Backsight (see Foresights and Backsights)
Barrow
Generally speaking the word ‘barrow’ is used in archaeology to describe a burial mound. Barrows come in a number of different forms and were used across a long period of time.
Figure 1: The various types of round barrow to be found in the British Isles
Bell Barrow
A disc barrow is a type of round barrow and is distinguished by being a tumulus (see Tumulus) within a ditch, though in this case the mound is separated from the ditch by a berm (see Berm). The bell barrow is merely a variant form of round barrow and gained its name because when seen in profile in looks like a bell (see Round Barrows).
Disc Barrow
Disc barrows represent the most recent forms of bell barrow. They differ from the bell barrow because the berm (see Berm) is much wider than is the case with a bell barrow, an obviously intended strategy that made the barrow look more distinctive. For this reason the disc barrow is sometimes referred to as a ‘fancy barrow’ (see Round Barrows).
Examples of bell barrows:
Winterbourne Stoke, near Amesbury, Wiltshire, England
| LATITUDE: 51° 10’ 25.99” N | LONGITUDE: 1° 51’ 24.98” W |
This is part of a series of barrows. In addition to the bell barrow there are also disc barrows to be seen.
Amesbury Down Triple Bell Barrow, Wiltshire, England
| LATITUDE: 51° 10’ 12.93” N | LONGITUDE: 1° 50’ 2.62” W |
Amesbury stands within a very significant area for prehistoric monuments and there are three bell barrows at this site.
Aldbourne Four Barrows, Wiltshire, England
| LATITUDE: 51° 29’ 36.82” N | LONGITUDE: 1° 38’ 28.65” W |
This is part of a barrow cemetery and the barrows stand out particularly well in the autumn.
Examples of disc barrows:
Oakley Down Barrow Cemetery, Sixpenny Handley, Dorset, England
| LATITUDE: 50° 57’ 16.35” N | LONGITUDE: 1° 58’ 27.73” W |
I am as much taken by the name of the village at Sixpenny Handley as by the barrows, which are also impressive.
Flowerdown Disc Barrow, Littleton, Winchester, Hampshire, England
| LATITUDE: 51° 5’ 5.66” N | LONGITUDE: 1° 20’ 40.59” W |
A large and well preserved example, with other barrows close by.
Setley Plain, Brockenhurst, Hampshire, England
| LATITUDE: 50° 47’ 53.53” N | LONGITUDE: 1° 34’ 47.8” W |
These are the only disc barrows to be seen in the New Forest area of England and are well worth a visit.
Long Barrows
Long barrows were created during the New Stone Age and are therefore often referred to as ‘Neolithic’. Some long barrows were made entirely from earth (earthen long barrows), whilst others were much more complex and were lined with large stones.
The burial practices of our Neolithic ancestors remain something of a puzzle. Although long barrows have sometimes been found to contain bones from a large number of different individuals (occasionally dozens), not all the bones from any given person are present. What is more, it is certain that the bones ultimately placed in long barrows were de-fleshed first, either deliberately (by human intervention) or by leaving them exposed for the flesh to decompose naturally.
Some long barrows have recessed entries and it is thought (with good evidence) that these structures remained, possibly for long periods of time, as centres of religious rites in which the bones of dead ancestors played an important but little understood part.
Figure 2: Entrance to a long barrow
A really interesting fact about the Neolithic period in Britain is that we have little understanding of how the majority of people were buried. We find no cemeteries from the period and individual (whole) burials are rare. Bearing in mind that only certain bones found their way into long barrows, it could be that the Neolithic people performed a sort of ‘sky burial’, similar to techniques used in Tibet, in which the bodies of the deceased were placed in the open to decompose naturally; though this has to be conjecture.
Many long barrows have been destroyed by subsequent building and farming but they are very common and so there are still many to be seen, across England especially, some of which remain extremely impressive.
In structure, long barrows are rectangular or sometimes trapezoid earth mounds, and some have a long ancestry. Patient archaeological investigation across decades has shown that many long barrows began as relatively small enclosures containing earth mounds, on top of which was a timber structure (a palisade). It was within this fence that the burial chamber was created. Examples differed but some long barrows were quite grand, with ceremonial entrances or short avenues marked by sturdy posts.
Burial practices within the barrows differed from place to place. In some cases all the burials were put in the chamber at once. In other examples the store of bones was added to across a long period of time.
It may be that the bones chosen for placement in the long barrows were from individuals who enjoyed a high status within their society but if this is the case, the relative lack of grave goods is something of a puzzle.
Some time after this initial phase, large stone cairns were built over the original structures (see Cairn) and then the whole structure was covered with earth. A typical undisturbed long barrow might contain the skulls and long bones of many men, women and children, though no complete skeletons.
There are certainly in excess of 300 long barrows to be found in the British Isles, and there would have been many more that did not survive the ravages of time. The greatest concentration of long barrows is in the south and east of England, since different burial techniques predominated further north and in Ireland.
Examples of long barrows:
Street House, near Loftus in North Yorkshire, England
| LATITUDE: 54° 33’ 57.71” N | LONGITUDE: 0° 51’ 41.59” W |
Set amongst the ironstone mining areas of North Yorkshire, Street House is quite close to the sea and near to the charming Saltburn-by-the-Sea.
West Kennet Long Barrow, Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire, England
(See Impressive Sites section)
| LATITUDE: 51° 24’ 30.78” N | LONGITUDE: 1° 51’ 4” W |
Probably the best-known long barrow in England, and part of a ritual landscape that covers a huge area in southern England.
Belas Knap Long Barrow, near Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England
(See Impressive Sites section)
| LATITUDE: 51° 24’ 30.78” N | LONGITUDE: 1° 51’ 4” W |
The remains of 31 different individuals were found within Belas Knap Long Barrow, demonstrating that long barrows formed community graves.
Uley Long Barrow, Dursley, Gloucestershire, England
| LATITUDE: 51° 41’ 52.2” N | LONGITUDE: 2° 18’ 19.2” W |
Uley Long Barrow was found to contain at least one Roman burial, proving that such sites were revered for a very long period.
Lambourn Seven Barrows, Lambourn, Berkshire, England
(See Impressive Sites section)
| LATITUDE: 51° 32’ 33.41” N | LONGITUDE: 1° 31’ 37.12” W |
Stand by for a shock. There are not 7 barrows at this site but actually 26, though you may not be able to spot them all.
Julliberrie’s Grave, Chilham, Kent, England
| LATITUDE: 51° 14’ 22.38” N | LONGITUDE: 0° 58’ 33.22” E |
This is a lovely site but badly damaged in the distant past by the excavation of chalk, which may have destroyed the burials.
Pond Barrows
A pond barrow differs slightly from a round barrow in both structure and possibly in purpose. Pond barrows are hard to recognize since they were not necessarily huge or impressive to begin with. They consist of a mound surrounded by a depression and then a banked rim. Very few burials or grave goods have ever been found beneath pond barrows and it has been suggested that they may not have been intended for burials at all. Perhaps they were sites of ceremonial gatherings – social, ritual or religious – or they may even have marked wells or entrances into the ‘underworld’. Pond barrows remain something of a mystery. Pond barrows are most likely to be found in the English counties of Dorset and Wiltshire. (See Round Barrows.)
Round Barrows
Although they are also burial mounds, round barrows differ significantly from the long barrow. Usually they are rather later in date, generally being attributed to the Bronze Age (though there are earlier, Neolithic examples too). As their name implies round barrows are circular in shape and they are one of the most common of prehistoric structures to be found across the British Isles.
The means of constructing round barrows varied markedly across the British landscape. Some were simple conical piles of earth, which contained at their centre either a full burial or the cremated remains of an individual. Other round barrows were made from alternate layers of earth and stones. Some also contained timber and even basket-work or wattle-and-daub components.
Examples of pond barrows:
Culliford Tree, Came Wood, Dorset, England
| LATITUDE: 50° 40’ 0.75” N | LONGITUDE: 2° 25’ 33.45” W |
There are lots of trees on this site that obscure the barrows somewhat, but their presence may have preserved the barrows from ploughing.
Kingley Vale Barrow Cemetery, near Chichester, West Sussex, England
| LATITUDE: 50° 53’ 31.48” N | LONGITUDE: 0° 50’ 7.44” W |
These barrows are not too easy to find and are certainly not well signposted, however, for the determined they are a must.
Clearly our ancient ancestors (and perhaps our not so ancient ancestors too) held a reverence for round barrows. Quite frequently archaeologists have discovered new burials or cremations cut into the sides or the top of round barrows. Some of these were put in place many centuries after the barrow in question was first created.
There are many sub-classifications of round barrows. These include bell barrows, bowl barrows, disc barrows and saucer barrows. In most cases the difference is academic and due to regional preferences or the different forces of ageing that have affected the barrows during the intervening period.
Round barrows contained either a complete burial, in other words the entire skeleton of an individual, or else the cremated bones of a particular person. It is thought that round barrows were first created around 2500 BC and since they only contained one burial, it appears that society at the time was undergoing a significant change. The effort necessary to create such a structure for a single individual was considerable and this surely suggests a person of some rank within the community. Some experts have suggested that the rise of the use of round barrow burials indicates a greater stratification of society from the late Stone Age on, and the rise of tighter and more cohesive ‘tribes’ tied to specific locations.
Burials at the centre of round barrows may have been merely placed in a chamber dug from the earth or into chalk, or they might be contained in a stone-lined cist (coffin). Grave goods are frequently found in round barrows. These might include tools of various sorts, items of personal adornment (some made from copper, bronze or gold) and occasionally high-status items from far off, such as amber beads from the Baltic. It appears that there was little difference in status between men and women in cultures that flourished across Britain at the time, since significant barrows were quite frequently raised for female burials.
Many, if not most round barrows, have a ditch around them, probably a natural consequence of removing the earth necessary to raise the barrow, and on those occasions when round barrows have disappeared due to subsequent ploughing over thousands of years, the only distinguishable feature on the landscape may be the ‘ghost’ of this ditch, which can be seen as ‘parch marks’ on aerial photographs.
Figure 3: A typical round barrow
Although round barrows are the most common of prehistoric monuments and can be found distributed all over the landscape, there is a greater number in the area around Wessex and in Yorkshire. Whether this is because there was more prosperity in these areas is not known, but seems likely. Round barrows are also often found grouped together (barrow cemeteries), which could be another indication that families of a high status chose to bury and glorify their members in the same area.
Many round barrows across the British Isles remain in good condition, though where they are obvious they have often been dug out during the last few centuries. It is thought that the earliest round barrows were created by a culture that has become known as the ‘beaker people’ (see Beaker People), who gained the name due to the distinctive shape of the pottery goods they produced. However, round barrows of one sort or another are found across many parts of Europe and they cannot be attributed to a single culture.
The importance of round barrows and their contents cannot be underestimated. To find grave goods of stone, pottery or metal, alongside datable human remains is a godsend to archaeologists and the contents of round barrows have therefore heavily influenced our knowledge of the people who built them, as well as giving us a more complete chronological timeline for periods such as the start of the Bronze Age in Britain. Since many of the grave goods were self-evidently imported from far away, we can also gain a better understanding of the level of long-distance trading that was taking place at the time the barrows were created.
Examples of round barrows:
How Tallon, Barningham near Richmond, County Durham, England
| LATITUDE: 54° 27’ 55.09” N | LONGITUDE: 1° 55’ 5.6” W |
There is also a stone circle at How Tallon, though the round barrow is obviously from a considerably later period.
Hinderwell Beacon, Loftus, Redcar and Cleveland, England
| LATITUDE: 54° 32’ 59.56” N | LONGITUDE: 0° 46’ 20.35” W |
This part of Redcar and Cleveland contains a great many round barrows.
Duggleby Howe, Kirby Grindalythe, North Yorkshire, England
| LATITUDE: 54° 5’ 21.4” N | LONGITUDE: 0° 39’ 10.53” W |
This is one of the largest round barrows in Britain and is unusual in that it dates not from the Bronze Age but from the Neolithic era.
Lilla Howe Round Barrow, Grosmont, North Yorkshire, England
| LATITUDE: 54° 22’ 32.16” N | LONGITUDE: 0° 37’ 51.95” W |
This site is marked by the Lilla Cross, which defined the edge of a boundary of land once belonging to the beautiful Whitby Abbey.
Martin’s Down Round Barrows, Littlebredy, near Dorchester, Dorset, England
| LATITUDE: 50° 42’ 59.24” N | LONGITUDE: 2° 36’ 12.56” W |
The barrows at Martin’s Down are close to the A35 and so quite easy to find.
Bind Barrow, Burton Bradstock, near Bridport, Dorset, England
| LATITUDE: 50° 41’ 48.95” N | LONGITUDE: 2° 42’ 59.49” W |
The mound was damaged by military activity during the Second World War but is still worth a look. There is a good café garden close by at Hive Beach.
Rainbarrows Round Barrow, Dorset, England
| LATITUDE: 50° 43’ 35.05” N | LONGITUDE: 2° 22’ 36.86” W |
You will find Rainbarrows at the edge of the enchantingly named Puddletown Forest and on the equally intriguing Duddle Heath.
There is some suggestion that the popularity of creating round barrows for single high-status burials somewhat ‘took over’ from the communal structures, such as the monumental stone circles, and it is possible that significant changes were taking place within society at this time. Personal wealth appears to have become more of an issue, as opposed to the effort that had been expounded by the whole of society on single, grandiose structures, such as the earlier henges and regional ‘giant schemes’ such as Stonehenge, Avebury and Silbury Hill.
Berm
Berm is an architectural term and is used in archaeology to describe the area of flat land between a ditch and a mound in the case of a barrow. The berm is present in bell barrows and disc barrows.
Broch
Brochs are only found in Scotland but even if you live in the south of the British Isles, it’s worth the effort to go and visit some of these fascinating structures. Brochs, though certainly not as old as some of the prehistoric sites mentioned in this book, do deserve to be here because we now know that most of them were built just before, during, or just after the Roman invasion of Britain. Where dating for brochs does exist they seem to have been created in the period round about 100 BC.
Brochs are the most impressive of the type of ‘roundhouse’ that is peculiar to Scotland. Some brochs are large and still in relatively good condition. They have a dry stone construction and in their ruined state might easily be mistaken for the stumps of old stone windmills.
The word ‘broch’ derives from a Scottish word ‘brough’, which has many meanings but in this context is generally taken to mean ‘fort’, though whether this was originally the purpose of brochs remains a matter of hotly debated contention. Brochs are commonly located in the far northeast of Scotland, on Orkney and Shetland, though there are also some examples to be found to the west and on the larger Western Isles. Brochs may have been simply a local peculiarity that spoke legions about the ‘power’ of local landowners and chieftains, though it does seem likely, mainly as a result of the position of many brochs, that they did serve some defensive purpose.
Examples of brochs:
South Yarrows Broch, Wick, Caithness, Scotland
| LATITUDE: 58° 22’ 25.41” N | LONGITUDE: 3° 10’ 59.59” W |
The ground around the broch is quite rough and probably not ideally suited to anyone infirm or not well shod. The broch itself is fascinating.
Mousa Broch, Shetland, Scotland
(See Impressive Sites section)
| LATITUDE: 59° 59’ 45.37” N | LONGITUDE: 1° 10’ 50.46” W |
Undoubtedly the best preserved of all the brochs but it is in a very isolated position on Mousa Island and is something of an adventure to get to.
Clickimin Broch, Lerwick, Shetlands, Scotland
| LATITUDE: 60° 8’ 57.83” N | LONGITUDE: 1° 9’ 51.33” W |
The scenery around Clickimin Broch will take your breath away and the site is one of the ‘must see’ locations for broch pilgrims in particular.
Midhowe Broch, Orkney, Scotland
| LATITUDE: 59° 9’ 31.08” N | LONGITUDE: 3° 6’ 0.09” W |
One of the best brochs in Orkney and like all the prehistoric sites on this magical island it is set amidst stunning scenery.
Figure 4: A typical broch
Bronze Age
Apart from copper, bronze was the first metal tamed by humanity and its introduction revolutionized many aspects of human life. For thousands of years people had used tools and weapons made from various forms of stone, bone and wood but nothing the Stone Age people of the world possessed came close to the usefulness and toughness of cast bronze.
Bronze is an alloy of copper and tin. It was first utilized in the Near East as early as 3300 to 3000 BC but it did not arrive in Britain until after around 2000 BC, which was quite late since the technology took that long to gravitate so far west. Britain was luckier than many regions of Europe or Asia in that significant deposits of tin were available in the southwest (Cornwall). Copper is more common but tin may have represented a significant opportunity to trade in southwest Britain and certainly found its way to the Continent. Its existence (together with gold in Wales) has been postulated as one of the reasons for the Roman invasion of Britain.
Burial Chamber
The term ‘burial chamber’ is often used to describe a range of different sorts of structures thought to have been originally designed to house the dead, though in a specific sense it relates to a particular type of tomb, mainly those created during the Megalithic period (see Megalithic Period). Such tombs are to be found across Britain. They are often, but not always, defined by having been created around a number of large flat stones, arranged in the form of a stone placed on top of two uprights, thus creating a shelter within which the burial can take place.
This initial structure was then covered by an earth or stone bank. Sometimes a long tunnel was created in order to connect the inner chamber with the outside world. It has been suggested that this passage (see Passage Grave) was meant to represent the birth canal (of the Earth), whilst the chamber itself symbolized the womb. Since it was common in ancient times for people to be buried in the foetal position it is entirely possible that prehistoric peoples equated death with birth – perhaps as a rebirth into a different sort of existence.
In many cases across the British landscape the contents of a burial chamber have long since disappeared, as has the earth bank that once covered it. This leaves the three or more large stones at the centre open to the elements. Under these circumstances the structure is known as a ‘dolmen’ (see Dolmen). There are so many different sorts of tombs left to us from prehistory that I have dealt with them under their own specific headings. (See Chambered Cairns, Chambered Long Barrows, Corbelled Tombs and Gallery Graves.)
Burial Mound
Burial mound is a term that refers to almost any sort of mound of earth, stones, timber and earth, wattle and earth etc. structure that was built over a site where burials had taken place. In general the terms ‘barrow’ for much of Britain and ‘cairn’ for Scotland are more appropriate. (See Barrow and Cairn)
Burnt Mound (Fulacht fiadh in Irish)
In many parts of the British Isles, piles of stones have been found, sometimes quite large ones, that have clearly been subjected to significant heat. This has caused them to fracture in a way that is consistent with being placed in cold water, with a resultant sudden shock. The mounds are often crescent-shaped and are associated with a trough, which must once have contained water and a hearth where the stones were first heated. It is interesting, though perhaps inevitable, that burnt mounds and the troughs that go with them are almost always found near water courses.
