Stonehenge: Neolithic Man and the Cosmos

Fig. 204 The ecliptic, the path of the Sun on the celestial sphere. (#litres_trial_promo)

Fig. 205 The maximum and minimum declinations of the Moon. (#litres_trial_promo)

Fig. 206 The path of the Moon on the celestial sphere, in relation to the ecliptic. (#litres_trial_promo)

Fig. 207 The variation in lunar declination over one cycle of the nodes (approximately 18.6 years). (#litres_trial_promo)

Fig. 208 The angle of rising or setting of the Sun or Moon. (#litres_trial_promo)

Fig. 209 Extreme values on the graph of the Moon’s declination for a typical series of lunations around major northern and southern standstills. (#litres_trial_promo)

Fig. 210 A star map for the latitude of Stonehenge for 3000 BC, including stars brighter than magnitude 4.5. (#litres_trial_promo)

Fig. 211 Maximum declinations of the planet Venus in excess of 25° during the 36th century BC. (#litres_trial_promo)

Fig. 212 Maximum declinations of Venus in a single family of maxima (see the previous figure) over a long period of time. (#litres_trial_promo)

GLOSSARY (#ulink_cab67c02-b809-5b83-b77b-e32cf49d4b2e)

acronycal rising The last visible rising (in the course of the year) of a star at evening twilight. See Appendix 4.

alignment An arrangement in which three or more objects (strictly points on objects) are in a straight line. The word is often used of prehistoric rows of stones, but is here almost always used where one of the points is a rising or setting star, or a point on the Sun or Moon, on the horizon.

altitude Angle above a level plane, sometimes called elevation.

anthropomorphic In human form (to be interpreted generously). Neolithic slabs, often a metre or so across, are often carved in low relief with a face and other human characteristics. Archaeologists, however, cannot always agree on what these characteristics were meant to be.

architrave The main beam that rests on the plate (abacus) topping the capital of a column, as in Greek temple architecture.

ard A primitive plough with a ploughshare of stone or hard wood, and no mouldboard to turn the soil (and so create a furrow).

azimuth A direction in the horizontal plane, usually specified in degrees or as a compass bearing. Any clearly understood conventions for the starting point and direction of increase are acceptable, but star azimuths are commonly measured from north, increasing in a clockwise (eastwards) direction. East is then equivalent to an azimuth of 90°, south 180°, west 270°, and north 0°.

barrow A mound, deliberately erected out of earth and other materials (such as chalk, stone, or wood, depending on time and region), and having a conscious architectural structure. Usually, but not always, built for burial purposes. Long barrows, often but not always chambered, are typical of the Neolithic period, and round barrows of the Bronze Age and later. For various forms of round barrow, see Plate 2.

BC and bc (dates before the Christian era) are distinguished to indicate between ordinary calendar dates and uncorrected dates arrived at from radiocarbon methods. See Appendix 1.

beaker Drinking vessel with the profile of its side S-shaped profile, and often decorated with impressions made by a chord, bone or other tool. The general style seems to have arrived in Britain from the Rhine area in the mid third millennium BC. Many variations of shape are distinguished. Bell beakers look like an inverted bell or cloche hat. They carried incised decoration in horizontal bands round the body and seem to have begun as a regional variant (lower Rhine delta) of Corded Ware beakers. Like the latter they were often placed in single male burials, with weapons.

Belgae A population taking its name from Caesar’s references to a group in Gaul occupying lands to the north of the Seine and Marne. (Certain of their tribes, he said, settled in Britain.) Archaeologists apply the name to earlier cultures in the same general area.

bell barrow See barrow.

Beltane A Celtic feast, in celebration of the beginning of summer, but at a time of year roughly corresponding to our beginning of May. Approximately mid-way between vernal equinox and summer solstice. The festival was associated with fire.

bluestone A name given to some of the stones at Stonehenge, on account of their colour. They are in fact of several rock types (rhyolites, dolerite, volcanic, and some sandstones).

berm The level area usually left between a ditch and its adjacent bank or mound.

