Possible New Solstitial Sightline in the Stonehenge Landscape

The landscape around Stonehenge contains a number of major Early Neolithic monuments dating to the fourth millennium BC, including the Stonehenge Cursus, the Lesser Cursus, Robin Hood’s Ball causewayed enclosure and several long barrows. A previously unsuspected Early Neolithic causewayed enclosure whose northeast rim was uncovered in 2016 on the slopes of Lark Hill, just to the north of the World Heritage Site boundary, represented a major new discovery. About a millennium after the construction of the Lark Hill Enclosure, a line of at least six timber posts was erected crossing from the interior to the exterior of the old enclosure, just to one side of a wide entrance. The line is slightly curved but the last three posts in the line face directly out towards the position of June solstice sunrise. While several short and longer rows of posts are now known to have been built in this vicinity both during the Later Neolithic and at later times, there are several reasons for believing this solstitial alignment to have been intentional and meaningful. It may even have represented the “monumentalisation” of an earlier broadly solstitial alignment of natural features, as has been suggested at Stonehenge itself.

To be Buried Inside a Long-Forgotten World: Studying the Reuse of Passage Graves Wearing “Bronze Age Glasses”

The theories presented about the reuse of Neolithic monuments during the Bronze Age in Scandinavia are mainly universal, i.e. applicable to all periods during prehistory. I argue that there is no point in isolating reuse as something separate from society. The focus of my study is the Mysinge passage grave on the is- land of Öland. I have also studied the reuse of other graves on Öland and of passage graves in Falbygden. I propose that the passage grave was linked to the un- derworld and that some of those buried in the cham- ber of Mysinge during the Bronze Age were people travelling by sea.

BRIEF RESULTS OF WORKS ON THE SITE VAVILINO 1 IN 2020

he article provides brief information about the results of the field works in 2020 at the stratified Stone Age site in Western Kazakhstan - Vavilino 1. The sites of the Stone Age, with a preserved cultural layer, are very rare for the territory of Kazakhstan, and in particular for the studied region. The works of 2018 and 2019 showed the destruction of the upper cultural layer of the site as a result of anthropogenic impact, the excavation in 2020 was expanded by another 12 sq. m eastward, were obtained more than four hundred stone artifacts, fragments of ceramics and animal bones. The first horizon up to 25 (30) cm thick was saturated with eluvium and gaize; artifacts of yellowish-gray quartzitic sandstone, siliceous raw materials of dark gray and light gray shades, single fragmentary bone remains and ceramics were found in the layer. The main percentage of artifacts in the first horizon is represented from quartzite sandstone - 173 specimens. (94%). The tool kit (39 pieces) is represented by the following items: scrapers on flakes and blades (9 pieces), mainly of end types (7 pieces). Fragments of blades with secondary processing along the edges are representative (14 pieces), or 34% of tools. Highlighted in a set are an burin on straight retouched truncation, reamers on a plates and flakes (3 pieces). A single chisel reshaped from a fragment of a core, notched tools on blades and a technical chip (3 pieces), a massive pebble side-scraper, a tool with a spike, chips with retouch, and fragments of tools (5 pieces). Artifacts from siliceous rocks are few in number - 11 specimens (6%), of which 5 tools, all of them endscrapers. On one, measuring 14.3x16.0x3.9 mm, the left edge was retouched with back retouch. The second horizon, 25 (30) cm to 60 (70) cm thick, includes 238 artifacts, 211 specimens from quartzite sandstone (88.6%) and 27 specimens (11.4%) from siliceous rocks. The technique of primary reduction from quartzite sandstone is represented by a double-sided core for removing short spalls, technical spalls, and ribbed plates. The tool kit (37 pieces) is represented by the following items: two end-scrapers on a plate, one end-scraper on a flake, and one side scraper on a flake; fragments of plates with retouch (8 pieces); an angular cutter, a drill on a fragment of a plate, two cutting tools, the first knife with a natural backing, the second with a serrated blade; scrapers on a flake (2 pieces); a chopping tool, the rest are whole flakes and their fragments with secondary processing. From siliceous rock, 10 tools, three end-scrapers, a round scraper on a flake, a chisel, fragments of plates and flakes with secondary processing along the edges were found. Despite the accident rate of the site and the destruction of most of the cultural layer by anthropogenic impact, the study of the site is of great importance for understanding the cultural processes in the Neolithic-Eneolithic era in the Volga-Ural interfluve. The stratigraphy of the excavation showed that the areas in the east and south are the most destroyed. However, in the southern direction, despite the destroyed upper layer, the thickness of the cultural layer increases to 70 cm, which is of interest for increasing the excavation area in the southern, as well as the western part of the site, which is less affected by economic activity. At the site, a bone fragment was used to obtain the first radiocarbon date 7483 ± 23 BP (Hela-4507) (cal 6355- 6335 BC), which indicates the early Neolithic age of the object. Work on Vavilino 1 has just begun, a small stone and ceramic inventory has been obtained, which has similar features to the Neolithic monuments of the Steppe Volga region (Algai, Irrigated 1), the date obtained includes this monument in the circle of the Early Neolithic monuments of the Steppe Volga region, however, additional dating is required and obtaining more massive material, which can solve to some extent the issues of the origin and cultural features of the Early Neolithic in the Volga-Ural interfluve. The article was prepared with the financial support of the KN MES RK (IRN of the project AR05134087 "Stone Age of the North-Eastern Caspian Region").

