12th September 2011, 11:19 AM
Dinosaur Wrote:For an indication of how ephemeral Neo structures can be see that site in Bridlington that was published recently, not in office so can't remember title/author of monograph (A place by the Sea, or sonething like that). Site I'm on at the moment has a strip of preserved Neo ground surface across it (joys of upstanding earthworks) and its really quite a revelation as to how much lower the rest of the site to either side is, and this is on a level gravel terrace! Where did all the landscape go in the last 5000 years? (hopefully supported shortly by a suite of OSL and C14 dates, before PP spots another nit-picking opportunity) - so I'm with Jack, mostly. A suspiciously high percentage of Neo 'houses' have been recorded under later earthwork monuments. Sites like Balbridie have benefitted from particularly deeply-dug structural features...but I've been wondering what happens when you strip away the shallower parts (the external wall-trench) - you end up with something looking in plan almost exactly like the mysterious series of parallel short linear cropmarks forming the north-east end of the Thornborough postpit-alignment, so maybe Balbridie isn't as 'domestic' as Jack's suggesting, particularly since large buildings like that do not seem to represent the norm in British Neolithic vernacular architecture. I've got half a dozen neolithic 'houses' lurking in my backlogue, and they're all pathetic little huts or, in a couple of cases, suggested as being more tent-like structures
i find myself agreeing with you again actually - the phenomenon of ground levels reducing outside neo/eba monuments has been mentioned around since the 60s - i even wrote a bit about back in the 90s but absence of evidence etc etc. and the observable phenomena of survival under earthworks might well have something mnore to do with the locale than it is evidence for the destruction of them elsewhere - dont ya think?
also agree about the trees on the other thread though banana shaped gullies are usually genuine features with a particular function
If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about answers