Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-fwgfc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-11T20:49:19.293Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Social Histories and Regional Perspectives in the Neolithic of Lowland England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 February 2014

Jan Harding
Jan Harding
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, University of Reading, PO Box 218, Whiteknights, Reading RG6 2AA
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Recent studies have illustrated a series of marked regional differences in the distribution and design of Neolithic monuments throughout lowland England. They fail, however, to provide an interpretative framework for the discussion of these contrasts. This paper proposes that such regional variability can only be understood with a scale of analysis which outlines the fundamental distinctions between political communities in different parts of lowland England. It is argued that factors such as population size and density can be clearly related to the variability from area to area in the number and structural complexity of causewayed enclosures. It is also possible to link these demographic factors to a long-term process of social change whereby the small autonomous groups of the earlier Neolithic were transformed into larger political units. The cursus and henge monuments were an important component of this process, and regional variability in the distribution and design of these sites can be taken to demonstrate that the extent of this transformation differed throughout lowland England. It is evident that there were important contrasts between those regions which had previously been distinguished by the variability in the layout of causewayed enclosures. The stylised morphology of the cursus and henge monuments appears to have deliberately accentuated such contrasts. These sites therefore provide clear evidence for the existence of long-term regional traditions across lowland England.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society , Volume 61 , 1995 , pp. 117 - 136
Copyright
Copyright © The Prehistoric Society 1995

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ashbee, P. 1984. The Earthen Long Barrow in Britain. Norwich: Geo Books, 2nd edn.Google Scholar
Atkinson, R. J. C., Piggott, C. M., & Sandars, N. K. 1951. Excavations at Dorchester, Oxon. Oxford: Ashmolean Museum.Google Scholar
Avery, M. 1982. The Neolithic causewayed enclosure, Abingdon. In Case, H. J. & Whitttle, A. W. R. (eds) 1982, 10–50.Google Scholar
Bailey, C. J. 1984. Fieldwork in the upper valley of the south Winterbourne. Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History & Archaeological Society 106, 134–7.Google Scholar
Barrett, J. C. 1994. Fragments from Antiquity. An Archaeology of Social Life in Britain, 2900–1200 BC. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Barrett, J. C., Bradley, R. J. & Green, M. 1991. Landscape, Monuments and Society. The Prehistory of Cranborne Chase. Cambridge: University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bedwin, O. 1992. Prehistoric earthworks on Halnaker Hill, West Sussex: excavations 1981–1983. Sussex Archaeolo gical Collections 130, 1–12.Google Scholar
Benson, T. & Miles, D. 1974. The Upper Thames Valley: An Archaeological Survey of the River Gravels. Oxford: Oxford Archaeological Unit Survey 2.Google Scholar
Boast, R. & Evans, C. 1986. The transformation of space: two examples from British prehistory. Cambridge Archaeological Review 5, 193–205.Google Scholar
Bonte, P. 1977. Non-stratified social formations among pastoral nomads. In Friedman, J. & Rowlands, M. J. (eds), The Evolution of Social Systems, 173–200. London: Duckworth.Google Scholar
Bradley, R. J. 1982. Position and possession: assemblage variation in the British Neolithic. Oxford Journal of Archaeology 1, 27–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bradley, R. J. 1984a. The Social Foundations of Prehistoric Britain. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Bradley, R. J. 1984b. Studying monuments. In Bradley, R. J. & Gardiner, J. (eds), Neolithic Studies: a Review of Some Current Research, 61–6. Oxford: British Archaeological Report 133.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bradley, R. J. 1984c. Regional systems in Neolithic Britain. In Bradley, R. J. & Gardiner, J. (eds), Neolithic Studies: a Review of Some Current Research, 5–14. Oxford: British Archaeological Report 133.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bradley, R. J. 1986a. A reinterpretation of the Abingdon causewayed enclosure. Oxoniensia 51, 183–7.Google Scholar
