Four new 'henge' monuments in Scotland and Northumberland

Bibliographic Data

ID11006773
AuthorsR J C Atkinson (corresponding author)
Year1952
Volume84
Pages57-66
Publication date1952-11-30
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueProceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0081-1564 • E-ISSN: 2056-743X
PublisherSociety of Antiquaries of Scotland (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.9750/psas.084.57.66
OpenAlexW4322736303
LanguageEN
Citations received5

The four monuments described below are recent additions to the class of prehistoric sacred sites known by the name of "henge monuments," of which forty examples are now known in England and Scotland. Though these monuments vary considerably in the details of their plans, certain features are common to nearly all of them. The chief of these is the presence of an enclosing earthwork, in which the bank normally lies outside the ditch; access to the enclosed area, which is circular or nearly so, is given either by a single entrance-gap, or by two such gaps facing each other from opposite sides of the site. The central area may contain a circular setting of standingstones or, exceptionally, a ring of timber posts or of ritual pits, or one or more burials. In many sites no visible feature now remains within the earthwork. 1 The henge monuments may conveniently be divided into two classes, on the basis of the number of entrances; Class I comprises those with a single entrance, and Class II those with two. The finds from excavated sites of both classes suggest that this division is a real one. Pottery and other artefacts from monuments of Class I belong, with few exceptions, to the non-Western Neolithic cultures of Britain; while the finds from sites of Class II point to an association with the Beaker peoples, and particularly to that group of them represented by beakers of Type A

Archaeology · Geography · Archaeological Research and Protection · Maritime and Coastal Archaeology · Scottish History and National Identity

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