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Оглавлениеacronycal rising The last visible rising (in the course of the year) of a star at evening twilight. See Appendix 4.
alignment An arrangement in which three or more objects (strictly points on objects) are in a straight line. The word is often used of prehistoric rows of stones, but is here almost always used where one of the points is a rising or setting star, or a point on the Sun or Moon, on the horizon.
altitude Angle above a level plane, sometimes called elevation.
anthropomorphic In human form (to be interpreted generously). Neolithic slabs, often a metre or so across, are often carved in low relief with a face and other human characteristics. Archaeologists, however, cannot always agree on what these characteristics were meant to be.
architrave The main beam that rests on the plate (abacus) topping the capital of a column, as in Greek temple architecture.
ard A primitive plough with a ploughshare of stone or hard wood, and no mouldboard to turn the soil (and so create a furrow).
azimuth A direction in the horizontal plane, usually specified in degrees or as a compass bearing. Any clearly understood conventions for the starting point and direction of increase are acceptable, but star azimuths are commonly measured from north, increasing in a clockwise (eastwards) direction. East is then equivalent to an azimuth of 90°, south 180°, west 270°, and north 0°.
barrow A mound, deliberately erected out of earth and other materials (such as chalk, stone, or wood, depending on time and region), and having a conscious architectural structure. Usually, but not always, built for burial purposes. Long barrows, often but not always chambered, are typical of the Neolithic period, and round barrows of the Bronze Age and later. For various forms of round barrow, see Plate 2.
BC and bc (dates before the Christian era) are distinguished to indicate between ordinary calendar dates and uncorrected dates arrived at from radiocarbon methods. See Appendix 1.
beaker Drinking vessel with the profile of its side S-shaped profile, and often decorated with impressions made by a chord, bone or other tool. The general style seems to have arrived in Britain from the Rhine area in the mid third millennium BC. Many variations of shape are distinguished. Bell beakers look like an inverted bell or cloche hat. They carried incised decoration in horizontal bands round the body and seem to have begun as a regional variant (lower Rhine delta) of Corded Ware beakers. Like the latter they were often placed in single male burials, with weapons.
Belgae A population taking its name from Caesar’s references to a group in Gaul occupying lands to the north of the Seine and Marne. (Certain of their tribes, he said, settled in Britain.) Archaeologists apply the name to earlier cultures in the same general area.
bell barrow See barrow.
Beltane A Celtic feast, in celebration of the beginning of summer, but at a time of year roughly corresponding to our beginning of May. Approximately mid-way between vernal equinox and summer solstice. The festival was associated with fire.
bluestone A name given to some of the stones at Stonehenge, on account of their colour. They are in fact of several rock types (rhyolites, dolerite, volcanic, and some sandstones).
berm The level area usually left between a ditch and its adjacent bank or mound.
Bronze Age The period during which copper and its alloys were first used in significant quantities. The dating of the period depends on the place and culture. For Britain, various definitions have been offered, such as 2500–1800 BC for the early bronze age, 1800–1300 BC for the middle, and up to 700 BC for the later period.
cairn A mound of stones, often erected as a covering for a tomb. A form of barrow.
capstone Stone forming the roof of a burial chamber.
causewayed enclosure Any area enclosed by a system of rings of ditches and banks through which an entrance passage has been left.
Celts A name used by ancient writers of a population group occupying much of Europe and now distinguished by a common language (dialects of which are still found in Brittany, Wales, Ireland and Scotland) and artistic tradition (characteristic is the Swiss La Tène style). Celtic culture seems to derive from a Bronze Age urnfield culture of the upper Danube region of the mid second millennium BC. They might have arrived in Britain by the eighth century BC.
chamber passage The entrance passage in a chamber tomb.
chamber tomb Any tomb with a chamber, usually of stone, and usually with the evident intention of adding successive interments over long periods of time. The word is not usually applied to tombs with only a cist or coffin within them. In the Severn–Cotswold type (Neolithic period) the mortuary chamber was covered by a long barrow in the form of a mound of earth or stones. The chamber was often at the high end of the barrow. When the chamber was reached from the side, there was often a false doorway (false portal) at the high end, with horn-like protrusions to the barrow creating a forecourt (in some cases paved) in which ritual involving fire took place. Cairns with burial chambers are common in Ireland, northern Britain, and Brittany, but not in southern Britain (but there are some in the Scilly Isles, Cornwall and Anglesey).