Bradley, R. J. 1986b. Radiocarbon and the cursus problem. In Gowlett, J. & Hedges, R. (eds), Archaeological Results from Accelerator Dating, 139–41. Oxford: University Press.Google Scholar
Bradley, R. J. 1987. Flint technology and the character of Neolithic settlement. In Brown, A. & Edmonds, M. R. (eds), Lithic Analysis and Later British Prehistory, 181–6. Oxford: British Archaeological Report 162.Google Scholar
Bradley, R. J. 1990. The Passage of Arms. An Archaeological Analysis of Prehistoric Hoards and Votive Deposits. Cambridge: University Press.Google Scholar
Bradley, R. J. 1992. The excavation of an oval barrow beside the Abingdon causewayed enclosure, Oxfordshire. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 58, 127–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bradley, R. J. & Holgate, R. 1984. The Neolithic sequence in the upper Thames Valley. In Bradley, R. J. & Gardiner, J. (eds), Neolithic Studies: a Review of Some Current Research, 107–35. Oxford: British Archaeological Report 133.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bradley, R. J. & Chambers, R. A. 1988. A new study of the cursus complex at Dorchester-on-Thames. Oxford Journal of Archaeology 7, 271–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bradley, R. J. & Edmonds, M. 1993. Interpreting the Axe Trade. Production and Exchange in Neolithic Britain. Cambridge: University Press.Google Scholar
Bradley, R. J., Cleal, R. M., Green, M., Gardiner, J. & Bowden, M. 1984. The Neolithic sequence in Cranborne Chase. In Bradley, R. J. & Gardiner, J. (eds), Neolithic Studies: a Review of Some Current Research, 87–105. Oxford: British Archaeological Report.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Braithwaite, M. 1984. Ritual and prestige in the prehistory of Wessex c. 2000–1400 BC: a new dimension to the archaeological evidence. In Miller, D. & Tilley, C. (eds), Ideology, Power and Prehistory, 93–110. Cambridge: University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burl, H. A. W. 1969. Henges: internal structures and regional groups. Archaeological Journal 126, 1–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Case, H. J. 1963. Notes on the finds and on ring-ditches [at Stanton Harcourt] in the Oxford Region. Oxoniensia 28, 19–52.Google Scholar
Case, H. J. & Whittle, A. W. R. (eds), 1982. Settlement patterns in the Oxford region: excavations at the Abingdon Causewayed Enclosure and other Sites. London: Council for British Archaeology Research Report 44.Google Scholar
Chagnon, N. A. 1979. Is reproductive success equal in egalitarian societies? In Chagnon, N. A & Irons, W. (eds), Evolutionary Biology and Human Social Behaviour: an Anthropological Perspective, 374–401. North Sciutate: Duxbury Press.Google Scholar
Curwen, E. C. 1934. Excavations in Whitehawk Neolithic Camp, Brighton, 1932–3. Antiquaries Journal 14, 99–133.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dixon, P. 1988. The Neolithic Settlements on Crickley Hill. In Burgess, C., Topping, P., Mordant, C. & Maddison, M. (eds), Enclosures and Defences in the Neolithic of Western Europe 75–87. Oxford: British Archaeological Report S403.Google Scholar
Drewett, P. 1977. The excavation of a Neolithic causewayed enclosure on Offham Hill, East Sussex, 1976. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 43, 201–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dyer, J. F. 1964. A secondary Neolithic camp at Waulud's Bank, Leagrave. Bedfordshire Archaeological Journal 2, 1–15.Google Scholar
Dyer, J. F. 1972. Waulud's Bank. Current Archaeology 30, 173–7.Google Scholar
Earle, T. K. 1991. Property rights and the evolution of chiefdoms. In Earle, T. K. (ed.), Chiefdoms: Power, Economy and Ideology, 71–99. Cambridge: University Press.Google Scholar
Edmonds, M. R. 1987. Rocks and risk: problems with lithic resource procurement strategies. In Brown, A. & Edmonds, M. R. (eds), Lithic Analysis and Later British Prehistory, 187–99. Oxford: British Archaeological Report 162.Google Scholar