Various suggestions have been put forward to explain what the burnt mounds and troughs were used for. One of the most likely (at least at first sight) is that they represent places where meat, hunted locally, was cooked during hunting expeditions. This would be fine were it not for the fact that there is a total absence of bones in any of the sites, even those where the nature of the soil should have allowed for such organic material to have survived. It seems unlikely, if not impossible, that no trace of anyone’s meal has been located at the burnt mounds and so experts have cast around for a more likely explanation. The most plausible seems to be ‘sweat lodges’.
Although there is no historical evidence for the existence of sweat lodges in Britain this is not surprising, since the earliest of the burnt mounds date back to the Stone Age (though they vary greatly in date). It was noted by Europeans who first took the trouble to learn something of the lives of the indigenous peoples of North America that the men of some tribes often got together to create a sort of sauna. This may have been for simple relaxation but it is known that in many cases the American sweat lodges had a ceremonial and a religious purpose.
It is quite conceivable that our own ancient ancestors also happened upon a way of relaxing and of getting warm in a chilly climate and the mechanisms in place around burnt mounds, especially the presence of the trough and the hearth, offer evidence that this was indeed the case.
Many burnt mounds are now indistinct or practically impossible to see and I have avoided giving examples of locations because this, at best, is the worst sort of ‘grassy lump’ that could come at the end of a significant walk. If you do come upon a burnt mound it is worth imagining our ancient forebears relaxing after a hard day’s hunting or, later in history, once the farming chores were out of the way. We can imagine that some primitive form of shelter or hut was used to collect the resulting steam. Such a structure would have disappeared soon after the practice ceased. It is thought that some burnt mounds were used across a considerable period of time.
Very few burnt mounds can be readily seen on the landscape and in cases where they have been excavated anything significant found has often been taken to local, regional or national museums. However, there are hundreds of examples, so they are certainly significant and can usually be located on highscale, local Ordnance Survey maps.
Cairn
Cairn is a peculiarly Scottish word and refers to a pile of stones, deliberately and artificially placed on the landscape for any one of many different reasons. Cairns are often found at the top of hills, marking a particular water course on moorland or upland paths. Cairns have been built for countless centuries and there is no doubt that some of them have their origins back in the mists of prehistory, though they are still being created today.
It has, for example, been a habit of walkers in Scotland, and now across all of the British Isles, to pick up a small stone from the bottom of a hill or mountain and to place it on the cairn that is often to be found at the hill’s summit. Long-lived cairns are marked on Ordnance Survey maps and herein lies part of the reason for their existence.
In prehistoric times the British Isles were sparsely populated and comprised a range of different sorts of countryside, much of which was boggy, tree-covered or exposed to the elements. Even in these remote times people had to get about, to trade, to hunt, or simply to visit other communities. Paths will not have been well marked but to stray from them could have meant danger or death, especially in the winter months. The existence of cairns represented a visual aid to travellers that they were on a well-used track and maintenance of such signposts was everyone’s responsibility. For those who enjoy donning stout boots and trekking across the vast uplands that still exist in many places, cairns remain a good visible sign that ‘someone has gone this way before’ and that they are probably on a known and used track. In this sense, the cairn is just as important today as it ever was.
Keep your eyes open. There are far too many cairns in the British Isles to list in this or any book but you will see them almost everywhere. They are a friendly reminder that you are not alone and some of them have been made and remade since the Stone Age. This is living history on the landscape.
Cairn Tombs
In parts of Scotland, and especially around Inverness, there exists a type of burial similar to the barrow burials found further south in Britain. What sets these Scottish examples apart is that rather than being covered by earth, they were carefully covered with both large and small stones. The effect is the same but the medium is different and cairn tombs often stand out more on the landscape than barrows do.
Places to see cairn tombs:
Balnuaran of Clava (three tombs), Inverness, Scotland
| LATITUDE: 57° 28’ 22.29” | N LONGITUDE: 4° 4’ 22.48” W |
A remarkable site when you first come upon it, the three tombs on this site were first used around 2000 BC and then again in 1000 BC.
Knowe of Yarso, Rousay, Orkney, Scotland
| LATITUDE: 59° 8’ 2.33” N | LONGITUDE: 3° 2’ 23.32” W |
The bones of 29 adults were found within this cairn tomb and the site is now fully protected by a modern structure.
Figure 5: A typical ring cairn
The Scottish examples, especially the ones around Inverness, are often called ‘Clava Cairns’, though in fact this name refers to three specific cairn burials at Balnuaran of Clava, Inverness.
There are two different types of cairn tombs in Scotland. One variety is a corbelled passage grave (See Corbelled Tomb and Passage Grave) with a single chamber and a short entrance passage. The passage usually faces southwest (towards midwinter sunset). The other type of cairn tomb had no apparent entrance and no specifically created roof to the chamber. It is, essentially a ring of stones.
Cairn tombs are invariably surrounded by a series of standing stones, and a kerb of stones often also surrounds the cairn.
Capstone
The word ‘capstone’ in relation to prehistoric monuments usually refers to the topmost stone of a dolmen (see Dolmen). Some of these are massive in scale but are only generally on view today because the mound that once covered the dolmen has been removed or has weathered away.
Carvings
Our prehistoric ancestors in Britain were certainly not reluctant to leave their mark on the landscape in ways other than creating monuments of one sort or another. As far as we are aware no culture in Britain before the coming of the Romans in the 1st century AD had what could be considered ‘a written language’ but they may well have had signs and signals that meant ‘something’ to others of their tribe or society.
Carvings in stone are to be found in many places across Britain and Ireland. The most famous and numerous of these are the cup and ring markings that appear almost everywhere, but these are far from being alone. Such carvings are generally known these days as ‘rock art’.
Some of the finest rock art to be seen in the British Isles is to be found in the Boyne Valley in Ireland. There it is associated with a number of passage tombs. Large stones that once surrounded the mounds were carved into a series of abstract shapes, though it has been suggested by numerous researchers that the shapes found at Knowth, Newgrange and other sites were not abstract at all. We find spirals, lozenges, radiating lines, swirls and circles, all of which may have meant something quite significant to those who created them. It has even been suggested that there was an astronomical or cosmological meaning to these now long-forgotten forms of communication and that at least some of them may have made reference to the astronomical sightings that were possible in and from such sites.
Figure 6: A carved stone
Figure 7: Rock carvings
Spirals are also common throughout the British Isles, and there are far more exotic stone carvings, such as the swastikas that were found on Ilkley Moor. Some modern experts suggest that this extraordinary stone (the one on the site is a replica and the original is in the museum in Ilkley) is medieval in date, but other people remain convinced it is prehistoric. As far as the spirals are concerned, the eminent researcher and tireless measurer of standing stones and stone circles, Alexander Thom (see Thom, Alexander), has shown just how carefully these were sometimes created and carved. They may relate to the movement of the Sun throughout the year.
Places to see good rock carvings:
Swastika Stone, Ilkley Moor, West Yorkshire, England
| LATITUDE: 53° 55’ 4.29”N | LONGITUDE: 1° 51’ 19.23” W |
This site is particularly close to my heart since it is close to where I was born. Ilkley Moor is beautiful, ancient and fascinating but a steep climb.
Hare Law Crags (Gled Law), Berwick upon Tweed, England
| LATITUDE: 55° 34’ 8.17” N | LONGITUDE: 1° 59’ 2.91” W |
This site is on private land so exercise a little caution and be considerate. The carvings are evocative and quite breathtaking.
Old Bewick Rock Carvings, near Alnwick, Northumberland, England
| LATITUDE: 55° 29’ 16.8” N | LONGITUDE: 1° 52’ 35.58” W |
This is a fairly tough adventure and certainly not for the faint-hearted. If you are fit, and you can find the rock art, you will be well rewarded.
Roughting Linn, Berwick upon Tweed, England
| LATITUDE: 55° 37’ 25.5” N | LONGITUDE: 2° 1’ 31.48” W |
This site can be found on a sandstone outcrop and, although a private site, is accessible on a footpath. There were probably more carvings originally.
Townhead, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland
| LATITUDE: 54° 48’ 5.79” N | LONGITUDE: 4° 1’ 38.24” W |
All I can say about this site is ‘wow’! Be prepared to spend a considerable time poking about and you might even find something new.
Achnabreck, Argyll, Scotland
| LATITUDE: 56° 3’ 39.32” N | LONGITUDE: 5° 26’ 39.14” W |
The Kilmartin area is a veritable wonderland of prehistoric structures and signs. There are many cup and ring markings to be seen.
It is easy to understand how such rock carvings were made once bronze and then iron were introduced to the prehistoric tool box, but in earlier times even the most rudimentary carvings must have represented a long and laborious effort. Rather than being a simple ‘we were here’ they undoubtedly had great meaning for those who toiled away, hour after hour, in order to create them, but with no context these carvings, many of which probably still remain to be discovered, are enigmatic.
Causewayed Enclosures
Causewayed enclosures were once known as causewayed camps but since it has now been demonstrated that these structures were not necessarily domestic in nature, the new term has begun to predominate.
Causewayed enclosures are not a uniquely British structure. They are found in even greater numbers in France and have also been recognized in other European countries. The typical causewayed enclosure is defined by ditches and banks, interspersed with ways in and out of the structure, which is where the word ‘causewayed’ comes from. They may be roughly circular but are not always so and there can be from one to four sets of ditches and banks defining a causewayed enclosure.
Most of these structures date to the Neolithic period and it has been suggested that they relate to a time when totally settled farming communities had not fully developed. They could have been meeting places for diverse and widespread communities, or places where ritual or religious ceremonies took place. What is generally accepted these days is that nobody lived in the causewayed enclosures on a permanent basis. In reality causewayed enclosures may have served a number of purposes – for example they are frequently the site of burials, either contemporary with the structure or later. The archaeologist Aubrey Burl has suggested that causewayed enclosures fell out of fashion around 3000 BC, at which time, in Britain at least, they were superseded by other structures, such as henges.
Some of the examples of causewayed enclosures to be found in the British Isles are still very impressive. They usually occur in lowland areas and are not thought to have been used for defensive purposes.
Places to see causewayed enclosures:
Robin Hood’s Ball, near Amesbury, Wiltshire, England
| LATITUDE: 51° 12’ 45.18” N | LONGITUDE: 1° 51’ 9.09” W |
Caution is necessary since this site is on a live firing range used by the British Army. Although you can get close to the site, watch for the red flags flying and stay on the path.
Coombe Hill, Jevington, East Sussex, England
| LATITUDE: 50° 47’ 50.49” | N LONGITUDE: 0° 14’ 1.5” E |
This site remained sacred for a very long period of time. It is Neolithic in origin but was used in Bronze Age times and also by the Romans.
Windmill Hill, Avebury, Wiltshire, England
| LATITUDE: 51° 26’ 27.55” N | LONGITUDE: 1° 52’ 29.32” W |
This is the largest causewayed enclosure in Britain and covers 92,957 square yards (85,000 square metres). It is set amidst the most active prehistoric landscape imaginable.
Hambledon Hill, near Blandford Forum, Dorset, England
(See Impressive Sites section)
| LATITUDE: 50° 54’ 40.21” N | LONGITUDE: 2° 13’ 13.78” W |
This is a very early site, first established even before most of the tree cover in the surrounding area had been removed. Indications of warfare have been unearthed here.
Hembury, Honiton, Devon, England
| LATITUDE: 50° 49’ 12.15” N | LONGITUDE: 3° 15’ 33.68” W |
On this site was found some of the earliest Neolithic pottery ever to be unearthed in the British Isles. The site was used much later by the Romans.
Caves
It is self-evident that our earliest ancestors took refuge in naturally created caves. Even to a culture refined enough to create substantial dwellings it is obviously preferable to utilize a form of shelter that nature has created free of charge. However, extensive evidence shows that caves have meant much more to human beings than just a place to keep dry and warm during inclement weather.
Britain does not have the wealth of rock paintings inside caves that are to be found elsewhere in the world, and especially in France, though there are some examples to be seen, such as a painting of a woolly mammoth recently found in a cave in the Cheddar Gorge in Somerset, which is estimated to be at least 30,000 years old. Others, this time of a horse and a lion, were found in a cave at Cresswell Crags, Sheffield. Paintings of birds and also an animal much like an ibex have also been recognized at Cresswell.
Despite the relative lack of rock paintings in Britain, archaeologists love to dig into the floors of caves because what they find there gives a great snapshot of humanity in Britain right back to 50,000 years ago, a time when Neanderthals were resident in Britain. Though what they find in such excavations cannot be considered prehistoric monuments, and so therefore don’t rightfully belong in this book, it would be remiss of me not to mention them at all.
Layer upon layer, the debris and detritus that come to light during cave excavations show a timeline of life in the British Isles; nor does this record finish with the end of hunting and gathering in our islands. Many caves have been used up until recent times, either as places of habitation, storage or as workshops.
Some caves are completely man-made (see Mines and Quarries) and are the sites of countless hours of human labour to extract minerals or metal ores. Since it is inevitable that people will leave evidence wherever they happen to be, the man-made caves are also a favoured resort of archaeologists, who are constantly trying to fill in the many sketchy details concerning the lives of our ancient ancestors.
Of course, apart from being historically significant, caves are also great fun to explore, though many of them are also very dangerous and it is advisable for all but the expert to stick to caves that are known to be safe and secure and which are not prone to rapid flooding.
Places to see prehistoric caves:
Kents Cavern, Wellswood, Torquay, England
| LATITUDE: 50° 27’ 59.01” N | LONGITUDE: 3° 30’ 7.89” W |
The cavern is well signposted and quite fascinating – if you like caves.
Cresswell Crags, Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England
| LATITUDE: 53° 15’ 45.38” N | LONGITUDE: 1° 11’ 36.05” W |
This is a limestone crag positively honeycombed with caves, many of which were of significant interest to our really ancient ancestors.
Cheddar Gorge, Somerset, England
| LATITUDE: 51° 17’ 5.4” N | LONGITUDE: 2° 45’ 25.87” W |
Undoubtedly the most famous of the English caves. The site is now quite commercial and of special fascination to younger people.
Cemeteries
As opposed to individual burials, be they in chambers or barrows, we take the word cemetery to indicate a place set aside specifically for the interment of the dead en masse. Archaeologists love cemeteries, not only because of the reliable dating evidence that comes from human or in fact any bones, but for a whole series of reasons that are becoming more and more relevant.
Large samples of skeletons offer much evidence concerning rate and age of mortality at a particular period and in some cases they can also indicate how individuals died, such as, for example, cemeteries that came about as a result of battles or wars. In some cases it has been possible to extract DNA from even very ancient skeletons – a technique that is becoming more and more refined as time passes. This in turn helps to establish patterns of possible migration or it can show, as in the case of Cheddar Man and his still-living relative, that some human families stay in the same place for incredible periods of time.
Mass burials in cemeteries are also useful when the individual graves contain ‘grave goods’ in terms of pottery, tools or adornments.
Unfortunately, in the British Isles, there are no cemeteries until the arrival of the Bronze Age. Before this time burials were communal (see Long Barrows), and despite the fact that significant numbers of bones have been found in long barrows, full, articulated skeletons are never found in such settings.
Even the advent of round barrows (see Round Barrows) with their individual burials, offer a limited amount of useful evidence in the way that a large cemetery would. True, round barrows often exist in clusters, leading to the supposition that the people buried in them may be from the same ‘dynastic’ family but many of the round barrows were robbed during the last three or four hundred years, often without any scientific record being kept. Round barrows are also just as likely to contain cremated burials as inhumations, which again offer limited evidence compared to the sort that comes from whole, articulated skeletons.
Around the 12th century BC ‘something’ happened in the British Isles that started to change the nature of society in our islands. This is a period during which a great deal of disruption was taking place further afield and especially in the Mediterranean region. The British Isles may have been subjected to invasions by peoples from outside the islands or mass migration could have taken place. At any rate, we find that burial practices began to change around this time. Cremation became the norm and cemeteries began to appear.
With the advent of the Iron Age our ancestors once again became generally unhelpful to modern archaeology and its need for evidence. It appears that in most places the bodies of the dead were ‘exposed’ to the elements, as had taken place earlier in our history. Generally speaking only individual bones are found from this period, often buried in a post hole or under the former walls of buildings. There are some exceptions to this rule. In Yorkshire for example, around 400 BC, locals established long cemeteries in which individuals were buried side by side, and in the far southwest of Britain some burials took place in stone-lined graves.
All in all it might be suggested that the burial practices of the prehistoric peoples of the British Isles were such that although individual burials are found, some of which are of very high status, the possibility for amassing useful evidence of the sort that comes from Roman and later cemeteries is limited.
Chalk Figures (See Hill Figures)
Chambered Cairns
A chambered cairn is a particular form of burial site. It consists of a usually fairly large central chamber, often but not always made of stones, around which further stones are piled, forming the ‘cairn’ (see Cairn). Chambered cairns come from the Neolithic period (after 4000 BC) and are particularly numerous in Scotland.
Places to see chambered cairns:
Arthur’s Stone Chambered Cairn, near Hay-on-Wye, Herefordshire, England
(See Impressive Sites section)
| LATITUDE: 52° 4’ 53.66” N | LONGITUDE: 2° 59’ 43.28” W |
This is one of hundreds of sites named for the famed King Arthur but it clearly had nothing to do with him. There isn’t too much to see but it’s interesting all the same.
Unstan Chambered Cairn, near Howe, Orkney Mainland, Scotland
| LATITUDE: 58° 59’ 11.89” N | LONGITUDE: 3° 14’ 51.63” W |
This is a great tomb to explore and a great deal of pottery was found at the site which has now given its name to a ‘type’ of pottery.
Maeshowe Chambered Cairn, Orkney Mainland, Scotland
(See Impressive Sites section)
| LATITUDE: 58° 59’ 46.28” N | LONGITUDE: 3° 11’ 13.55” W |
Superlatives fail when trying to describe Maeshowe. It is simply breathtaking and the absolute pinnacle of prehistoric knowledge and engineering.
Midhowe Chambered Cairn, Rousay, Orkney, Scotland
| LATITUDE: 59° 9’ 27.9” N | LONGITUDE: 3° 5’ 53.69” W |
This is a very impressive tomb and it wins out for all history buffs because it is also very close to one of Orkney’s important brochs.
Some chambered cairns were fairly elaborate structures being also passage graves (see Passage Grave). There are definite regional differences between the way chambered cairns were created. Many were not simply random piles of stones but were arranged methodically and with great care. The cairn itself may or may not be covered with earth, though if it is the finished structure takes on the look of a round barrow when seen from a distance. Some of the chambered cairns, especially the ones in parts of northern Scotland and Orkney are extremely impressive, well preserved and well worth a visit.
Chambered Tomb
There are a number of different sorts of chambered tomb that can still be seen across the length and breadth of the British Isles. All consist of a central chamber, or sometimes more than one, in which individual burials or more commonly mass burials of disarticulated bones took place. The chambered cairn mentioned above is an example of a chambered tomb but so are dolmens (see Dolmen), chambered long barrows (see Long Barrow), corbelled tombs (see Corbelled Tomb) and chambered tumulus (see Tumulus).
