Causewayed enclosures

[P Prentice]

... you're not the only person to have found querns ...

on a number of my sites all the querns were found in the terminal ends, nowhere else just in the terminal ends

[Dinosaur]

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

Nothing obvious, flicking through the published site plans, Dave seems to have successfully subsumed any faintly banana-shaped things into proposed roundhouses in the published report (CBA Research Report 65) - there are some sausage-features though, if you want to broaden the discussion?. A lot of roundhouses in NE England tend to have only partial gullies on the upslope side or lie within a horseshoe-shaped gully (see Rock Castle not too far away where the main house starts and ends with a full penannular gully phases but goes through a 'horseshoe' phase in the middle of the sequence), and I've seen plenty with rather intermittent gullies

[Dinosaur]

on a number of my sites all the querns were found in the terminal ends, nowhere else just in the terminal ends

Hmm, querns, big heavy objects, wouldn't want to have to carry them an further than necessary....back to the analogy of fly-tipping fridges...

Hadn't any of the people around there heard of recycling? In my experience most IA/RB querns turn up re-used as post-packing, pivot stones, hearth bases, in drystone walls or slung up hedge-banks by plough-men, oh and of course all the ones still lying about in the quarries although I suppose they don't count?

[Jack]

Ta for the reference. Yep I got some possible partial ring-gullies at Pig Hill too, but these were caused by medieval plough furrows and uneven truncation due to the slope of the site. I'd agree with Dino on the ring gullies not needing to be rings.

People don't always do things the same way. One persons drip gully may not look the same as anothers. Depends on the local conditions. And you have to account for peoples quirks (maddness). Wasn't the first phase of the main (biggest) roundhouse at Thorpe Thewles actually octagonal?

For the discussion on things in terminals see....

Heslop, D. H. (2008) Patterns of Quern Production, Acquisition and Deposition: A Corpus of Beehive Querns from Northern Yorkshire and Southern Durham Yorkshire Archaeological Society occasional paper no 5

But also......

Woodward, A. and Huges, G. (2007) ‘Deposits and doorways: patterns within the Iron Age settlement at Crick Covert Farm, Northamptonshire’ in Haselgrove, C. and Pope, R. (eds.), The Earlier Iron Age in Britain and the near Continent Oxbow


But in summary Heslop's data does include a large number of querns in terminals of stuff and intentionally burnt and broken querns. But equally lots that weren't and re-used or deposited elsewhere. He then goes off on several flights of fancy ignoring that the evidence doesn't point towards a single overriding 'ritual' of deposition.


Woodward and Huges is an assessment based on data for just a few sites, but gives a better picture of what may have been happening on those sites, as in a mixture of deposition processes or traditions.


'on a number of my sites all the querns were found in the terminal ends, nowhere else just in the terminal ends'

Hope you weren't only looking for querns in the terminals, they do definitely turn up elsewhere but the fragments are often chucked away as being stones (especially by students or inexperience diggers):face-stir:



As to their being no 'rubbish' in prehistoric Britain what about Skarra Brae? I suppose the inhabitants were 'ritually' chucking their rubbish out of the windows? :face-stir:


And I'm guessing shell middens are now ritual monuments?

[P Prentice]

ta for the heslop ref - new to me. woodward and hughes is a useful addition to the corpus and it echoes much of what i have done. my banana gullies are not truncated or disturbed, they were dug like that because that is what the digger's wanted. the points i made about the similarities with penannualr gullies relate to the deposiitonal process in both. and i'm not suggesting that querns are only ever placed in the terminals anymore than i am suggesting there is a single overiding ritual of deposition - i am saying

banana gullies seem to be dug alongside the doorways of some roundhouses

some so-called drip gullies probably weren't - because they are too close to the walls

digging gullies around some houses may have been more to do with providing a suitable place for materials invested with meaning - same as banana gullies

some so-called drip gullies were dug after the building went out of use

some final enclosure ditches were dug after the enclosure went out of use

dinosaur is a a dinasaur

[P Prentice]

and skara brae houses were imbued with midden - not covered in rubbish

and i dont believe in ritual monuments

[Dinosaur]

What's "a a dinasaur"?

And what's the difference between midden material and rubbish, apart from being heaped-up or slung in a ditch?

- bet your midden wasn't as fun as the Anglian one in a big enclosure ditch at Thwing, never seen so much shiny in one place, stycas, decorated bone....drool.... }

[Jack]

ta for the heslop ref - new to me. woodward and hughes is a useful addition to the corpus and it echoes much of what i have done. my banana gullies are not truncated or disturbed......

Oh dear. I would be very careful in saying such a statement. Sounds like its made by someone who doesn't understand taphonomy.

I've never had, heard of or read of archaeological remains that were not truncated or disturbed in any way.:face-stir:

Did you then have the entire preserved depth of ancient soil that the features were cut into? And to be totally undisturbed is impossible, with all those pesky worms, moles, roots and burrowing snails. Not to mention 'disturbance' caused to the feature before it was buried.

}
Am interested in the gullies being too close to the 'wall' to act as drip gullies. Did you have upstanding remains? How do you know where the 'eaves' ended or pitch of the roof?

Also am very interested how you can tell that the gully was dug after the building went out of use. In my experience many roundhouses were rebuilt several times in the same location (where the evidence of this survives).

Your description of banana gullies here seems to be different from what I imagined.... 'alongside the doorways' do you mean not following the line of the building wall?

[P Prentice]

@ dinosaur & jack aka pedentry f****n corner

you throw rubbish away but you keep a midden

[Sparky]

Oh dear. I would be very careful in saying such a statement. Sounds like its made by someone who doesn't understand taphonomy.

Perhaps you should learn the meaning of 'taphonomy'.