Rethinking the Henge Monuments of the British Isles PDF Download

Author: Lucy Bethany Cummings
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

View

Book Description

Author: Jan Harding
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 140

View

Book Description
The later Neolithic henges are a distinctive yet enigmatic class of monument. Taken as indicative of the emerging social complexity of the third millennium BC, they are often seen as the culmination of cultural achievement during this period. Yet little is actually known about these monuments -- their origins, the meanings behind their distinctive layout, the activities undertaken within their perimeters, or indeed their significance to later Neolithic society. Drawing on the full range of data available across the British Isles and on anthropological parallels, the author addresses these questions in a book that will be of interest to anyone wishing to understand Neolithic society.

Author: Alistair Oswald
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
ISBN: 1848021879
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 183

View

Book Description
Neolithic Causewayed enclosures are amongst the oldest, rarest and most enigmatic of the ancient monuments found in Europe. First recognised as a distinct type in the 1920s, sixty-nine certain or probable examples have now been identified in the British Isles. As a class, they are of outstanding importance, for while their precise functions remain unclear, they represent the first non-funerary monuments and the earliest instance of the enclosure of open space. This book presents an overview of the findings of a systematic national programme of research, carried out by the RCHME, now merged with English Heritage. Every certain, probable and suggested causewayed enclosure in England has been investigated through integrated aerial and field survey. Specialist reconnaissance flying has been undertaken, along with the thorough analysis of aerial photographs taken from the 1920s onwards. This has greatly increased the number of sites known, turning the spotlight onto many that have received little or no archaeological attention in the past. The aerial surveys now available offer a new basis for improved understanding. Analytical field investigations of the few causewayed enclosures that are well preserved as earthworks have also squeezed fresh information out of even those long familiar to archaeologists. Far from merely ‘dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s’ of past fieldworkers, these detailed surveys have led to the rejection of some long-held theories and the proposal of new interpretations. This book significantly advances the understanding of causewayed enclosures both as individual monuments and as a class. It is a major contribution to the understanding of the British Neolithic, and to ‘landscape archaeology’ more generally.

Author: Aubrey Burl
Publisher: Shire Publications
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 76

View

Book Description
"Stonehenge is only one of almost a hundred vast circular earthworks built in Britain and Ireland over five thousand years ago. Known as henges, they remain one of the mysteries of prehistoric Britain. With their overgrown banks and weathered ditches they attract few visitors. Yet discoveries have revealed fascinating glimpses of the beliefs of their builders. Excavations have unearthed grim evidence of forgotten rituals: a child's sacrifice at Woodhenge; a human burial at the centre of Arbor Low; winter moonlight at Stonehenge. Such things hint at the power and importance that these huge enclosures once had. The effort needed to raise these spacious rings of earth or chalk, the careful planning of their entrances, the settings of stone or timber inside them and the avenues leading uphill from nearby rivers all make henges among the most exciting and intriguing of the ancient monuments of the British Isles." --Back cover.

Author: Geoffrey Wainwright
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
ISBN: 9780500390252
Category : Bronze age
Languages : en
Pages : 176

View

Book Description
Explains what recent excavations reveal about ancient henges and the society that built them.

Author: Julian Thomas
Publisher: CUP Archive
ISBN: 9780521403771
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 242

View

Book Description
Neolithikum - Wirtschaftsgeschichte - Saskralgebäude.

Author: Mike Parker Pearson
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0857207334
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 563