Chambered tombs may or may not have a passage leading to the chamber but many do. In such cases it has been suggested that the passage together with the tomb represents a birth canal and a womb. This suggestion has to be conjecture because we know pitifully little about either the religious beliefs or the ultimate burial practices of people who lived so long ago and who have left nothing in terms of written evidence. Chambered tombs come from a wealth of different periods, according to their type. All are fascinating and well worth the effort necessary to seek them out and explore them.
Cist
Cist is the name given to a generally small, often stone-lined box in which burials, cremations and sometimes funereal goods were placed by our prehistoric ancestors. Cists are sometimes found at the centre of monuments such as a long barrow (see Long Barrow) and they were occasionally found cut into existing barrows or mounds and are therefore of a later date. The presence of grave goods in cists means they have always been of great interest to treasure seekers and to the early antiquarians of the 18th and 19th century. As a result, many were robbed, though without the meticulous care taken when such enlightening discoveries are made by modern archaeologists. The word ‘cist’ is originally Greek and is generally pronounced ‘kist’.
Corbelled Tomb
Many prehistoric tombs were constructed by placing large stones upright, with one or more capstones on top, thus providing a chamber in which bones could be placed. The whole was then usually covered with earth, which may or may not have survived. However, there are examples of tombs in the British Isles in which the method of construction is much more sophisticated. In these examples, which are known as corbelled tombs, layers of carefully selected stones were used to cover the chamber. Each layer of stones overhangs the layer underneath until eventually the layers come together to form a conical roof over the chamber. There are some particularly good examples of corbelled tombs in both Ireland and Scotland, which represent some of the most magnificent structures left to us from our prehistoric past.
Places to see corbelled tombs:
Newgrange, Boyne Valley, near Drogheda, Ireland
(See Impressive Sites section)
| LATITUDE: 53° 41’ 40.69” N | LONGITUDE: 6° 28’ 31.67” W |
This may be the most famous tomb of its type in the British Isles, if not the world. It has been sympathetically reconstructed and is breathtaking.
Maeshowe Chambered Cairn, Orkney, Scotland
(See Impressive Sites section)
| LATITUDE: 58° 59’ 46.28” N | LONGITUDE: 3° 11’ 13.55” W |
Many people visiting Maeshowe find it difficult, if not impossible, to accept that this tremendous feat of engineering could possibly be so old.
The technique of creating tombs was not a ‘development’ of the dolmen because some examples of corbelled tombs are extremely ancient. Newgrange in Ireland, one of the best examples of a corbelled tomb to be seen anywhere in the world, is an estimated 5,200 years old. Probably the finest example in Scotland, Maeshowe, is of a similar age.
A great deal of ‘know-how’ went into the construction of these magnificent structures. Many are intact and all are inclined to cause a sharp intake of breath on the part of the observer when they are seen for the first time.
Crannog
Crannogs are absolutely fascinating and represent one of the most long-lived of all prehistoric structures to be found in the British Isles. Imagine a small, artificial island, close to the shore of a lake and joined to it by a causeway or bridge. This is essentially what a crannog is. The earliest of these structures date back to around 5000 BC but many were used and recreated for many centuries.
Crannogs, which are to be found mostly in Scotland and Ireland (with only one example in Wales), seem to have been places of habitation, probably for an extended family. The merits of such a dwelling are easy to see. First of all the people who lived in the crannogs were probably predominantly fisher-folk, so they were always close to their source of food, but the crannog was also fairly defendable, since part of the causeway or bridge could be readily removed if necessary. In order to create a typical crannog, many tonnes of stones were piled onto a lake bed, just offshore. Once it had reached the surface of the lake the structure would be covered with earth and turfs and the dwelling house or houses placed on top.
Figure 8: A reconstructed crannog
Places to see crannogs:
Scottish Crannog Centre, Kenmore, Loch Tay, Perthshire, Scotland
| LATITUDE: 56° 34’ 23.56” N | LONGITUDE: 4° 4’ 43.6” W |
Crannogs are fascinating and at the Scottish Crannog Centre you can find out a great deal about them, as well as explore one.
Craggaunowen Crannog, Kilmurry, Co. Clare, Ireland
| LATITUDE: 52° 48’ 32.34” N | LONGITUDE: 8° 47’ 47.14” W |
This is a full-sized reconstruction of a crannog and is definitely worth a visit if you happen to be in the area.
The Welsh Crannog Centre, Lakeside Caravan Park, Llangorse Lake Powys, Wales
| LATITUDE: 51° 56’ 06.61” N | LONGITUDE: 3° 16’ 13.71” W 4° 4’ 43.6” W |
A great reconstructed crannog set amidst stunning scenery – and in fact the only crannog in Wales of which I am aware.
Not all crannogs were artificial. Sometimes natural small islands were utilized and these especially may have been continuously used by people for a tremendously long period of time – in some cases right up until the 17th century.
Cromlech
The word cromlech, which is Welsh in origin, is a more archaic form of description for a structure which would generally today be called a ‘dolmen’ (see Dolmen). Confusingly, the term is often used in France to describe stone circles but has never been used in this way in the British Isles.
Crop Marks (Parch Marks)
Until the advent of aircraft much of our lost archaeology remained just that – lost. But almost as soon as people began to soar above the landscape in the early part of the 20th century, they began to notice marks on the ground, especially in crops, that had never been noticed at ground level.
If, for example, a deep trench is dug in a particular field, and then is subsequently filled in again, either deliberately or through weathering, the ‘fill’ will be of a slightly different composition to the surrounding land which has not been disturbed. Its ability to drain surface water will be different and so crops growing in the area will behave in a slightly different way, either growing better or worse. Crop marks are often seen most readily in grassland, where they stand out as different-coloured patches within the landscape. The recognition of the value of crop marks or parch marks has led to a revolution in our recognition of the historical landscape and is no less useful when seeking prehistoric structures than it is for defining lost Roman settlements or medieval villages.
The picture that some crop marks betray is staggering and so easy to see that the shape of a structure is easy to determine. Others are less obvious, but all combine to give us a snapshot of the landscape as it once was. Many lost henges, enclosures, barrows and field systems have been relocated by studying crop marks and parch marks, and with the advent of Google Earth and other similar computer programs, the search for our prehistoric past is open to everyone. Together with my writing partner and friend, Christopher Knight, I have discovered henges on the landscape of North Yorkshire that are not marked on any map and which were previously lost to archaeology.
Unfortunately I cannot point the reader to any place they can go to see crop marks because of course they are invisible at ground level, but you can get a good idea of what you should be looking for on Google Earth by visiting the Google Earth Community Bulletin Board and going to ‘Find the Archaeology’.
Cup and Ring Markings
Cup and ring markings represent part of the prehistoric graffiti that is to be found all over the landscape of the British Isles. You will never have to travel far to see cup and ring markings and they represent a fascinating, sometimes even spine-chilling, connection with people who lived at a very remote time, though inhabiting the same areas where we live today.
Cup and ring markings are petroglyphs, literally marks carved into rock – either rock built into structures or still present in its natural form in the landscape. The ‘cup’, which is the most common, is, as the name suggests, a circular indentation carved into sometimes extremely hard rock. Amongst the tools used to create cup markings Stone Age peoples may have used flint, or deer antler, though the absolute age of most cup marks is not known and some could have emerged after the introduction of bronze or even iron.
Cup marks vary in size but they are all quite distinctive and easy to recognize. Of course, because they are made in rock, they cannot be adequately dated. Sometimes, surrounding the cup is a ring, pecked out of the stone.
There are tens of thousands of cup and ring markings, spread all over the British Isles; so, do we have any firm idea about why they were made and what they mean? Unfortunately we do not. There are almost as many explanations for cup and ring markings as there are examples to be seen but no explanation is any more valid than the rest. We do know that a preponderance of such markings are to be found near cairns and burial chambers but they are also found on standing stones and stone circles as well as sometimes in totally isolated places where no other prehistoric activity is apparent.
Cup and ring markings, together with more elaborate abstract patterns that are rarer but still reasonably common, are a direct connection not only to the minds but also the creative hands of our ancient ancestors. Were they an invocation to the gods? Might they have been a simple message to say ‘I was here’, or do they serve some even more complex purpose, the realization of which will open a completely new door onto the lives and mindset of ancient peoples? It’s all part of the mystery but there is nothing more thrilling than coming across a cup and ring marking, in some sheltered spot, that is so clean it might have been made yesterday – and what is more you might be the first person to see it for hundreds or even thousands of years.
Places to see cup and ring markings:
Achnabreck, Lochgilphead, Scotland
| LATITUDE: 56° 3’ 39.32” N | LONGITUDE: 5° 26’ 39.14” W |
These markings are approached via a short forest walk and are well signposted.
Kilmartin Glen, Baluachraig, Kilmartin, Scotland
(See Impressive Sites section)
| LATITUDE: 56° 6’ 55.62” N | LONGITUDE: 5° 29’ 15.75” W |
Most of the markings here can be found on a rocky outcrop and are in surprisingly good condition considering their age and weathering.
The Badger Stone, Ilkley Moor, Ilkley, West Yorkshire, England
| LATITUDE: 53° 54’ 38.29” N | LONGITUDE: 1° 49’ 51.63” W |
The Badger Stone is quite large, though not that easy to find amongst the many rocks on Ilkley Moor. It is, however, very impressive.
Bull Stone, Otley Chevin, Otley, West Yorkshire, England
| LATITUDE: 53° 53’ 16.35” N | LONGITUDE: 1° 41’ 11.56” W |
I have marvelled at the Bull Stone ever since I was a child of about six or seven when I was first taken to see it.
Llyn Du Carved Stone, near Harlech, Gwynedd, Wales
| LATITUDE: 52° 51’ 14.4” N | LONGITUDE: 4° 00’ 3.24” W |
There seem to be a multitude of rock carvings around this area, though many are extremely weathered and may be somewhat difficult to spot.
The Muff Stone, Ardmore, Co. Donegal, Ireland
| LATITUDE: 55° 4’ 57.58” N | LONGITUDE: 7° 15’ 36.42” W |
The Muff Stone is in a field, less than a mile north-northwest of the village of Muff. It carries over 40 different cup and ring markings.
Cursus
Right back in the earliest days of archaeology, when the age of science was dawning and people began to look at our ancient landscape with genuinely wondering eyes, certain individuals began to notice earthworks on the landscape that were sometimes very extensive, but difficult to explain. Amongst these were structures that became known as ‘cursus’. A typical cursus consists of a pair of parallel ditches and banks, anything up to 109 yards (100 metres) apart, but what is so strange and fascinating about them is that they can be anything from 40–50 yards (37–46 metres) in length, right up to 10 miles (16km).
A cursus is often straight, though not exclusively so, and many are extremely old. Some cursus could be well have been made over 5,000 years ago. We know this to be the case because later structures, such as the giant henges of North Yorkshire, are ‘cut across’ a pre-existent cursus, which logic asserts was already redundant by the time the henge was created, which itself dates to 3500 BC!
No practical purpose has ever been discovered for any of the hundreds of cursus that are known to exist (new ones are coming to light all the time) and it seems somewhat unlikely that they had a practical function. However, it has been suggested that they may have represented ‘droving tracks’ for moving livestock from one place to another, though this suggestion seems less than likely for a host of reasons – for example, many are too short to be of any practical use and there is little or no attendant archaeology to show field systems of settlements.
It might be more reasonable to look for a ritual or religious reason for the advent of cursus building, which represented a vast amount of effort to a small population of early farmers across the British Isles. A cursus could have been a ritual avenue or a place of competition (after all, the name cursus is Latin and came about because those who first recognized the existence of cursus thought they were Roman athletic courses). One of the more plausible theories is that the longer cursus represented an athletic and ceremonial journey for young men from childhood to adulthood. The explanation is attractive but to my mind does little to explain the shorter cursus. A 50-yard journey to adulthood does not seem to be much of a rite of passage!
Places to see cursus:
Dorset Cursus, Blandford Forum, Dorset, England
| LATITUDE: 50° 54’ 40.92” N | LONGITUDE: 2° 2’ 38.76” W |
The Dorset Cursus is six miles long. It was originally quite wide with banks and ditches. Like all the cursus left to us it remains a great mystery.
Rudston Cursus, Rudston, East Yorkshire, England
(See Impressive Sites section)
| LATITUDE: 54° 5’ 35.57” N | LONGITUDE: 0° 19’ 20.89” W |
I have always found the Rudston Cursus difficult to spot but the location is well worth a visit on account of the huge standing stone in the churchyard.
Cleaven Dyke, Blairgowrie Road, Perth and Kinross, Scotland
| LATITUDE: 56° 32’ 50.21” N | LONGITUDE: 3° 21’ 12.19” W |
Probably dating to around 3600 BC, Cleaven Dyke was originally thought to be a defensive earthwork but is now referred to as a cursus.
Llandissilio Cursus, near Oswestry, Powys, Wales
| LATITUDE: 51° 51’ 28.37” N | LONGITUDE: 4° 43’ 24.41” W |
Wales is not abundant with cursus, and this particular one is mentioned in historical documents but not at all easy to find. However Old Oswestry is close by and also worth a visit.
Newgrange Cursus, Newgrange, Boyne Valley, Ireland
(See Impressive Sites section)
| LATITUDE: 53° 41’ 39.23” N | LONGITUDE: 6° 28’ 20.25” W |
What a wonderful place this is but it has to be said that the cursus is much less interesting than Newgrange chamber itself.
Maybe you have a better idea and the cursus represents one of those puzzles from the ancient past that is just as likely to be solved by an amateur as by a professional.
It is possible to walk along chunks of some of the known cursus across the British Isles and I list a representative selection on p.49, as well as covering one or two more specifically in the later stage of the book.
Dolmen
A dolmen is the remains of a single-chambered tomb, essentially the ‘skeleton’ of the structure. It is comprised of a number of large upright stones, usually angled inwards slightly, on top of which is one or more capstone. Most dolmens date back to the Neolithic period and they are widely distributed across the British Isles. The word ‘dolmen’ comes from the Breton language, and there are indeed many examples in Brittany. Dolmen literally means ‘stone table’ and it’s easy to see how these enigmatic structures got such a name. Doubtless those from later periods, who didn’t understand what the dolmens had once been, thought they had been the dining tables of fabled giants.
Figure 9: A typical dolmen
Places to see dolmens:
Poulnabrone, Burren, Co. Clare, Ireland
| LATITUDE: 53° 2’ 55.76” N | LONGITUDE: 9° 8’ 27.16” W |
This is a wonderful and evocative dolmen in an elevated position and visible from quite a distance. It looks ‘other-worldly’.
Pentre Ifan Dolmen, Nevern, Fishguard, Pembrokeshire, Wales
| LATITUDE: 51° 59’ 54.1” N | LONGITUDE: 4° 46’ 10.29” W |
This used to be known as ‘Arthur’s Quoit’ but he must have been some sort of a man if he managed to throw this capstone into place.
Burnt Hill Dolmen, Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, England (poor condition)
| LATITUDE: 51° 57’ 20.53” N | LONGITUDE: 1° 36’ 47.92” W |
Unfortunately this dolmen is in a very bad state of repair but I mention it here because it is in such an evocative and history-rich location.
Chûn Quoit Dolmen, Madron, Penzance, Cornwall, England
| LATITUDE: 50° 8’ 54.98” N | LONGITUDE: 5° 38’ 15.75” W |
Not many of the dolmens in the area have retained their capstone but this one has. It overlooks the sea and is a truly impressive sight.
Legananny Dolmen, Slieve Croob, Leitrim, Co. Down, Ireland
| LATITUDE: 54° 19’ 22.57” N | LONGITUDE: 6° 1’ 7.14” W |
This is great but not for the faint-hearted. The capstone of this dolmen weighs an estimated 40 tonnes. Imagine the effort that was necessary in order to lift it into place.
Poltalloch, Kilmartin, Lochgilphead, Scotland
| LATITUDE: 56° 6’ 32.96” N | LONGITUDE: 5° 31’ 9.56” W |
Kilmartin is a feast of delights to anyone who loves prehistoric sites and any interested party could easily spend a week here in order to see everything.
Once the stones had been erected, forming the chamber at the centre, an earth bank was usually raised over them, so in the finished tomb the dolmen would not be seen from the outside. Some of the tombs in question also had passages, allowing for re-entry to the structure on what may have been a regular basis, whilst others were probably sealed.
There are few archaeological artefacts associated with dolmens, since the contents of the tomb would have been dispersed many centuries ago. Nevertheless, they are impressive structures and leave a sense of wonder as to how the capstones were raised into place. Doubtless some technique was employed similar to the one that must have been used to raise the trilithons at Stonehenge. (See Stonehenge in Impressive Sites section, and Trilithon.)
Druid
A Druid is self-evidently not a prehistoric monument but I thought the term was worth a mention, if only to dispel what is still a popular myth about Druids. A Druid was a Celtic holy man. They are mentioned repeatedly by Roman writers – Julius Caesar especially. Such men undertook long and arduous training in the ways of their people, sometimes spending up to 20 years learning the lore and oral traditions of the various tribes that inhabited the British Isles and the near Continent during the Iron Age. But that’s the operative point – the Iron Age. The span of time between the creation of a cursus and the existence of the Celtic Druids was longer than the span of time between the Druids and ourselves. The structure of society must have changed immeasurably between the start of the Megalithic period and the Iron Age. Invasions, or at the very least, significant migrations had taken place on many occasions. There is probably very little direct connection between the lives and practices of a late Stone Age inhabitant of the British Isles and the people who were present in the Iron Age.
There is also a modern form of Druid, which appeared in the 18th century and probably bears no resemblance to the holy men of the Megalithic period. The people that created the fabulous henges, tombs, standing stones and stone circles, way back in the late Stone Age and the Bronze Age probably had holy men and women of their own, in fact it’s an odds-on certainty that they did, but these people, about whom we know next to nothing, were not Druids.
The word Druid is associated with the word for ‘oak’ because they met in sacred groves in the forest. As wise and as clever as the Druids may have been, they had nothing to do with the doubtless well-intentioned but generally misinformed people who gather at Stonehenge at the time of the winter and summer solstice these days, wearing white robes and conducting somewhat dubious ceremonies. In my opinion these people are harmless; they add colour to our lives and they do reinforce the existence and importance of the ancient structures that still cover our landscape. However, nobody who wants to learn anything about our ancient forebears should be fooled into thinking that the modern Druids know anything more about these matters than anybody else.
Dun (See Stone Fort)
Earthworks
The word ‘earthwork’ is a general term that describes any group or distribution of banks, ditches, mounds or other structures created from the landscape.
Enclosure
An enclosure is a piece of land separated from the surrounding landscape by banks, ditches, walls or fences. Enclosures are one of the most common features of our ancient landscape and the vast majority of them probably had a very definite and practical purpose – they were designed and built in order to keep livestock safe or at least contained.
