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Evergreen Dazed 1881 posts |
Sep 16, 2012, 15:55
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Sanctuary wrote: Resonox wrote: Just as an aside to the conversation...I was up Chanctonbury Ring today...there are several tumuli/barrow mounds around the outer limits of the "fort" boundary. ..All of an almost identical diameter...though they vary in height due to ploughing out etc. Considering how many people must have inhabited the fort during its life, why such a relatively few number of mounds....were only "important" people interred so close to the area...and if so, where did the others get buried (I am making a great assumption that these are actual graves I know). Strangely enough..just by the triangulation stone there is a cleared area...right sized for a tumulus.......it looks like some aftermath of excavation work....this would be the highest point on the hill too. I used to have a link which transferred present day maps into "ancient" maps...and showed intersting sites etc...but have since lost this. It may be that the majority were cremated Resonox and scattered. Chanctonbury was around 6th century BC. Cremation in that area of the country wasn't practised until much later.
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thesweetcheat 6218 posts |
Sep 16, 2012, 16:02
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Evergreen Dazed wrote: ... The hillfort was abandoned within a generation. What fits beautifully were if the people resting in the barrows thereabouts were known, or family, of the hillfort builders. In that scenario, a barrow within a 'full time' living defensive site may be understood, perhaps. And the site, an early one and abandoned after very little time, may have been, due to the proliferation of "non kin" barrows for want of a better expression, very unattractive to others wishing to reuse the site after its original inhabitants had gone. All just thoughts, and we could go on all day creating plausible scenarios, but I would certainly imagine the ancestors in those mounds had a strong influence upon whoever built or used that site. Could be, although most barrows would be a couple of thousand years old by the time the fort was built (unless, like Crickley Hill or Fridd Faldwyn, is was a continuation of earlier occupation). Were the fort builders descendants or incomers? Most people these days would respect a graveyard for what it is, rather than who's buried in it. Obviously, it's daft to try to impose modern thoughts onto prehistoric mindsets, but I reckon most recorded grave-descration over the millenia (since, say Roman or Egyptian times) has been viewed as distasteful, morally wrong or, perhaps most likely, to result in divine punishment. The two usual reasons for it seem to be (a) greed, the prospect of treasure - cf metal-detectorists now and (b) political motivation, for instance to erase a previous dynasty (e.g. Akhenaten) or to emphasise the wrong-doings of the buried person (e.g. Oliver Cromwell). There are loads of folkoric examples, throughout medieval and post-medieval times, going as far as Howard Carter's team who entered the King Tut tomb, to suggest a fairly high degree of belief that you'd come to a sticky end if you messed about with a tomb. Bit of a rambling waffle, but my gut-feeling is simply that previous burials were left alone because it was viewed as either morally wrong or likely to incur the displeasure of the gods to disturb them,
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harestonesdown 1067 posts |
Sep 16, 2012, 16:10
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thesweetcheat wrote: Bit of a rambling waffle, but my gut-feeling is simply that previous burials were left alone because it was viewed as either morally wrong or likely to incur the displeasure of the gods to disturb them, To throw a spanner in the works, how would Gib Hill fit into that, with the round barrow having being built on top of the former long barrow. ? Some may say it's enhancement, others desecration of an ancestral grave.
