Misplaced Pages

#677322

186-518: The Coldrum Long Barrow , also known as the Coldrum Stones and the Adscombe Stones , is a chambered long barrow located near the village of Trottiscliffe in the south-eastern English county of Kent . Probably constructed in the fourth millennium BCE , during Britain's Early Neolithic period , today it survives only in a state of ruin . Archaeologists have established that the monument

372-446: A Breton word meaning "table-stone"; this is typically used in reference to the stone chambers found in some, although not all, long barrows. The historian Ronald Hutton suggested that such sites could also be termed "tomb-shrines" to reflect the fact that they appear to have often been used both to house the remains of the dead and to have been used in ritual activities. Some contain no burials while others have been found to contain

558-557: A gypsy . A later account elaborated on this, stating that two individuals who excavated in the centre of the chamber without permission discovered a human skeleton, the skull of which was re-buried in the churchyard at Meopham . In an 1878 note published in The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland , Lewis noted that while many tourists visited Kit's Coty House, "very few goes to or ever hears of

744-482: A change in mindset brought about by the transition from the hunter-gatherer Mesolithic to the pastoralist Early Neolithic. Others have suggested that these monuments were built on sites already deemed sacred by Mesolithic hunter-gatherers. Within the chamber were placed human remains, which have been discovered and removed at intervals during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Early twentieth century excavation found two separate deposits of bone, each buried atop

930-518: A day, whereas people in agricultural and industrial societies work on average 8.8 hours a day. Sahlins' theory has been criticized for only including time spent hunting and gathering while omitting time spent on collecting firewood, food preparation, etc. Other scholars also assert that hunter-gatherer societies were not "affluent" but suffered from extremely high infant mortality, frequent disease, and perennial warfare. Researchers Gurven and Kaplan have estimated that around 57% of hunter-gatherers reach

1116-510: A dense, hard, and durable stone that occurs naturally throughout Kent, having formed out of sand from the Eocene epoch. Early Neolithic builders would have selected blocks from the local area, and then transported them to the site of the monument to be erected. These common architectural features among the Medway Megaliths indicate a strong regional cohesion with no direct parallels elsewhere in

1302-559: A diet high in protein and low in other macronutrients results in the body using the protein as energy, possibly leading to protein deficiency. Lean meat especially becomes a problem when animals go through a lean season that requires them to metabolize fat deposits. In areas where plant and fish resources are scarce, hunter-gatherers may trade meat with horticulturalists for carbohydrates . For example, tropical hunter-gatherers may have an excess of protein but be deficient in carbohydrates, and conversely tropical horticulturalists may have

1488-579: A form of tomb. In the latter nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, archaeologists like V. Gordon Childe held to the cultural diffusionist view that such Western European monuments had been based on tombs originally produced in parts of the eastern Mediterranean region, suggesting that their ultimate origin was either in Egypt or in Crete. In this view, the tradition was seen as having spread westward as part of some form of "megalithic religion". A seminal study of

1674-402: A human skull, which they were able to largely reconstruct. A few days later he returned to excavate on the north-west corner of the chamber with the architect E. W. Filkins; that day, they found a second skull, further bones, a flint tool, and pieces of pottery. This pottery was later identified as being Anglo-Saxon in date. "Some young man was selected, one of a family perhaps set apart, and had

1860-494: A local community could probably muster. Ashbee further suggested that in subsequent centuries, locals raided the damaged Coldrum tomb for loamy chalk and stone, which was then re-used as building material. In a 1946 paper, the folklorist John H. Evans recorded the existence of a local folk belief that a battle was fought at the site of the Coldrum Stones, and that a "Black Prince" was buried within its chamber. He suggested that

2046-490: A long earthen tumulus , or "barrow", that is flanked on two sides with linear ditches. These typically stretch for between 20 and 70 metres in length, although some exceptional examples are either longer or shorter than this. Some examples have a timber or stone chamber in one end of the tumulus. These monuments often contained human remains interred within their chambers, and as a result, are often interpreted as tombs , although there are some examples where this appears not to be

SECTION 10

#1732854826678

2232-444: A low earthen mound, which was bounded by prostrate slabs. As such, Ashbee asserted that the monument could be divided into three particular features: the chamber, the barrow, and the sarsen stone surround. It had been built using about 50 stones. The barrow is sub-rectangular in plan, and about 20 metres (66 ft) in length. At its broader, eastern end, where the chamber is located, the monument measures 15 metres (50 ft), while at

2418-773: A more constant supply of sustenance. In 2018, 9000-year-old remains of a female hunter along with a toolkit of projectile points and animal processing implements were discovered at the Andean site of Wilamaya Patjxa, Puno District in Peru . A 2020 study inspired by this discovery found that of 27 identified burials with hunter gatherers of a known sex who were also buried with hunting tools, 11 were female hunter gatherers, while 16 were male hunter gatherers. Combined with uncertainties, these findings suggest that anywhere from 30 to 50 percent of big game hunters were female. A 2023 study that looked at studies of contemporary hunter gatherer societies from

2604-712: A natural feature. Damage sustained by Neolithic long barrows can also lead to them being mistaken for other types of monuments, such as the oval barrows and round barrows which are usually of later date. Aerial photography has proven useful in identifying many more examples that are barely visible on the ground. Geophysical surveys have been found to be helpful to explore sites that are unavailable for excavation. Long barrows such as West Kennet Long Barrow in Wiltshire have become tourist attractions. At Wayland's Smithy in Oxfordshire, visitors have lodged coins into cracks in

2790-428: A nearby settlement, and that this "may have been a key factor in the experience of ceremonies and rituals taking place at the tombs and may also have defined a link between the tomb builders and the landscape." Coldrum Long Barrow is comparatively isolated from the other Medway Megaliths; in this it is unique, given that the other surviving examples are clustered into two groups. It is possible that another chambered tomb

2976-432: A new way of looking at the land. In this interpretation, the long barrows served as territorial markers, dividing up the land, signifying that it was occupied and controlled by a particular community, and thus warning away rival groups. In defending this interpretation, Malone noted that each "tomb-territory" typically had access to a range of soils and landscape types in its vicinity, suggesting that it could have represented

3162-589: A note on the Coldrum Stones and other Medway Megaliths in The Archaeological Journal . Wright had been alerted to their existence by a local vicar , the Reverend Lambert B. Larking, and proceeded to visit them with him. Describing the Coldrums, Wright mentioned "a smaller circle of stones" to the others in the area, with "a subterranean cromlech in the middle". He further added that "it is a tradition of