There are times in the farming year when it is necessary to protect and restrict livestock – for example during spring lambing, or with domestic stock at night in an environment where wolves and other predators exist. Many different types of enclosure were used by peoples throughout the late Stone Age, the Bronze Age and the Iron Age, but they all served more or less the same function if they were related to agriculture and animal husbandry.
Probably the most common sort of agricultural enclosure is known as a ‘banjo enclosure’ and was commonly used in the Iron Age. These were generally small circular areas, with a longish, straight track leading into them – hence the name banjo, because that is what they look like on aerial photographs.
Not all enclosures had an agricultural purpose and, in many cases, we simply do not know what their function was. A henge for example, which is a circular area with one or more ditches and banks, can be termed an enclosure but it seems quite unlikely that henges were a farming feature or ever had such a purpose.
Enclosures also surrounded dwelling houses and sometimes cemeteries; they can be almost any shape but they are always a sign that ‘someone’ was doing something in a particular place at some stage in our history and so they are always of interest to historians and archaeologists.
Flint
Flint is a stone and not a prehistoric monument, but its importance to our history here in the British Isles is so great, no book of this sort would be complete without a mention of it. Flint is an extremely hard sedimentary form of quartz. In colour it can be grey, greenish, black or white and (here is the important part) when shattered it can take on an extremely sharp edge that can be comparable with the honed edge of metal.
Flint is often found as nodules within chalk and limestone and is plentiful around the British Isles, but it doesn’t appear everywhere, which is also another important factor in terms of our ancient past.
The first use of tools made from flint from the archaeological record in Britain comes from as long ago as 700,000 years; it is as a result of finding primitive flint tools, together with datable material, that we know what we do about humans at this remote time.
The fact that flint tools predominated in our part of the world right up until the Bronze Age (around 2100 BC) and that flint was also used long after this period, shows just how important it was to our species; in fact we have been utilizing metal tools for only a tiny fraction of the time that flint and other hard, sharp stones were of such importance.
Experts have built up a good understanding of what sort of flint tools were used in any given period. They were created by a means known as ‘knapping’ in which pieces of flint are struck in a particular way (and with great skill) in order to achieve a particular objective. This technique differed throughout time and within specific cultures.
Flint was used for so many purposes it is hard to see how we could have advanced in the way we did without its presence, or at least something with similar properties. Flint was used to make hand axes, hafted axes, cutters, scrapers, knives and all manner of things that comprised the prehistoric work box.
Figure 10: A flint hand axe
Because of its overwhelming importance, flint was also one of the earliest commodities traded amongst ancient peoples. Because it does not occur everywhere, people undoubtedly undertook lengthy journeys in order to trade flint and doubtless this instigated a trade in other necessities that funded the beginning of a more cohesive society within our islands.
Flint was also extensively mined (see Mines).
Forecourt (see also Chambered Tomb)
Forecourt is the name archaeologists have chosen for the area immediately to the front of some chambered tombs. The forecourt was carefully defined by large stones, often semicircular in shape. It is thought to have been the site of ritual activities related to the tomb.
Foresights and Backsights
A foresight represents a particular stone within a stone circle and a backsight would be a remote stone or some significant marker in the distance that could be lined up with the foresight in order to track a particular astronomical happening, such as a sunrise.
Gallery Grave
A gallery grave is a Megalithic tomb similar to a passage grave (see Passage Grave) except that there is no size difference between the entrance passage and the burial chamber itself.
Henge
Henges are amongst the most fascinating of prehistoric structures in the British Isles. All henges are circular, or nearly so, and are defined by banks and ditches. In all henges there is at least one entrance, but more commonly two or four. These allow anyone entering or leaving the henge to access its centre without having to negotiate the ditch and bank.
Generally speaking, those structures defined as henges are over 22 yards (20 metres) in diameter, though they vary greatly in terms of size and also with regard to their other characteristics. Henges can be devoid of any other structure but are also often associated with standing stones, portal stones, stone circles, timber structures, other earthworks and also burials of one sort or another. Stonehenge, for example, is one of the most complex Megalithic structures ever created but it started its life as a relatively simple henge before later additions made it into the monument we see today.
Henges have gradually become classified into different types, so that those studying them know immediately what sort of henge they are dealing with. Class I henges have a single entrance, whilst Class II henges have two entrances, opposite each other. Class III henges have two pairs of entrances facing each other. Within these groups there are also subgroups, for example Class IIA henges.
Figure 11: Diagram of a Class IIA henge
The word ‘henge’ derives from Stonehenge, the name of which actually means ‘hanging stones’, so in a sense it is quite an inappropriate name for earthworks that sometimes have no stones at all. However, it was coined in 1932 and has simply stuck as the name for these extraordinary structures, of which there may once have been hundreds or even thousands across the British Isles.
A true henge has its ditch inside its bank, though there are exceptions, which include Stonehenge, where the bank is outside the ditch. In the normal arrangement for a henge the fact that the ditch is inside the bank makes it extremely unlikely that such structures ever had a defensive role. It would make no sense whatsoever to allow potential attackers to climb the bank and hurl stones and spears on the occupants. A much more common practice for defence would be to make attackers negotiate the ditch first, so that those defending the interior could rain down missiles and abuse on the attackers from the top of the bank.
It has sometimes been suggested that if the henge had no military role perhaps it was a device, like a banjo enclosure, for safeguarding and corralling domestic animals. This also seems rather unlikely, if only because the presence of a ditch inside the bank might be dangerous to such livestock in the dark of night, when they might easily fall into the ditches, which at the time they were made were very steep-sided. Once again in this situation it would make more sense if the ditch (which after all is the natural consequence of raising the mound) was on the outside of the structure.
So, if a typical henge was not for defence and had nothing to do with farming, what purpose did it serve? Faced with such problems archaeologists often fall back on the idea that such creations had a ‘ritual’ significance, or they may simply have been designated meeting places for extended communities. This idea may have become popular because later, for example during Anglo-Saxon times, areas were set aside where tribes would gather when local and regional decisions had to be made.
The idea of a ritualized meeting place seems fine when we think about some of the smaller henges dotted about the landscape, but what would we make of the super-henges, which are to be found especially in the north of England but with examples also in the south and in Northern Ireland? The best of these can still be seen in Yorkshire, at Thornborough near Ripon. These super-henges form part of a prehistoric landscape every bit as extensive and fascinating as that to be found on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire. The term ‘super-henge’ could not be more appropriate.
Figure 12: A representation of St Paul’s Cathedral within one of the super-henges at Thornborough, Yorkshire
Three henges survive more or less intact at Thornborough. They are in a line running roughly from northwest to southeast and each is so large that it would be quite possible to fit St Paul’s Cathedral comfortably into any one of them. What is more, the Thornborough henges, like many of the henges that can still be recognized, are extremely old. Finds that have come to light from the ditches of the Thornborough henges shows them to have been created around 3500 BC, which means they are 5,500 years old! In other words they predate the major pyramids of Egypt by a full 1,000 years. Only the cursus to be seen in various places throughout the British Isles (see Cursus) have an older pedigree.
Henges date from the Stone Age, which means they were created using the simplest of tools. They were probably dug using deer antlers, with the shoulder blades of domestic or wild cattle being used as shovels. In the case of the largest examples the effort necessary to create such massive structures must have been colossal. We have to bear in mind that at this period the population of the British Isles would have been extremely small in comparison with today. This means that either the task took a very long time for a few individuals, or that people were drafted in from a great distance, probably in winter when the farming year was quiet, in order to dig the ditches and throw up the banks.
It was suggested some time ago that the Thornborough henges, and perhaps others in the district that are now largely ploughed out, may have had some cosmological component. Together with Christopher Knight I tackled this problem and you can find the result of our efforts in the Impressive Sites section of the book, where Thornborough is described in more detail. In the end this seems the most likely explanation for the henges. As meeting places the Thornborough henges, and others of their sort, would have been ridiculously large and it seemed to us that just about everyone in the British Isles during the Stone Age could have fitted into any one of them. It is therefore much more likely that they represented naked-eye observatories, in order to track stars and planets in the night sky and the Sun during the day. Although this idea remains contentious to many, we think there is ample evidence to bear out the suggestion.
Whilst there were once many super-henges in Yorkshire, as far as we know there was only one further south in England, at Dorchester-on-Thames, and there is another, slightly different example in Northern Ireland.
Even in the case of henges, large or small, that have been destroyed by farming during the intervening period, it is often possible to see them surviving as parch marks (see Crop Marks) in fields. How many more lie below urban areas or in woodland there is no way of knowing. What is more, the remaining henges are still in danger. The super-henge at Dorchester-on-Thames was destroyed very recently for gravel extraction and the examples at Thornborough are under threat for the same reason.
Really pristine henges are extremely hard to find. Natural weathering, as well as farming and building, have ensured that many have disappeared for good but there is no doubt that they were once a common feature on the landscape and they remain enigmatic and appealing to prehistory buffs. Henges were first erected before the idea of hauling great stones around the landscape became the norm, but as we shall see when we get to stone circles, the earlier henges may have been the blackboards that allowed places like Callanish, Stonehenge, Castlerigg or any of the great stone circles to be planned and built.
Henges may or may not be a specifically British structure. Debate still rages about this. Some experts think that henges simply developed from causewayed enclosures (see Causewayed Enclosures) and other features with ditches and banks that occur in continental Europe as well as in the British Isles. Others suggest that the henge is a uniquely British structure. The jury is still out on this argument.
It is possible not only to visit some henge sites but also to find ones that are not generally known about, or reported, by studying Google Earth. Nothing is more thrilling than stumbling across either a henge, or some other lost earthwork, that even the archaeologists and cartographers have missed. It’s a great way to spend a few hours during the long, dark days of winter, when trudging across the heather and along river valleys is not quite so appealing.
Nobody knows for certain why henges were built or what they were used for and so your ideas on the subject are as good as anyone’s.
Places to see henges:
Stonehenge, Amesbury, Wiltshire, England
(See Impressive Sites section)
| LATITUDE: 51° 10’ 43.87” N | LONGITUDE: 1° 49’ 34.27” W |
The most famous of all Megalithic monuments, but the henge itself is over-shadowed by the stone circles that were built much later.
Avebury Henge and Stone Circle, Avebury, England (originally just a henge)
(See Impressive Sites section)
| LATITUDE: 51° 25’ 43.04” N | LONGITUDE: 1° 51’ 14.66” W |
The henge at Avebury is huge, as of course are the stone circles. In some ways this is my favourite because it is much larger than the one at Stonehenge.
Castlerigg Stone Circle, near Keswick, Cumbria, England
(See Impressive Sites section)
| LATITUDE: 54° 36’ 11.78” N | LONGITUDE: 3° 5’ 46.08” W |
What a wonderful place this is. So beautiful, so evocative and so remote. It has a grandeur that dwarfs many larger sites.
Mayburgh Henge, Penrith, Cumbria, England
| LATITUDE: 54° 38’ 53.46” N | LONGITUDE: 2° 44’ 43.81” W |
This henge is in relatively good condition and it contains only one, extremely large stone at its centre.
Castilly Henge, Bodmin, Cornwall, England
| LATITUDE: 50° 25’ 49.63” N | LONGITUDE: 4° 46’ 21.82” W |
Not everyone believes this to be a henge but there isn’t much doubt in my mind.
Balfarg Henge, Markinch, Glenrothes, Fife, Scotland
| LATITUDE: 56° 12’ 53.9” N | LONGITUDE: 3° 9’ 33.93” W |
This one is easy to find. It is close to houses but still surprisingly impressive when seen for the first time.
Llandegai Henge Complex, near Bangor, Gwynedd, Wales
| LATITUDE: 53° 13’ 7.88” N | LONGITUDE: 4° 6’ 21.81” W |
These henges lie at the centre of a landscape that looks as though it is going to turn out to be extremely important in terms of our ancient past.
Bryn Celli Ddu, Passage Grave and Henge, Llanddaniel Fab, Anglesey, Wales
(See Impressive Sites section)
| LATITUDE: 53° 12’ 27” N | LONGITUDE: 4° 14’ 8.89” W |
A double bonus here because in addition to a small henge there is one of the best passage graves to be seen anywhere in the British Isles.
Lismullin Henge, near Navan, Co. Meath, Ireland
| LATITUDE: 53° 35’ 42” N | LONGITUDE: 6° 35’ 15.57” W |
Some experts doubt that this is a henge and suggest that it is Bronze Age in date and may be an enclosure. For my money, it’s a henge.
Castleruddery, Baltinglass, Co. Wicklow, Ireland
| LATITUDE: 52° 59’ 29.93” N | LONGITUDE: 6° 38’ 8.61” W |
There is no doubt about this being a henge. It also has stones and a rich tradition of local folklore to attest to its ‘magic’.
Places to see super-henges:
The Thornborough Henge Complex, Near Ripon, North Yorkshire, England
(See Impressive Sites section)
| LATITUDE: 54° 12’ 36.64” N | LONGITUDE: 1° 33’ 46.68” W |
For my money this henge complex should be listed amongst the wonders of the ancient world. I am staggered that it is not internationally famous.
The Giant’s Ring, Shaw’s Bridge, Belfast, Ireland
| LATITUDE: 54° 32’ 24.52” N | LONGITUDE: 5° 56’ 57.87” W |
This henge has been much altered over the years. Very impressive.
Hill Figures
Our prehistoric ancestors began one tradition, especially in England, that is still very popular today. Choosing the side of a hill that could generally be seen from a very long way off, the prehistoric artists would cut through the natural turf, exposing what was often light-coloured stone below (especially chalk). By so doing they could create a visual representation, often of an animal but also frequently of a person. Some of the hill figures were extremely large and there could once have been many more such creations from prehistory than are available today. It stands to reason that if any such figure was abandoned for more than a few decades, the turf would once again grow over it and it would disappear for good.
Some care is necessary when dealing with hill figures because by no means all of them are prehistoric in origin. The White Horse on the Hambleton Hills in Yorkshire, for example, is Victorian, and there are many modern examples to be found across the length and breadth of the British Isles.
Perhaps the most famous examples of hill figures are the White Horse at Uffington, Oxfordshire, England, which is definitely prehistoric, and the Cerne Abbas Giant in Dorchester, England, which could be prehistoric but is just as likely to be much more recent. The former may well have been meant to represent some sort of territorial boundary, whilst the latter, which shows a man with enlarged genitalia and bearing a club, may be a species of fertility symbol, or could equally well be an 18th-century joke.
Figure 13: The white horse hill figure at Uffington
Places to see hill figures:
Uffington White Horse, Uffington, Wantage, Oxfordshire, England
| LATITUDE: 51° 34’ 36.94” N | LONGITUDE: 1° 33’ 50.92” W |
To catch a distant glimpse of this huge figure cut into the chalk is both impressive and slightly strange. Actually it is less impressive close up.
Long Man of Wilmington, Eastbourne, Sussex, England
| LATITUDE: 50° 48’ 35.55” N | LONGITUDE: 0° 11’ 25.22” E |
Some say this is ancient, and others suggest it is only a couple of centuries old at the most. Whoever is correct, this is art writ large and well worth a look anyway.
Cerne Abbas Giant, Dorchester, Dorset, England
| LATITUDE: 50° 48’ 44.61” N | LONGITUDE: 2° 28’ 21.75” W |
Again, this is probably not ancient but definitely worth a visit! An image to strike fear and doubt into the heart of any man who may already have a ‘certain sort’ of complex.
Hill Fort
Hill forts are amongst the most common prehistoric structures left to us in the British Isles. As the name implies, they are generally areas of fortified upland, exploiting hill tops in particular, though not exclusively so. Some hill forts came into existence during the Bronze Age, though by far the majority were either created in the Iron Age, or much enlarged from earlier attempts.
Although there is some argument amongst experts as to how important hill forts were as true defensive structures, there is no doubt that they were sometimes used for this purpose. We know from the descriptions left to us by Julius Caesar and other Roman commentators that at the time of the two Roman invasions (55 BC and AD 43), local resistance to the invasions was often centred in such structures. Nevertheless, since very remote times, and certainly since the introduction of farming and a settled life, structures had been created that offered an ‘impression’ of strength that might dissuade any would-be attacker from trying to seize a certain area.
When seen today, most hill forts comprise a series of banks and ditches, often flanking the top of a hill, or else in some position that allows natural topography to be used as part of the defensive structure. This might be a sheer rock face or a sea cliff. Obviously, to use such an area saved time and effort on the part of the fort builders. In lowland areas, where such natural fortifications were not to be found, the defences were built to be stronger but of course it is doubtful whether this sort of defensive camp could truly be termed a hill fort. Hill forts generally had more than one entrance.
There are over 2,000 hill forts in the British Isles, so anyone looking for a good day out and a fascinating glimpse into the mindset of Iron Age farmers in our islands will never have too far to go in order to see one. Many are extremely impressive, with numerous banks and ditches, together with other structures and earthworks that archaeologists are still struggling to recognize and name even today.
How often hill forts were used for their initial defensive purpose is hard to say. Archaeological evidence demonstrates that in many cases, and for much of the time, the forts were used to pen or corral animals. It is hard to imagine that communities actually ‘lived’ full-time within the confines of hill forts because although some of them are extremely large, the need for pasture, fuel and the extended use of farmland beyond the fort would have necessitated life outside the ramparts. This is not to suggest that nobody lived in hill forts because in many cases the remains of houses have been found, together with signs of continued habitation. This might be more likely in the case of extremely large hill forts, which can have a huge enclosure, sometimes more than 50 acres (20 hectares).
In order to understand the preponderance of hill forts we need to look at the structure of British society in the Iron Age. The British Isles were inhabited by a number of different tribes, many of whom did not see eye to eye with their neighbouring tribes. We know from Roman accounts that skirmishes and warfare between tribes was common (a fact that the Romans constantly exploited for their own ends). However, some of the larger hill forts are so massive that it is hard to understand how they could have been adequately manned at a time when populations were not high. One can imagine that the ‘look’ of impregnability may have sometimes been enough to deter a would-be attacker and, with bank tops protected by palisades and spiked logs, a frontal attack on such a structure would surely have been costly in terms of lives. The options at the time for anyone attacking a hill fort were limited because the British tribes did not generally possess the assault technology that is typified by the Roman invasion. Since we know that several British hill forts were successfully attacked and taken by the Romans, we can also be certain that they were not impregnable to a determined enemy, even when they were heavily defended.
The people living in Britain during the Iron Age are usually referred to as ‘Celts’. This term can be slightly misleading because we are now beginning to understand that at least some elements of the British population had been around since extremely remote times, whereas the term Celt used to imply that the whole population of the British Isles arrived from continental Europe after the Bronze Age. What now seems more likely is that waves of immigrants – either peacefully or sometimes with more warlike intentions – entered the British Isles fairly frequently throughout history and that their languages, customs and technologies became suffused into the local population. Be that as it may, the people who lived in the British Isles during the Iron Age were naturally aggressive, quarrelsome and often warlike. It is within the mindset of these people that we find the need (either in reality or perception) for sometimes massive hill forts.
