Stonehenge: Neolithic Man and the Cosmos

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.

PREFACE (#ulink_5804acd6-8427-5ede-91dd-22cea7f7e056)