Into the Labyrinth

Chapter 1 discusses labyrinths and mazes as motifs symbolizing the solar cycle from mythology to the Christian era. The labyrinth is engraved on neolithic monuments such as Newgrange in Ireland’s Boyne Valley. The tale is told of Daedalus and the Cretan labyrinth and how Theseus overcame the Minotaur and escaped with the help of Ariadne’s thread. The meaning of the labyrinth in classical mythology is considered. The labyrinth remained an important symbol in the Middle Ages. It is found on the Mappa Mundi in Hereford Cathedral and in other medieval cathedrals such as Chartres. The chapter also discusses the relationship between the labyrinth and the cosmography of Dante’s Divine Comedy.

Domesticating Light and Shadows in the Neolithic: The Dombate Passage Grave (A Coruña, Spain)

Research on the Neolithic monuments and dwellings of Atlantic Europe has shown that plays of light and colour were tools for the social and symbolic construction of the world. The integration of the architectures into the surrounding landscape and the incorporation of the surrounding landscape into the architectures were an essential part of this logic. In this context, recent research in the megalithic passage grave of Dombate has evidenced an unusual physical manifestation of sunlight, which interacts with the decorated back stone. The light-and-shadow phenomenon occurs at sunrise during the period of winter solstice. In this paper we discuss the particulars of this phenomenon and we argue that sunlight when it penetrates the passage and chamber at sunrise on these dates may have dictated how the art was located and applied to the structural stone. Such differentiation seems to have had important cultural and ritual significance and encoded/embedded meaning for the tomb builders and may have implications for the consideration of the symbolic dimension of similar architectures in Atlantic Europe.

‘And Raise Me Up a Golden Barrow’

The stories we tell ourselves about our beginnings are a vital part of our sense of identity and belonging. For Druids living in the UK those stories tend to be deeply rooted in a sense of connectedness with the landscape and with the ‘Ancestors’, usually situated in an imagined and often idealized pre-Christian past. Since the time of William Stukeley, himself associated with the Druid Revival of the Eighteenth Century; the Druids have been associated in the popular romantic imagination with the ancient burial mounds that proliferate in the landscape. The fact that this association is not historically correct has done little to weaken its power. This paper will focus on the construction, in recent years, of a number of barrows, mimicking the Neolithic monuments, and designed to take human cremated remains in niches built into the construction. The fact that this initiative has proved hugely popular with Druids, but also with many others testifies to the power that the barrows hold over the imagination. Why is this? What stories are being told about the barrows, and do those stories have to say about connections to ‘deep time’, to the land, to each other, to community and to the future.

Comparison of geometric microliths of the Northern Caspian and Lower Don

Geometric microliths are inherent in almost all the Mesolithic and Neolithic monuments in the Lower Volga Region. For the sites of the territory they play a key role. With the help of this type of tools, it is possible to determine the cultural affiliation and chronological position of the studied monuments. In this paper we mainly consider the Neolithic sites on the territory of the Lower Volga and Lower Donets, which have geometric microliths in stone implements. Most of these monuments have a fairly stable series of tools of a geometric type, which makes it possible to compare them among themselves and draw parallels. The results of radiocarbon dating for Neolithic monuments of the Lower Volga and Lower Donets are presented. There is a typological comparison of these sites. The paper discusses similarities and differences, as well as possible contacts, or the lack of population on the two territories - the Lower Volga and the Lower Donets. The author comes to the conclusion that based on the analysis of geometric microliths it is not possible to trace a significant connection between the population of the Lower Volga and the Lower Donets. In the development of the flint industries of these regions there are more differences than similarities.