9th September 2011, 12:16 PM
P Prentice Wrote:your arguments for reasons of absence have been practised for generations and during concerted campaigns to find the evidence. i am mystified why they resonate with some of you still - must be like a religeon. i also think it a mistake to even think in terms of ritual and domestic when the two are not distinct - maybe durrington will help here
Because my arguments are backed up with evidence! Some unpublished as yet (doing the post-ex). But Domnic Powlesland stuff at West Hesslerton is amazing for explaining the apparent lack of Neolithic, Beaker Bronze Age (etc.) settlement evidence elsewhere.....as in we are missing it!
Also from my recent research into excavations in West and South Yorkshire its clear to me that previous excavations have missed all the Bronze Age settlement evidence due to a lack of dating and assuming roundhouses are Iron Age. A recent excavation at South Elmsall by WYAS has a brilliant Bronze Age settlement.
Harking back a few years, archaeologists were convinced that there was no Orkney Mesolithic.........until some radiocarbon dates proved the contrary. I truly believe much of what seems to be missing is hiding in undated remains and artificial distinctions created by typological dating and divisions cause by the three age system (e.g. mesolithic and neolithic).
Yes you are right about a probable indistinct ritual/domestic division (but the same goes for now) but this is irrelevant to whether a people lived in a structure.
As to Mr T's 'interpretation' of obvious settlement sites like Balderbride or Lismore Fields as being special 'ritual' buildings for storage of surplus of grain for ritual destruction like the potlach ceremony .............He is an idiot!
Also look up the Whitehorse stone (or was it Bluebell hill?) settlement in Kent...as far as I remember there is an early neo longhouse, later neo roundhouse, bronze age settlement and metal working all in one bit....
And yes hopefully durrington walls will throw up some insight...........I know people will be arguing over the interpretations for years!
P Prentice Wrote:......................but i expect it to be a tempory, seasonal camp for festival goers.
Why..........have you, like all those 'social archaeologists' decided what the site is before seeing the evidence? :face-stir: