BrigantesNation
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Re: Henges designed to exclude?
Aug 01, 2003, 11:04
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How many stone circles and similar monments are there is Britain?
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Rhiannon
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Re: Henges designed to exclude?
Aug 01, 2003, 11:05
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dunno. Is there a chronological 'advance' in the designs throughout the country? The features ought to be datable by pottery in them, whether the postholes overlap other features 'n' stuff.
They are a neolithic idea though are they not. Stone circles are much more your bronze age thing. So are you saying that the henges (once used for mundane things like animals and football) were later taken over and used for 'ritual' and vv?
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Rhiannon
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Re: Henges designed to exclude?
Aug 01, 2003, 11:07
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A lot. More per person at the time than there are football grounds or churches per person now!
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baza
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Re: Henges designed to exclude?
Aug 01, 2003, 11:09
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If you design to exclude, then you put the ditch outside of the bank, unlike most henges.
baz
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baza
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Re: Wood from the trees
Aug 01, 2003, 11:13
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To convert from internalised to externalised, you`d have to get rid of the bank.
baz
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baza
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Re: Cursuses
Aug 01, 2003, 11:19
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There was a very interesting article about cursuses in the March edition of British Archaeology.
Here it is:
http://www.britarch.ac.uk/ba/ba69/feat1.shtml
baza
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BrigantesNation
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Re: Henges designed to exclude?
Aug 01, 2003, 11:31
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Yes the internal ditch. This is where the animal enclosure bit comes from - a number of Iron Age structures have an internal ditch and have been interpreted as being to keep animals in. I can't see that myself, as Rhiannon says, a fance is an easy job and much more practical - animal populations change in size - often you want to split them up etc.
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Rhiannon
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Re: Henges designed to exclude?
Aug 01, 2003, 11:33
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It surely doesn't have to be a 'physical' exclusion (ie something you can't physically cross) rather than a physical display, erm a symbol of the exclusion. I mean,you can walk up to the altar in a cathedral without any physical obstruction, but you don't often do it because in a church you understand it's a special space, only to be entered in special circumstances.
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BrigantesNation
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Re: Henges designed to exclude?
Aug 01, 2003, 11:37
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They have a longer chronology of course, but could there have been more people? The population estimates have been drifting upwards for years.
I see an economy that can build henges as well organised and wealthy. clearly they were able to devote significant amounts of effort to henge building - I see them taking months not years though. In the case of Thornborough we have the same type of construction spread over twenty miles or so - clearly a well organised group of people building to a common plan.
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BrigantesNation
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Re: Henges designed to exclude?
Aug 01, 2003, 11:43
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In terms of Thornborough, the cursus came first, possibly three of them. Then a neolithin "mortuary" enclosure perhaps 100 years later. after about 400 years they built the henges, a further three to five hundred years saw the burials come along, closely followed by the post alignments. in all the complex took 1500 years to build.
All I'm getting at is that for all we know they started out as for one use and ended up for another.
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