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thesweetcheat

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Re: Hillforts & Barrows

Sep 16, 2012, 16:02

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,

In reply to:
Re: Hillforts & Barrows (Evergreen Dazed)

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Re: Hillforts & Barrows (harestonesdown)
Re: Hillforts & Barrows (Evergreen Dazed)

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