Causewayed enclosures

[Dinosaur]

For an indication of how ephemeral Neo structures can be see that site in Bridlington that was published recently, not in office so can't remember title/author of monograph (A place by the Sea, or sonething like that). Site I'm on at the moment has a strip of preserved Neo ground surface across it (joys of upstanding earthworks) and its really quite a revelation as to how much lower the rest of the site to either side is, and this is on a level gravel terrace! Where did all the landscape go in the last 5000 years? (hopefully supported shortly by a suite of OSL and C14 dates, before PP spots another nit-picking opportunity) - so I'm with Jack, mostly. A suspiciously high percentage of Neo 'houses' have been recorded under later earthwork monuments. Sites like Balbridie have benefitted from particularly deeply-dug structural features...but I've been wondering what happens when you strip away the shallower parts (the external wall-trench) - you end up with something looking in plan almost exactly like the mysterious series of parallel short linear cropmarks forming the north-east end of the Thornborough postpit-alignment, so maybe Balbridie isn't as 'domestic' as Jack's suggesting, particularly since large buildings like that do not seem to represent the norm in British Neolithic vernacular architecture. I've got half a dozen neolithic 'houses' lurking in my backlogue, and they're all pathetic little huts or, in a couple of cases, suggested as being more tent-like structures

[P Prentice]

For an indication of how ephemeral Neo structures can be see that site in Bridlington that was published recently, not in office so can't remember title/author of monograph (A place by the Sea, or sonething like that). Site I'm on at the moment has a strip of preserved Neo ground surface across it (joys of upstanding earthworks) and its really quite a revelation as to how much lower the rest of the site to either side is, and this is on a level gravel terrace! Where did all the landscape go in the last 5000 years? (hopefully supported shortly by a suite of OSL and C14 dates, before PP spots another nit-picking opportunity) - so I'm with Jack, mostly. A suspiciously high percentage of Neo 'houses' have been recorded under later earthwork monuments. Sites like Balbridie have benefitted from particularly deeply-dug structural features...but I've been wondering what happens when you strip away the shallower parts (the external wall-trench) - you end up with something looking in plan almost exactly like the mysterious series of parallel short linear cropmarks forming the north-east end of the Thornborough postpit-alignment, so maybe Balbridie isn't as 'domestic' as Jack's suggesting, particularly since large buildings like that do not seem to represent the norm in British Neolithic vernacular architecture. I've got half a dozen neolithic 'houses' lurking in my backlogue, and they're all pathetic little huts or, in a couple of cases, suggested as being more tent-like structures

i find myself agreeing with you again actually - the phenomenon of ground levels reducing outside neo/eba monuments has been mentioned around since the 60s - i even wrote a bit about back in the 90s but absence of evidence etc etc. and the observable phenomena of survival under earthworks might well have something mnore to do with the locale than it is evidence for the destruction of them elsewhere - dont ya think?
also agree about the trees on the other thread though banana shaped gullies are usually genuine features with a particular function

[Jack]

............. and the observable phenomena of survival under earthworks might well have something mnore to do with the locale than it is evidence for the destruction of them elsewhere - dont ya think?

Could be either or both. But I hate it when 'some' jump to the conclusion that a building under a ritual monument must be ritual. because that 'place' was 'special' to the people. We are dealing with compressed time........the two phases don't necessarily have anything to do with one another. People did build settlements on previously ritual sites and vice versa.

also agree about the trees on the other thread though banana shaped gullies are usually genuine features with a particular function

I've heard rumours of these 'special' banana-shaped features. Never seen the evidence though. Every banana-shaped feature I've seen has been a root hole/ tree throw. The trick is (yet again) the formation processes of the feature and its fill. Tree throws are usually recognisable by having one good edge and one not so. Where are these banana features published?

The argument of is a structure a house is down to the minutia of evidence. And we were probably arguing cross-purposes of settlement or not. A temporary settlement is still as settlement.

I believe folks are digging up more neo houses (ahem I mean structures) at Balderbride....wasn't there an article in some archaeology magazine?

Lismore fields was a longhouse somewhere in Yorkshire I think that had oodles of charred grain and pottery. Don't know if its been published?

But the main point is....it was almost certainly different in different regions (or even smaller areas). There are some neo houses. There are some neo temporary camps. What i disagree with is when people try to interpret the enitre..say neolithic period for the UK base on a couple of sites.

Interpretation should take into account the unknown, the destroyed and the yet to be discovered.

Like Jazz, its the notes that aren't being played that are important.


But...............to get back to the causewayed camps...........the debate is similarily divided (as far as I remember) but has probably moved on since I studied them. Hopefully some sites that were down as causewayed enclosures back then aren't anymore.

[Dinosaur]

Seem to recall seeing somewhere the suggestion that the scruffy outer ditches on the Thornborough Henges are actually circular causewayed enclosures with the henges built inside them?

[P Prentice]

@ Jack - it is easy to assume that rectangular structures are domestic because for the last 17/1800 years we have been living in rectangular houses. ENeo people may not have lived in rectangular houses (even if some on the continent did) but they may have

[Dinosaur]

banana gullies are widely published and are easily recognised as bona fide features often containing the same kind of material culture as one often finds in the terminal ends of penannular gullies - quite different to the crescent shaped features left by trees - although the jury is still out as to their actual use and meaning

Hate to say I'm with Jack on the banana gullies - they tend to have a gently-sloping side and a really messy vertical side, which upon further investigation invariably turns into the rest of the tree-hole - people tend to give up digging them too soon since the bit in the middle of the tree-hole does, to be fair, usually look like clean natural unless you have the benefit of seriously stripey natural. You're right about the finds though, you often get a nice sample of what would have been lying about on the ground-surface at the time but has since been lost elsewhere due to weathering/ploughing etc.

