The Excavations at Cairnpapple Hill, West Lothian 1947–8

Antiquity ◽  
1949 ◽  
Vol 23 (89) ◽  
pp. 32-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stuart Piggott
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Field Work ◽  
Burial Site ◽  
Early 19Th Century ◽  
Main Road ◽  
The North ◽  
Site Field ◽  
Ancient Monuments ◽  
Ancient Monument ◽  
The Hill

In ANTIQUITY 1948, p. 35, a brief account was given of the first season’s work on a Bronze Age sanctuary and burial site on Cairnpapple Hill, near Torphichen in West Lothian. With the co-operation of the Ancient Monuments Department of the Ministry of Works, excavations were continued in the summer of 1948. The site was completely stripped, and revealed a complex series of structures indicated by the sockets of once-standing stones or by stones still extant. It will be laid out and conserved by the Department as an Ancient Monument under guardianship. The following account of the main results of the 1947–8 excavations is intended as a preliminary to the full excavation report, which will appear in due course in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, who financed the first season’s work.Cairnpapple Hill, the summit of which is within the 1000 feet contour, is a part of the Bathgate Hills, which form a compact block of high land between the main road to Stirling on the north and from Glasgow to Edinburgh on the south. On the summit, the site before excavation was chiefly distinguished by the grass-grown cairn which gives its name to the hill, but most maps and the earlier antiquarian literature indicated a ‘fort’ on the same site. Field-work in 1946 had shown that the cairn stood eccentrically within a low roughly circular earthwork (the ‘fort’) which on surface showing was almost certainly a member of the ‘Henge Monument’ class of structure. The site was confused by an octagonal turf dyke which had been made round the cairn in the late 18th or early 19th century to enclose a plantation of trees, now vanished.

Urban Development in Central Transcaucasia in Anatolian Context: New Data

2011 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 135-156 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vakhtang Licheli
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Asia Minor ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Southern Slope ◽  
Eastern Slope ◽  
The North ◽  
Lower Terrace ◽  
The Hill ◽  
Northern Wall ◽  
North Western

Abstract The settlement and necropolis of Grakliani Hill are located in Central Transcaucasia, Georgia. Excavations of the settlement on the eastern slope and the necropolis on the south-western part of the hill demonstrated that the site had been occupied between the Chalcolithic and the Late Hellenistic periods. The most interesting remains of buildings belong to 2nd and 1st millennium BC. Several sanctuaries of this period were excavated. A monumental altar was discovered in the eastern part of the settlement. The altar was located in the north-western corner of a building. On its eastern side there was an ash pit with a platform along the northern wall. The platform was used for placing offerings, including a South Mesopotamian seal. An architectural complex of the following period (450-350 B.C) was discovered in the western part of the lower terrace. It consisted of three main rooms and three store-rooms. Burials of various periods were discovered in the western part of the hill’s southern slope. The earliest one is a pit-burial dating to the Early Bronze Age, the latest one belongs to the 2nd century BC. After analyses of the finds several directions of cultural and commercial links were identified: Colchis, Persia, Phoenicia, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Asia Minor.

The Defences of the Iron Age Hill-Fort at Winklebury, Basingstoke, Hampshire

1977 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
pp. 131-154 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reay Robertson-Mackay
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
13Th Century ◽  
The North ◽  
North Side ◽  
The People ◽  
Ancient Monuments ◽  
The Hill ◽  
River Test

This report should be read in conjunction with the report on the excavations in the interior of the fort (previous paper in these Proceedings).The site of the hill-fort lies on the north side of the North Downs Trackway (National Grid Reference SU/614528). It is also on the southern edge of the Lower Thames valley. In this area there is a gap through the Hampshire Downs which connects the Thames valley with that of the River Test.The derivation of the place name Winklebury is not entirely clear. Medieval spellings, e.g. Wiltenischebury, c. 1290; Wyltenysshbury, 1407; Wynnyshbery and Wynlysbery, 1443, suggest that the name may be of Anglo-Saxon derivation and mean the ‘fort or stronghold of the people of Wilton’, i.e. the fort owned, occupied or built by the Wiltshiremen. However, Wiltonish occurs as a surname in Romsey in the 1289 Assize Rolls, in Walter le Wyltenysshe, and thus the site name may have evolved in the 13th century through associations with this family.Building development threatened the north side of the hill-fort in 1959. Excavations were accordingly carried out by the Ancient Monuments Inspectorate of the then Ministry of Works (now the Department of the Environment), under the direction of the writer in July and August of that year.