3348-500: A paper entitled, " Notes on the Original Affluent Society ", in which he challenged the popular view of hunter-gatherers lives as "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short", as Thomas Hobbes had put it in 1651. According to Sahlins, ethnographic data indicated that hunter-gatherers worked far fewer hours and enjoyed more leisure than typical members of industrial society, and they still ate well. Their "affluence" came from

3534-584: A religious movement that worships these deities. The earliest antiquarian accounts of Coldrum Long Barrow were never published. There are claims that at the start of the 19th century, the Reverend Mark Noble, Rector of Barming , prepared a plan of the site for Gentleman's Magazine , although no copies have been produced to verify this. Between 1842 and 1844, the Reverend Beale Poste authored Druidical Remains at Coldrum , in which he described

3720-437: A single family group, for such shared cranial traits would also be consistent with "a population that was still relatively small and scattered", in which most people were interrelated. Wysocki's team noted that in all but one case, the fracture morphologies of the bones are consistent with dry-bone breakage. Three of the skulls displayed evidence that they had experienced violence; a probable adult female had an unhealed injury on

3906-578: A size of a few dozen people. It remained the only mode of subsistence until the end of the Mesolithic period some 10,000 years ago, and after this was replaced only gradually with the spread of the Neolithic Revolution . The Late Pleistocene witnessed the spread of modern humans outside of Africa as well as the extinction of all other human species. Humans spread to the Australian continent and

SECTION 20

#1732854826678

4092-405: A smaller selection of (often larger) game and gathering a smaller selection of food. This specialization of work also involved creating specialized tools such as fishing nets , hooks, and bone harpoons . The transition into the subsequent Neolithic period is chiefly defined by the unprecedented development of nascent agricultural practices. Agriculture originated as early as 12,000 years ago in

4278-470: A sort of living entity. The winter solstice has been a particularly popular occasion for Pagans to visit. Hunter-gatherer Hunting and gathering was humanity's original and most enduring successful competitive adaptation in the natural world, occupying at least 90 percent of human history . Following the invention of agriculture , hunter-gatherers who did not change were displaced or conquered by farming or pastoralist groups in most parts of

4464-479: A stone slab, one higher than the other. Also buried within the chamber were flint tools and small quantities of pottery. Ashbee suggested that—taking into account both its size and comparisons with other long barrows, such as Fussell's Lodge —the Coldrum tomb could have housed the remains of over a hundred individuals. Excavations conducted in the early 20th century have led to the methodical discovery and removal of what

4650-432: A surplus of carbohydrates but inadequate protein. Trading may thus be the most cost-effective means of acquiring carbohydrate resources. Hunter-gatherer societies manifest significant variability, depending on climate zone / life zone , available technology, and societal structure. Archaeologists examine hunter-gatherer tool kits to measure variability across different groups. Collard et al. (2005) found temperature to be

4836-441: A very merry time during his year of god-ship, at the end of this, he was sacrificed at the dolmen [chamber], being led up the ascent, and his body was dismembered and the limbs and blood scattered over the fields to ensure fertility. His wife or wives may have been killed, too, and any child born during that year also, and their bones gathered together and buried within the dolmen." — Bennett's interpretation of human sacrifice at

5022-464: A viable territorial area for a particular community. Also supporting this interpretation is the fact that the distribution of chambered long barrows on some Scottish islands shows patterns that closely mirror modern land divisions between farms and crofts. This interpretation also draws ethnographic parallels from recorded communities around the world, who have also used monuments to demarcate territory. This idea became popular among archaeologists in

5208-492: A wide geographical area, thus there were regional variations in lifestyles. However, all the individual groups shared a common style of stone tool production, making knapping styles and progress identifiable. This early Paleo-Indian period lithic reduction tool adaptations have been found across the Americas, utilized by highly mobile bands consisting of approximately 25 to 50 members of an extended family. The Archaic period in

5394-421: A yet more curious collection of stones at Colderham or Coldrum Lodge". He believed that the monument consisted of both a "chamber" and an "oval" of stones, suggesting that they were "two distinct erections". In 1880, the archaeologist Flinders Petrie included the existence of the stones at "Coldreham" in his list of Kentish earthworks; although noting that a previous commentator had described the stones as being in

5580-564: Is also carried out by many other individuals; one Pagan has been recorded as saying that she tied a ribbon to the tree with her young son, both to make a wish for an improved future and as an offering to the "spirit of place". As of early 2014, runic carvings written in the Elder Futhark alphabet were also evident on the trunks of these trees, spelling the names of the Norse gods Thor and Odin ; these had probably been carved by Heathens, members of

5766-416: Is difficult to interpret, the investigative team believed that it probably reflected that these individuals had had a terrestrial diet high in animal protein that over time was increasingly supplemented with freshwater river or estuarine foods. In the case of the older individuals whose remains were interred in the tomb, the tooth enamel was worn away and the dentine had become exposed on the chewing area of

Coldrum Long Barrow - Misplaced Pages Continue

5952-678: Is inhospitable to large scale economic exploitation and maintain their subsistence based on hunting and gathering, as well as incorporating a small amount of manioc horticulture that supplements, but is not replacing, reliance on foraged foods. Evidence suggests big-game hunter-gatherers crossed the Bering Strait from Asia (Eurasia) into North America over a land bridge ( Beringia ), that existed between 47,000 and 14,000 years ago. Around 18,500–15,500 years ago, these hunter-gatherers are believed to have followed herds of now-extinct Pleistocene megafauna along ice-free corridors that stretched between

6138-535: Is located 2.012 kilometres (1 mile 440 yd) away. The Early Neolithic was a revolutionary period of British history. Between 4500 and 3800 BCE, it saw a widespread change in lifestyle as the communities living in the British Isles adopted agriculture as their primary form of subsistence, abandoning the hunter-gatherer lifestyle that had characterised the preceding Mesolithic period. This came about through contact with continental European societies; it

6324-409: Is never total but is striking when viewed in an evolutionary context. One of humanity's two closest primate relatives, chimpanzees , are anything but egalitarian, forming themselves into hierarchies that are often dominated by an alpha male . So great is the contrast with human hunter-gatherers that it is widely argued by paleoanthropologists that resistance to being dominated was a key factor driving

6510-562: Is not known if they each served the same function or whether there was a hierarchy in their usage. The Medway long barrows all conformed to the same general design plan, and are all aligned on an east to west axis. Each had a stone chamber at the eastern end of the mound, and they each probably had a stone facade flanking the entrance. They had internal heights of up to 3.0 metres (10 feet), making them taller than most other chambered long barrows in Britain. The chambers were constructed from sarsen ,

6696-456: Is not necessarily a one-way process. It has been argued that hunting and gathering represents an adaptive strategy , which may still be exploited, if necessary, when environmental change causes extreme food stress for agriculturalists. In fact, it is sometimes difficult to draw a clear line between agricultural and hunter-gatherer societies, especially since the widespread adoption of agriculture and resulting cultural diffusion that has occurred in

6882-460: Is that the bodies of the dead were excarnated or exposed to the elements, followed by a secondary burial within the tomb. The second is that they were placed in the tomb, where the flesh decomposed, before the bodies were then rearranged within the tomb itself. These practices may have been accompanied by other ritualistic or ceremonial practices, direct evidence for which does not survive. The inclusion of occupational debris like ceramic sherds over

7068-631: Is that they were inspired either by natural rock formations or by the shape of wooden houses. It has been suggested that their design was based on the wooden long houses found in central Europe during the Early Neolithic, however there is a gap of seven centuries between the last known long houses and the first known chambered long barrows. According to one possible explanation, the long barrows served as markers of place that were connected to Early Neolithic ideas about cosmology and spirituality , and accordingly were centres of ritual activity mediated by

7254-661: Is the Cotswold-Severn Group found in the west of the island. These are typically chambered long barrows, and contained human bone in comparatively large quantities, averaging between 40 and 50 people in each. The long barrows found in the Netherlands and northern Germany also used stone in their construction where it was available. The examples of long barrows found in parts of Poland are also typically earthen rather than megalithic. Further north, in Denmark and southern Sweden,

7440-405: Is the field of study whereby food plants of various peoples and tribes worldwide are documented. Most hunter-gatherers are nomadic or semi-nomadic and live in temporary settlements. Mobile communities typically construct shelters using impermanent building materials, or they may use natural rock shelters, where they are available. Some hunter-gatherer cultures, such as the indigenous peoples of

7626-564: Is unclear to what extent this can be attributed to an influx of migrants or to indigenous Mesolithic Britons adopting agricultural technologies from the continent. The region of modern Kent would have been key for the arrival of continental European settlers and visitors, because of its position on the estuary of the River Thames and its proximity to the continent. Britain was then largely forested; widespread forest clearance did not occur in Kent until

Coldrum Long Barrow - Misplaced Pages Continue

7812-505: The Beaker culture , thus indicating a date in the final centuries of the third millennium BCE; this meant that human remains had been placed into the chamber intermittently over a period of 1500 years. This indicates that some chambered long barrows remained in sporadic use until the Late Neolithic. In various cases, archaeologists have found specific bones absent from the assemblages within

7998-655: The Channel Tunnel Rail Link through the Medway Valley landscape. Another politically motivated Pagan rite was carried out there in the early 2010s by The Warrior's Call , a group seeking to prevent fracking in the United Kingdom by invoking "the traditional spirits of Albion " against it. In the early 21st century, a tradition developed in which the Hartley Morris Men, a morris dancing side, meet at

8184-526: The Chestnuts Long Barrow . The eastern group consists of Smythe's Megalith , Kit's Coty House , and Little Kit's Coty House , while various stones on the eastern side of the river, most notably the Coffin Stone and White Horse Stone, may also have been parts of such structures. It is not known if they were all built at the same time, or whether they were constructed in succession, while similarly it

8370-506: The Close Roll of 1237, which ordered the opening of tumuli on the Isle of Wight in search for treasure, a practice which may have spread to Kent around the same time. Alexander believed that the destruction in Kent may have been brought about by a special commissioner, highlighting that the "expertness and thoroughness of the robbery" at Chestnuts would have necessitated resources beyond that which

8556-469: The Fertile Crescent , Ancient India , Ancient China , Olmec , Sub-Saharan Africa and Norte Chico . As a result of the now near-universal human reliance upon agriculture, the few contemporary hunter-gatherer cultures usually live in areas unsuitable for agricultural use. Archaeologists can use evidence such as stone tool use to track hunter-gatherer activities, including mobility. Ethnobotany

8742-559: The Ju'/hoansi people of Namibia, women help men track down quarry. In the Australian Martu, both women and men participate in hunting but with a different style of gendered division; while men are willing to take more risks to hunt bigger animals such as kangaroo for political gain as a form of "competitive magnanimity", women target smaller game such as lizards to feed their children and promote working relationships with other women, preferring

8928-632: The Late Bronze Age (c.1000 to 700 BCE). Environmental data from the vicinity of the White Horse Stone , a putatively prehistoric monolith near the River Medway , supports the idea that the area was still largely forested in the Early Neolithic, covered by a woodland of oak, ash, hazel/alder and amygdaloideae . Throughout most of Britain, there is little evidence of cereal or permanent dwellings from this period, leading archaeologists to believe that

9114-802: The Laurentide and Cordilleran ice sheets. Another route proposed is that, either on foot or using primitive boats , they migrated down the Pacific coast to South America. Hunter-gatherers would eventually flourish all over the Americas, primarily based in the Great Plains of the United States and Canada, with offshoots as far east as the Gaspé Peninsula on the Atlantic coast , and as far south as Chile , Monte Verde . American hunter-gatherers were spread over

9300-585: The Middle East , and also independently originated in many other areas including Southeast Asia , parts of Africa , Mesoamerica , and the Andes . Forest gardening was also being used as a food production system in various parts of the world over this period. Many groups continued their hunter-gatherer ways of life, although their numbers have continually declined, partly as a result of pressure from growing agricultural and pastoral communities. Many of them reside in

9486-565: The Odinic Rite , a Heathen organisation, gave their "oath of profession" to the group at the Coldrum Stones because they felt a particularly positive energy exists there. Politically motivated rituals have also been held at the site. In the late 1990s, the South London branch of the Paganlink organisation held a ritual at the Coldrum Stones in an unsuccessful attempt to prevent the construction of

SECTION 50

#1732854826678

9672-509: The Southwest , Arctic , Poverty Point , Dalton and Plano traditions. These regional adaptations would become the norm, with reliance less on hunting and gathering, with a more mixed economy of small game, fish , seasonally wild vegetables and harvested plant foods. Scholars like Kat Anderson have suggested that the term Hunter-gatherer is reductive because it implies that Native Americans never stayed in one place long enough to affect

9858-548: The 1800s to the present day found that women hunted in 79 percent of hunter gatherer societies. However, an attempted verification of this study found "that multiple methodological failures all bias their results in the same direction...their analysis does not contradict the wide body of empirical evidence for gendered divisions of labor in foraging societies". At the 1966 " Man the Hunter " conference, anthropologists Richard Borshay Lee and Irven DeVore suggested that egalitarianism