When danger threatened it is likely that everyone from a particular locality, together with their livestock where possible, would congregate in a local hill fort, ready to defend themselves and their livestock. How often this actually became necessary is difficult to say. One fact is certain; the amount of effort taken to create such impressive structures was colossal. Of course hill forts were not necessary created from scratch in a short period of time. We know that many of them became gradually more impressive as time passed but we can imagine that a great percentage of the available time for those who lived in the vicinity of such forts was spent on creating and maintaining the defences.
After years of looking at such matters I have my own explanation, or part explanation, about what such structures (and in fact much older ones such as henges and stone circles) may have represented. Early farming required a great deal of effort at specific times of year. The Bronze Age and Iron Age farmer was very busy in the spring, summer and autumn, but depending on the area where he lived, he did have time on his hands in winter. I think it was during the winter that common effort was expended on communal structures. To a widespread population in which people probably did not see each other on a day-to-day basis, several weeks of common effort would have welded family and clan bonds. It allowed people to sort out local issues and to pull together in a way that the farming of small plots by individual families did not. To some extent such efforts replaced the ‘hunt’, that had been so important during many thousands of years of much more communal hunter-gatherer life.
In this sense it can be seen that there was a very real benefit in creating a splendid hill fort, even if it wasn’t strictly necessary and probably could not be adequately defended in any case with the number of people available. In its finished magnificence it also stood as a ‘statement of intent’ and it showed just how committed and determined a particular group or clan truly was. Society being what it was at the time, it is hard to envisage people being forced into digging huge ditches and raising massive mounds against their will. Tribal leaders were limited in the power they held and they could only rule with the sanction and goodwill of those around them. There were no standing armies, as would become the norm much later in history, and practically everyone in the Iron Age British community was, first and foremost, a farmer.
No matter how people were persuaded or coerced into creating many of the hill forts to be seen across the British Isles, a fair proportion of them still cause a sharp intake of breath when seen for the first time. They are literally massive and when one stops to work out just how much earth and rock must have been shifted to create them, the true worth of prehistoric people’s determination and persistence becomes evident.
Some hill forts, especially examples along the Welsh Marches and in the south of England, seem to have been reoccupied and reused long after the Roman invasion of Britain. There are signs that at least a few were of pivotal importance in the Dark Ages, when the Anglo-Saxon onslaught began.
Places to see hill forts:
Old Oswestry, Oswestry, Shropshire, England (See Impressive Sites section)
| LATITUDE: 52° 52’ 17.22” N | LONGITUDE: 3° 2’ 51.06” W |
This is my favourite hill fort. It is easy to access, though would not be suitable for people who have difficulty walking up slopes or a fair distance.
South Cadbury Hill Fort, Sparkford, Somerset, England (See Impressive Sites section)
| LATITUDE: 51° 1’ 27.79” N | LONGITUDE: 2° 31’ 49.71” W |
Many people think that South Cadbury was the place that became famous as King
Arthur’s Camelot, though to me this seems entirely unlikely.
Maiden Castle, Dorchester, Dorset, England
| LATITUDE: 50° 41’ 37.32” N | LONGITUDE: 2° 28’ 2.16” W |
This is the largest and most complex hill fort anywhere in Britain and it would take quite a few hours to explore it fully.
Humbledon Hill Fort, Coldstream, Northumberland, England
| LATITUDE: 55° 32’ 50.49” N | LONGITUDE: 2° 3’ 8.31” W |
Take the longer route to the top because it is less difficult. This hill fort is not in good condition but it was once quite vast in extent.
Hambledon Hill Prehistoric Hill Fort, near Blandford Forum, Dorset (See Impressive Sites section)
| LATITUDE: 50° 53’ 42.04” N | LONGITUDE: 2° 12’ 12.07” W |
This hill fort started its life as a simple Neolithic enclosure and went through many alterations before it assumed its final look.
Arthur’s Seat, Edinburgh, Scotland (See Impressive Sites section)
| LATITUDE: 55° 55’ 59.87” N | LONGITUDE: 3° 10’ 00.73” W |
There isn’t much of the hill fort here to see any more, and the climb is steep. But the view from the top makes the whole effort worthwhile.
Norman’s Law Hill Fort, Newburgh, Fife, Scotland
| LATITUDE: 56° 22’ 8.2” N | LONGITUDE: 3° 7’ 30.85” W |
This is not the best preserved hill fort but – oh the views! Take the route to the top that starts about a mile west of the village of Brunton. This was a superb defensive position for a hill fort.
Dinas Brân, Llangollen, Denbighshire, Wales
| LATITUDE: 52° 58’ 41.89” N | LONGITUDE: 3° 9’ 31.81” W |
Don’t try this one unless you are fit. The hill fort is on a rocky crag, high above Llangollen and is spectacular beyond belief.
Dinas Emrys, Beddgelert, Gwynedd, Wales (See Impressive Sites section)
| LATITUDE: 53° 1’ 4.52” N | LONGITUDE: 4° 5’ 57.79” W |
This hill fort is fascinating because it is not, strictly speaking, prehistoric. It was most likely built just after the Roman invasion of AD 43. Another hard climb but this site figures prominently in British folklore and history and has strong connections with the wizard Merlin.
Grainne’s Enclosure, Hill of Tara, Dunshaughlin, Meath, Ireland
| LATITUDE: 53° 34’ 57.81” N | LONGITUDE: 6° 36’ 49.47” W |
The Hill of Tara is positively steeped in Irish history and folklore. It has been used by humanity as long as people have lived in Ireland.
Mooghaun, Newmarket on Fergus, Co. Clare, Ireland
| LATITUDE: 52° 46’ 59.69” N | LONGITUDE: 8° 52’ 38.94” W |
This site is suggested as a great place for a picnic. It may have been of both ceremonial and defensive importance. ‘Look how great we are!’
Iron Age
For convenience’s sake we use expressions such as Stone Age, late Stone Age, Bronze Age and Iron Age, as if there was a clear line of demarcation between any of them, which is clearly not the case. For example, flint tools were used well into the Bronze Age, whilst bronze tools and implements were common throughout the Iron Age. However, as a way of talking about an ‘era’ the terms do have some use. In the British Isles the Iron Age is generally considered to have begun around 800 BC and extended to the period of the Roman invasions of Britain, though of course the Romans were also an Iron Age culture.
Megalithic Period and Megalithic Structures
The word ‘megalith’ literally means ‘large stone’ and when we refer to Megalithic Britain, we are talking about that period of history during which peoples living in the British Isles found or cut large pieces of stone and dragged them around the landscape, before erecting them into sometimes extremely impressive structures. Generally one’s mind is drawn to standing stone circles such as Stonehenge or Brodgar, but far more stones were used in other structures, such as dolmens (see Dolmen) or other tombs of one sort or another. Much of this stone remains hidden under mounds but if we take all of these structures together with stone circles, single standing stones, stone fans, avenues and the like, we can see that the amount of effort necessary to create such masterpieces was colossal.
Of course this did not take place in a single generation, or anything like it. The Megalithic period in Britain began in some places as early as 4500 BC and went on until around 1500 BC. It is therefore not a strictly defined period such as ‘Stone Age’ or ‘Bronze Age’ but extended throughout parts of both.
It is a fact that some of the earliest Megalithic structures in the British Isles were tombs of one sort or another. Perhaps those who first stood large stones upright and placed equally large stones on top of them, were trying to recreate the natural caves that they themselves frequented or which were frequented by their ancestors. Certainly many of the passage tombs give the impression of a cave and in many parts of the world cave burials were extremely common – maybe as a way of sending the deceased back into the ‘womb’ of the Earth from which everyone originally came?
Megaliths are certainly not an exclusively British phenomenon. On the contrary, they are found throughout France, Iberia, along the Baltic coast and in the Mediterranean region. However, since few of them are significantly older than the first examples in the British Isles, it is unlikely that the technology necessary for moving such large stones came with the arrival of new people into our islands. In other words it seems to have taken place at around the same time wherever it occurred.
In the British Isles the situation was made slightly easier for the first stone shifters because of our topography and geology. Britain has many upland areas where retreating glaciers have left large, detached stones littered across the landscape. It is obviously easier to move a stone that one finds intact on the surface than it would be to cut stones from the living rock (though the Megalithic peoples did both).
All manner of different sorts of stone was used, dependent on what was locally available. Sometimes stones were ‘bashed’ into the rough shape required, using stone hammers or mauls, and great skill must have been used in the moving and erection of massive boulders. One can imagine that across the centuries literally hundreds or thousands of individuals must have been killed or maimed by stones that sometimes weighed many tonnes, and the necessity for wooden poles and lengthy, strong ropes must have required as much if not more man-hours than the finding or moving of the stones themselves.
We know that on some occasions stone was actually prised from rock faces, doubtless using a technique that involved constantly heating and cooling rock to make it split along natural faults, and it was also sometimes dragged many miles across undulating landscapes, bogs, rivers and even estuaries, to the spot where it was required. The purpose for the structures that resulted from all this effort is explained throughout this book under various headings but one point is worth making: people did not start to move stones around the British Isles specifically to construct standing stone circles. On the contrary, some of the tombs that incorporate huge stones are older than any of the circles. In other words the capability and the technology already existed before stone circles were considered (see Stone Circles).
Menhir (sometimes Monolith)
Menhir is the name given to a large standing stone, usually intended to be placed upright in the landscape. The word comes from two Breton words and means ‘long stone’. Menhirs differ greatly in size but they would once have been a very common sight on the landscape across the whole of the British Isles. Sadly, both to rob the stone and for a wealth of other reasons, such as religious intolerance, probably far more menhirs have been removed over the centuries than have survived. Don’t panic though, because there are still plenty to be seen and some of them are incredibly impressive.
Menhirs are often tall, usually squared off and they invariably, though not always, taper towards the top. They can be found as individuals or in groups. In Brittany, for example, there are extremely long avenues of menhirs, though if such ever existed in our islands they must have disappeared centuries ago.
There are many potential explanations as to why menhirs might have been erected, some of which are plausible and others that are downright ridiculous. Suggestions include boundary markers, memorial structures (intended as an epitaph to a deceased person), sexual symbols (see Sexual Stones) or that the stones were somehow associated with a study of the stars or the creation of farming calendars.
It used to be thought that the majority of the menhirs dated to the period of a people often referred to as the ‘beaker people’. Their name comes from the particular sort of pottery found in the British Isles and dated from around 2400 BC. However, since it is now doubted by many that the beaker people actually ever existed as a tangible and separate entity, the idea has fallen into dispute. If the beaker people had been responsible for the menhirs, they could be dated to the very late Stone Age and early Bronze Age but many modern experts think the menhirs, or at least some of them, are far older. Dating stones of this sort is virtually impossible. Carbon dating techniques are available for any archaeological artefact that was once organic in composition, but unless there are samples of such evidence immediately below the hole in which a menhir is standing, the time at which the stone was erected is anyone’s guess.
Menhirs are quite often found in extensive ceremonial landscapes, though this is not always the case. A good example is the Rudston Monolith in East Yorkshire (see Impressive Sites section). This is Britain’s tallest remaining monolith at 25ft (8 metres). The stone was quarried, or found, at least 10 miles (16km) away at Cayton Bay. The exercise of dragging a stone weighing in excess of 40 tonnes across such a distance must have been incredible. The Rudston Monolith is now in a churchyard, but long before churches existed, the monolith stood within a landscape scarred with cursus (see Cursus), various other earthworks and even a set of dinosaur footprints (which might explain why the site was considered sacred in the first place).
It is known that some cultures, amongst which were the Minoans who inhabited Crete from around 2000 BC, considered pillars of stone to be sacred and to contain within them the person of the Goddess. The same was broadly true in parts of the Levant and pillar worship is therefore not unknown in the ancient world. Something similar could have been taking place in the British Isles but since we know nothing of the religious beliefs or practices of people from such a remote period, we can only guess at the effort that was necessary to plan and create the menhirs.
Menhirs often contain prehistoric art and especially cup and ring markings (see Cup and Ring Markings).
Figure 14: A typical menhir
Places to see impressive menhirs:
Rudston Monolith, Rudston, East Yorkshire, England (See Impressive Sites section)
| LATITUDE: 54° 5’ 35.57” N | LONGITUDE: 0° 19’ 20.89” W |
The biggest, and to me the best. Rudstone is picturesque and extremely impressive – if only they would remove its ridiculous metal hat.
The Devil’s Arrows, Boroughbridge, North Yorkshire, England (See Impressive Sites section)
| LATITUDE: 54° 5’ 33.49” N | LONGITUDE: 1° 24’ 7.62” W |
I took an Australian Aborigine to the Devil’s Arrows. He was speechless. All he could do was hug the stones and cry. I know what he means.
Whitestone, Lee Bay, Devon
| LATITUDE: 51° 11’ 37.45” N | LONGITUDE: 4° 9’ 9.61” W |
This stone is about 10ft (3 metres) high and made of quartz. It is especially impressive when wet and must weigh a great deal.
Five Kings, near Alnwick, Northumberland, England
| LATITUDE: 55° 17’ 41.4” N | LONGITUDE: 2° 4’ 3.81” W |
Not too easy to find and quite unimpressive at a distance, but the biggest of the stones here is significant and must have taken a lot of grunt to put in place.
Callanish, Stornoway, Isle of Lewis, Scotland
| LATITUDE: 58° 11’ 51.42” N | LONGITUDE: 6° 44’ 38.5” W |
The stones of Callanish are understandably famous. Although they are arranged in a circle, each of the stones is a menhir in its own right and I could not resist including the site here.
Kempock Stone, Gourock, Inverclyde, Scotland
| LATITUDE: 55° 57’ 38.93” N | LONGITUDE: 4° 49’ 11.34” W |
This stone is very accessible, being close to the main street of the town. It has strong associations with witchcraft, which may be why it’s kept in a cage.
Bwlch Farm Standing Stone, near Beaumaris, Gwynedd, Wales
| LATITUDE: 53° 17’ 43.41” N | LONGITUDE: 4° 9’ 1.23” W |
There are many standing stones and a stone circle close to here, though the going is quite tough and the weather often turns unseasonal.
Carreg Leidr, Llangefri, Anglesey, Wales
| LATITUDE: 53° 19’ 56.75” N | LONGITUDE: 4° 19’ 56.86” W |
This may have been a stone belonging to a cromlech. Anglesey is positively filled with Megalithic monuments and is a deeply atmospheric place.
Ballinskelligs, Iveragh Peninsula, Co. Kerry, Ireland
| LATITUDE: 51° 49’ 22.49” N | LONGITUDE: 10° 16’ 50.76” W |
This stone overlooks the sea in quite the most idyllic setting anyone could imagine. A real piece of old Ireland and quite unforgettable.
Lia Fail, Kilmessan, Co Meath, Ireland
| LATITUDE: 53° 34’ 7.44” N | LONGITUDE: 6° 3’ 44.57” W |
Known as the ‘stone of destiny’ this monolith is distinctly phallic in shape. It forms part of a deeply important historic Irish site.
Mines and Quarries
Long before the advent of metal, our ancestors required tools for all sorts of purposes. Although some animals can be observed using tools in a rudimentary way, it is the creation and use of specialized tools that first set our species apart. For most of our history such tools were made, almost universally, out of stone. In the British Isles that invariably meant flint (see Flint).
In many parts of the British Isles flint can be found occurring quite naturally in the landscape. It is often found as nodules in chalk, so it can be readily prised out of cliffs or can be found on the beaches below. But this is not always the case and there are parts of our islands where flint is harder to find. Chalk areas that are now well below the surface of the land due to geological activity do contain significant amounts of flint, but anyone requiring it will have to dig to get it. And that is just what our ancient ancestors did, in many different places.
A good example is Grime’s Graves in Norfolk. There are an estimated 433 shafts at Grime’s Graves, some of which were once up to 30ft (9 metres) deep. Work began to extract the flint around 3000 BC and continued well into the Bronze Age. Although chalk is fairly soft the only tools available to these early miners were deer antlers that could be used as pick axes, so the work would not have been easy. What is more, narrow tunnels connected the bottom of the shafts because what these miners were looking for was the best quality of flint, known as ‘floorstone’. This was infinitely better than the sort of flints that could be found on the surface of the land, in river gravel or on beaches, and was obviously considered worth the effort and danger to exploit.
It seems likely that for generations a culture developed in such sites that was not dedicated to farming but rather specifically to mining and to trading the results of their efforts far and wide. Flint may have been one of the earliest commodities to be traded in this way and led to the degree of specialization that epitomizes more advanced societies.
With the arrival of the Bronze Age, copper ore and tin ore were both necessary prerequisites for a developing culture. Sometimes both could be found near the surface but increasingly people had to dig in order to find the veins of ore.
Chief amongst the earliest copper mines of Britain were those at Alderley Edge in Cheshire, England, where malachite (copper ore) was relatively easy to get at. Other reserves existed in parts of Wales but neither in Cheshire nor Wales could the miners obtain tin in the quantities found in Cornwall, which is in the far southwest of England. In Cornwall both copper and tin ore could be found, making this one of the most important parts of Britain, not just at the start of the Bronze Age but for many centuries beyond. Tin ore is not half as common as copper ore and so Cornwall’s tin was in great demand. It may well have been traded, even abroad, in prehistoric times and it certainly found its way across the length and breadth of the British Isles.
Quarrying and, later, mining copper and tin ore was a hazardous business. Until the Iron Age, tools were primitive. Bronze, although a useful metal in many ways, is fairly useless for making pick axes with which to work hard rock. Its surface blunts quickly and so for every worker chiselling away at the rock, others are needed to keep tools honed. Eventually tin was found in some of the deepest mines in Britain but in prehistoric times it would have to be located reasonably near to the surface, since technology did not allow for deep shafts that were subject to noxious gasses and to flooding.
Places to see mines and quarries:
Grimes Graves (flint), Thetford, Norfolk, England (See Impressive Sites section)
| LATITUDE: 52° 28’ 31.43” N | LONGITUDE: 0° 40’ 32.44” E |
Grimes Graves is extremely interesting and seems to fascinate children especially. It could form the nucleus of a good family day out.
Windover Hill (flint), near Folkington, East Sussex, England
| LATITUDE: 50° 48’ 31.35” N | LONGITUDE: 0° 11’ 19.10” E |
These are classed as ‘alleged’ Neolithic flint mines but there isn’t much doubt in my mind that this is indeed what they were. The flint is of a very high quality.
Den of Boddam (flint), Stirling, Aberdeenshire, Scotland
| LATITUDE: 57° 27’ 49.11” N | LONGITUDE: 1° 48’ 47.85” W |
The Den of Boddom lies on what is practically the only reliable source of flint in Scotland and must have been of the upmost importance.
