Ritual and Landscape on the West Coast of Scotland: an Investigation of the Stone Rows of Northern Mull

1996 ◽  
Vol 62 ◽  
pp. 117-131 ◽  
Author(s):  
R.D. Martlew ◽  
C.L.N. Ruggles

In view of the theories of the astronomical significance of standing stones proposed by Alexander Thom, extensive fieldwork was undertaken during the 1970s and early 1980s in the west of Scotland to reassess the field evidence. Two groups of sites were identified from this work that seemed to support an astronomical interpretation, but the poor condition of many of the sites made identification of their original orientation problematical. Excavations were carried out at two damaged sites in one of the groups, in northern Mull, in order to identify the original positions of the stones. Radiocarbon dates from one of the sites, the first for a Scottish stone row, suggest construction in the Late Bronze Age. The alignment of the excavated rows, and the results of detailed theodolite surveys at and around the north Mull sites, suggest a more complex relationship between site locations, astronomical events, and the landscape than has hitherto been appreciated.

1919 ◽  
Vol 39 ◽  
pp. 185-201
Author(s):  
Ida Carleton Thallon

Prehistoric research shows us that in the troubled section of Europe known as the Near East there existed as early as the neolithic period several culture groups which may be classified under four heads as follows:—(1) The Aegean, Minoan-Mycenaean group.(2) The Thessalian.(3) The Upper Balkan and Danubian.(4) The South Russian and allied groups.The first of these is so familiar that we need only emphasize its continuity from the neolithic period through the Bronze Age, and the fact that, although eventually it was widely diffused through the Mediterranean from Spain to Cyprus and the coast of Palestine, in the Aegean area itself the northern limit on the west coast was Thessaly, which it reached in the L. M. period, and on the opposite shore the single site toward the north is Troy, where L. M. is contemporary with the VIth city. The sporadic examples on the coast from Thessaly to Troy are very late and apparently had little influence.The excavations by Messrs. Wace and Thompson in prehistoric Thessaly, which included considerably more than one hundred sites, have led them to differentiate a large number of styles of pottery, including red monochrome, red or black incised, or else painted either light on dark or dark on light in many varieties. The designs are predominantly rectilinear and more closely akin to the northern groups than to the Minoan.


2018 ◽  
Vol 73 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-89
Author(s):  
Richard Massey ◽  
Elaine L. Morris

Excavation at Heatherstone Grange, Bransgore, Hampshire, investigated features identified in a previous evaluation. Area A included ring ditches representing two barrows. Barrow 1.1 held 40 secondary pits, including 34 cremation-related deposits of Middle Bronze Age date, and Barrow 1.2 had five inserted pits, including three cremation graves, one of which dated to the earlier Bronze Age, and was found with an accessory cup. A number of pits, not all associated with cremation burials, contained well-preserved urns of the regional Deverel-Rimbury tradition and occasional sherds from similar vessels, which produced a closely-clustered range of eight radiocarbon dates centred around 1300 BC. Of ten pits in Area C, three were cremation graves, of which one was radiocarbon-dated to the Early Bronze Age and associated with a collared urn, while four contained only pyre debris. Barrow 1.3, in Area E, to the south, enclosed five pits, including one associated with a beaker vessel, and was surrounded by a timber circle. Area F, further to the south-west, included two pits of domestic character with charcoal-rich fills and the remains of pottery vessels, together with the probable remains of a ditched enclosure and two sets of paired postholes. Area H, located to the north-west of Area E, partly revealed a ring ditch (Barrow 1.4), which enclosed two pits with charcoal-rich fills, one with a single Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age potsherd, and the other burnt and worked flint. A further undated pit was situated to the east of Barrow 1.4. The cremation cemetery inserted into Barrow 1.1 represents a substantial addition to the regional record of Middle Bronze Age cremation burials, and demonstrates important affinities with the contemporary cemeteries of the Stour Valley to the west, and sites on Cranborne Chase, to the north-west.