Charon See obol.
cinerary urn An urn in which the ashes of the dead are placed after cremation.
circle A loose description of a roughly circular arrangement of standing stones or posts, whether or not surrounded by a ditch and/or bank. The word is often used by those at pains to prove that prehistoric people were unable to draw circles.
cist box, usually applied to a box of stone slabs used for burial purposes.
combe or coomb A hollow or valley, especially on the flank of a hill, dry during most of the year.
conjunction An alignment of two celestial bodies (say the Sun and Moon) and the observer, so that the two appear to be together in the sky; or, more generally, appear to be at the same ecliptic longitude. (The latter qualification is added since objects on separate paths may pass close, but not strictly meet.)
constellation A conspicuous grouping or pattern of bright stars, named on the basis of things the shape seems to resemble, or on the basis of an important star in the group. The Greek astronomer Ptolemy named 48 constellations, many traceable to earlier Mesopotamia. Astronomers now accept 88, strictly defined with reference to convenient boundaries (so that all the sky is covered) rather than shapes.
cosmical settings The first visible setting (in the course of the year) of a star or planet at dawn. See Appendix 4.
cove Three or possibly more upright stones, often in a U-shaped arrangement at the centre of a stone circle or henge.
cremation The burning of the dead.
cromlech A stone slab supported on blocks (a Welsh word for a dolmen). The word has occasionally been used for the circle formed by blocks of stone surrounding a barrow (in the form of a peristyle), and past writers have applied it even to Stonehenge and Avebury.
cropmark An evident variation in crop colour, usually visible only from the air, caused for example by variations in soil chemistry, water distribution, or very local weather patterns.
culmination The highest point reached by any heavenly body (Sun, Moon, star, planet, etc.) in the course of the daily rotation when it crosses the meridian.
culture A homogeneous grouping of material effects (tools, weapons, ornaments, pottery, burial paraphernalia, houses, and so forth) and physical and mental habits. In prehistory the latter is almost always inferred from the former.
cup and ring decoration A form of incised or pecked design found on stones, which may be parts of a monument or outlying crops of rock that have never been deliberately moved. The ‘cup’ is a hollow of say 5 cm diameter, and it is surrounded by incised rings, spirals, or other intricate shapes.
cursus Literally a course, as for a race, but applied now by archaeologists to a type of monument where a strip of land is enclosed between long parallel banks and adjoining ditches to the inside or outside of them. Long barrows may be built into cursus. (The plural of this Latin word is also cursus, but some treat the word as English and use the plural cursusses.) See Chapter 3.
declination The angle between a star (or of a point of the Sun or Moon, or other heavenly body) and the celestial equator. This coordinate is paired with right ascension. See Appendix 2 for more details.
disc barrow See barrow.
divination Foretelling the future by some sort of hidden, magical or supernatural means.
dolerite A basic igneous rock, resembling basalt, but coarser grained.
dolmen A Welsh, Cornish and Breton term (due allowance being made for spelling) for a stone table, in prehistory usually comprising upright unhewn stones supporting a large and relatively flat stone. The whole was usually originally covered with stones or earth and functioned as a burial chamber.
druid A priest of the Celtic people who spread across northern Europe and into the British Isles a few centuries BC. Archaeological artefacts excepted, most of what is known about them and their religion comes from classical Greek and Latin authors.
drystone (walling) Stone built up without mortar.
dyke or dike A ditch (occasionally to conduct water) or an embankment to keep water off land. The ambiguity stems from the fact that the two usually go together, for obvious reasons.
ecliptic The (mean) apparent path of the Sun through the stars, covered in the course of a year. The constellations through which the ecliptic passes define the traditional zodiac, but most of the familiar constellations in that band are of Middle Eastern origin, and are probably not prehistoric.
equator (celestial) The great circle in the heavens midway between the celestial poles. Poles and equator are determined by the Earth’s rotation, and the terrestrial equator is in the same plane as the celestial. See also equinox.
equinoctial See equinox.
equinox Loosely speaking, the time of year (spring or vernal equinox, autumnal equinox) when day and night are of equal length. These are the times when the Sun is on (or nearly on) the celestial equator, which is therefore sometimes called the equinoctial.
extinction altitude The altitude of a star below which it is invisible. This depends on various factors such as the brightness (magnitude) of the star and atmospheric conditions.
false portal See chamber tomb.
fiducial Regarded as a fixed basis of comparison (said of a line, point, or other marker).
flint A hard stone, usually steely grey or brown in colour, found in pebbles or nodules within a white incrustation. A relatively pure native form of silica, if suitably struck (knapped) it flakes so as to form (or leave) a sharp cutting instrument. Used for arrowheads, blades, scrapers, adzes, etc.
forecourt See chamber tomb.