Edmonds, M. R. 1993. Interpreting causewayed enclosures in the past and the present. In Tilley, C. (ed.), Interpretive Archaeology, 99–142. Oxford: Berg.Google Scholar
Edwards, D. 1978. The air photographs collection of the Norfolk Archaeological Unit, third report. East Anglian Archaeology 8, 87–105. Gressenhall: Norfolk Archaeological Unit.Google Scholar
Evans, C. 1988a. Excavations at Haddenham, Cambridgeshire: a ‘planned’ enclosure and its regional affinities. In Burgess, C., Topping, P., Mordant, C. & Maddison, M. (eds), Enclosures and Defences in the Neolithic of Western Europe, 127–48. Oxford: British Archaeological Report S403.Google Scholar
Evans, C. 1988b. Monuments and analogy: the interpretation of causewayed enclosures. In Burgess, C., Topping, P., Mordant, C. & Maddison, M. (eds), Enclosures and Defences in the Neolithic of Western Europe, 47–73. Oxford: British Archaeological Report S403.Google Scholar
Evans, C. 1988c. Acts of enclosure: a consideration of concentrically-organised causewayed enclosures. In Barrett, J. C. & Kinnes, I. A. (eds), The Archaeology of Context in the Neolithic and Bronze Age: Recent Trends, 85–96. Sheffield: Department of Archaeology and Prehistory.Google Scholar
Evans, C. & Hodder, I. 1985. The Haddenham Project. Fenland Research 2, 18–23.Google Scholar
Evans, J. G. 1984. Stonehenge — the environment in the late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age and a Beaker-Age burial. Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine 78, 7–30.Google Scholar
Fleming, A. 1973. Tombs for the living. Man 8, 177–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
French, C. A. I. & Pryor, F. 1992. Floodplain gravels: buried Neolithic and Bronze Age landscapes along the fen margins. In Fulford, M. & Nichols, E. (eds), Developing Landscapes of Lowland Britain. The Archaeology of the British Gravels: a Review, 63–77. London: Society of Antiquaries Occasional Paper 14.Google Scholar
Friedman, J. 1975. Tribes, states, and transformations. In Bloch, M. (ed.), Marxist Analyses and Social Anthropology, 161–202. London: Malaby Press.Google Scholar
Friedman, J. & Rowlands, M. J. 1977. Notes towards an epigenetic model of the evolution of ‘civilisation’. In Friedman, J. & Rowlands, M. J. (eds), The Evolution of Social Systems, 201–76. London: Duckworth.Google Scholar
Gardiner, J. 1984. Lithic distributions and Neolithic settlement patterns in central southern England. In Bradley, R. & Gardiner, J. (eds), Neolithic Studies: a Review of Some Current Research, 15–40. Oxford: British Archaeological Report 133.Google Scholar
Gibson, A.M. & Loveday, R. 1989. Excavations at the cursus monument at Aston Upon Trent, Derbyshire. In Gibson, A. M. (ed.), Midlands Prehistory. Some Recent and Current Researches into the Prehistory of Central England, 27–50. Oxford: British Archaeological Report 204.Google Scholar
Grimes, W. F. 1960. Excavations on Defence Sites 1939–1945, Vol. 1: Mainly Neolithic–Bronze Age. London: HMSO.Google Scholar
Hamlin, A. 1963. Excavation of ring-ditches and other sites at Stanton Harcourt. Oxoniensia 28, 1–19.Google Scholar
Harding, A. F. & Lee, G. E. 1987. Henge Monuments and Related Sites of Great Britain. Air Photographic Evidence and Catalogue. Oxford: British Archaeological Report 175.Google Scholar
Hedges, J. D. & Buckley, D. G. 1978. Excavations at a Neolithic Causewayed Enclosure, Orsett, Essex, 1975. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 44, 219–308.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hedges, J. D. & Buckley, D. G. 1981. Springfield Cursus and the Cursus Problem. Chelmsford: Essex County Council Occasional Paper 1.Google Scholar
Hodder, I. 1988. Material culture texts and social change: a theoretical discussion and some archaeological examples. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 54, 67–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hodder, I. 1990. The Domestication of Europe. Structure and Contingency in Neolithic Societies. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Holgate, R. 1988. Neolithic Settlement of the Thames Basin. Oxford: British Archaeological Report 194.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ingold, T. 1980. Hunters, Pastoralists and Ranchers. Cambridge: University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kinnes, I. A. 1978. Neolithic pottery. In Hedges, J. & Buckley, D., 1978, 219–308.Google Scholar