You're not one of those people who actually believe the structured deposit b***ocks in relation to ring-gully terminals are you? - whereas a more rational explanation is that that's the handiest place to dump the trash when its p***ing with rain and it's your turn to take it out and you've made the mistake of living in a house with no windows (best circumstantial evidence for roundhouses being windowless by the way). If they were making some sort of gift to the gods one would think they could come up with something better than a few bits of smashed crockery and dog-chewed bones, and distinguish the 'structured deposit' from the rest of the floor.... Same applies to ditch terminals - a dump of stuff in the end is a good indicator that the ditch had a fairly substantial above-ground barrier on one side which they had to go past before they could get shot of that unwanted fridge/Iron Age equivalent - notice how modern fly-tipping usually happens just inside fields, not halfway along the hedge....whatever the palaeoanthropologists or whatever say, I'm pretty certain basic human nature hasn't changed all that much over the millenia, people have always in general been pretty lazy unless there's someone with a pointy stick or a taxman to encourage them to be otherwise....:face-stir:

[P Prentice]

Hate to say I'm with Jack on the banana gullies - they tend to have a gently-sloping side and a really messy vertical side, which upon further investigation invariably turns into the rest of the tree-hole - people tend to give up digging them too soon since the bit in the middle of the tree-hole does, to be fair, usually look like clean natural unless you have the benefit of seriously stripey natural. You're right about the finds though, you often get a nice sample of what would have been lying about on the ground-surface at the time but has since been lost elsewhere due to weathering/ploughing etc.

You're not one of those people who actually believe the structured deposit b***ocks in relation to ring-gully terminals are you? - whereas a more rational explanation is that that's the handiest place to dump the trash when its p***ing with rain and it's your turn to take it out and you've made the mistake of living in a house with no windows (best circumstantial evidence for roundhouses being windowless by the way). If they were making some sort of gift to the gods one would think they could come up with something better than a few bits of smashed crockery and dog-chewed bones, and distinguish the 'structured deposit' from the rest of the floor.... Same applies to ditch terminals - a dump of stuff in the end is a good indicator that the ditch had a fairly substantial above-ground barrier on one side which they had to go past before they could get shot of that unwanted fridge/Iron Age equivalent - notice how modern fly-tipping usually happens just inside fields, not halfway along the hedge....whatever the palaeoanthropologists or whatever say, I'm pretty certain basic human nature hasn't changed all that much over the millenia, people have always in general been pretty lazy unless there's someone with a pointy stick or a taxman to encourage them to be otherwise....:face-stir:

nah - i'm talking about parallel sided curving gullies with easily recognisable edges and bases - they are as easy to recognise as the penannular variety.
and yep i do believe in structured deposits, particularly in the terminal ends of a wide range of features. i have personally dug over 30 1st millennium BC roundhouses and getting on for 20 enclosures on at least 10 sites - and i mean open area excavations not keyholes - and i have found everything from complete querns to cremated animals, i have also worked on a massive midden site - seeing is believing

[Jack]

....................

causewayed enclosures are - simply enclosures with causeways. they could have had different meanings to even the adjacent communities to those that used them

Yep I'd agree with you there

any argument, even using the minutia of excavated evidence, concerning the function of any of these features must also adress the fact that our proccupations were not necessarily the same as thos in the past - ie finding cereal grains, pottery, food bones and even quern stones in a rectangular structure does not make it a house in any sense that we have today.

Yep I agree totally especially if those interpreting are talking about the 'meaning'. But from an understanding of the (yet again) formation processes of the deposit and what is in the deposit (if your lucky enough to get stuff) you can usually eliminate several possible functions of your feature leaving a few or maybe just one as being most likely.

With respect to whether a structure was lived in or not this is often possible. With respect to whether the house was permanently lived in or just visited occasionally very difficult unless you have the appropriate evidence.

As to what the structure 'meant' to those using it..............you'd need a time machine!

banana gullies are widely published and are easily recognised as bona fide features often containing the same kind of material culture as one often finds in the terminal ends of penannular gullies - quite different to the crescent shaped features left by trees - although the jury is still out as to their actual use and meaning

Any examples? A reference to a site report would be handy. I'm really interested in these so-called Banana features as I've never seen one.
See lots of tree-throws though. And part-truncated ring-gullies come to think about it.

[Dinosaur]

nah - i'm talking about parallel sided curving gullies with easily recognisable edges and bases - they are as easy to recognise as the penannular variety.
and yep i do believe in structured deposits, particularly in the terminal ends of a wide range of features. i have personally dug over 30 1st millennium BC roundhouses and getting on for 20 enclosures on at least 10 sites - and i mean open area excavations not keyholes - and i have found everything from complete querns to cremated animals, i have also worked on a massive midden site - seeing is believing

Ah, you suffer from the same glut of LBA/IA sites around there then! Some years it seems you can't do a job without more roundhouses turning up. Sounds like you must have dug nearly as many as Jack (who seems to have an absolute talent for finding the d**n things). Afraid you're not the only person to have found querns, been a bit surprised when you got the cremated bone report back and played in rubbish dumps either. Sadly these also all occur commonly in other places than ditch/gully terminals, so maybe those ones ain't so 'special' after all?...and when did middens become relevent to this discussion?

And yes, I'm (again) with Jack, bibliography please, if there's a whole missing class of specialist banana feature around here it'd be good to know, can start questioning why they don't seem to be turning up in some areas, could be a PhD in it for someone

[P Prentice]

...and when did middens become relevent to this discussion?

when people started living on them - negating the need to throw their 'rubbish' anywhere else, though i will contest that there is any evidence for rubbish in prehistoric britain

banana gullies - i seem to remember a few at thorpe hewles