Antiquity ◽  
1994 ◽  
Vol 68 (261) ◽  
pp. 715-723 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Saville ◽  
Ywonne Hallén

While the caves round Oban, on the west coast of Scotland, are famous for their Mesolithic artefacts, they have also produced Bronze Age finds and numerous burials. Radiocarbon dates on human bones from one cave show these to be Iron Age, suggesting the Obanian assemblages are composites accumulated over millennia.


1935 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 16-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. A. Holleyman ◽  
E. Cecil Curwen

Plumpton plain is situated on the top of the South Downs, roughly 600 feet above sea level, six miles north-east of Brighton and four miles north-west of Lewes (fig. 1). From its western end a broad spur slopes gently southwards from the northern escarpment of the Downs, lying between Moustone Valley on the south-east and Faulkners Bottom on the west. Most of this Downland is covered with a dense scrub of gorse, thorn and bramble, and with large patches of bracken and heather. A series of broad paths running roughly at right angles with one another has been cut through this vegetation to facilitate the preservation of game. Along the main ridge of the spur running north and south is a broad gallop which, at a height of 600 feet O.D., passes through a group of earthworks situated 1500 feet from the north edge of the Downs and 2300 feet east of Streathill Farm. This group was the primary object of bur investigations and will be referred to as Site A (fig. 2).Site B (fig. 3) lies a quarter of a mile to the south-east of Site A on a small lateral spur jutting between the twin heads of Moustone Bottom. The only visible evidence of prehistoric occupation was a quantity of coarse gritty sherds and calcined flints on the surface to the south-east of a low bank and ditch which runs across the spur.Several groups of lynchets enclosing square Celtic fields are to be seen in the neighbourhood of these two sites. They lie principally to the south-east of Site A and to the south of Site B.


Radiocarbon ◽  
1986 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 1227-1227
Author(s):  
C T Kawachi

The following samples were excavated in July 1985 in an upland (elev 609.6m) prehistoric agricultural site in the Kona Field System on the west coast of Hawai'i Island.


Radiocarbon ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 57 (5) ◽  
pp. 807-823 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yannis Maniatis ◽  
Nerantzis Nerantzis ◽  
Stratis Papadopoulos

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.


2017 ◽  
Vol 64 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. V. Harris

Between the Battle of Mylae in 260 bc (when Rome defeated Carthage off the north coast of Sicily) and the Battle of Myonnesus in 190 (when Rome defeated the Seleucid navy off the west coast of Asia Minor), the Romans established naval domination over the whole Mediterranean. Scholars generally believe, for quite good reasons, that this process of naval aggrandisement began abruptly, the Romans having previously taken no interest in the sea. That, after all, is what Polybius quite clearly says.


1923 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Mitchell Ramsay

In a footnote in J.H.S. 1918, p. 144, I stated the view that the battle (319 B.C.) in which Antigonus defeated Alketas and the associated generals took place in the αὐλὼν which leads from the N.E. corner of the Limnai towards Pisidian Antioch, carrying the southern or Pisidian road across Asia Minor eastward. This important route, regarded as a highway from the west coast to the Cilician Gates, is a recent discovery, though parts of it have been often described and traversed. In J.H.S. 1920, p. 89 f., I have argued that it was the road by which Xerxes' great army marched from Kritalla to Kelainai.There are two authorities on whom we depend for details of the battle of 319 B.C., Polyaenus Strat. 4, 6, 7 and Diodorus 18, 44; but both of these gather all their information from that excellent military writer Hieronymus of Cardia, the friend and historian of Eumenes. Polyaenus tells the story with soldierly brevity, relating only the chief military features: Diodorus diffusely and at great length; but so that we can recognise Hieronymus behind and beneath, and restore the full account as given by that writer.


Author(s):  
A. Stuart

In dealing with this subject it is essential to define the high rainfall districts, and on, perusing a rainfall map it was found, contrary to expectations, that the greater part of the North Island, as represented by the Auckland Province and Taranaki, has a rainfall of over 50 inches per annum. In the same category falls the West Coast of the South Island and all of Stewart Island.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document