Alderley Edge (copper), near Macclesfield, Cheshire, England
| LATITUDE: 53° 17’ 51.04” N | LONGITUDE: 2° 12’ 36.28” W |
Copper represented a metal in its own right and, more importantly, a part of the composition of bronze. This site was extensively mined.
Great Orm (copper), Llandudno, Gwynedd, Wales
| LATITUDE: 53° 19’ 51.83” N | LONGITUDE: 3° 50’ 44.62” W |
This mine was not discovered until 1987 and proved to be a real archaeological wonder. Work is still going on to find its extent.
Once the Iron Age arrived, supplies of ore could be found in many different places. In particular they occurred quite naturally on beaches, washed out from the cliff faces and looking for all the world like cannon balls. There were also places where iron occurred in Britain very close to the surface, so the deeper mines sometimes necessary for copper, and invariably for tin, were not really an issue in prehistoric times. However, some ancient iron mines did exist and must have represented a significant challenge to those exploiting the ore.
Stone was also regularly quarried in the prehistoric period, either for use around the farm in boundary walls or for more grandiose schemes, such as tombs, menhirs or standing stones, for circles and avenues. Finding ancient stone quarries is not easy, mainly because such readily available sources of stone were used long after the prehistoric period or because we fail to recognize them. It is also the case that surface sources of stone were exploited as a preference. These are legion in certain areas of Britain and, since they still exist in great numbers, they could never have been fully exploited in prehistory. So, except in very specific cases, nobody in those remote times ‘mined’ for general stone, they simply used what nature and geology had left them.
Monolith
A monolith is a rock structure that has been excavated and cut from the living rock of a particular location. There are few true monoliths in the British Isles, though the term is sometimes used (wrongly) to denote a tall standing stone. If such a stone has been dragged from the surrounding area and then erected somewhere else it is, by definition, not a monolith but a megalith.
Mounds (Natural and Artificial)
Apart from the various sorts of burial mounds, usually referred to as barrows (see Barrows), there are a limited number of other sorts of mounds in the British Isles that are not thought to have been intended for burials. The best example of all is Silbury Hill in Wiltshire, England. Silbury Hill rises 130ft (40 metres) above the surrounding countryside and was constructed, in stages, starting at about 2700 BC. Despite a number of excavations over the years nothing has ever been found within it, and its purpose remains something of a mystery. (See Impressive Sites section.)
Building artificial hills seems to have been a natural pastime for our species all around the world. In their most stylized form we call these pyramids and they may originally have been simply a way of approaching the gods, who inhabited the sky. The same may be true of a structure such as Silbury Hill.
In size and scale, Silbury Hill is unique in the British Isles and there is nothing else quite like it anywhere across our islands. However, our ancient ancestors do seem to have been particularly fascinated by regular, conical hills, such as Freebrough Hill, in Redcar and Cleveland, England. All manner of legends surround Freebrough which, quite naturally, looks like a giant version of Silbury Hill. Many such conical hills were created as the glaciers retreated after the last Ice Age and judging by burials that have been found dug into them, at least some were considered ‘sacred’ or ‘special’.
A further example is Glastonbury Tor, Somerset, England. This is another natural, strange hill, that rises out of a generally flat landscape. Today its summit sports the ruins of a church but it seems to have been considered sacred for countless centuries.
It is possible that the existence of such significant hills across the British Isles is the reason that more structures such as Silbury Hill were not created. In other words, we have such a preponderance of significant-looking hills that could be utilized, there wasn’t any real reason to create artificial ones.
Neolithic
The term ‘Neolithic’ is used to describe the New Stone Age, i.e. that period when farming began and human endeavour reached a stage from which it began to catapult forward. Although the Neolithic period is considered to have begun around 10,000 BC in some parts of the world, this is still incredibly recent in terms of our history as a species. Stone tools were being made and utilized in Africa as much as two million years ago, so 10,000 BC is more or less ‘yesterday’. The Neolithic period is considered to have come to an end with the advent of metal in the Copper Age and Bronze Age.
Passage Grave
Passage graves or tombs come in a number of different varieties across the British Isles. What they have in common is that entry into the tomb is achieved via a deliberately created passage, which then usually opens out into a chamber or chambers beyond. The chambers and passage can be covered with cairns (see Cairn) or mounds, and can be constructed with large stone slabs or by corbelling.
Some passage graves or tombs are extremely complex and quite sophisticated in terms of their construction. In a number of cases it has been noted that the opening of a passage grave has been deliberately planned so that it faces some notable happening in the year, for example the midwinter sunrise. There must have been occasions, such as at Newgrange, Ireland, on which the builders of the tomb were obviously aware of this fact because they incorporated a ‘light box’ into the entrance. This allowed the light of the rising Sun at midwinter to flood down the passage and into the chamber beyond.
Figure 15: Entrance to a typical passage grave
Where to see passage graves:
Newgrange, Boyne Valley, Ireland (See Impressive Sites section)
| LATITUDE: 53° 41’ 40.69” N | LONGITUDE: 6° 28’ 31.67” W |
Bryn Celli Ddu, Llanddaniel Fab, Anglesey, Wales (See Impressive Sites section)
| LATITUDE: 53° 12’ 27” N | LONGITUDE: 4° 14’ 8.89” W |
Not a huge passage grave but extremely impressive and with mysterious components – including what we take to be a stone lens: a convex stone face that was once polished to amplify the reflection of any light that fell upon it.
Maeshowe, Stromness, Orkney, Scotland (See Impressive Sites section)
| LATITUDE: 58° 59’ 46.28” N | LONGITUDE: 3° 11’ 13.55” W |
A tremendous tomb, set amongst incredible landscapes. The stonework in particular is so impressive. It could have been created yesterday.
West Kennet Long Barrow, Marlborough, Wiltshire, England
| LATITUDE: 51° 24’ 30.78” N | LONGITUDE: 1° 51’ 4” W |
The most famous English chambered tomb set in possibly the most intensively used prehistoric landscape. It is not classified as a chambered tomb but it is one.
Belas Knap Chambered Long Barrow, Gloucestershire, England (See Impressive Sites section)
| LATITUDE: 51° 55’ 35.83” N | LONGITUDE: 1° 58’ 4.81” W |
This is a Neolithic long barrow that is in excellent condition. It has a false entrance and forecourt as many such tombs do.
Carrowmore Passage Tomb Cemetery, Co. Sligo, Ireland (See Impressive Sites section)
| LATITUDE: 54° 14’ 53.68” N | LONGITUDE: 8° 31’ 6.88” W |
There are a number of passage tombs here, some in a better state of repair than others. There are also a significant number of stones.
Passage tombs are often found in clusters throughout Britain and Ireland and some date back to the New Stone Age. The purpose of the passages is unknown though it has often been suggested that they represent a ‘birth canal’ joining the world above with the ‘womb of the Earth’ within the tomb. This has to be conjecture but bearing in mind the importance of the rising Sun in terms of at least some of the more grandiose passage graves, this cannot be dismissed as a possibility.
Prehistoric Farms
Farming reached the British Isles around 4000 BC, after which a more settled existence became possible. This, in turn, led to the explosion of creativity that is still to be seen strewn across our landscape. None of the cursus, henges, standing stones or whatever could have been possible without the fact that people had sufficient time on their hands to think about doing something other than surviving. It stands to reason that when one is wondering where the next meal is going to come from, monumental creations in earth and stone must necessarily take a back seat.
We see wonderful structures such as Meashowe or Newgrange and we marvel at the effort that went into creating them, but we rarely take stock of the fact that behind all this effort, the land was tilled and planted each year, livestock was raised and land was carefully and often aggressively defended, especially in areas where the soil was very fertile.
Unfortunately, because ordinary dwelling houses in the New Stone Age and the Bronze Age were fairly flimsy structures, built mostly of organic materials such as wood, they don’t tend to survive as anything other than a few postholes. Parch marks now offer archaeologists the chance to see where farmsteads and small villages once stood, and some work has been done on excavating such sites. In many ways these are more informative than the grand monuments because the minutia of life, abandoned in rubbish heaps or trodden into the floors of dwelling houses can tell us so much about the lives people led.
Even where such sites have been discovered and excavated, there is little for the visitor to see. What can be much more informative is to visit one of the recreated prehistoric farms, of which there are now quite a number throughout the British Isles. There the sum total of our acquired knowledge regarding ancient farming and life can be viewed at first hand. Such places are fascinating and make an especially good family day out.
Places to see recreated prehistoric farms and farm sites:
Butser Ancient Farm, Petersfield, Hampshire, England
| LATITUDE: 50° 58’ 37.45” N | LONGITUDE: 0° 58’ 48.03” W |
A fascinating voyage of discovery and especially popular with children. Quite magically they can learn a great deal without even realizing it.
Flag Fen Causeway and Reconstructed Bronze Age Village, near Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, England (See Impressive Sites section)
| LATITUDE: 52° 34’ 25.23” N | LONGITUDE: 0° 11’ 31.74” W |
This is a very extensive site and one that would make a great family day out. It highlights the importance of the fenlands to our ancient ancestors.
Cinderbury Iron Age Farm, Coleford, Gloucestershire, England
| LATITUDE: 51° 47’ 35.86” N | LONGITUDE: 2° 36’ 57.98” W |
If you want to go back in time and learn what life was like in the Iron Age, take a trip to the wonderful Forest of Dean and look at Cinderbury.
Belderrig Prehistoric Farm Site, Co. Mayo, Ireland
| LATITUDE: 54° 06’ 42.78” N | LONGITUDE: 9° 09’ 26.51” W |
A lovely spot in County Mayo, with evidence of some of the earliest farming ever to take place in our islands. The sea is close by.
Dan-yr-Ogof Iron Age Village and Caves, Abercraf, Powys, Wales
| LATITUDE: 51° 49’ 53.00” N | LONGITUDE: 3° 41’ 15.77” W |
This is as much ‘an experience’ as a genuine historical excursion, but it is well worth a visit and for the family has much more than an Iron Age village.
Prehistoric Villages
In a general sense our ancient ancestors have left little to us that describes village life as it must have been lived. This is for the reasons listed above in Prehistoric Farms. Communities were widespread, usually small, and houses were built of materials that have not stood the test of time in the way that the tombs and standing stones have.
There are some exceptions and there are places where the ruins of villages originally built partly of stone have survived as foundations, especially in the uplands, and there is one example that is a virtual snapshot of life in the remote past. This is at Skara Brae on Orkney, Scotland, where an entire village of stone-built houses survived virtually intact because it was covered by sand dunes in very remote times. The village dates back to at least 3200 BC and is incalculably important in understanding late Stone Age life in the British Isles. All the same, it is not necessarily representative because stone used exclusively as a building material for dwelling houses was rare across Britain. (See Skara Brae in the Impressive Sites section.)
Figure 16: A reconstruction of a typical British Iron Age house
Figure 17: A reconstructed Iron Age village
Places to see recreated prehistoric villages:
Skara Brae, Stromness, Orkney, Scotland (The best of the best – see Impressive Sites section)
| LATITUDE: 59° 2’ 54.78” N | LONGITUDE: 3° 20’ 38.63” W |
Actually Skara Brae has not been recreated. It looks today very much the way it was found. This is genuine time travel at its very best.
Castell Henllys Iron Age Fort, Pembrokeshire, Wales
| LATITUDE: 52° 1’ 5.82” N | LONGITUDE: 4° 44’ 44.08” W |
Set within an actual Iron Age fort, the village here is quite fascinating and there are sometimes even ‘hands on’ projects for visitors.
As with prehistoric farms, there are a number of recreated prehistoric villages to be seen throughout the British Isles. Our knowledge of how people lived in the late Stone Age, Bronze Age and Iron Age is growing all the time and much trouble has been taken to recreate houses and styles of life that can be viewed by the interested visitor.
Rock-Cut Tomb
Rock-cut tombs are not only rare in the British Isles, they are like hens’ teeth. In reality, and despite protestations from other places, there is probably only one to be found and that is on Hoy, Orkney Scotland. A rock-cut tomb, much more likely to be found in southern Europe and the Levant, is a tomb that is not constructed of separate stones, as most British examples are, but rather one that is carved into the rock in a particular location.
The example on Hoy is called Dwarfie Stane. It is cut into a massive piece of Devonian old red sandstone. It is similar in its internal design to other chambered tombs in and around Orkney and only its unique position as a rock-cut tomb sets it apart.
There are other places in Britain where rock-cut tombs have been claimed, though these are in some doubt. They may be modified natural caves or structures of a much more recent creation, but of the Dwarfie Stane there is no doubt whatsoever. For this reason alone it comes high on the list of ‘must see’ sites for prehistoric buffs.
Figure 18: A typical rock-cut tomb
Where to see a rock-cut tomb:
Dwarfie Stane, Hoy, Orkney, Scotland
| LATITUDE: 58° 53’ 4.21” N | LONGITUDE: 3° 18’ 42” W |
Since this is the only true rock-cut tomb in the British Isles, if you want to see such a structure you will have little choice but to visit Orkney – but what a place it is.
Round Cairn (See Cairn)
Round Barrow (See Barrow)
Sexual Stones
Because archaeologists and others studying our ancient past are, of necessity, scientists, they try to avoid conjecture as much as possible. Whilst understandable this is somewhat restricting when dealing with structures the purposes of which are lost in the mists of time. Stone circles, tombs, forts and other structures don’t come with ‘instruction manuals’, which means if we are going to make any sense at all of them we have to use every piece of evidence that is present. Sometimes that’s as simple as using your eyes, which is definitely the case with sexual stones.
Because people all over the world are broadly similar in lots of ways, it is possible to use what we ‘know’ about one culture in order to make sense of another we know very little about. True, this can sometimes be quite misleading, but in the absence of other proof, at least it offers us a way forward. We know, for example, that many cultures in the past have made ‘phallic’ representations of one sort or another, often out of stone. The phallus is obviously of great importance because it is part of the mechanism by which our species has survived and flourished for so many thousands of years. And whilst talking about ‘willies’ might not be considered suitable for some company, we can’t ignore them when we find them dotted about all over the prehistoric landscape. I am personally in no doubt whatsoever, and for a host of different reasons, that the sky and the earth were associated in the prehistoric British Isles with sex and birth and death. It seems as though these ancient peoples thought about a ritual ‘coming together’ of the sky god and the earth goddess, which allowed the world in which they lived to be fruitful. Each year the seasons turned, bringing potential famine and death in the winter months, hope in the spring, and bounty in the summer and especially the autumn. That they equated these cycles with the cycles of human fertility, together with life and death, seems self-evident.
Buried in the deepest recesses of the chamber at Knowth, Ireland, was found an exquisite red stone phallus, which is really quite unmistakable. That it was found in association with burials seems to indicate, as we can be sure was the case, that the people who built Knowth, and the other prehistoric tombs, fully expected the deceased to be born again into some other sort of reality – or else to be reincarnated into their own world.
Now let us look at much bigger stones. A great example is that of a stone contained in the circle at Aikey Brae in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. If this particular stone is not fully intended to be a phallus I will eat my hat (and I often wear a very big and quite unappetizing hat). If you can get there, go and see it for yourself. The symbolism is glaringly obvious. There are other examples in Aberdeenshire, for example at Whitehill, where at several sites a deliberate and obvious phallus stone is included.
It looks as though the Scots (or at least their prehistoric equivalents) were particularly keen on this sort of thing. There is another great example at Cnoc Fillibhear Bheag on the Island of Lewis. Callanish also has phallic stones. In fact it might be suggested that all tall standing stones, single or in circles, may well be intended to represent the male member and male fertility, whilst other stones, invariably lozenge-shaped or diamond-shaped, are representative of female sexuality (the diamond in particular has been a symbol for the feminine since time out of mind because it has vaginal connotations). Often the tall stones and the diamond stones are alternately placed in a standing stone circle, as is the case at Avebury, and this is surely intended to indicate both genders as being part of the ‘fertility game’ exhibited both by people and by nature as a whole.
Nor is this use of obvious phallus stones and vagina stones restricted to just a couple of locations. It can be seen on Bodmin Moor at the Hurlers stone circle, in the trilithons at Stonehenge and especially at Men-an-Tol in Cornwall, England. Here the builders have gone one stage further because there is a very wide, roughly circular stone with a large hole through its centre. This has been associated with procreation and childbirth as long as memory goes back but it is also quite definitely equated with sexual penetration, which I am certain it was intended to be since it was carved and put up. This stone may also be associated with the Moon, which because of its 28–29-day cycles has always had a connection with the female menstrual cycle.
Neither can we forget that burial mounds and tombs of one sort or another have often been equated with ‘wombs of the Earth’ and that certainly seems to be what most of them are meant to represent. There is so often a chamber that represents the womb, together with a passage that is clearly meant to be the birth canal. Whether the deceased were meant to be reborn into this world or into some other existence we can’t possibly know, but of a belief in an afterlife there is no doubt – or else why would the dead be supplied with grave goods of an entirely practical or status-related nature?
I have deliberately avoided giving specific examples of places where readers can see sexual stones, apart from the examples quoted above. This is because I am personally so sure that sexuality, life and death, together with the cycles of nature, are so closely allied to all our prehistoric structures, that I think they are obvious in all of them. It only takes a moment to look at a host of daily newspapers or magazines, at television, films or the internet, in order to see just how obsessed with sex we still are. A leopard doesn’t change its spots, and nor do humans. In many cases, it isn’t a matter of searching to find out what is sexual about particular prehistoric sites, and especially standing stones; what is more to the point is recognizing what isn’t.
Standing Stone
There is nothing mysterious about the term ‘standing stone’; it simply refers to a stone that has been found or quarried, taken to a chosen site and then erected in an upright position. There are literally tens of thousands of standing stones across the British Isles, some of them standing alone (see Menhir), in groups, or as part of circles and other arrangements.
Some standing stones are very crude, in fact little altered from the state they were in when they were found in the landscape, whereas others have been carefully worked to achieve an obviously desired shape and size (a process that sometimes must have taken weeks of hard work with stone mauls).
Standing stones can be extremely small or massively large (up to 40 tonnes in some cases!) and the purpose for their existence probably varied from place to place and across a long period of time.
Doubtless some standing stones were simple, territorial markers, defining the extent of the property of a clan or tribe, with others clearly of a more ritual or religious nature. Britain is far from being unique in possessing standing stones; they are found in a wide arc down the western seaboard of Europe, in the Mediterranean, down into northern Africa and, in fact, in so many places they seem to be the norm rather than any sort of exception.
Figure 19: A typical standing stone
Figure 20: Stonehenge
We can only guess at the mindset of the people who chose to select such stones, hammer them into shape and drag them sometimes great distances across the landscape, before erecting them, often with great care, in specific shapes and designs. Some standing stones may have been used as waymarkers – as they still are in some upland areas of Britain where they stand out well against a background of snow – and not a few unknown standing stones that have been brought to my attention over the years turned out to be medieval and made as gate posts (though the reverse is sometimes true because there are many gate posts that used to be standing stones).