10044-515: The 1950s revealed that they post-dated the Middle Ages, and thus must have been created by more recent landscaping projects. In areas which were previously impacted by glaciation, moraine deposits on valley floors have sometimes been mistaken for long barrows. At Dunham New Park in Cheshire , northwest England, for instance, a mound was initially believed to be a long barrow and only later assessed as

10230-680: The 1980s and 1990s, and—in downplaying religion while emphasising an economic explanation for these monuments—it was influenced by Marxist ideas then popular in the European archaeological establishment. In the early twenty-first century, archaeologists began to challenge this idea, as evidence emerged that much of Early Neolithic Britain was forested and its inhabitants were likely pastoralists rather than agriculturalists . Accordingly, communities in Britain would have been semi-nomadic, with little need for territorial demarcation or clear markings of land ownership. Also, this explanation fails to explain why

10416-799: The Americas began when Paleolithic hunter-gatherers entered North America from the North Asian mammoth steppe via the Beringia land bridge. During the 1970s, Lewis Binford suggested that early humans obtained food via scavenging , not hunting . Early humans in the Lower Paleolithic lived in forests and woodlands , which allowed them to collect seafood, eggs, nuts, and fruits besides scavenging. Rather than killing large animals for meat, according to this view, they used carcasses of such animals that had either been killed by predators or that had died of natural causes. Scientists have demonstrated that

10602-401: The Americas saw a changing environment featuring a warmer more arid climate and the disappearance of the last megafauna. The majority of population groups at this time were still highly mobile hunter-gatherers. Individual groups started to focus on resources available to them locally, however, and thus archaeologists have identified a pattern of increasing regional generalization, as seen with

10788-474: The Americas for the first time, coincident with the extinction of numerous predominantly megafaunal species. Major extinctions were incurred in Australia beginning approximately 50,000 years ago and in the Americas about 15,000 years ago. Ancient North Eurasians lived in extreme conditions of the mammoth steppes of Siberia and survived by hunting mammoths , bison and woolly rhinoceroses. The settlement of

10974-660: The British Isles and then the Low Countries and southern Scandinavia. Each area developed its own variations of the long barrow tradition, often exhibiting their own architectural innovations. The purpose and meaning of the barrows remains an issue of debate among archaeologists. One argument is that they are religious sites, perhaps erected as part of a system of ancestor veneration or as a religion spread by missionaries or settlers. An alternative explanation views them primarily in economic terms, as territorial markers delineating

11160-555: The British Isles. Nevertheless, as with other regional groupings of Early Neolithic long barrows—such as the Cotswold-Severn group in south-western Britain—there are also various idiosyncrasies in the different monuments, such as Coldrum's rectilinear shape, the Chestnut Long Barrow's facade, and the long, thin mounds at Addington and Kit's Coty. These variations might have been caused by the tombs being altered and adapted over

11346-414: The Coldrum Stones as "at once the most remarkable and the least known of the whole series." Suggesting that its design indicates that it was built during "a late date in the neolithic age", he compared the workmanship in producing the megaliths to that at Stonehenge, although noted that they differed in that the Coldrum Stones clearly represented "a sepulchral pile". Ultimately, he ended his note by urging for

SECTION 60

#1732854826678

11532-491: The Coldrum Stones. He believed that the kerb-stones around the barrow were toppled, laid prostrate in the surrounding ditch, and then buried during the late 13th or early 14th century, by Christians seeking to obliterate non-Christian monuments. Conversely, the archaeologist John Alexander—who excavated Chestnuts in 1957—suggested that the Medway tombs were destroyed by robbers looking for treasure within them. As evidence, he pointed to

11718-411: The Coldrum population". Disputing earlier conclusions, their report stated that the minimum number of individuals was seventeen. These were identified as probably belonging to nine adults (probably five males and four females), two sub-adults (probably 16 to 20 years old), four older children, and two younger children (one around five years old, the other between 24 and 30 months old). Keith believed that

11904-496: The Coldrums, 1913. Chambered long barrow Long barrows are a style of monument constructed across Western Europe in the fifth and fourth millennia BCE, during the Early Neolithic period. Typically constructed from earth and either timber or stone, those using the latter material represent the oldest widespread tradition of stone construction in the world. Around 40,000 long barrows survive today. The structures have

12090-508: The Early Neolithic itself. The human remains placed in long barrows often included a mix of men, women, and children. The bones of various individuals were often mixed together. This may have reflected a desire to obliterate distinctions of wealth and status among the deceased. Not all of those who died in the Early Neolithic were buried in these long barrows, although it remains unknown what criteria were used to determine whose remains were interred there and whose were not. Large sections of

12276-581: The Early Neolithic of Western Europe" more than any other, while the archaeologist David Field described them as "among the best known and easily recognised archaeological monuments in the [British] landscape." For the archaeologist Caroline Malone , the long barrows are "some of the most impressive and aesthetically distinctive constructions of prehistoric Britain". Her fellow archaeologist Frances Lynch stated that these long barrows "can still inspire awe, wonder and curiosity even in modern populations familiar with Gothic cathedrals and towering skyscrapers." In

12462-405: The Early Neolithic outdoor exposure of corpses has also been found at Hambledon Hill . The postholes found in front of many long barrows may also have represented the bases of platforms on which excarnation took place. When entering the chambers to either add or remove new material, individuals would likely have been exposed to the smell of decaying corpses. It is unknown if entering this area

12648-429: The Early Neolithic period have suffered from neglect and the ravages of agriculture. Ashbee noted that the Coldrum Stones represent "Kent's least damaged megalithic long barrow", however it too has suffered considerable damage, having become dilapidated and fallen apart over the six millennia since its original construction. Most prominently, the eastern side has largely collapsed, with the stones that once helped to hold up

12834-431: The Early Neolithic population were not buried in them, although how their bodily remains are dealt with is not clear. It is possible that they were left in the open air. It is also not known where the act of excarnation took place prior to the deposition of bones within the chambers. Some human bones have been found in the ditches of causewayed enclosures , a form of Early Neolithic earthen monument, while evidence for

13020-414: The Early Neolithic would have required the co-operation of a number of different individuals and would have represented an important investment in time and resources. They were built without the use of metal tools. There is often regional variation in style and material. In the north and west of Britain, for instance, long barrows often consist of stone mounds containing chambers inside of them, whereas in

