The Archaeology of Britain: An introduction from ... - waughfamily.ca
The Archaeology of Britain: An introduction from ... - waughfamily.ca
The Archaeology of Britain: An introduction from ... - waughfamily.ca
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• 90 • Mike Parker Pearson<br />
are <strong>of</strong>ten in rocky and impressive lo<strong>ca</strong>tions that were evidentially special places. It seems fairly<br />
clear that the deposits were votive <strong>of</strong>ferings, oc<strong>ca</strong>sionally broken and, for certain unknown reasons,<br />
inappropriate accompaniments to buried individuals (Needham 1988). Insights into gender and<br />
age distinctions <strong>ca</strong>n also be gained <strong>from</strong> the relationship between primary and secondary burials:<br />
where adult males are buried first, the later ones may be other adults and children, yet where<br />
adult females are buried first, they are rarely followed by adult males (Mizoguchi 1992). <strong>The</strong><br />
pattern closely matches ethnographic observations <strong>of</strong> societies with patrilineal systems <strong>of</strong> descent.<br />
<strong>The</strong> placing <strong>of</strong> the dead within the lands<strong>ca</strong>pe was a complex matter, relating to and even<br />
reusing earlier monuments and establishing large areas <strong>of</strong> sacred space. <strong>The</strong> large barrow cemeteries<br />
in south Dorset, Cranborne Chase, and the Stonehenge area, either side <strong>of</strong> the River Avon, are<br />
far larger than most groups. <strong>The</strong> western Avon group is built within an area <strong>of</strong> Neolithic<br />
monuments, and most mounds are placed on the edge <strong>of</strong> an ‘envelope <strong>of</strong> visibility’ around<br />
Stonehenge. <strong>The</strong> same referencing <strong>of</strong> earlier monuments <strong>ca</strong>n be found at Avebury (Wiltshire),<br />
Irthlingborough and Rudston (Yorkshire). In Ireland, similarly, Earlier Bronze Age barrow<br />
cemeteries are placed around the edges <strong>of</strong> the Neolithic monument complex at the Bend in the<br />
Boyne. On the chalklands <strong>of</strong> Wessex, the predominant lo<strong>ca</strong>tions chosen are downlands <strong>of</strong>ten at<br />
a distance <strong>from</strong> the valley-based settlement areas, suggesting that the dead were buried within<br />
areas <strong>of</strong> pasture. Conversely, in the East Midlands, the lighter soils <strong>of</strong> the river valleys were the<br />
principal lo<strong>ca</strong>tions for barrow groups, with each group spaced approximately 10 km along each<br />
major river valley. At Irthlingborough, the most intensively investigated <strong>of</strong> these complexes, the<br />
habitation areas (as indi<strong>ca</strong>ted by flint-knapping debris) were lo<strong>ca</strong>ted on the valley sides a short<br />
distance away. <strong>The</strong> <strong>ca</strong>rbonized remains <strong>of</strong> plants <strong>from</strong> one <strong>of</strong> these ex<strong>ca</strong>vated barrows derive<br />
<strong>from</strong> grasses that thrive only when grazing is absent, indi<strong>ca</strong>ting that animals were kept away <strong>from</strong><br />
this area.<br />
With the advent <strong>of</strong> the Middle Bronze Age, cremation was universal and grave goods were<br />
largely limited to a single Deverel-Rimbury pot to contain the ashes. <strong>The</strong> cremated remains were<br />
buried in small cemeteries, either <strong>of</strong> small mounds, or within and around an earlier mound or in<br />
unmarked graves, that were lo<strong>ca</strong>ted close to settlements. From enclosed settlements like South<br />
Lodge and Down Farm on Cranborne Chase (Dorset), it is apparent that the dead were placed in<br />
the direction away <strong>from</strong> the entrances, thereby maintaining a symbolic distinction between the<br />
realms <strong>of</strong> the living and those <strong>of</strong> the dead (Barrett et al. 1991). <strong>The</strong>ir unremarkable remains thus<br />
marked the land and fields in which the homestead was situated, rooting people in their land and<br />
emphasizing identities at the household level rather than the wider kin groups.<br />
ENVIRONMENT AND LANDUSE<br />
<strong>The</strong> lands<strong>ca</strong>pe <strong>of</strong> the Early Bronze Age was one that was being continuously reworked and<br />
remade. It consisted not only <strong>of</strong> the forests, wastes, pastures and fields <strong>of</strong> human occupation but<br />
also <strong>of</strong> the places, monuments and spaces <strong>of</strong> ancestors and spirits. Neolithic monuments were<br />
modified and transformed. For example, in the Western Isles and northern Scotland many Neolithic<br />
chambered tombs seem to have been turned into closed monuments by individual Beaker burials<br />
(Armit 1996, 94–95). <strong>The</strong> entrance to the West Kennet chambered tomb in Wiltshire was blocked<br />
with huge stones and its chambers filled with chalk rubble and Peterborough and Beaker sherds.<br />
Other ancient places were appropriated. In Eastern Scotland, Beaker-accompanied burials were<br />
<strong>of</strong>ten inserted into, or placed close to, earlier henge monuments, as at Broomend <strong>of</strong> Crichie,<br />
Aberdeenshire. Within the Mount Pleasant henge, a palisaded enclosure <strong>of</strong> enormous dimensions<br />
(800 m long) was constructed, with large tree trunks forming an impenetrable barrier. <strong>An</strong>other<br />
such enclosure was erected with reference to an earlier Late Neolithic monument at Avebury,