gallery grave A chambered tomb in which the entrance passage, running into the burial chamber, is hardly (or not at all) distinguishable from it. There may be side chambers (as in the Severn–Cotswold type).
glaciation An Ice Age, the condition of being covered with an ice sheet or glaciers.
gnomon An upright (for example a stone or post, or later of finely contrived metal) from whose shadow time is estimated. Hence gnomonics, the science of calculating sun-dials.
gnomonics See gnomon.
grooved ware See Rinyo–Clacton.
heliacal rising/setting The rising of a star or group of stars just before sunrise, or the setting of the same just after sunset. See Appendix 4.
henge Circular banked enclosure with internal or external ditch and often one or more internal rings of timbers or stones. (This generic term is used in different ways by different writers, but ultimately derives by analogy with the name of Stonehenge.)
hillfort Hilltop defended by walls of stone, banks of earth, palisades of timber, ditches, or a mixture of these. Whether Neolithic causewayed camps had a defensive function is a moot point, but hillforts are usually taken to have been a late Bronze Age development, and most known examples date from the Iron Age.
hippodrome A course or circuit for horse-races or chariot-races.
Iron Age The period from say 700 BC onwards (the date varying from region to region) when iron had become the chief metal used for tools and weapons. (Bronze and flint continued in use, however.)
kerb Piled up stones forming a retaining wall around a mound. Kerbs may be internal or external and visible.
kist See cist.
leptolith Literally a slender stone. The word is used of slender flint cutting tools.
ley The name given by A. Watkins (around 1921) and his followers to certain alignments of natural and man-made objects that many of them believe follow the lines of certain unspecified kinds of force or energy emanating from the terrain. Their leys typically take in prehistoric, medieval, and even much more recent sites. An interest in leys was revived with the UFO craze in the 1960s.
libation The pouring out of wine or other liquid, whether or not conceived as a drink, in honour of a god or ancestor.
limb (of the Sun or Moon) The edge of the apparent disc of the Sun or Moon.
lintel A horizontal stone or timber, placed across the top of two uprights, as in a door frame.
long barrow See barrow
lozenge A rhomb, a geometrical figure in the shape of the ‘diamonds’ on playing cards.
lynchet A terrace cut into the slope of a (usually chalk) down, intended for cultivation.
magnetic flux A measure of the magnetism crossing a surface. More precisely: the surface integral of the product of the permeability of the medium and the magnetic field intensity perpendicular to the surface.
magnetometer An instrument for measuring the strength and direction of a magnetic field, in archaeology usually the Earth’s.
magnitude (of a star) A measure of the brightness of a star or planet. The Greek astronomer Hipparchus (second century BC) grouped stars on a scale from first (brightest) to sixth magnitude (barely detectable). It was eventually realized that the physiology of the eye is such that each step corresponds to a roughly similar brightness ratio. In 1856 N. R. Pogson established a standard scheme in which a difference of 5 in magnitude corresponds to a brightness ratio of 100 to 1. A difference of 1 in magnitude then corresponds to a brightness ratio of 2.512 to 1. The only magnitudes relevant to this book are magnitudes apparent to the eye. (Other definitions relate to the intrinsic luminosities of stars and to the type of radiation received by the detector.) marl A soil comprising a mixture of clay and lime.
megalith A large stone (by implication, one that is thought to have had a monumental use). (From Greek mega, large, and lithos, stone.)
Megalithic Yard (MY) A unit of length (0.829 m or 2.72 ft) that was used, according to Alexander Thom, in the construction of stone rings and other megalithic monuments.
menhir A single standing stone of appreciable height (a Breton word, said to be from men, stone, and hir, long). The word occurs in many Breton place names, but seems to have entered archaeology only in the eighteenth century.
meridian The plane containing the northernmost and southernmost points of the horizon, the north celestail pole, and the zenith overhead; or that part of the great circle on the celestial sphere through the last three points. (From the Latin meridies, midday, when the Sun crosses the meridian.) The word is also used of the terrestrial counterpart of this, namely a line of longitude on the Earth, as in ‘the meridian of Greenwich’. See culmination.
Mesolithic The period between the end of the last Ice Age (say 8000 BC) and the introduction of farming and pottery making (in Britain around 4500 BC).
Metonic cycle The cycle of 19 years or 235 months (these being approximately equal) that brings the Moon back in step with the Sun, so that new and full moons repeat on the same dates. From Meton, a Greek astronomer of the fifth century BC.)
mica A mineral (often aluminium silicate) occurring as small glinting flakes in granite and other rocks.
micaceous Containing mica.
microlith A very small stone tool, in some instances meant as part of a larger tool (for example as a blade fitted in a haft).
midden In general use now a dunghill, but in archaeological use a rubbish dump, often containing bones, shells, and charcoal.