13206-491: The Early Neolithic, the long barrow fell into a state of ruined dilapidation, perhaps experiencing deliberate destruction in the Late Medieval period, either by Christian iconoclasts or treasure hunters. In local folklore , the site became associated with the burial of a prince and the countless stones motif. The ruin attracted the interest of antiquarians in the 19th century, while archaeological excavation took place in

13392-570: The Early Neolithic. They are found across much of Western Europe; stretching from southeast Spain up to southern Sweden and taking in the British Isles to the west. The long barrows are not the world's oldest known structures using stone—they are predated by Göbekli Tepe in modern Turkey—but they do represent the oldest widespread tradition of using stone in construction. The archaeologist Frances Lynch has described them as "the oldest built structures in Europe" to survive, while Field noted that they are

13578-553: The Kentish man of the Christian period". In the early 21st century, these bones were re-analysed by a team led by the forensic taphonomist Michael Wysocki, the results of which were published in 2013. Wysocki's team conducted "osteological analysis, Bayesian modelling of radiocarbon dates, and carbon and nitrogen stable isotope analysis" in order to discover more about the "demography, burial practices, diet and subsistence, and chronology of

13764-419: The Medway Megaliths and which had been widespread "up to the last generation"; this was that it was impossible for anyone to successfully count the number of stones in the monuments. This " countless stones " motif is not unique to the Medway region, and can be found at various other megalithic monuments in Britain. The earliest textual evidence for it is found in an early 16th-century document, where it applies to

13950-537: The Medway Megaliths would have been some of the largest and most visually imposing Early Neolithic funerary monuments in Britain. Grouped along the River Medway as it cuts through the North Downs , they constitute the most southeasterly group of megalithic monuments in the British Isles, and the only megalithic group in eastern England. The archaeologists Brian Philp and Mike Dutto deemed the Medway Megaliths to be "some of

14136-495: The Medway Megaliths, with Pagan activity having taken place at the Coldrum Stones from at least the late 1980s. These Pagans commonly associated the sites both with a concept of ancestry and of their being a source of " earth energy ". The scholar of religion Ethan Doyle White argued that these sites in particular were interpreted as having connections to the ancestors both because they were created by Neolithic peoples whom modern Pagans view as their "own spiritual ancestors" and because

14322-651: The Northwest Coast of North America and the Calusa in Florida ) are an exception to this rule. For example, the San people or "Bushmen" of southern Africa have social customs that strongly discourage hoarding and displays of authority, and encourage economic equality via sharing of food and material goods. Karl Marx defined this socio-economic system as primitive communism . The egalitarianism typical of human hunters and gatherers

14508-857: The Pacific Northwest Coast and the Yokuts , lived in particularly rich environments that allowed them to be sedentary or semi-sedentary. Amongst the earliest example of permanent settlements is the Osipovka culture (14–10.3 thousand years ago), which lived in a fish-rich environment that allowed them to be able to stay at the same place all year. One group, the Chumash , had the highest recorded population density of any known hunter and gatherer society with an estimated 21.6 persons per square mile. Hunter-gatherers tend to have an egalitarian social ethos, although settled hunter-gatherers (for example, those inhabiting

14694-412: The age of 15. Of those that reach 15 years of age, 64% continue to live to or past the age of 45. This places the life expectancy between 21 and 37 years. They further estimate that 70% of deaths are due to diseases of some kind, 20% of deaths come from violence or accidents and 10% are due to degenerative diseases. Mutual exchange and sharing of resources (i.e., meat gained from hunting) are important in

14880-464: The archaeologist Stuart Piggott favoured the term "earthen" barrows for them. Ian Kinnes instead used the term "non-megalithic barrows". These long barrows might have used timber because stone was not available. Some classificatory systems, such as that employed by the United Kingdom's National Monuments Record , do not distinguish between the different types of long barrow. The archaeologist David Field noted that drawing typological distinctions on

15066-669: The area of southern Spain, Portugal, southwestern France, and Brittany, the long barrows typically include large stone chambers. In Britain, earthen long barrows predominate across much of the southern and eastern parts of the island. Around 300 earthen long barrows are known from across the eastern side of Britain, from Aberdeenshire in the north down to the South Downs in the south, with two projections westward into Dorset and Galloway . Excavation has suggested that these earthen long barrows were likely constructed between 3800 and 3000 BCE. Another prominent regional tradition in Britain

15252-788: The areas controlled by different communities as they transitioned toward farming. Communities continued to use these long barrows long after their construction. In both the Roman period and the Early Middle Ages, many long barrows were reused as cemeteries. Since the sixteenth century they have attracted interest from antiquarians and archaeologists ; it is from the excavations of the latter that our knowledge about them derives. Some have been reconstructed and have become tourist attractions or sacred sites used for rituals by modern Pagan and other religious groups. Given their dispersal across Western Europe, long barrows have been given different names in

15438-477: The arguments put forward by Wilmsen. Doron Shultziner and others have argued that we can learn a lot about the life-styles of prehistoric hunter-gatherers from studies of contemporary hunter-gatherers—especially their impressive levels of egalitarianism. There are nevertheless a number of contemporary hunter-gatherer peoples who, after contact with other societies, continue their ways of life with very little external influence or with modifications that perpetuate

15624-552: The basis of material used can mask important similarities between different long barrows. Also criticising the focus on classification, the archaeologists Lewis-Williams and Pearce believed that doing so distracted scholars from the task of explaining the meaning and purpose behind the monuments. Long barrows are single mounds, usually of earth, which are flanked by ditches. They are usually between 20 and 70 metres in length, although there are some exceptional examples at either end of this spectrum. The construction of long barrows in

15810-418: The best surviving condition. It lies near to both Addington Long Barrow and Chestnuts Long Barrow on the western side of the river. Two further surviving long barrows, Kit's Coty House and Little Kit's Coty House , as well as possible survivals such as the Coffin Stone and White Horse Stone , are located on the Medway's eastern side. Built out of earth and around fifty local sarsen -stone megaliths ,

15996-431: The bodies had been dismembered before burial, potentially reflecting a funerary tradition of excarnation and secondary burial . As with other barrows, Coldrum has been interpreted as a tomb to house the remains of the dead, perhaps as part of a belief system involving ancestor veneration , although archaeologists have suggested that it may also have had further religious, ritual, and cultural connotations and uses. After

16182-419: The bodies were dismembered and the bones removed from their attached ligaments. They further suggested that the absence of cut-marks on certain bones suggested that the body had already undergone partial decomposition or the removal of soft tissues prior to dismemberment. The precision of the cut-marks suggests that this dismemberment was done carefully; "they do not suggest frenzied hacking or mutilation." None of