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Evergreen Dazed 1881 posts |
Sep 16, 2012, 16:12
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thesweetcheat wrote: Evergreen Dazed wrote: ... The hillfort was abandoned within a generation. What fits beautifully were if the people resting in the barrows thereabouts were known, or family, of the hillfort builders. In that scenario, a barrow within a 'full time' living defensive site may be understood, perhaps. And the site, an early one and abandoned after very little time, may have been, due to the proliferation of "non kin" barrows for want of a better expression, very unattractive to others wishing to reuse the site after its original inhabitants had gone. All just thoughts, and we could go on all day creating plausible scenarios, but I would certainly imagine the ancestors in those mounds had a strong influence upon whoever built or used that site. Could be, although most barrows would be a couple of thousand years old by the time the fort was built Ivinghoe was one of the earliest, late BA. There's every chance the bowl barrow within the fort itself could have been of some age when the fort was being built but it could also have been much more recent. There's only one way to find out -Fight! Sorry, I mean - Excavation. ;)
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thesweetcheat 6218 posts |
Sep 16, 2012, 16:20
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harestonesdown wrote: thesweetcheat wrote: Bit of a rambling waffle, but my gut-feeling is simply that previous burials were left alone because it was viewed as either morally wrong or likely to incur the displeasure of the gods to disturb them, To throw a spanner in the works, how would Gib Hill fit into that, with the round barrow having being built on top of the former long barrow. ? Some may say it's enhancement, others desecration of an ancestral grave. Feel free to throw spanners (or any other tools), like I said it's rambling waffle! I don't know, but it could be that adding a later BA barrow to a earlier Neolithic one might have been viewed as a respectful continuation of earlier practices. After all, there are loads of long barrows where later round barrows have been built nearby in an obvious relationship (Belas Knap and The Crippets both close to where I live are the first two I can think of). Whereas a fort - whatever its purposes - may have been located primarly because of its landscape context, where an existing barrow might have been coincidental rather than deliberately sought. Alternatively, placing a round barrow onto an older one (or into the side of a henge, like Arbor Low) might have been viewed as an assertion of power. I get the impression that Neolithic funerary sites respect the landscape more than BA barrows do. Long barrows are rarely built on top of the hill but usually down the slope (although Adam's Grave is a really good example of the exact opposite!), whereas many BA sites are deliberatly placed on the highest available point, as if to say "we are masters of this place". I think we might have a better understanding if we knew how closely the people who lived here during the monument building periods were related/descended.
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thesweetcheat 6218 posts |
Sep 16, 2012, 16:22
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Evergreen Dazed wrote: There's only one way to find out -Fight! Sorry, I mean - Excavation. ;) Hold on, I'll just grab my metal detector.
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harestonesdown 1067 posts |
Sep 16, 2012, 16:24
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thesweetcheat wrote: harestonesdown wrote: thesweetcheat wrote: Bit of a rambling waffle, but my gut-feeling is simply that previous burials were left alone because it was viewed as either morally wrong or likely to incur the displeasure of the gods to disturb them, To throw a spanner in the works, how would Gib Hill fit into that, with the round barrow having being built on top of the former long barrow. ? Some may say it's enhancement, others desecration of an ancestral grave. Feel free to throw spanners (or any other tools), like I said it's rambling waffle! I don't know, but it could be that adding a later BA barrow to a earlier Neolithic one might have been viewed as a respectful continuation of earlier practices. After all, there are loads of long barrows where later round barrows have been built nearby in an obvious relationship (Belas Knap and The Crippets both close to where I live are the first two I can think of). Whereas a fort - whatever its purposes - may have been located primarly because of its landscape context, where an existing barrow might have been coincidental rather than deliberately sought. Alternatively, placing a round barrow onto an older one (or into the side of a henge, like Arbor Low) might have been viewed as an assertion of power. I get the impression that Neolithic funerary sites respect the landscape more than BA barrows do. Long barrows are rarely built on top of the hill but usually down the slope (although Adam's Grave is a really good example of the exact opposite!), whereas many BA sites are deliberatly placed on the highest available point, as if to say "we are masters of this place". I think we might have a better understanding if we knew how closely the people who lived here during the monument building periods were related/descended. Yeah, just posted to point out there are always exceptions to puzzle us. :)
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thesweetcheat 6218 posts |
Sep 16, 2012, 16:27
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harestonesdown wrote: Yeah, just posted to point out there are always exceptions to puzzle us. :) Be no fun otherwise would it?
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harestonesdown 1067 posts |
Sep 16, 2012, 16:32
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thesweetcheat wrote: harestonesdown wrote: Yeah, just posted to point out there are always exceptions to puzzle us. :) Be no fun otherwise would it? Indeed.
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Evergreen Dazed 1881 posts |
Sep 16, 2012, 16:38
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thesweetcheat wrote: Evergreen Dazed wrote: There's only one way to find out -Fight! Sorry, I mean - Excavation. ;) Hold on, I'll just grab my metal detector. Talking of which.. https://ubp.buckscc.gov.uk/SingleResult.aspx?uid=MBC22561
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