No particular sort of stone seems to have been of specific importance to the majority of our ancient ancestors. In most cases they simply used whatever was at hand. There are exceptions (see Stonehenge in Impressive Sites section) because it appears that on rare occasions particular types of stone from a distance were chosen, even if local stone was readily available.
Some standing stones seem to have a self-evident purpose (see Sexual Stones) and it is true that some stone circles have alternate long stones and diamond-shaped stones (which, as mentioned before, it is often suggested represented the alternate male and female principle).
Local standing stones always attract their own myths (see The Devil’s Arrows in the Impressive Sites section) but most of these have simply been attached to stones that have occupied a particular spot on the landscape for so long that nobody has any idea why they were really put there. Many attract local superstitions, which can only be seen as a good thing because it has preserved them. In the 17th and 18th centuries in parts of Britain there was a religious fervour that caused some people to deliberately destroy standing stones, which were said to be the work of the Devil. This was less likely to happen on the Celtic fringe, in Wales, Scotland and Ireland, where local legends warned people not to damage the stones, which were thought to be of a different supernatural origin.
Figure 21: A standing stone
Places to see really impressive standing stones (see also Menhir):
Stonehenge, Amesbury, Wiltshire, England
(See Impressive Sites section)
| LATITUDE: 51° 10′ 43.87″ N | LONGITUDE: 1° 49′ 34.27″ W |
There are all manner of standing stones at Stonehenge and some of the outlying ones are especially large and truly impressive.
Avebury, near Marlborough, Wiltshire, England
(See Impressive Sites section)
| LATITUDE: 51° 25′ 43.04″ N | LONGITUDE: 1° 51′ 14.66″ W |
I really love Avebury. The stones here are huge and most were not carved into shape but look much as they must have done when dragged from the earth.
The Bull Stone, Otley Chevin, West Yorkshire, England
| LATITUDE: 53° 53′ 16.35″ N | LONGITUDE: 1° 41′ 11.56″ W |
The Bull Stone is not especially large or impressive but it is a feast of cup and ring markings and a true survivor across a vast period of time.
Ballinaby Standing Stone, Islay, Hebrides, Scotland
| LATITUDE: 55° 49′ 0.54″ N | LONGITUDE: 6° 26′ 18.74″ W |
Tall, gaunt and weathered, this slim stone has been watching over the island of Islay for so long it looks as though it truly belongs to the landscape.
Gelligaer, Cefn Bugail, Mid Glamorgan, Wales
| LATITUDE: 51° 43′ 17.86″ N | LONGITUDE: 3° 17′ 55.42″ W |
The Gelligaer standing stone stands drunkenly beside a track that is so old our very earliest ancestors must have walked along it.
Maen Llia, Brecon, Brecon Beacons, Wales
| LATITUDE: 51° 51′ 34.55″ N | LONGITUDE: 3° 33′ 45.62″ W |
Maen Llia stone looks like a giant’s tear, frozen into solid rock. It’s fat and squat and somehow especially friendly to travellers.
Ballycrovane, Sneem, Co. Cork, Ireland
| LATITUDE: 51° 42′ 45.3″ N | LONGITUDE: 9° 56′ 36.09″ W |
The stone here is in such a prominent position and is so large that it may have been a marker for those coming into shore at the nearby harbour.
Punchestown, Ballymore, Eustace, Co. Kildare, Ireland
| LATITUDE: 53° 11′ 27.85″ N | LONGITUDE: 6° 37′ 40.46″ W |
The age of this stone is in some doubt but few would deny that it has kept its vigil for a very long time indeed. There are other stones in the area.
Some standing stones are the remnants of half-destroyed tombs but most remain as silent sentinels, spanning the ages and linking us directly with people whose religion, social structures and motivations we can only guess at. But at least we can see what they saw and touch what they touched, in this way at least completing a connection that is strong at a genetic level but all too distant in terms of understanding.
Stone Age (Old and New)
The term ‘Stone Age’ covers a fantastically long period of time, in fact from the very first period at which people in Africa started to use primitive stone tools. Since some of our primate relatives also use stone tools for specific tasks, for example chimps use stones to crack nuts, our use of such technology clearly goes back a very long way.
It is estimated that humans first used stone tools as much as two and a half million years ago (though opinions vary) and what is generally referred to as the Stone Age continued until the advent of metal smelting with the arrival of the Copper Age and then, fairly quickly, the Bronze Age. During the majority of this period very little altered as far as humanity was concerned. True, stone tool technology improved and more specialized tools were created in different places by different groups. It also has to be remembered that Stone Age hunter-gatherers used a wide variety of other substances, such as wood, bone, antler and the like, but examples such as these do not survive well in the ground and so it is stone tools that are most likely to be found.
For convenience’s sake the vast period that was the Stone Age is split into ‘Old Stone Age’ and ‘New Stone Age’, though there are more technical terms, which are Palaeolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic, all of which serve to confuse ordinary people but which are of tremendous use to experts.
The term Stone Age, ‘Old and New’, is quite useful in Europe but less so when considering the entire world, in which some cultures were still technically in the Stone Age until their discovery by and contact with technologically superior peoples from elsewhere (as recently as the last century in some cases). However, for the purposes of this book the Old Stone Age is that period before farming and a more settled life came to the British Isles, whilst New Stone Age refers to the period of time between the onset of farming and the first smelting of metals in our islands. The New Stone Age therefore began in the British Isles around 4000 BC. This is the period also known as the Neolithic, as opposed to the Mesolithic, which preceded it.
Stone Avenue
A stone avenue is the term given to a series of parallel standing stones marking a ritual pathway of some sort. The very best stone avenues are not to be seen in the British Isles, but rather in Brittany, where there are long rows of stones that extend for kilometres across the landscape.
Some of the more grandiose Megalithic structures, for example Stonehenge, once had wide ceremonial avenues leading to them from other locations in the landscape and some of these once had timber or stone sentinels to mark their course. In most cases these have survived only in part, if at all, though the telltale holes where stones once stood can still be located. True stone avenues are rare in the British Isles but Brittany and the region around Carnac are the places to go in order to see just how persistent and determined our Neolithic ancestors could be when it came to finding and erecting standing stones. It has been suggested, perhaps fairly, that in the long avenues such as those in Brittany, each successive stone represented one person or generation within a long-lasting culture that inhabited the region.
Stone Circle
Stone circles represent what are generally thought of as being the primary legacy left to us from Megalithic times. They are extremely numerous and many more than a thousand have been noted in the British Isles and across parts of the western seaboard of Europe. There were probably many more originally and some unknown ones doubtless still exist below peat or within heavily wooded areas, whilst others have been removed for farming or urban development.
As to the age of stone circles, we have to be quite careful. Stone can only be dated geologically, which of course is of no use whatsoever when trying to establish when it was collected and dragged to a particular location. I have personally recreated a stone circle in the extensive back garden of a friend. The stones had originally formed part of a stone circle that was destroyed in the 20th century and I used measurements that were common in the Megalithic period. In a few hundred years it might be difficult for an archaeologist to date the stone circle I designed, which merely serves to highlight the dilemma regarding the age of some stone circles.
Even excavations within the confines of stone circles may not prove to be particularly useful when dating the erection of the stones themselves. Material that can be carbon dated or shards of pottery may well have been placed in the ground long after the circle was first built, since it seems that ancient stone circles have always been held in awe, by successive generations and even entirely different peoples. Thus, when dealing with almost any circle that has been the subject of an archaeological excavation, a range of dates has been achieved.
A slightly more reliable yardstick is to date artefacts that have been found under erected stones, as in the case at Stonehenge when stones have been occasionally removed for realignment or because they were in danger of falling. It stands to reason that anything placed, or lost, immediately below a massive stone that has not been moved since it was put in place is likely to date from the time of the erection of the stones.
Figure 22: A typical stone circle
There is no absolute convention regarding the size, shape and distribution of stones in stone circles throughout the British Isles and this has led experts to conclude that each was created locally and independently. All the same, there are similarities in many cases. For example, there are a whole series of stone circles, especially in Scotland, that are not true circles at all but various types of ellipses. It has been suggested that the makers of these stone egg-shapes were attempting to square the circle, in other words to define pi as an integer ‘3’.
Circles can contain many stones or very few and the stones can be massive or tiny. Many of the very small ‘fairy rings’ as they are sometimes called are doubtless lost in the vegetation of the British uplands, whilst other circles are so massive they can be seen from a great distance.
As to the purpose of all the stone circles, there is great conjecture. Doubtless they had some ritual or religious function but one famous researcher, Professor Alexander Thom (see Thom, Alexander), a Scottish engineer who taught at Oxford University, solved the problem regarding many Scottish circles. He discovered, as a result of very careful surveying and a good knowledge of astronomy, that these circles were designed to study and track the positions of the Moon on the horizon. The Moon, though going through regular and repeatable phases, has a relationship with the horizon that is tortuously difficult to understand and predict. For whatever reason, it appears that our Megalithic ancestors (or at least some of them) were interested enough to build ‘machines’ that could work out where the Moon might be at any given time.
Astronomical alignments have been suggested for many stone circles, with specific stones lining up with natural objects on the horizon. These might indicate the position of midwinter or midsummer sunrise or sunset, or the rising or setting of particular stars. The problem is that the sky is extremely complicated in terms of what can be tracked and unless a relationship between stones in a given circle and celestial happenings can be proved, there will always be people who shout ‘coincidence’. One can imagine that in a circle as complex as Stonehenge, which is actually a number of circles within each other, the possibilities are endless. Add to this the fact that many circles have outlying stones at some distance from the circle, which could have been used as backsights – additional stones or other markers that line up with one of the circle stones and point to a part of the horizon – and the situation becomes almost unworkable.
My own research, together with my colleague and writing partner Christopher Knight, tends to add weight to the idea that stone circles were primarily for astronomical observation. We showed in our books Civilization One and Before the Pyramids that the earlier henge monuments were used as astronomical observatories, in which the parameters could be changed repeatedly using wooden stakes instead of fixed stones. Under such circumstances it could be the case that the later stone circles were ‘fixed’ observatories, ‘set’ to particular happenings in specific sites. The frequency of midsummer and midwinter observations from many stone circles adds weight to the astronomical theory.
Figure 23: A stone circle
The earliest stone circles are most likely to be around 5,000 years old, whilst the last phase of Stonehenge took place between 2000 and 1500 BC, so a large span of time encompasses the building at such sites. In most examples local stone was used, though even in these cases it may have been moved a number of miles in order to get it to the desired site. Rarer are situations, such as at Stonehenge, where some of the stones came from as far away as Wales, a considerable journey when local stone was readily available. (See Stonehenge in the Impressive Sites section.)
The stone used in stone circles was sometimes left as rough as it must have been when it was found lying in the landscape, but in other examples it has been carefully crafted to form graceful megaliths or the diamond shapes that are also fairly common.
Perhaps the most contentious issue of all regarding standing stone circles also relates to Professor Alexander Thom, mentioned above. In addition to his work on lunar circles, for which he has been repeatedly praised, he made another discovery that is less well accepted. Working on mathematical evidence from hundreds of sites, Thom came to the unavoidable conclusion that common units of measurement had been used in the construction of nearly all of them. He named the most regularly found unit the Megalithic Yard, which he showed was 2.722ft (82.966cm). There was also the Megalithic Rod, which was 2.5 times the length of the Megalithic Yard, and the Megalithic Inch, of which there were 40 to the Megalithic Yard, and 100 to the Megalithic Rod. I personally have no doubt that these units did exist and that they were used across vast areas for a very long time. However, many experts doubt the existence of the Megalithic Yard, Rod and Inch, and Thom has had a bad press because of them.
Many people of a ‘New Age’ bent congregate at stone circles at specific times of the year, in particular midsummer and midwinter sunrise. Whatever they do at such times has no relationship whatsoever to the intentions of the builders of such sites (as far as we know). It might all be good fun but nobody should be under any illusion that these revellers, as good as their intentions may be, have any idea what they are doing or why – at least in connection with the original intention of the circle builders. The fact is that we just don’t know, though much can be extrapolated from sky patterns that existed when the various circles were constructed, and this sort of research goes on.
It appears that stone circles were first built in coastal areas, but by the later Neolithic period they began to appear inland and also became more complex. This period marked the high point of stone circle building and accounts for by far the majority of examples.
Circles can be single or double. Some, such as Avebury, have an epicyclical feel and many were extremely difficult to work out from a mathematical point of view. All the stone circles are fascinating and there is a wealth of potential for research in the case of each one. Some circles also have ‘recumbent’ stones, which appear to have been laid down lengthwise from the time they were installed. Often these attract the legend of being ‘sacrificial stones’, though there isn’t the slightest shred of evidence that this was their intended purpose.
In some cases there was almost certainly a ‘fertility’ aspect to stones used in circles (see Sexual Stones) but that does not preclude the astronomical explanation for the circles. We are dealing with a period at which the line of demarcation between religion and science simply did not exist – even in the Middle Ages it was more or less the same thing. Only in the last two or three hundred years have specialists disassociated the power of the gods and the natural forces of physics.
Perhaps we cannot entirely blame those individuals who suggest that stone circles are places of mysterious ‘earth power’, which they cannot define but insist they feel. I for one never fail to get a tremendous thrill when I stand inside one of the many impressive stone circles that still point to the sky across so many areas of the British Isles. The stones do seem ‘alive’ with energy, and maybe that’s the way they were meant to feel. Certainly the amount of work that went into planning and creating many of them was colossal, so they were clearly of great importance. The larger ones must have represented a great deal of communal effort, so there is little doubt that, like a parish church or a cathedral, they ‘belonged’ to society as a whole. What took place within them we can only guess, but they do speak of ‘specialization’ and of people who had sufficient time on their hands to undertake a great deal of effort that had little or nothing to do with sowing the seed and bringing in the grain.
Places to see stone circles:
Stonehenge, Amesbury, Wiltshire, England
(See Impressive Sites section)
| LATITUDE: 51° 10′ 43.87″ N | LONGITUDE: 1° 49′ 34.27″ W |
Surely the grandfather of all stone circles. True, it’s quite commercial but it is still the most impressive structure our ancient ancestors left us.
Stanton Drew Stone Circle, near Keynsham, Somerset, England
| LATITUDE: 51° 22′ 0.5″ N | LONGITUDE: 2° 34′ 28.73″ W |
Stanton Drew is a charming double circle and one that especially fascinated those antiquarians who first began to look at our ancient past.
Avebury, near Marlborough, Wiltshire, England
(See Impressive Sites section)
| LATITUDE: 51° 25′ 43.04″ N | LONGITUDE: 1° 51′ 14.66″ W |
In comparison with almost all stone circles Avebury is massive. It is also complex and must have been a nightmare to devise and build.
Castlerigg, near Keswick, Cumbria, England
| LATITUDE: 54° 36′ 11.78″ N | LONGITUDE: 3° 5′ 46.08″ W |
This has to be my own personal favourite of all England’s stone circles. It is set amidst a huge landscape and yet is not lost within it.
Long Meg and her Daughters, Penrith, Cumbria, England
| LATITUDE: 54° 43′ 43.12″ N | LONGITUDE: 2° 39′ 52.81″ W |
Long Meg herself is a large piece of red sandstone, and her daughters dance around her. The site is looked after by English Heritage.
Rollright Stones, Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, England
| LATITUDE: 51° 58′ 31.06″ N | LONGITUDE: 1° 34′ 13.73″ W |
This is a delightful site, suffused with both history and legend. Oxford is a beautiful county and the Rollrights are set in the best of it.
The Hurlers Stone Circles, Bodmin Moor, Cornwall
(See Impressive Sites section)
| LATITUDE: 50° 30′ 56.89″ N | LONGITUDE: 4° 27′ 26.83″ W |
Not only is the stone circle on Bodmin Moor very impressive, but it is set amidst the very best of what the West Country has to offer.
Arbor Low Henge and Stone Circle, near Hartington, Derbyshire, England
(See Impressive Sites section)
| LATITUDE: 53° 10′ 8.13″ N | LONGITUDE: 1° 45′ 42.18″ W |
All the stones here are recumbent, which means someone pushed them over at a remote time in the past. They look as though they are sleeping.
Callanish, Isle of Lewis, Scotland
| LATITUDE: 58° 11′ 51.42″ N | LONGITUDE: 6° 44′ 38.5″ W |
Impressive or what? The north of Scotland has some of the best prehistoric monuments anywhere in the world and Callanish is right up there with them.
Ring of Brodgar, Orkney, West Mainland, Scotland
(See Impressive Sites section)
| LATITUDE: 59° 0′ 7.5″ N | LONGITUDE: 3° 13′ 44.7″ W |
This site is haunting and very beautiful, especially at dawn or dusk.
Dyffryn Syfynwy, Rosebush, near Fishguard, Pembrokeshire, Wales
| LATITUDE: 51° 55′ 12.72″ N | LONGITUDE: 4° 49′ 26.18″ W |
Some stones here are recumbent and some still standing. This is not strictly a circle because it is elliptical in shape – though clearly deliberately so.
Gors Fawr, near Narberth, Pembrokeshire, Wales
(See Impressive Sites section)
| LATITUDE: 51° 55′ 52.76″ N | LONGITUDE: 4° 42′ 46.85″ W |
The circle stones are not large but there are a couple of taller stones close by that seem to have been erected to mark an important path or far-off view.
Druids Circle, Penmaenmawr, Conwy, Wales
(See Impressive Sites section)
| LATITUDE: 53° 15′ 9.58″ N | LONGITUDE: 3° 54′ 51.53″ W |
This circle stands close to what was once a polished hand-axe factory. The locals were probably wealthy by the standards of their day and were clearly keen to show their skill.
Drombeg Stone Circle, Ross Carbery, Co. Cork, Ireland
| LATITUDE: 51° 33′ 52.32″ N | LONGITUDE: 9° 5′ 9.73″ W |
There are 17 stones in this circle. You will have to watch carefully for the signs as you approach the place.
Beltany Stone Circle, near Raphoe, Co. Donegal, Ireland
| LATITUDE: 54° 50′ 59.12″ N | LONGITUDE: 7° 36′ 16.29″ W |
Beltany sports a very large circle, one of the biggest in Ireland, with 64 stones. Sometimes referred to as ‘the Stonehenge of Donegal’.
Stone Rows
The best stone rows to be seen are not in the British Isles but rather just across the sea in Brittany. There the puzzled visitor can see literally hundreds of stones, marching off across the landscape like some frozen army. The stone rows that occur in Britain are less impressive in terms of numbers but sometimes significant regarding their size. It takes three or more stones to comprise what is known as a ‘row’ and they tend to be aligned on the same axis. Unlike a stone avenue (see Stone Avenue) which tends to mark a path or ceremonial route and which can curve, stone rows are always straight.
Stone rows can be found on Dartmoor, in the south of England, in Co. Cork, Ireland, at Caithness in Scotland and at various other locations. One of the best examples is not far from the impressive super-henges of North Yorkshire. These are the ‘Devil’s Arrows’ at Boroughbridge, a row of three (and possibly once four) extremely large stones, the tallest of which is over 22ft (7 metres) in height. They don’t form a perfect row but they are often considered as such and are well worth a visit.