16368-399: The bones was not unique to the site but common in chambered tombs from southern England. On the basis of an example discovered at Kit's Coty House, Ashbee thought it apparent that the contents of the Coldrum's chamber would have been compartmentalised by medial slabs, which served the same purpose as the side chambers of West Kennet and Wayland's Smithy. All the surviving megalithic tombs from

16554-514: The case. The choice of timber or stone may have arisen from the availability of local materials rather than cultural differences. Those that contained chambers inside of them are often termed chambered long barrows while those which lack chambers are instead called unchambered long barrows or earthen long barrows . The earliest examples developed in Iberia and western France during the mid-fifth millennium BCE. The tradition then spread northwards, into

16740-602: The central chamber was a shrine. The Coldrum Stones have been excavated on multiple occasions. On 16 April 1910, the amateur archaeologist F. J. Bennett began excavation at the site, having previously uncovered Neolithic stone tools from Addington Long Barrow. He soon discovered human bones "under only a few inches of chalky soil" at Coldrum. He returned to the site for further excavation in August 1910, this time with his niece and her husband, both of whom were dentists with an interest in craniology ; on that day they discovered pieces of

16926-417: The central kerb-stones on the western end of the monument and on a kerb-stone on the south-east of the monument. These have been attributed to the sharpening of flint and other stone axe-blades on these sarsens. It is possible that these tools were sharpened for use in cutting and carving the timber levers and struts which would have been used in erecting the stones and constructing the tomb. Similar evidence for

17112-644: The chamber falls into two categories. One form, known as grottes sepulchrales artificielles in French archaeology, are dug into the earth. The second form, which is more widespread, are known as cryptes dolmeniques in French archaeology and involved the chamber being erected above ground. Many chambered long barrows contained side chambers within them, often producing a cruciform shape. Others had no such side alcoves; these are known as undifferentiated tombs . Some long barrows do not contain chambers inside of them. John Thurnham termed these "unchambered" barrows, while

17298-413: The chamber's opening, eastern end. It is also possible that a largely rectangular slab at the bottom of the slope had once been part of the chamber's eastern end. Excavation has revealed that flint masonry was used to pack around the chamber and support its sarsens; 20th-century renovation has seen this largely replaced with cement, allowing the stones to continue standing upright. It is possible that there

17484-463: The chamber's southern side consists of a single slab, measuring 3.45 metres (11 ft 4 in) in length, 2.21 metres (7 ft 3 in) in depth, and 0.53 metres (1 ft 9 in) in thickness at its eastern end. The western end of the chamber is closed off with a slab measuring about 1.37 metres (4 ft 6 in) wide, with a thickness of 0.30 metres (1 ft) and a depth of around 2.4 metres (8 ft). A collapsed, broken slab lies at

17670-532: The chambered long barrows should be clustered in certain areas rather than being evenly distributed throughout the landscape. Many of the chambered long barrows have not remained intact, having been damaged and broken up during the millennia. In some cases, most of the chamber has been removed, leaving only the three-stone dolmen. During the first half of the first millennium BCE, many British long barrows saw renewed human activity. At Julliberrie's Grave in Kent, southeast England, three inhumations were buried at

17856-469: The chambers, where they had often been treated in a manner akin to the human remains. Sometimes human remains were deposited in the chambers over many centuries. For instance, at West Kennet Long Barrow in Wiltshire , southern England, the earliest depositions of human remains were radiocarbon dated to the early-to-mid fourth millennium BCE, while a later deposition of human remains was found to belong to

18042-487: The chambers. For instance, at Fussell's Lodge in Wiltshire , southern England, a number of skeletal assemblages were found to be missing not just small bones but also long bones and skulls. It is therefore possible that some bones were deliberately removed from the chambers in the Early Neolithic for use in ritualistic activities. The source of inspiration for the design of the chambered long barrows remains unclear. Suggestions that have proved popular among archaeologists

18228-400: The country of Denmark in 2007. In addition, wealth transmission across generations was also a feature of hunter-gatherers, meaning that "wealthy" hunter-gatherers, within the context of their communities, were more likely to have children as wealthy as them than poorer members of their community and indeed hunter-gatherer societies demonstrate an understanding of social stratification. Thus while

18414-425: The course of their use; in this scenario, the monuments would be composite structures. The people who built these monuments were probably influenced by pre-existing tomb-shrines that they were already aware of. Whether those people had grown up locally, or moved into the Medway area from elsewhere is not known. Based on a stylistic analysis of their architectural designs, the archaeologist Stuart Piggott thought that

18600-485: The crania he examined displayed similar features to one another, suggesting that this meant that they all belonged to "one family—or several families united by common descent." Similar observations have been made regarding the crania from other long barrows in Britain. The osteoarchaeologists Martin Smith and Megan Brickley cautioned that this did not necessarily mean that all of the individuals in any given barrow were members of

18786-451: The criteria that osteoarchaeologists deem diagnostic of cannibalism were found on the bones. This cut-marked human bone assemblage represented the largest yet identified from within a Neolithic long barrow in southern Britain, although similar evidence for dismemberment has been found from other Neolithic British sites, such as West Trump, Eyford, Aldestrop, and Haddenham. There are two possibilities for how this material developed. The first

18972-526: The crowns. Radiocarbon dating of the human remains suggested that some were brought to the site between either 3980–3800 calibrated BCE (95% probability) or 3960–3880 cal BCE (68% probability). It further suggested that after an interval of either 60–350 years (95% probability) or 140–290 years (68% probability), additional depositions of human remains were made inside the tomb. This second phase probably began in 3730–3540 cal BCE (95% probability) or 3670–3560 cal BCE (68% probability). The radiocarbon dating of

19158-558: The dead and requesting their assistance. For this reason, the historian Ronald Hutton termed these monuments "tomb-shrines" to reflect their dual purpose. In Britain, these tombs were typically located on prominent hills and slopes overlooking the landscape, perhaps at the junction between different territories. The archaeologist Caroline Malone noted that the tombs would have served as one of various landscape markers that conveyed information on "territory, political allegiance, ownership, and ancestors". Many archaeologists have subscribed to

19344-407: The dead were visited by the living and where people maintained relationships with the deceased. In some cases, the bones deposited in the chamber may have been old when placed there. In other instances, they may have been placed into the chamber long after the long barrow was built. In some instances, collections of bone originally included in the chamber might have been removed and replaced during