Minoan The name applied by Sir Arthur Evans to the Bronze Age civilization of Crete (3000 to 1000 BC, divided by him into three periods, Early, Middle and Late).
mortise A cavity cut into wood or stone into which fits the end (or some part) of another piece of wood or stone (this being called a tenon) so forming a joint. The Stonehenge lintels had mortises into which fitted tenons at the tops of the uprights. This was obviously copied from earlier practice with timbers.
Mortlake ware A characteristic form of late Neolithic pottery with thick rims and heavy decoration. See Peterborough ware.
mortuary house A house of the dead, in some cases of stone and in others of wood, wattle and daub, as in houses of the living. Used for the deposit of the corpse, and occasionally offerings, at the time of burial. The starting point of many burial mounds.
Mycenaean A mainland Greek civilization that developed in the late Bronze Age, which in its early period (sixteenth century BC or before) was strongly influenced by the Minoan civilization. Named after the place Mycenae, although the term is applied more extensively.
Neolithic The period (literally ‘New Stone {Age}’) in which agriculture was first practised, pottery was made, and fine tools mainly in stone, all of these things being eventually the subject of trade. Typical monuments of the period were the long barrows and causewayed enclosures. The period in southern Britain can be conventionally taken as lasting from about 4500 BC to about 2800 BC.
node A point where two great circles on the celestial sphere intersect (see Appendix 2). Two great circles of much importance are the apparent paths of the Sun and Moon through the stars, and the lunar nodes (where they cross) are of especial interest since eclipses take place when the Sun and Moon are at or near them. The lunar nodes are not fixed but moved slowly round the sky in a sense counter to the Moon’s monthly motion, completing the circuit in about 18.6 years.
obol or obolus A silver (or later bronze) coin of ancient Greece, which was often placed in the mouths of the dead as a fee for the ferryman Charon, who conveyed the shades of the dead across the rivers of the lower world. The tradition was taken over by the Romans.
oolite A form of limestone, in which the calcium carbonate adopts a granulated form around grains of sand. Usually fossil-bearing.
Ordnance Datum (OD) The level with reference to which ground levels (heights and depths) are quoted in the Ordnance Survey.
orthostat An upright stone.
Palaeolithic The period (literally ‘Old Stone {Age}’) of human existence when stone tools first played an important technological part in human evolution. There are many definitions, but the Palaeolithic period is often conventionally taken to have lasted to the end of the last Ice Age, about 10,000 years ago, and to have begun around 700,000 years ago. Britain was occupied intermittently during certain warmer periods of this long stretch of time, which is usually divided into Lower (say to 200,000 years ago), Middle (up to between 40,000 and 30,000 years ago) and Upper Palaeolithic (continuing to about 10,000 years ago).
passage grave General term for a tomb in which a long stone passage leads into a burial chamber, the whole being then covered with a mound of stone or earth.
paving Usually flat stone slabs covering the ground.
post pipe The space in the ground left after the decay of a post, or its filling. Its precise size and constitution depends on local circumstance (outside pressure, the treatment of the original post, surrounding soil, and so on).
Peterborough ware Pottery of a style associated with the second half of the third millennium BC in southern Britain (as far north as Yorkshire). Typical is the heavily ornamented necked bowl, at first with a rounded base, later in a flat-based form. The ornament is often added with a twisted cord impression. S. Piggott recognized three distinctive styles: Ebbsfleet, Mortlake and Fengate.
precession (of the equinoxes) The slow drift of the equinoctial points (see equinox) round the sky (the apparent sphere of stars). The effect is that the measured ecliptic longitudes of the stars increase by about 1.5° per century, but it also means that what stars are visible, and where precisely they rise and set over the horizon, change with time—and change substantially over millennia.
quern A device in which grain is ground, usually comprising two discs of stone, the lower one hollowed and fixed, the upper rotated or moved from side to side by hand.
radiocarbon A radioactive isotope of the element carbon, used as an indicator of the time that has passed since the death of a specimen of organic matter (wood, bone, antler, etc.). See Appendix 1.
reave A land boundary.
resistivity A measure of relative electrical resistance, in archaeology usually that of the soil. (The term is usually defined as the resistance measured across a specimen of certain standard dimensions.) Variations in resistivity may indicate past soil disturbance (ditches, post holes, etc.) or the existence of buried material (stones, the remains of posts, etc.).
revetment A retaining wall, usually of stone, timber or turf, supporting a rampart or mound, or even the side of a ditch.
rhomb or rhombus A parallelogram with four equal sides. A lozenge-shaped plane figure.
rhyton A vessel from which libations are poured. (From the Greek.)