Stone rows are as mysterious as stone circles. They are often quite isolated, though are equally likely to form part of a Megalithic sacred landscape. They may have an astronomical association, though in isolation this is difficult to prove, or they might have been some sort of boundary marker.
As with stones in circles, stone rows often contain prehistoric art, such as cup and ring markings (see Cup and Ring Markings) but since these cannot be dated it is unknown whether they date from the time of the erection of the stones or if they were a later addition. It is thought that most of the stone rows were erected late in the New Stone Age or in the Bronze Age and they may have been part of a cult or a religious diversion that began at that time.
Figure 24: A typical stone row
Places to see stone rows:
The Pipers, Trewoofe, near Penzance, Cornwall, England
| LATITUDE: 50° 30′ 56.78″ N | LONGITUDE: 4° 27′ 31.9″ W |
These two stones are said to be two revellers that made a mockery of the Sabbath by dancing. As a result they were turned to stone.
Mayburgh, Penrith, Cumbria, England
| LATITUDE: 54° 38′ 53.46″ N | LONGITUDE: 2° 44′ 43.81″ W |
Only one stone out of four survives here but there is an impressive henge and this site must once have been extremely important in its district.
Merrivale Stone Rows, Princetown, Devon, England
| LATITUDE: 50° 33′ 9.37″ N | LONGITUDE: 4° 2′ 34.24″ W |
This is one of 60 known stone rows on Dartmoor, and there are other impressive structures not far off. Merrivale is easier to get at than most.
Saith Maen, Brecon Beacons, Powys, Wales
| LATITUDE: 51° 49′ 28.25″ N | LONGITUDE: 3° 41′ 36.68″ W |
These stones are certainly impressive, but visiting is not for the faint-hearted or anyone who is not in good physical shape.
Carreg Wen Fawr y Rugos, Wern, Powys, Wales
| LATITUDE: 51° 51′ 0.79″ N | LONGITUDE: 3° 15′ 41.63″ W |
Remote and brooding, this is Wales at its sombre best. Once again you will need to be quite agile to get there and find all the stones.
Ballymeanoch Stone Row, near Slockavullin, Argyll, Scotland
(See Impressive Sites section)
| LATITUDE: 56° 6′ 39.8″ N | LONGITUDE: 5° 29′ 2.73″ W |
There are two rows here, one with two stones and the other with four. They are to be found in the Kilmartin valley, maybe the best of Scotland’s prehistoric areas of note.
Souterrain (Fogou or Earth House)
Souterrains, the name for which derives from the French for ‘underground’, are tunnels dug into the earth or bedrock of many parts of Britain during the late Iron Age. They were originally lined with timber or large stones and some of them may well have been used as storage places, though it is equally likely that they had some ritual or religious significance. It has been suggested that they could have been a place of retreat in times of danger, though it hardly seems credible that when faced with attackers someone would willingly crawl down a hole that generally only had one entrance, and therefore one exit!
Some of the Irish souterrains may well not be prehistoric at all but could date to the 6th or 7th centuries AD. This should not prevent visitors from looking at any of the souterrains that are open to the public. Most of us like crawling around in mysterious galleries and passages and even if we don’t know what they were used for it is fun to speculate. Fogou is the name given to the specific sort of souterrain to be found in Cornwall, England.
Figure 25: A typical fougou
Where to see souterrains and fogous:
Carn Euny Fogou, near Newlyn, Cornwall, England
| LATITUDE: 50° 6′ 6.17″ N | LONGITUDE: 5° 38′ 0.78″ W |
This is a fascinating site but to get to it you have to walk through fields that become extremely muddy when the rain falls.
Halliggye Fogou, near Mullion, Cornwall, England
| LATITUDE: 50° 4′ 13.94″ N | LONGITUDE: 5° 11′ 42.09″ W |
There are plenty of fogous in Cornwall but this is certainly one of the best. The reason for such structures remains a secret held by the past.
Chrichton Souterrain, near Dalkeith, Midlothian, Scotland
| LATITUDE: 55° 50′ 47.29″ N | LONGITUDE: 2° 57′ 30.06″ W |
Wear your waterproofs because Scottish souterrains tend to be even wetter than Cornish fogous. A bit of a walk but well worth the effort.
Culsh Souterrain, near Ballater, Aberdeenshire, Scotland
| LATITUDE: 57° 8′ 12.67″ N | LONGITUDE: 2° 49′ 10.53″ W |
There is a lot of red granite here, but you will still need a good torch, as is the case at all fogous and souterrains.
Castletown Souterrain, Carran, Co. Clare, Ireland
| LATITUDE: 54° 0′ 48.94″ N | LONGITUDE: 6° 25′ 48.35″ W |
This site is as mysterious and uninformative as any of the others. What were souterrains created for? Maybe you are the one who will come up with an answer.
Finnis Souterrain (Binder’s Cove), near Dromara, Co. Down, Ireland
| LATITUDE: 54° 19′ 22.57″ N | LONGITUDE: 6° 1′ 7.14″ W |
You will have to be truly intrepid to get to this souterrain, but if you are fit and healthy and like a walk and scramble, this one could be for you.
Spirals
Spirals are found almost anywhere that our ancient ancestors lived and worshipped. The spiral seems to have had a special significance for prehistoric people and all sorts of explanations have been put forward to suggest why this might have been the case. Spirals can be found pecked into the stone of some Megalithic structures and at the entrance of some tombs (see Newgrange in the Impressive Sites section).
Alexander Thom (see Thom, Alexander) showed that considerable mathematical know-how was used in the creation of some of the spiral carvings, which are a geometric construct that is not easy to replicate. This is not true of all prehistoric spirals, some of which are obviously freehand constructs and intended to give an ‘impression’ rather than to be totally accurate.
Some people have suggested that the spiral was somehow designed to signify the behaviour of the Sun across the horizon throughout an entire year, or the Moon during a month. These theories are somewhat difficult to understand but do make sense. Spirals occur repeatedly in nature, such as in the case of a snail shell or the seeds in a sunflower, and our ancient ancestors cannot have failed to notice their presence. Spirals are by no means restricted to British prehistoric art and are to be found all over the world wherever people have made carvings into rock or undertaken art on cave walls or cliffs. It is a symbol that seems to be endemic to our species and it is impossible to say when it was first used in a pictographic sense. Be that as it may, the spiral is one of the commonest symbols from prehistory. Most spirals carved onto rocks in the British Isles are difficult if not impossible to see these days, mainly due to weathering, but the example at Newgrange is probably the best of all. Spirals can be single or double in nature.
Figure 26: A triple spiral carving at Newgrange
Temple
The word temple can be slightly misleading when applied to prehistoric monuments. This is because temple implies a place where some sort of religious worship was taking place and although this is almost certain to have been the case at many British prehistoric sites, we cannot be absolutely sure of it. Therefore, although we might call Stonehenge, Avebury or any of the ancient stone circles ‘temples’, this might be an inappropriate description. As far as I am aware, although some sites across the British Isles are referred to as temples, there is no absolute proof that this was their intended function, which may well have been totally astronomical or social.
Thom, Alexander (1894–1985)
Alexander Thom was a Scot who came from farming stock but who grew to become an engineer. By the end of the Second World War he had gained the title of Professor of Engineering at Oxford University.
Thom was interested from childhood in both astronomy and history and had a particular fascination for stone circles and stone rows. As soon as his academic career allowed it, Alexander Thom began carefully surveying sites, both in Scotland and eventually right across Britain and down into Brittany.
Thom was able to prove that many of the sites, especially the Scottish ones, had been used to track the movements of the Moon and he contributed greatly to our understanding of the astronomy used by our ancient ancestors. A more contentious discovery was the fact that most, if not all, of the Megalithic sites had been laid out using a common unit of measurement. Thom called this the ‘Megalithic Yard’ and declared it to be 2.722ft (82.966cm) in length. He also claimed there was a Megalithic Rod, which was equal to 2.5 Megalithic Yards and a Megalithic Inch, of which there were 40 to the Megalithic Yard.
Some experts have dismissed Thom’s findings on the grounds that no such accurate units could possibly have been maintained or passed on across such a huge area, and maybe over 2,000 years, without having deviated or changed. However, together with fellow writer and researcher Christopher Knight, I have been able to show how the Megalithic Yard was calibrated through astronomical observation and the use of a simple pendulum. In my opinion Alexander Thom deserves far better than he has received from a number of supposed experts who eulogize him in one way but vilify him in another.
Trackways
A trackway is merely a path that has been formed by the continued passage of people across a period of time. We tend to think that roads only came into existence in the British Isles with the arrival of the Romans but this is far from being the truth. People had to get about and they did so amidst a landscape that was fraught with danger and difficulty. Even by the Iron Age much of the British Isles was either heavily wooded or was covered by bogs and marshland; places where one could easily fall prey to wolves or sink without trace.
There is strong evidence, even from the most remote times, that a great deal of trading was going on across our islands. Commodities such as flint for tools and salt for human and animal consumption had to be taken from places where it could be readily found to areas where it could not. In addition there was trade in gold, amber, various sorts of ornamental stone and many other items. All of this meant people undertaking significant journeys and, over a period of time, the best way to get from A to B in any case would be established using local knowledge.
Ancient trackways do still exist, though it’s amazing how often they were utilized later by the Romans and thence became some of the busiest roads we have today. The A1 is a good example, because for much of its route it follows a ridge and high ground, so although it is credited to the Romans and became the Great North Road, it is doubtless extremely ancient as a trackway.
Sometimes parts of ancient trackways are discovered because they pass or once passed through marshy ground and so were supplied with a causeway, generally made of wooden planks fastened to poles driven into the ground. Not all such tracks are still used and their discovery allows archaeologists a glimpse into the past, particularly since our ancient ancestors seem to have been fond of throwing votive offerings into marshes and streams.
Such sites are rarely open to the public and even when they are for short periods there isn’t a great deal to see. However, you probably walk or drive along ancient trackways on any given day of your life. A diligent look at largescale maps, which carry contours, shows how frequently roads and paths stick to ridges and high ground, and how responsive they are to field boundaries that sometimes don’t exist any more. In this sense trackways and even modern roads have a great deal to tell us about the remote past.
Tumulus
Tumulus is the all-encompassing name for a burial mound. Although the term is still used, such sites are now split into their various types, such as barrows, passage graves etc.
Unspecified Structures, Odd Sites and Extensive Areas
The prehistoric people of the British Isles were certainly busy and across a vast period of time they were responsible for creating a wealth of structures, many of which can still be seen on the landscape. Most of what they have left us falls into one or other of the categories described in this section of the book but there are some that defy any direct comparison with others. I therefore decided on the heading Unspecified Structures, so that I could mention a number of sites in the second part of the book that did not belong in any other listing. All are well worth a visit and some are mightily impressive.
Where to find unspecified, ‘odd’ or just plain impressive structures and areas:
Dane’s Dyke, near Bridlington, East Yorkshire, England
| LATITUDE: 54° 8′ 24.08″ N | LONGITUDE: 0° 8′ 34.7″ W |
Dane’s Dyke is a massive earthwork. It must have taken countless thousands of hours to complete and yet it remains a mystery.
King Arthur’s Round Table, near Penrith, Cumbria, England
| LATITUDE: 54° 38′ 53.46″ N | LONGITUDE: 2° 44′ 43.81″ W |
This strange saucer-shaped circle appears to be a very unusual henge and it once had at least two sizeable standing stones at the entrance. Nothing to do with King Arthur.
Isle of Haxey, Doncaster, South Yorkshire, England
| LATITUDE: 53° 29′ 18.73″ N |
LONGITUDE: 0° 50′ 10.75″ W |
A strange, enigmatic area, filled with folklore and tradition, doubtless based on a prehistoric past. There is a celebration here every January known as the Haxey Hood, which I think is a hangover from a very remote and quite spooky period.
Glastonbury and Glastonbury Tor, Somerset, England
| LATITUDE: 51° 8′ 38.48″ N | LONGITUDE: 2° 41′ 46.54″ W |
Apart from the Tor (see Mounds) Glastonbury just oozes its ancient past. There are sacred wells here, as well as sites to please all visitors and a wealth of history that is unparalleled in Britain. The Tor is well worth a climb and you don’t have to be a mountaineer, though it is very steep and you may have to take it slowly.
Kilmartin area, Lochgilphead, Argyll and Bute, Scotland
(See Impressive Sites section)
| LATITUDE: 56° 07′ 58″ N | LONGITUDE: 5° 29′ 13″ W |
I have given the longitude and latitude for Kilmartin itself. This is an extensive area, with more ancient remains than one could shake a stick at. A visitor could spend days here and never see the same thing twice. I strongly recommend this area for a holiday, but take your waterproofs.
Salisbury Plain, Salisbury, Wiltshire, England
| LATITUDE: 51° 10′ 43.87″ N | LONGITUDE: 1° 49′ 34.27″ W |
I have given the longitude and latitude for Stonehenge. Probably the most famous prehistoric sacred area in the world, and certainly in the British Isles. As with Kilmartin, expect to be here for a long time if you want to see everything.
Silbury Hill, near Marlborough, Wiltshire, England
(See Impressive Sites section)
| LATITUDE: 51° 24′ 56.79″ N | LONGITUDE: 1° 51′ 27.33″ W |
Surely the most impressive man-made hill in the British Isles. You can’t climb it these days but just to stand beneath it is mind-boggling.
Boyne Valley, Ireland
| LATITUDE: 53° 41′ 40.69″ N | LONGITUDE: 6° 28′ 31.67″ W |
Here I give the longitude and latitude for Newgrange but the Boyne Valley is filled with mounds, tombs, sacred enclosures and much more. I can’t think of a better area to spend a few days (and the porter in the evenings is very good too!).
The Thornborough Henge Complex, Nr Ripon, North Yorkshire, England
(See Impressive Sites section)
| LATITUDE: 54° 12′ 36.64″ N | LONGITUDE: 1° 33′ 46.68″ W |
I have taken the liberty of mentioning Thornborough again because it is just so overwhelmingly impressive. Each structure of the three is so big it could swallow a large cathedral. You may have to climb a few fences and you will be astounded at just how ignored this site is but you are bound to be staggered by the proportions.
The Gop Cairn, near Prestatyn, Denbighshire, Wales
| LATITUDE: 53° 18′ 34.56″ N | LONGITUDE: 3° 22′ 13.57″ W |
This may well have been one of the most extensive prehistoric areas of note in what is now Wales. Sometimes, when you stand and look at a landscape you just get a ‘feeling’ about it. Not very scientific I know, but it’s certainly true of the area around the Gop Cairn.
Vitrified Fort
Vitrified forts are at one and the same time absolutely intriguing and deeply mystifying. Imagine a hill top, protected by a stone wall that is sometimes many feet thick and up to 12ft (3.7 metres) high. Now ask yourself how, in the days before mortar of any sort was invented, it would be possible to lock all of the stones together, to make one solid whole? The answer is that the builders would have heated the stones so much that they fused together. Sounds unlikely? Well, that’s what vitrified forts are and they exist in significant numbers in Scotland, with a few examples also in Ireland.
Exactly how such a procedure was possible has been discussed for generations. Clearly it would take extremely high temperatures to vitrify most rocks. It has been noted that in some cases small rocks of a type that would melt relatively easily were introduced into the ramparts of the forts, but high temperatures would still be required and the heat would have to be somehow ‘directed’ to the right place. In the case of some of the French examples of vitrified forts, high concentrations of natron have been found. Natron is a form of salt and this may have been used as a sort of ‘flux’ in order to get the process started.
Not all vitrified forts are totally vitrified. In many cases it tends to be the inner walls, with the larger, outer ramparts left untouched by fire. In other cases parts of the structure have been subjected to intense heat, whilst other sections have been left alone.
We know little about the people that created vitrified forts, except that they were probably a maritime culture and that the forts were constructed around 1000 BC or slightly earlier. What makes the whole situation even more puzzling is that rather than strengthening such defences, vitrifying would invariably make them weaker because it would cause the stones to crumble more readily. It is therefore likely that it wasn’t the strategic benefits of melting rocks together that was of the utmost importance, but probably rather the ‘look’ of the finished product or the sense of ‘power’ inspired by the ability to perform such a feat. Another explanation is that the forts were ritually ‘destroyed’ by fire after having been captured by an enemy. This seems quite unlikely to me for a whole host of reasons, not least of which is the physical effort necessary to collect enough wood and to supervise a burning that must have taken days.
Places to see vitrified forts:
Dunnideer, near Huntley, Aberdeenshire, Scotland
| LATITUDE: 57° 20′ 33.75″ N | LONGITUDE: 2° 38′ 40.96″ W |
How on earth did they get the stones hot enough to vitrify? It’s a great puzzle.
Dun Deardail, near Fort William, Highland, Scotland
| LATITUDE: 56° 47′ 4.92″ N | LONGITUDE: 5° 3′ 59.18″ W |
This is an excursion for the summer, and even then you need to be a good walker, fit and well prepared if you want to see Dun Deardail.
Barry Hill, near, Alyth, Perth and Kinross, Scotland
| LATITUDE: 56° 38′ 19.24″ N | LONGITUDE: 3° 12′ 12.14″ W |
There are many legends surrounding this scenic site. Many are linked with King Arthur and, in this case, his queen, Guinevere.
Vitrified forts remain a great puzzle. There are over 50 examples in Scotland but only a handful in Ireland and none at all in England or Wales. There are also many vitrified forts elsewhere in Europe.
Wedge Tomb
This seems to be a peculiarly Irish type of tomb (though other examples may have different classifications elsewhere). As the name implies, this is a wedgeshaped mound that tapers along its length and is entered by a passage. There are often antechambers within the tomb, separated from the main burial area. These tombs are very evocative, they date back to between 2500 BC and 2000 BC. They are a form of gallery grave (see Gallery Grave).
Places to see wedge tombs:
Giant’s Grave (Burren), Blacklion, Co. Cavan, Ireland
| LATITUDE: 54° 15′ 26.52″ N | LONGITUDE: 7° 51′ 42.79″ W |
There is no wonder this is called the Giant’s Grave. The stones used are massive and it boggles the mind even to contemplate the task.
Caherphuca, near O’Briensbridge, Co. Clare, Ireland
| LATITUDE: 52° 45′ 10.44″ N | LONGITUDE: 8° 32′ 31.62″ W |
It is probable that the designation of a ‘wedge tomb’ would be lost on most of us, but County Clare is wonderful and the porter is especially good.
Carrowcrom, near Ballina, Co. Mayo, Ireland
| LATITUDE: 54° 5′ 21.74″ N | LONGITUDE: 9° 2′ 49.05″ W |
Not easy to find but there is plenty of this tomb that can still be seen.
Figure 27: A wedge tomb