19530-400: The dead. The inclusion of human remains has been used to argue that these long barrows were involved in a form of ancestor veneration . Malone suggested that the prominence of these barrows suggested that ancestors were deemed far more important to Early Neolithic people than their Mesolithic forebears. In the early twentieth century, this interpretation of the long barrows as religious sites

19716-532: The developing world, either in arid regions or tropical forests. Areas that were formerly available to hunter-gatherers were—and continue to be—encroached upon by the settlements of agriculturalists. In the resulting competition for land use, hunter-gatherer societies either adopted these practices or moved to other areas. In addition, Jared Diamond has blamed a decline in the availability of wild foods, particularly animal resources. In North and South America , for example, most large mammal species had gone extinct by

19902-553: The diet until relatively recently, during the Late Stone Age in southern Africa and the Upper Paleolithic in Europe. Fat is important in assessing the quality of game among hunter-gatherers, to the point that lean animals are often considered secondary resources or even starvation food. Consuming too much lean meat leads to adverse health effects like protein poisoning , and can in extreme cases lead to death. Additionally,

20088-407: The earliest monuments surviving in Britain. Although found across this large area, they can be subdivided into clear regionalised traditions based on architectural differences. Excavation has revealed that some of the long barrows in the area of modern Spain, Portugal, and western France were erected in the mid-fifth millennium BCE, making these older than those long barrows further north. Although

20274-462: The early 20th. In 1926, ownership was transferred to heritage charity the National Trust . Open without charge to visitors all year around, the stones are the site of a rag tree , a May Day morris dance , and various modern Pagan rituals. The Coldrum Stones are named after a nearby farm, Coldrum Lodge, which has since been demolished. The monument lies in a "rather isolated site" north-east of

20460-409: The economic systems of hunter-gatherer societies. Therefore, these societies can be described as based on a " gift economy ". A 2010 paper argued that while hunter-gatherers may have lower levels of inequality than modern, industrialised societies, that does not mean inequality does not exist. The researchers estimated that the average Gini coefficient amongst hunter-gatherers was 0.25, equivalent to

20646-541: The end of the Pleistocene —according to Diamond, because of overexploitation by humans, one of several explanations offered for the Quaternary extinction event there. As the number and size of agricultural societies increased, they expanded into lands traditionally used by hunter-gatherers. This process of agriculture-driven expansion led to the development of the first forms of government in agricultural centers, such as

20832-461: The environment around them. However, many of the landscapes in the Americas today are due to the way the Natives of that area originally tended the land. Anderson specifically looks at California Natives and the practices they utilized to tame their land. Some of these practices included pruning, weeding, sowing, burning, and selective harvesting. These practices allowed them to take from the environment in

21018-399: The evidence for early human behaviors for hunting versus carcass scavenging vary based on the ecology, including the types of predators that existed and the environment. According to the endurance running hypothesis , long-distance running as in persistence hunting , a method still practiced by some hunter-gatherer groups in modern times, was likely the driving evolutionary force leading to

21204-456: The evolution of certain human characteristics. This hypothesis does not necessarily contradict the scavenging hypothesis: both subsistence strategies may have been in use sequentially, alternately or even simultaneously. Starting at the transition between the Middle to Upper Paleolithic period, some 80,000 to 70,000 years ago, some hunter-gatherer bands began to specialize, concentrating on hunting

21390-613: The evolutionary emergence of human consciousness , language , kinship and social organization . Most anthropologists believe that hunter-gatherers do not have permanent leaders; instead, the person taking the initiative at any one time depends on the task being performed. Within a particular tribe or people, hunter-gatherers are connected by both kinship and band (residence/domestic group) membership. Postmarital residence among hunter-gatherers tends to be matrilocal, at least initially. Young mothers can enjoy childcare support from their own mothers, who continue living nearby in

21576-486: The first half of the fourth millennium BCE, either soon after farming or in some cases perhaps just before it. It later spread further north on mainland Europe, for instance arriving in the Netherlands in the second half of the fourth millennium BCE. Later in the Neolithic, burial practices tended to place greater emphasis on the individual, suggesting a growing social hierarchy and a move away from collective burial. One of

21762-462: The forces of nature for the benefit of their living descendants. The archaeologist Robin Holgate stressed that rather than simply being tombs, the Medway Megaliths were "communal monuments fulfilling a social function for the communities who built and used them". Thus, it has been suggested that Early Neolithic people entered into the tombs—which doubled as temples or shrines —to perform rituals honouring

21948-454: The general area in which the oldest long barrows were built is therefore known, archaeologists do not know exactly where the tradition started nor which long barrows are the very first ones to have been built. It therefore appears that the architectural tradition developed in this southern area of Western Europe before spreading north, along the Atlantic coast. The tradition had reached Britain by

22134-408: The human remains does not necessarily provide a date for the construction of Coldrum Long Barrow itself, because it is possible that the individuals died some time either before or after the monument's construction. Cut-marks were identified on some of the bones (two femora , two innominates , and one cranium), with osteoarchaeological specialists suggesting that these had been created post-mortem as

22320-423: The idea that these tomb-shrines were territorial markers between different tribes; others have argued that such markers would be of little use to a nomadic herding society. Instead it has been suggested that they represent markers along herding pathways. The archaeologist Richard Bradley suggested that the construction of these monuments reflects an attempt to mark control and ownership over the land, thus reflecting

22506-400: The idea that they were satisfied with very little in the material sense. Later, in 1996, Ross Sackett performed two distinct meta-analyses to empirically test Sahlin's view. The first of these studies looked at 102 time-allocation studies, and the second one analyzed 207 energy-expenditure studies. Sackett found that adults in foraging and horticultural societies work on average, about 6.5 hours

22692-575: The island's Early Neolithic economy was largely pastoral , relying on herding cattle, with people living a nomadic or semi-nomadic life. Across Western Europe, the Early Neolithic marked the first period in which humans built monumental structures in the landscape. These structures included chambered long barrows , rectangular or oval earthen tumuli which had a chamber built into one end. Some of these chambers were constructed out of timber, while others were built using large stones, now known as " megaliths ". These long barrows often served as tombs, housing

22878-648: The landowner, he convinced Major A. O. Green, Instructor in Survey at Brompton , to conduct a survey of the monument in August 1892. He also wrote to the archaeologist Augustus Pitt-Rivers , encouraging him to schedule the Coldrum Stones as a legally protected site under the Ancient Monuments Protection Act 1882 . Payne described the Coldrum Stones as "the finest monument of its class in the county, and one worthy of every care and attention." Comparing it to other monuments of its type in Britain, he stated that it

