Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology (93 page)

Simple kind of
ROUND BARROW
found widely over northwestern Europe from the Neolithic onwards, although especially common in the late 3rd and early 2nd millennia
bc
. Bowl barrows are distinguished by having a roughly hemispherical mound of turf, earth, and deposited bedrock over a centrally placed primary burial, either in a pit or in some kind of stone or wooden cist.
SATELLITE
and
SECONDARY BURIALS
are common within the mound. Bowl barrows are typically between 3m and 40m in diameter and anything up to 6m high. Some are edged with stone kerbs, and a few examples had concentric rings of posts within the barrow mound as a constructional device. Many have surrounding ditches that provided a quarry for the mound-building material. Excavation often reveals that these monuments were constructed and enlarged over a considerable period of time. Certainly they were conspicuous features of the landscape for millennia, and in some cases remain so.

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

See
BOX TILE
.

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

An
ACHEULIAN
site revealed in gravel pits east of Chichester near the south coast of England. Excavation by Mark Roberts between 1983 and 1996 revealed a buried chalk cliff, in front of which was a flat plain extending down to the coast perhaps a kilometre or so away. On the old beach surface, which dates to about 500000 years ago, were flint-knapping areas and the remains of animal kills. In 1994 a tibia bone of the hominid species
Homo erectus
was found in the gravel quarry. Scientific studies of the specimen suggest it was a male who stood 1.8m high and weighed about 80kg.
[Rep.: M. B. Roberts and S. A. Parfitt , 1999,
Boxgrove: a middle Pleistocene hominid site at Eartham Quarry, Boxgrove, West Sussex
. London: English Heritage]

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

Style of rampart construction common amongst the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age hillforts of central and northern Europe. Two parallel lines of well-spaced paired upright timbers were joined together top and bottom, and linked longitudinally to create a wooden framework or series of boxes. These were then filled with rubble and soil to give strength and mass. The front face was vertical and either completely clad in timber or, where materials allowed, faced with dry-stone walling between the timber uprights. The rear face was sometimes ramped with soil, but mainly left vertical too. The top is never preserved archaeologically, but it is assumed that the front face was higher than the rear to create a breastwork and walkway along the top of the defences.

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

A baked clay tile shaped like a rectangular box, open at both ends; often used for flues and occasionally for voussoirs.

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

Obsolete term formerly used to describe the later Neolithic communities of the Boyne Valley in the east of Ireland north of Dublin. See
NEWGRANGE
and
KNOWTH
.

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search