The Archaeology of Britain: An introduction from ... - waughfamily.ca

• 86 • Mike Parker Pearson
been a substantial change in domestic architecture towards the end of the Earlier Bronze Age
and in the Middle Bronze Age, when houses were constructed more substantially and in larger
sizes. Additionally, settlements were increasingly marked by ditched enclosures and lay within
laid-out landscapes of field walls and field banks. The large round houses (up to 7 m in diameter)
at Gwithian (Megaw in Burgess and Miket 1976), Trevisker and Trethellan (Nowakowski 1991) in
Cornwall, dating from 1800–1200 BC, were solid structures with floor areas in excess of 30 m 2 .
Similar changes also appear to have taken place in Ireland, where larger houses are recognized at
the end of the Earlier Bronze Age.
In summary, the houses of the British Earlier Bronze Age were not substantial structures, except
perhaps in the Western and Northern Isles, nor were they arranged in large settlements but rather
formed small, dispersed groups. For much of the Earlier Bronze Age, the permanence and solidity
of the tombs, standing stones and stone circles expressed levels of group identity much larger than
those at the household level. Early Bronze Age identity was undoubtedly layered and complex, but
it was probably most strongly fixed around the larger kin groups and lineages who must have come
together to attend funerals and construct monuments. By the Middle Bronze Age, there appeared a
number of settlements enclosed by ditches and palisades, such as South Lodge and Down Farm on
Cranborne Chase, Dorset (Barrett et al. 1991). Not only were houses becoming larger and longer
lasting, but the household domain was taking on monumental proportions.
BURIALS AND FUNERALS
Since the seventeenth century, Early and Middle Bronze Age round burial mounds and cairns
have been dug into and excavated by antiquarians and archaeologists. They have a long history of
scholarly research and undoubtedly form the most abundant and perhaps significant remains
from this period. Their potential for increasing our understanding of social status, sexual and
gender differentiation, exchange and power relations has not been ignored (Barrett 1994; Clarke
et al. 1985; Garwood 1991;
Mizoguchi 1992), and recent
theoretical studies have benefited
from national and local research
programmes of round barrow
investigations over the last 40 years.
Figure 5.8 Different types of round barrows on Normanton Down,
Wiltshire: (from the top left) a ditched bowl barrow with an outer bank, a disc
barrow, a small barrow (left of the track and partly destroyed by it), a double
bell barrow and a bell barrow.
Source: Courtesy of the Ashmolean Museum
There is an extraordinary
diversity of Early Bronze Age
funerary practices, though this
should not cause surprise given the
long timespan, the likely regionalism
and the probable complexity of
traditions. Bodies might be inhumed
or burnt; some inhumations show
signs of prior excarnation (the bones
partly jumbled from being left to rot
before burial); other burials (such as
Eynsham and Cassington, both in
Oxfordshire) seem not to have been
buried under mounds; burial
deposits might be made in small