Kinnes, I. A. 1988. The cattleship Potemkin: the first Neolithic in Britain. In Barrett, J. C. & Kinnes, I. A. (eds), The Archaeology of Context in the Neolithic and Bronze Age: Recent Trends, 2–8. Sheffield: Department of Archaeology and Prehistory.Google Scholar
Kinnes, I. A. 1992. Non-Megalithic Long Barrows and Allied Structures in the British Neolithic. London: British Museum Occasional Paper 52.Google Scholar
Legge, A. J. 1981. Aspects of cattle husbandry. In Mercer, R. J. (ed.), Farming Practice in British Prehistory, 169–81. Edinburgh: University Press.Google Scholar
Loveday, R. E. 1985. Cursuses and Related Monuments of the British Neolithic. Unpublished Ph.D Thesis, University of Leicester.Google Scholar
Loveday, R. E. 1989. The Barford ritual complex: further excavations (1972) and regional perspective. In Gibson, A. (ed.), Midlands Prehistory. Some Recent and Current Researches into the Prehistory of Central England, 51–84. Oxford: British Archaeological Report 204.Google Scholar
Manby, T. G. 1988. The Neolithic period in Eastern Yorkshire. In Manby, T. G. (ed.), Archaeology in Eastern Yorkshire, 35–75. Sheffield: Department of Archaeology and Prehistory.Google Scholar
McAvoy, F. 1991. Godmanchester, Cambridgeshire. English Heritage Conservation Bulletin 14, 16–18.Google Scholar
Mercer, R. J. 1980. Hambledon Hill. A Neolithic Landscape. Edinburgh: University Press.Google Scholar
Mercer, R. J. 1988. Hambledon Hill, Dorset, England. In Burgess, C., Topping, P., Mordant, C. & Maddison, M. (eds), Enclosures and Defences in the Neolithic of Western Europe, 89–106. Oxford: British Archaeological Report S403.Google Scholar
Newcomb, R. M. 1967. Monuments three millennia old. The persistence of place. Landscape 17, 24–6.Google Scholar
Palmer, R. 1975–1976. Causewayed enclosure at Crofton (Great Bedwyn). Wiltshire Archaeological Magazine 70/71, 124–5.Google Scholar
Palmer, R. 1976. Interrupted ditch enclosures in Britain: the use of aerial photography for comparative studies. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 42, 161–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pierpoint, S. 1980. Social Patterns in Yorkshire Prehistory. Oxford: British Archaeological Report 74.Google Scholar
Piggott, S. 1954. Neolithic Cultures of the British Isles. Cambridge: Univeristy Press.Google Scholar
Pryor, F. M. M. 1984. Personalities of Britain: two examples of long-term regional contrast. Scottish Archaeological Review 3, 8–15.Google Scholar
Pryor, F. M. M. 1988. Earlier Neolithic organised landscapes and ceremonial in lowland Britain. In Barrett, J. C. & Kinnes, I. A. (eds), The Archaeology of Context in the Neolithic and Bronze Age: Recent Trends, 63–72. Sheffield: Department of Archaeology and Prehistory.Google Scholar
Pryor, F., French, C., Crowther, D., Gurney, D., Simpson, G. & Taylor, M. 1985a. The Fenland Project, No. 1: Archaeology and Environment in the Lower Welland Valley. Cambridge: East Anglian Archaeology 27.Google Scholar
Pryor, F., French, C., Taylor, M. 1985b. An interim report on excavations at Etton, Maxey, Cambridgeshire, 1982–1984. Antiquaries Journal 65, 275–311.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Renfrew, C. 1977. Space, time and polity. In Friedman, J. & Rowlands, M. J. (eds), The Evolution of Social Systems, 89–112. London: Duckworth.Google Scholar
Richards, C. C. & Thomas, J. S. 1984. Ritual activity and structured deposition in later Neolithic Wessex. In Bradley, R. J. & Gardiner, J. (eds), Neolithic Studies: a Review of Some Current Research, 189–218. Oxford: Britis Archaeological Report 133.Google Scholar
Richards, J. 1990. The Stonehenge Environs Project. London: English Heritage Archaeological Report 16.Google Scholar
Root, D. 1983. Information exchange and the spatial configurations of egalitarian societies. In Moore, J. A. & Keene, A. S. (eds), Archaeological Hammers and Theories. New York: Academic Press, 193–219.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sharples, N. 1987. Maiden Castle Project 1985: an interim report. Proceedings of the Dorset Natural and Archaeological Society 107, 111–19.Google Scholar
