Building for the Dead: Events, Processes and Changing Worldviews from the Thirty-eighth to the Thirty-fourth Centuries cal. bc in Southern Britain

Abstract

Our final paper in this series reasserts the importance of sequence. Stressing that long barrows, long cairns and associated structures do not appear to have begun before the thirty-eighth century cal. bc in southern Britain, we give estimates for the relative order of construction and use of the five monuments analysed in this programme. The active histories of monuments appear often to be short, and the numbers in use at any one time may have been relatively low; we discuss time in terms of generations and individual lifespans. The dominant mortuary rite may have been the deposition of articulated remains (though there is much diversity); older or ancestral remains are rarely documented, though reference may have been made to ancestors in other ways, not least through architectural style and notions of the past. We relate these results not only to trajectories of monument development, but also to two models of development in the first centuries of the southern British Neolithic as a whole. In the first, monuments emerge as symptomatic of preeminent groups; in the second model, monuments are put in a more gradualist and episodic timescale and related to changing kinds of self-consciousness (involving senses of self, relations with animals and nature, perceptions of the body, awareness of mortality and attitudes to the past). Both more distant and more recent and familiar possible sources of inspiration for monumentalization are considered, and the diversity of situations in which mounds were constructed is stressed. More detailed Neolithic histories can now begin to be written.

Dates, Diet, and Dismemberment: Evidence from the Coldrum Megalithic Monument, Kent

“…Many such monuments do not seem to have been constructed before the 38th century cal BC Whittle et al 2011b). A possible comparison for Coldrum may be identified at Burn Ground in the Cotswolds (Smith & Brickley 2006;Dixon et al 2011), which may have been constructed in 4140-3760 cal BC (95% probable) or 3985-3875 cal BC (46% probable) or 3860-3790 cal BC (22% probable; start Burn Ground; Smith & Brickley 2006, fig.…”

“…Without further chronological evidence for the local Medway monuments, or better dating of possibly related monuments from the continent (cf. Whittle et al 2011b), it is difficult to assess the role of Coldrum within early Neolithic monument traditions.…”

“…A second round of radiocarbon dates and stable isotope analysis were produced by ORAU to investigate this issue; further research was undertaken as an AHRB-funded MSc project by Seren Griffiths. Initial modelling generated as part of this MSc thesis was presented in Whittle et al (2011b), as part of the dating project on causewayed enclosures, joint-funded by English Heritage and AHRC.…”

Prehistoric Coastal Mass Burials: Did Death Come in Waves?

“…Third, they are a selection of the unwanted dead buried over a long period of time (Barber 1988). Fourth, the tombs had an interment use for only a very short period (Whittle et al 2007). …”

“…While it is generally suggested that elevation and visibility are one of several cultural responses inherent in the tradition of tomb building (Whittle et al 2007), in the face of a devastating event, it is more likely that the need for rapid construction was the driving force.…”