Bronze Age The period during which copper and its alloys were first used in significant quantities. The dating of the period depends on the place and culture. For Britain, various definitions have been offered, such as 2500–1800 BC for the early bronze age, 1800–1300 BC for the middle, and up to 700 BC for the later period.

cairn A mound of stones, often erected as a covering for a tomb. A form of barrow.

capstone Stone forming the roof of a burial chamber.

causewayed enclosure Any area enclosed by a system of rings of ditches and banks through which an entrance passage has been left.

Celts A name used by ancient writers of a population group occupying much of Europe and now distinguished by a common language (dialects of which are still found in Brittany, Wales, Ireland and Scotland) and artistic tradition (characteristic is the Swiss La Tène style). Celtic culture seems to derive from a Bronze Age urnfield culture of the upper Danube region of the mid second millennium BC. They might have arrived in Britain by the eighth century BC.

chamber passage The entrance passage in a chamber tomb.

chamber tomb Any tomb with a chamber, usually of stone, and usually with the evident intention of adding successive interments over long periods of time. The word is not usually applied to tombs with only a cist or coffin within them. In the Severn–Cotswold type (Neolithic period) the mortuary chamber was covered by a long barrow in the form of a mound of earth or stones. The chamber was often at the high end of the barrow. When the chamber was reached from the side, there was often a false doorway (false portal) at the high end, with horn-like protrusions to the barrow creating a forecourt (in some cases paved) in which ritual involving fire took place. Cairns with burial chambers are common in Ireland, northern Britain, and Brittany, but not in southern Britain (but there are some in the Scilly Isles, Cornwall and Anglesey).

Charon See obol.

cinerary urn An urn in which the ashes of the dead are placed after cremation.

circle A loose description of a roughly circular arrangement of standing stones or posts, whether or not surrounded by a ditch and/or bank. The word is often used by those at pains to prove that prehistoric people were unable to draw circles.

cist box, usually applied to a box of stone slabs used for burial purposes.

combe or coomb A hollow or valley, especially on the flank of a hill, dry during most of the year.

conjunction An alignment of two celestial bodies (say the Sun and Moon) and the observer, so that the two appear to be together in the sky; or, more generally, appear to be at the same ecliptic longitude. (The latter qualification is added since objects on separate paths may pass close, but not strictly meet.)

constellation A conspicuous grouping or pattern of bright stars, named on the basis of things the shape seems to resemble, or on the basis of an important star in the group. The Greek astronomer Ptolemy named 48 constellations, many traceable to earlier Mesopotamia. Astronomers now accept 88, strictly defined with reference to convenient boundaries (so that all the sky is covered) rather than shapes.

cosmical settings The first visible setting (in the course of the year) of a star or planet at dawn. See Appendix 4.

cove Three or possibly more upright stones, often in a U-shaped arrangement at the centre of a stone circle or henge.

cremation The burning of the dead.

cromlech A stone slab supported on blocks (a Welsh word for a dolmen). The word has occasionally been used for the circle formed by blocks of stone surrounding a barrow (in the form of a peristyle), and past writers have applied it even to Stonehenge and Avebury.

cropmark An evident variation in crop colour, usually visible only from the air, caused for example by variations in soil chemistry, water distribution, or very local weather patterns.

culmination The highest point reached by any heavenly body (Sun, Moon, star, planet, etc.) in the course of the daily rotation when it crosses the meridian.

culture A homogeneous grouping of material effects (tools, weapons, ornaments, pottery, burial paraphernalia, houses, and so forth) and physical and mental habits. In prehistory the latter is almost always inferred from the former.

cup and ring decoration A form of incised or pecked design found on stones, which may be parts of a monument or outlying crops of rock that have never been deliberately moved. The ‘cup’ is a hollow of say 5 cm diameter, and it is surrounded by incised rings, spirals, or other intricate shapes.

cursus Literally a course, as for a race, but applied now by archaeologists to a type of monument where a strip of land is enclosed between long parallel banks and adjoining ditches to the inside or outside of them. Long barrows may be built into cursus. (The plural of this Latin word is also cursus, but some treat the word as English and use the plural cursusses.) See Chapter 3 (#litres_trial_promo).

declination The angle between a star (or of a point of the Sun or Moon, or other heavenly body) and the celestial equator. This coordinate is paired with right ascension. See Appendix 2 for more details.

disc barrow See barrow.