Sharpies, N. 1991. Maiden Castle. Excavations and Field Survey 1985–6. London: English Heritage Archaeological Report 19.Google Scholar
Simpson, W. G. 1985. Excavations at Maxey, Bardyke Field, 1962–63. In Pryor, F. et al. 1985a, 245–64.Google Scholar
Smith, A. G., Grigson, C., Hillman, G. & Tooley, M. J. 1981. The Neolithic. In Simmons, I. G. & Toole, M. J. (eds), The Environment in British Prehistory, 125–209. London: Duckworth.Google Scholar
Smith, I. F. 1965. Windmill Hill and Avebury — Excavations by Alexander Keiller 1925–39. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Smith, I. F. 1971. Causewayed enclosures. In Simpson, D. D. A. (ed.), Economy and Settlement in Neolithic and Early Bronze Age Britain and Europe, 89–112. Leicester: University Press.Google Scholar
St Joseph, J. K. 1964. Air reconnaissance: recent results, 2. Antiquity 38, 291–2.Google Scholar
Startin, W. & Bradley, R. J. 1981. Some notes on work organisation and society in prehistoric Wessex. In Ruggles, C. & Whittle, A. W. R. (eds), Astronomy and Society during the Period 4000–1500 BC, 289–96. Oxford: British Archaeological Report 88.Google Scholar
Steponaitis, V. 1991. Contrasting patterns of Mississippian development. In Earle, T. K. (ed.), Chiefdoms: Power, Economy and Ideology, 193–228. Cambridge: University Press.Google Scholar
Thomas, J. S. 1984. A tale of two polities: kinship, authority and exchange in the Neolithic of south Dorset and north Wiltshire. In Bradley, R. J. & Gardiner, J. (eds), Neolithic Studies: a Review of Some Current Research, 161–76. Oxford: British Archaeological Report 133.Google Scholar
Thomas, J. S. 1991. Rethinking the Neolithic. Cambridge: University Press.Google Scholar
Thomas, N. 1955. The Thornborough Circles, near Ripon, North Riding. Yorkshire Archaeological Journal 38, 425–45.Google Scholar
Thomas, N. 1964. The Neolithic causewayed camp at Robin Hood's Ball, Shrewton. Wiltshire Archaeological Magazine 59, 1–27.Google Scholar
Thorpe, I. J. & Richards, C. 1984. The decline of ritual authority and the introduction of Beakers into Britain. In Bradley, R. J. & Gardiner, J. (eds), Neolithic Studies: a Review of Some Current Research, 67–84. Oxford: British Archaeological Report 133.Google Scholar
Wainwright, G. J. 1972. The excavation of a Neolithic settlement on Broome Heath, Ditchingham, Norfolk, England. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 38, 1–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wainwright, G. J. 1989. The Henge Monuments. London: Thames & Hudson.Google Scholar
Wainwright, G. J. & Longworth, I. H. 1971. Durrington Walls: Excavations 1966–1968. London: Report of the Research Committee of the Society of Antiquaries of London 29.Google Scholar
Whimster, R. 1992. Aerial photography and the British gravels: an agenda for the 1990s. In Fulford, M. & Nichols, E. (eds), Developing Landscapes of Lowland Britain. The Archaeology of the British Gravels: A Review, 1–14. London: Society of Antiquaries Occasional Paper 14.Google Scholar
Whittle, A. W. R. 1977. The Earlier Neolithic of Southern England and its Continental Background. Oxford: British Archaeological Report S35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whittle, A. W. R. 1988. Contexts, activities, events — aspects of Neolithic and Copper Age enclosures in central and western Europe. In Burgess, C., Topping, P., Mordant, C. & Maddision, M. (eds), Enclosures and Defences in the Neolithic of Western Europe, 1–19. Oxford: British Archaeological Report 403.Google Scholar
Whittle, A. W. R. 1990. A pre-enclosure burial at Windmill Hill, Wiltshire. Oxford Journal of Archaeology 9, 25–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whittle, A. W. R. 1993. The Neolithic of the Avebury area: sequence, environment, settlment and monuments. Oxford Journal of Archaeology 12, 29–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whittle, A. W. R., Atkinson, R. J. C., Chambers, R. & Thomas, N. 1992. Excavations in the Neolithic and Bronze Age complex at Dorchester-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, 1947–1952 and 1981. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 58, 143–201.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilson, D. R. 1975. ‘Causewayed Camps’ and ‘interrupted ditch systems’. Antiquity 49, 178–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar