Sticky Notes: Some Thoughts on the Use of Clay in the Neolithic Deposits within the Avebury Megalithic Complex

Abstract

Studies of megalithic stone settings have tended to focus upon features perceptible above the ground, whereas sub-surface elements have received markedly less attention. Consideration of both as elements of assemblages provides opportunities for new understandings to emerge. Through re-examination of stone settings within the context of the Avebury monumental complex, the value of this approach is demonstrated. The existence of discrete material types with essential properties is undermined as new, fluid, contextually situated substances reveal themselves, enabling a reappraisal of other assemblages within the group.

Bridlington Boulevard Revisited: New Insights into Pit and Post-hole Cremations in Neolithic Britain

“…If we accept that relations constitute the capacities of things, cremations in post-holes and pits were qualitatively different. Similar to Banfield's (2016) proposition regarding the multiplicities of chalk, clay and sarsen stones in the Avebury stone-hole settings, we suggest that cremations' capacities changed according to the contexts in which they were deployed and features in which they were deposited. Given this, it is worth exploring the material taxonomies of bone further; future work might ask whether the capacities of cremated human remains differed to the capacities of unburnt human bone in similar contexts.…”

“…Substances comprising the natural world were dynamic materials taken up to produce effects in the landscape, and communities were probably conceived of as expansive beyond just humans (e.g. Banfield 2016;Harris 2013).…”

Alterity, Otherness and Nomad Geometries: New Trajectories for the Interpretation of Late Neolithic Monuments

“…Pollard & Gillings 1998) as well as begun to tease out the new explanatory pathways that emerge when we stress the transformative flows of substances, capacities and energies involved in the movement and raising of megaliths (Gillings & Pollard 2016). Important work has also been carried out on approaching the individual stones that make up the monument not as static components, but instead animate material assemblages (Banfied 2016). There is nothing timeless, fixed and enduring about Avebury and never was.…”

“…At the level of individual features, deposits and contexts, the recognition of moments of otherness of the kind highlighted by Harris and Robb (2012) has become increasingly commonplace in the narratives we tender (e.g. Banfield 2016). Yet, at the spatial scale of the entire site or landscape, these seem to be elbowed aside by the business of spatial logics and grand, carefully executed plans.…”