mixed skeletal assemblage, the majority of which was disarticulated. Between 2000 and 2001 material from the site including human bone was re‐examined with a portion of this project focused on taphonomic evidence observed on the human skeletal material. Amongst the factors selected for investigation were deliberate toolmarks. Three specimens were identified as exhibiting toolmarks. Analysis demonstrated that the observed features were cutmarks, consistent with the use of flint tools. However those on two of the specimens were found to be both post‐mortem and recent. The cutmarks observed on the remaining specimen, a right clavicle, were identified as having been inflicted during the peri‐mortem period and consistent with decapitation. British Neolithic mortuary practice has been the subject of ongoing debate since the earliest excavations of relevant sites, but until very recently few assemblages from such contexts have been re‐examined and much of the data in use has derived from sources of considerable age and questionable reliability. The selective removal of specific skeletal elements (particularly skulls) has repeatedly been described in the literature regarding the collective funerary monuments of this period. It has often been assumed that such practices took place after the soft tissues had decayed. One of the examples discussed, suggests this may not always have been the case and the potential significance of this finding is discussed in addition to a possible interpretation of the cutmarks seen on the remaining specimens. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Afterlife of Monuments in the English Peak District: The Evidence of Early Bronze Age Burials

This research is an investigation of the locations of Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age round barrows in the Peak District. The work involved close examination of the barrows present around two earlier monuments: the Long Low bank barrow and the henge at Arbor Low. Using a Geographic Information System, it considered the densities of the barrows around these focal monuments, inter‐visibility between the sites, and the distribution of distinctive artefacts in the surrounding area. The results raise important questions about the role of memory in the past.     

‘Almost Every Miracle is Open to Carping’: Doubts,Relics, Reliquaries and Images of Saints in the Long 12th Century

Many of the great surviving monuments from the middle ages, the cathedrals, churches and objects made for them or for private devotion, testify to the importance of Christian faith in medieval culture. Devotion to the saints was a facet of that belief, vividly recorded in the surviving relics, reliquaries and images of saints as well as in hagiographic literature. Yet medieval sources also contain references to doubts about the nature and power of saints and their relics. The overcoming of doubt or incredulity was a widely used trope in hagiography. However, if we take medieval doubts seriously, they should prompt us to consider whether the images and objects created to celebrate particular saints might sometimes have been designed to bolster dubious claims or help to authenticate disputed material within a rich discourse about both individual saints and relics and about the nature of holy bodies more generally.