View

Book Description
Our knowledge about Stonehenge has changed dramatically as a result of the Stonehenge Riverside Project (2003-2009), led by Mike Parker Pearson, and included not only Stonehenge itself but also the nearby great henge enclosure of Durrington Walls. This book is about the people who built Stonehenge and its relationship to the surrounding landscape. The book explores the theory that the people of Durrington Walls built both Stonehenge and Durrington Walls, and that the choice of stone for constructing Stonehenge has a significance so far undiscovered, namely, that stone was used for monuments to the dead. Through years of thorough and extensive work at the site, Parker Pearson and his team unearthed evidence of the Neolithic inhabitants and builders which connected the settlement at Durrington Walls with the henge, and contextualised Stonehenge within the larger site complex, linked by the River Avon, as well as in terms of its relationship with the rest of the British Isles. Parker Pearson's book changes the way that we think about Stonehenge; correcting previously erroneous chronology and dating; filling in gaps in our knowledge about its people and how they lived; identifying a previously unknown type of Neolithic building; discovering Bluestonehenge, a circle of 25 blue stones from western Wales; and confirming what started as a hypothesis - that Stonehenge was a place of the dead - through more than 64 cremation burials unearthed there, which span the monument's use during the third millennium BC. In lively and engaging prose, Parker Pearson brings to life the imposing ancient monument that continues to hold a fascination for everyone.

Author: Jan Harding
Publisher: CBA Research Report
ISBN: 9781902771977
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

View

Book Description
The three large henges found adjacent to the village of Thornborough, near Ripon in North Yorkshire, lie at the heart of one of the most important Neolithic landscapes in the British Isles. While the henges were first recorded in the eighteenth century, recent fieldwork has shown them to be part of a much larger 'sacred landscape' of the later Neolithic and Bronze Age which includes barrows, pit alignments and a cursus. Surrounding fields have yielded a rich collection of prehistoric flint artefacts. While the henges have all been damaged, either by agriculture or quarrying, they remain major upstanding features in the modern landscape. This volume considers first the history of investigations and changing attitudes towards the monuments before describing the detailed geophysical surveys, excavations and fieldwalking programmes that have been carried out across this landscape in the past twenty years. The author concludes that this was an intensely religious landscape, situated on an important routeway across the Pennines. He considers how people, both those who lived locally and those who travelled long distances to visit the site as a place of pilgrimage, would have experienced and interacted with the monuments.

Author: A. F. Harding
Publisher: British Archaeological Reports Oxford Limited
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 462

View

Book Description
An invaluable county by county catalogue of henge monuments, compiled from air photos and excavation records with descriptions, dimensions, references and hundreds of illustrations - either photos or plans from excavations or from air photos. The introductory section reviews the characterization of the monuments and their ritual nature. A4, 443pp. (BAR, 1987)

Author: Graham Phillips
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1591432987
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 288

View

Book Description
Reveals how Stonehenge was an extraordinary astronomical calendar used in the cultivation of ingredients for long-forgotten botanical cures • Explores how Stonehenge and other stone circles were ancient healing sanctuaries and celestial calculators for the preparation of natural medicines • Explains how the megalithic priesthood--and their successors, the Druids--developed astonishing memory techniques to preserve knowledge over generations • Draws upon the very latest discoveries from recent archaeological excavations and overlooked historical source material Stonehenge is just one of thousands of stone circles erected throughout Britain and Ireland for over three millennia from 3,000 BC on. How did this building tradition survive for so long, over such a large area and with such complexity and uniformity, when the people of the British Isles lived in separate, isolated communities and left no evidence of a central leadership or obvious communication network? Graham Phillips argues that these stone circles are evidence of an astonishing system of healthcare and preservation of ancient medical knowledge that held together a society scattered across the British Isles. With stones aligned to the sun, moon, and certain stars, these ancient monuments enabled the precise timings necessary for the cultivation of medicinal plants. He explains how the megalithic priesthood possessed medical knowledge well beyond their time and may even have discovered a cure for cancer. Furthermore, because they had no form of writing, the megalithic people developed phenomenal memory techniques to preserve their knowledge over many generations, resulting in a class of wisdomkeepers that were not only healers but the living libraries of their culture. Drawing upon the latest discoveries from recent archaeological excavations and overlooked historical source material, Phillips reveals that the megalithic culture survived far longer than previously thought and that the people who held it together were an enigmatic shamanic sect ultimately called the Druids. Uncovering the secrets of ancient megalithic culture and the purpose of their enigmatic stone circles, Phillips contends that all the evidence has now been gathered to unlock the secrets encoded in the stones--and perhaps discover remedies for diseases still uncured by modern medicine today.