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BrigantesNation

1733 posts

Trees - the hidden Cursus?

Jul 31, 2003, 23:13

My first suggestion is that cursus building may have taken place at a time when there was a significant covering of trees. Although they are perhaps our largest monuments, they also have the least visual profile. There lack of visual impact suggests to me that they were built at a time when there was little point in making a visual statement - i.e. they were surrounded by trees.

So, if I continue with this train of thought, we have an image of a large clearance in the middle of a forest. The only cursus I know well is the one at Thornborough, which runs roughly north eastwards from the River Ure. It's orientation may have something to do with access - perhaps it was started close to the river and carried on for at least a mile or so. at a width of c100m.

Another wild leap of faith is my sudden realisation that the modern road that runs parallel to it may well have been created at that time also, and if so, may have continued to Pickhill, via Kirklington. This stretch is littered with possibilities. First of all there are some very interesting carvings at Kirklington Church, as well as an unknown earthwork and a burial mound. At Pickhill the church there has some possible archaic images, as well as a place called Roman Castle and the site of an Abbey. Continuing the line of the cursus goes through a henge, at least two burial mounds, two pit alignments, the site of a possible chapel as well as the other stuff - all in a six mile run. Furthermore, it would connect the Swale and the Ure.

So, my wild imagination now sees two river ports - one on the Ure, the other on Swale. Between them a causeway through an area of heavily forrested marshland, in the centre of this causeway the area opens up to a long cursus - a 100 metre wide area that has been raised by a meter or so. Presumably the tree coverage would been cleared back some way beyond the cursus area in order to get earth for the banking of the cursus.

So, I am now seeing it as a meeting point - the people of the Ure and the people of the Swale - east meets west in the largest gathering ever known. How many? Well it's a big area, for the sake of aguement lets say a thousand. Some pretty local, others perhaps making this a well timed stopover point in their semi nomadic lifestyle.

Why were they meeting? well, we have no evidence, no burials from that period that I know of, but we do have signs of very widespread use of the landscape - field walking has collected a large amount of flint for the period so we know these people were making extensive use of the landscape even then, either temporarily or on a more permenant basis.

I have had another thought that perhaps sheds some light on this place. Thornborough Moor is a flat plain, even today water is never far away and in the distant past it would have been quite a swamp for long periods of time. Perhaps what we are seeing here is two peoples sharing a place that they are only just beginning to exploit. Maybe this was the place where the two peoples first met, which presumably had a positive outcome and that afterwards they turned the meeting into a ritual event?

That does not explain the Cursus really. Cursus building is a widespread feature in the British landscape. Presumably the people who built the cursus in Dorset did so for the same reasons as the people who built this one. I have already eluded to a possible practical reason for its construction - raising the level of the ground to make it drier. However that does not explain the dorset cursus, which is on chalk and well drained. OK. Lets assume that all Cursus building was for the same reason, that would indicate that we have the deliberate and pre planned building of a monumental structure with no obvious practical purpose. Art or Ritual? Today we would call it art of course, but back then it would have been a political statement I think - "Look what I can do!" "My tribe is so rich and well organised that we can build this huge and completely useless structure"!

OK, so I'm still thinking ;o)

In reply to:
Ritual Landscapes (morfe)

Replies:
Least visual impact? (FourWinds)
Re: Cursuses (baza)

Topic Outline:

Ritual Landscapes – morfe, Jul 31, 2003, 21:28


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