Communities of the dead

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dennis Harding
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Burial Ground ◽  
Burial Site ◽  
North West ◽  
Sacred Landscapes ◽  
The North ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Burial Grounds

Burial monuments of the Neolithic and Bronze Age, individual or in cemeteries, were often located in topographically prominent positions, or in zones of concentration that might qualify as ‘sacred landscapes’. In the Iron Age by contrast it is not obvious what governed the choice of location for cemeteries and smaller burial grounds, whether they were sited in relationship to settlement or whether there were traditional locations dedicated to burial. For some of the eastern Yorkshire square-ditched barrow cemeteries Bevan (1999: 137–8) considered proximity to water may have been a factor. Dent (1982: 450) stressed the siting of Arras type barrows and cemeteries adjacent to linear boundaries and trackways, a factor that is very apparent in the linear spread at Wetwang Slack. Though we may distinguish burials that are integrated into settlements from those that are segregated into cemeteries, therefore, there is no implication that cemeteries were remote from settlements. In fact, the contrary is often demonstrably the case. There is some evidence that small cemeteries or burial grounds were located immediately beyond the enclosure earthworks of hillforts. At Maiden Castle, Dorset (Fig. 3.1; Wheeler, 1943), the picture is prejudiced by the dominance of the ‘war cemetery’ in the eastern entrance, but the reality is that there had been a burial ground just outside the ramparts well before the conquest. A possible parallel is Battlesbury, where Mrs Cunnington (1924: 373) recorded the discovery of human skeletons from time to time in a chalk quarry just outside the north-west entrance to the camp. Some of these were contracted inhumations, and apparently included one instance of an adult and child buried together. The attribution of a ‘war cemetery’ (Pugh and Crittall, 1957: 118 evidently refers to this external burial site, which should be distinguished from the burials excavated more than a century earlier by William Cunnington within the hillfort at its north-west end (Colt Hoare, 1812: 69). Iron Age inhumations were also found, just within the rampart circuit, at Grimthorpe in Yorkshire (Mortimer, 1905: 150–2; Stead, 1968: 166–73). One of these was the well-known warrior burial, found in 1868.

scholarly journals New research in the sacred zone of the Fabrika Hill in Nea Paphos, Cyprus

2020 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 59-76
Author(s):  
Jolanta Młynarczyk
Keyword(s):  
Building Material ◽  
Field Work ◽  
Town Planning ◽  
Joint Project ◽  
Site Development ◽  
The North ◽  
North Eastern ◽  
New Research ◽  
The Hill ◽  
The Town

New research in the sacred zone of the Fabrika Hill in Nea Paphos, Cyprus The rocky hillock of Fabrika in the north-eastern most part of ancient Nea Paphos, founded during the late 4th century BC, is of key importance for understanding the early phase of the town planning, but at the same time very difficult to be methodically explored. Both its eminent location and geology made it a natural source of building material throughout the ages, greatly hindering any accurate reconstruction of the site development. However, the data collected so far strongly suggest that the arrangement of the southern part of the hill was of a cultic nature. Therefore, on undertaking a joint project with Université d’Avignon, we decided to focus the research on the southern part of the hill where, near the top of an Early Hellenistic theatre, there are rock-cut outlines of atemple possibly devoted to Aphrodite Paphia. During two seasons of field work (2018-2019), we retrieved some important information regarding both an original Hellenistic arrangement of the sacred area and its later (Late Roman/Byzantine and Medieval) use. Some new observations were also made regarding the topographical details of the area.

Neolithic and Early Bronze Age Settlement at Broom Hill, Michelmersh, Hants

1934 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 246-253
Author(s):  
S. T. Percival ◽  
Stuart Piggott
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Sea Level ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
The West ◽  
Southern Boundary ◽  
North East ◽  
The North ◽  
Ancient Times ◽  
The Hill ◽  
Steep Slopes

Between the rivers Test and Itchen in Hampshire, to the west of Winchester, and to the north-east of Romsey, there is a tract of high ground, forming the watershed between these two rivers, rising at Farley Mount, close to the Roman road from Venta to Sorbiodunum, to a height of 500 ft. above the sea. A part of this tract, particularly the area above the 300-ft. contour, in the ecclesiastical parishes of Farley Chamberlayne and Braishfield, is specially rich in surface flint implements of Neolithic or Early Bronze Age. The Broom Hill site is at the southern boundary of this area, on the borders of these two parishes and in the civil parish of Michelmersh. The position is latitude 51° 2′ north, and longitude 1°27′ west. It happens to be marked on O. S. 6-in. xlix, NW., by a triangle, showing that the place was used as a trigonometrical station, and is, therefore, readily visible for some miles around. The height of the point above sea-level is 330 ft.Here at intervals, during the years 1932 and 1933, the writer discovered some neolithic pottery which will be described by Mr. Stuart Piggott. The site is approximately 150 yards wide from east to west, and some 250 yards long from north to south. It is a ridge of chalk, capped by a sandy clay, above which again is a rough pebbly gravel in which the pottery was found, about twenty to thirty inches below the turf. The fact that there is clay under the gravel causes the land below the hill to be exceedingly marshy, and this state of things was probably even more pronounced in ancient times. The site is a narrow neck ending in a broader portion, entirely surrounded, except at the southern end, by steep slopes or marsh. The form of the site cannot be judged from the shape of the 300-ft. contour on the map, for there is an under-feature which causes the site to assume the form of a peninsula jutting northwards. But at the narrow southern end there is no sign of any defensive bank, which might, perhaps, have been expected; but the site shows signs of having been under plough, though not in living memory.