Rinyo–Clacton ware A major pottery style of the late Neolithic, with typically linear patterns and a more homogeneous form than that of Peterborough ware. It tends to have a bucket shape with thick walls and a flat base, and to be poorly fired. Known throughout Britain (found at Rinyo in Orkney and Clacton in Essex, of course), it is rare in Ireland. S. Piggott used the name to replace the more descriptive grooved ware, which carries no implication of a single material culture responsible for it, but which some regard as too narrowly defined.
sabbath Originally the seventh day of the week, a day of religious rest as enjoined on the Jews of Israel; more generally, any comparable periodic day of rest.
sarsen A form of micaceous sandstone (see mica), as used for the larger stones at Stonehenge. The word was perhaps peculiar to the Wiltshire region.
scaling posts The name given here to the timber posts, traces of which are often found under the high end of a long barrow. They are not symmetrically placed, and it is here argued that they provided a guide to the astronomical architecture of the barrow.
shard or sherd A fragment of broken pottery.
solstice The times of year at which the Sun is at its maximum northerly or southerly declination. The days are then at their longest and shortest respectively. These times are traditionally called midsummer and midwinter, although astronomers, among others, define the beginnings of summer and winter in terms of them. They occur now around 21 June and 21 December, but it makes little sense to ask for equivalent Neolithic dates, when there was no comparable calendar. At the winter solstice, the Sun’s noon altitude is at its lowest, and at the summer solstice it is highest.
standstill (lunar) A maximum or minimum of the lunar declination. (Compare the solar solstices.) This is only in the mathematical sense of there being a zero rate of change, and does not imply that there will be no greater or lesser values attained. See Appendix 2 for a fuller account of the Moon’s complex motions.
stele A standing stone or slab of modest size (say less than a metre, and often less than 30 cm) with one face only sculpted in low relief. An Anglicized Greek word. (Pronounced like the English word steel.)
tenon See mortise.
terminal The end of a monument (in this book usually a cursus) on the assumption that it was regarded as such by its builders and has been correctly identified.
theodolite A portable surveying instrument, usually now mounted on a tripod and fitted with a telescope, with graduated circular scales with which angles of azimuth and altitude can be accurately measured.
transept A side compartment in a passage tomb, often doubled to form a plan in the form of a cross, or even quadrupled.
trapezium A plane quadrilateral (a closed figure with four straight sides) that is not a parallelogram. Some use the word in a more special sense, adding the condition that just one pair of opposite sides be parallel.
treehenge The name given here to a henge with mainly timber components (uprights, lintels, etc.).
trilithon Three stones, in the form of two uprights and a lintel across the top.
trixylon Two massive timber uprights with a timber lintel across the top (by analogy with trilithon).
tropical year The time taken by the Earth to travel once round the Sun, from equinox to equinox. Alternatively, from the point of view of an observer on the Earth, the time apparently taken by the Sun to pass once round the sphere of stars, from equinox to equinox. This is the common year, of about 365.242 days.
tumulus A term used loosely for any artificial mound, called into use especially when the precise nature of the mound is unknown.
twilight The periods after sunset and before sunrise when the sky is partially illuminated through the scattering of sunlight. Various definitions are offered (civil, nautical, astronomical) according to the degree of darkening thought to be significant.
urnfield A field of pottery urns used for burial by cremation. (Also used of the culture in which this form of burial was practised.)
vallum A wall or rampart of earth, sods, or stones, possibly palisaded.
weald or wold A wooded tract of country. (The Weald is a name used especially of an area formerly wooded between the North and South Downs of Kent, Surrey and Sussex.)
wedge tomb A very long megalithic tomb, with the covering sloping down towards the end furthest from the entrance. A common Neolithic Irish form.
Windmill Hill culture The name given to a culture typified by the Neolithic culture responsible for the causewayed enclosure at Windmill Hill, near Avebury.
wristguard A plate of wood, stone or metal attached to the inner side of the wrist (of the hand with which an archer holds the bow), to protect the wrist from the bowstring.
zenith The point of the sky directly above the observer. The point to which the string of a plumb line may be regarded as directed. (More precise definitions are strictly necessary if the non-spherical form of the Earth is to be taken into account.)
zodiac The band of sky now associated with twelve constellations through which the Sun seems to pass in its annual path. See ecliptic.