Excavations on Sheep Hill, West Dunbartonshire, 1966–69: A Late Bronze Age timber-framed dun and a small Iron Age hillfort

2015 ◽  
Vol 36-37 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-137 ◽  
Author(s):  
Euan W. MacKie
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
The West ◽  
The North ◽  
Preliminary Account ◽  
The University ◽  
The Hill ◽  
Small Team ◽  
The Bronze Age

Excavations at Sheep Hill hillfort, West Dunbartonshire, took place at weekends between 1966 and 1969, with a small team of volunteers. The fort is sited on a volcanic plug of basalt with extensive views up and down the river Clyde. The finds are in the Hunterian Museum of the University of Glasgow, and a preliminary account of the discoveries was published a few years later ( MacKie 1976 ). The hilltop stronghold was found in fact to have been two successive forts. The first (Fort 1) was a timber-framed dun – a drystone enclosure on the summit of the hill. This was destroyed by fire and partly vitrified near the end of the Bronze Age, and most of the rubble from the walls was re-used in the larger Iron Age hillfort (Fort 2) which was built on top of it. A midden from this early fort was found under the rampart of the later one and contained gritty Dunagoil pottery as well as pieces of fired clay moulds for bronze implements. It is possible that a palisaded enclosure preceded the vitrified fort. Nearby on the north was once one of the finest cup-and-ring carved rocks in the country which may have been damaged for building material. The later hillfort consisted of several enclosures defended by rubble and earth ramparts. An important element in the associated material culture was the shale armlet, several examples of which were found. They appear to have been made on the site. The fort is difficult to date precisely but was almost certainly pre-Roman. No Roman artefacts were found although the fort at the west end of the Antonine wall is only a short distance to the east.

scholarly journals ANCIENT STONE SCULPTURES OF SARYARKA (history of the study)

2021 ◽  
Vol 68 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
A. D. Kasenova ◽  
◽  
M.K. Suyundikov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Prospective Study ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Field Work ◽  
Late Bronze Age ◽  
History Of ◽  
Science And Education ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Stone Sculpture ◽  
The One ◽  
Ancient Monuments

The work was prepared within the framework of the grant of the Ministry of Science and education of the Republic of Kazakhstan AP08957321 "Мedieval statuesque monuments of Saryarka Abstract The article deals with the history of ancient stone sculptures of Central Kazakhstan. The works of A. H. Margulan devoted to the ancient monumental monuments of Saryarka were also analyzed. In the work of A. H. Margulan, a large number of materials on menhirs and zoomorphic steles of "koytas"are analyzed. Thus, we identified and analyzed the ancient stone sculptures of Saryarka. As a result, to date, the ranks of the ancient monuments of Saryarka have been replenished with field work under the leadership of Zh. Kurmankulov and A. Z. Beisenov. The tradition of stone sculpture on the territory of Central Kazakhstan is represented by monuments of different chronological groups: menhirs and zoomorphic steles of the Late Bronze Age studied to varying degrees. The analysis of the state of knowledge both at the field and theoretical levels shows that the monuments of the Late Bronze Age are the least studied. Meanwhile, the number of them has now significantly decreased in comparison with the one recorded in the works of A. H. Margulan. The authors of the article, analyzing the works of the above authors, reveal the problems of modern and prospective study of menhirs and zoomorphic sculptures of Saryarka.

Pictures and people. Seals, figurines and Peloponnesian imagery

2010 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 185-218 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erika Weiberg
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
North East ◽  
The North ◽  
Initial Description ◽  
Seal Impressions ◽  
Point Of Departure ◽  
Coastal Settlement

The point of departure for this paper is the publication of two Early Helladic sealing fragments from the coastal settlement of Asine on the north-east Peloponnese in Greece. After an initial description and discussion they are set in the context of sealing custom established on the Greek mainland around 2500 BCE. In the first part of the paper focus is on the apparent qualitative differences between the available seals and the contemporary seal impressions, as well as between different sealing assemblages on northeastern Peloponnese. This geographical emphasis is carried into the second part of the paper which is a review and contextualisation of the representational art of the Aegean Early Bronze Age in general, and northeastern Peloponnese in particular. Seal motifs and figurines are the main media for Early Helladic representational art preserved until today, yet in many ways very dissimilar. These opposites are explored in order to begin to build a better understanding of Peloponnesian representational art, the choices of motifs, and their roles in the lives of the Early Helladic people.

Ketilidian structure and the rapakivi suite between Lindenow Fjord and Kap Farvel, South-East Greenland

2000 ◽  
pp. 50-59
Author(s):  
Brian Chadwick ◽  
Adam A. Garde ◽  
John Grocott ◽  
Ken J.W. McCaffrey ◽  
Mike A. Hamilton
Keyword(s):  
Coastal Region ◽  
Field Work ◽  
Natural Environment Research Council ◽  
East Greenland ◽  
The North ◽  
Tectonic Processes ◽  
Field Investigations ◽  
North Eastern ◽  
Bad Weather ◽  
North Eastern Part

NOTE: This article was published in a former series of GEUS Bulletin. Please use the original series name when citing this article, for example: Chadwick, B., Garde, A. A., Grocott, J., McCaffrey, K. J., & Hamilton, M. A. (2000). Ketilidian structure and the rapakivi suite between Lindenow Fjord and Kap Farvel, South-East Greenland. Geology of Greenland Survey Bulletin, 186, 50-59. https://doi.org/10.34194/ggub.v186.5215 _______________ The southern tip of Greenland is underlain by the Palaeoproterozoic Ketilidian orogen (e.g. Chadwick & Garde 1996; Garde et al. 1998a). Field investigations in the summer of 1999 were focused on the structure of migmatites (metatexites) and garnetiferous granites (diatexites) of the Pelite Zone in the coastal region of South-East Greenland between Lindenow Fjord and Kap Farvel (Figs 1, 2). Here, we first address the tectonic evolution in the Pelite Zone in that region and its correlation with that in the Psammite Zone further north. Then, the structure and intrusive relationships of the rapakivi suite in the Pelite Zone are discussed, including particular reference to the interpretation of the controversial outcrop on Qernertoq (Figs 2, 8). Studies of the structure of the north-eastern part of the Julianehåb batholith around Qulleq were continued briefly from 1998 but are not addressed here (Fig. 1; Garde et al. 1999). The field study was keyed to an interpretation of the Ketilidian orogen as a whole, including controls of rates of thermal and tectonic processes in convergent settings. Earlier Survey field work (project SUPRASYD, 1992–1996) had as its principal target an evaluation of the economic potential of the orogen (Nielsen et al. 1993). Ensuing plate-tectonic studies were mainly funded in 1997–1998 by Danish research foundations and in 1999 by the Natural Environment Research Council, UK. The five-week programme in 1999 was seriously disrupted by bad weather, common in this part of Greenland, and our objectives were only just achieved. Telestation Prins Christian Sund was the base for our operations (Fig. 2), which were flown with a small helicopter (Hughes MD-500).

Radiocarbon Dating of Aghios Antonios, Potos, and Intersite Chronological Variability in South Thasos, Greece

Radiocarbon ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 57 (5) ◽  
pp. 807-823 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yannis Maniatis ◽  
Nerantzis Nerantzis ◽  
Stratis Papadopoulos
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Northern Greece ◽  
Population Movements ◽  
Radiocarbon Dates ◽  
The North ◽  
Chronological Sequence ◽  
Hilltop Settlement ◽  
In The Beginning ◽  
Early Late ◽  
Of Greece

Radiocarbon dates obtained for the coastal hilltop settlement of Aghios Antonios Potos in south Thasos are statistically treated to define the absolute chronology for the start and the end of the various habitation and cultural phases at the site. The location was first occupied during the Final Neolithic (FN) between 3800 and 3600 BC, extending this much contested phase to the lowest up to now record for Thasos and the northern Greece. The site is continuously inhabited from Early Bronze Age I until the early Late Bronze Age (LBA; 1363 BC) when it was abandoned. Comparison with other sites in Thasos and particularly with the inland site of Kastri Theologos showed that the first occupation at Aghios Antonios came soon after the abandonment of Kastri in the beginning of the 4th millennium. In fact, after the decline and abandonment of Aghios Antonios in the LBA, the site of Kastri was reinhabited, leading to the hypothesis that part of the coastal population moved inland. The presumed chronological sequence of alternate habitation between the two settlements may evoke explanations for sociocultural and/or environmental dynamics behind population movements in prehistoric Thasos. A major conclusion of the project is that the 4th millennium occupation gap attested in many sites of Greece, especially in the north, is probably bridged in south Thasos, when the data from all sites are taken together. The mobility of people in Final Neolithic south Thasos may explain the general phenomenon of limited occupational sequences in the FN of north Greece.

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