23064-655: The last 10,000 years. Nowadays, some scholars speak about the existence within cultural evolution of the so-called mixed-economies or dual economies which imply a combination of food procurement (gathering and hunting) and food production or when foragers have trade relations with farmers. Some of the theorists who advocate this "revisionist" critique imply that, because the "pure hunter-gatherer" disappeared not long after colonial (or even agricultural) contact began, nothing meaningful can be learned about prehistoric hunter-gatherers from studies of modern ones (Kelly, 24–29; see Wilmsen ) Lee and Guenther have rejected most of

23250-450: The last chambered tombs erected was Bryn Celli Ddu in Anglesey , Wales, built long after people stopped building them across most of Western Europe. The conscious anachronism of the monument led excavators to suggest that its construction was part of a deliberate attempt by people to restore older religious practices that were extinct elsewhere. Hutton suggested that this tradition "defines

23436-430: The left frontal bone , an adult of indeterminate sex had an unhealed fracture on the left frontal, and a second adult female had a healed depressed fracture on the right frontal. Isotope analysis of the remains revealed that while the bones had δC values that were typical of those found at many other southern British Neolithic sites, they had significantly higher values of δN , which grew over time. Although this data

23622-416: The long barrow consisted of a sub-rectangular earthen tumulus enclosed by kerb-stones. Within the eastern end of the tumulus was a stone chamber, into which human remains were deposited on at least two separate occasions during the Early Neolithic. Osteoarchaeological analysis of these remains has shown them to be those of at least seventeen individuals, a mixture of men, women, and children. At least one of

23808-558: The long barrows authored by the Welsh archaeologist Glyn Daniel was published in 1958 as The Megalith Builders of Western Europe . In 1950, Daniel stated that about a tenth of known chambered long barrows in Britain had been excavated, while regional field studies helped to list them. Few of the earlier excavations recorded or retained any human remains found in the chamber. From the 1960s onward, archaeological research increasingly focused on examining regional groups of long barrows rather than

23994-785: The long barrows likely had "broad religious and social roles" for the communities who built and used them, comparing them in this way to the churches of medieval and modern Europe. Many of the long barrows were used as tombs in which to place the remains of deceased individuals. For this reason, archaeologists like Malone have referred to them as "houses of the dead". Conversely, many of the long barrows do not appear to have been used as tombs; various examples that have been excavated by archaeologists have shown no evidence of having had human remains deposited there. The archaeologists David Lewis-Williams and David Peace, however, noted that these long barrows were more than tombs, also being "religious and social foci", suggesting that they were places where

24180-439: The long barrows typically used stone in their construction. The purpose and meaning of Early Neolithic long barrows are not known, though archaeologists can make suggestions on the basis of recurring patterns that can be observed within the tradition. Archaeologists have not, however, agreed upon the most likely meaning and purpose of these monuments, with various different interpretations being put forward. Lynch suggested that

24366-491: The long barrows. Enviro-archaeological studies have demonstrated that many of the long barrows were erected in wooded landscapes. In Britain, these chambered long barrows are typically located on prominent hills and slopes, in particular being located above rivers and inlets and overlooking valleys. In Britain, long barrows were also often constructed near to causewayed enclosures , a form of earthen monument. Across Europe, about 40,000 long barrows are known to survive from

24552-500: The misidentification of other features. Long barrows have been confused with coniger mounds and rabbit warrens , sometimes termed pillow mounds, which can take on a similar shape. Rifle butts can also sometimes take on shapes similar to those of long barrows. Later landscaping has also led to misidentification; the two mounds at Stoke Park in Bristol , southwest England were for instance thought to be long barrows until an excavation in

24738-651: The monument as a stone circle , they asserted that they discovered Anglo-Saxon pottery at the site, and noted that as well as being called the Coldrum Stones, the monument also had the name of the Adscombe Stones, which Kemble believed originated with the Old English word for funeral pile, ad . In August 1863, members of the Archaeological Institute —which was holding its week-long meeting in Rochester —visited

24924-567: The monument at the time of construction, due to a lack of information on how densely forested the vicinity was. If the area was not highly wooded, then 360° views of the surrounding landscape would have been possible. The monument's axis points toward both the North Downs and the Medway Valley, which is similar to the other Medway Megaliths. The archaeologist Sian Killick suggested that the Coldrum Long Barrow might have been built within view of

25110-399: The monument. This remained unpublished at the time. Associating the site with the druids of Britain's Iron Age , Poste's suggestion was that the name "Coldrum" derived from the linguistically Celtic "Gael-Dun", and that Belgic chiefs were interred there. He further reported that in both 1804 and 1825, skulls had been found at the site. In 1844, an antiquarian named Thomas Wright published

25296-440: The most densely forested areas. Unlike their Bronze and Iron Age counterparts, Neolithic societies could not establish themselves in dense forests, and Copper Age societies had only limited success. In addition to men, a single study found that women engage in hunting in 79% of modern hunter-gatherer societies. However, an attempted verification of this study found "that multiple methodological failures all bias their results in

25482-554: The most interesting and well known" archaeological sites in Kent, while the archaeologist Paul Ashbee described them as "the most grandiose and impressive structures of their kind in southern England". The Medway Megaliths can be divided into two separate clusters: one to the west of the River Medway and the other on Blue Bell Hill to the east, with the distance between the two clusters measuring at between 8 kilometres (5.0 mi) and 10 kilometres (6.2 mi). The western group includes Coldrum Long Barrow, Addington Long Barrow , and

25668-444: The narrower, western end, it is 12 metres (40 ft) in breadth. As such, the barrow is a "truncated wedge-shape". The megalithic builders responsible for the Coldrum Stones positioned it on the top of a small ridge adjacent to the North Downs, and constructed it facing eastward, towards the River Medway. It is located on the edge of a large lynchet scarp, although it is difficult to ascertain what views would have been possible from

25854-433: The nature of the original long barrow design. Architecturally, there is much overlap between long barrows and other monument types from Neolithic Europe, such as the bank barrows , cursus monuments , long cairns , and mortuary enclosures . Bank barrows are stylistically similar to the long barrows but are considerably longer. Cursus monuments also exhibit parallel ditches, but also extend over much longer distances than

26040-514: The nearby village of Trottiscliffe , in the south-eastern English county of Kent . The site is also positioned about 500 metres (550 yards) from a prehistoric track known as the Pilgrims' Way . The tomb can be reached along a pathway known as Coldrum Lane, which is accessible only on foot. The nearest car park to Coldrum Lane can be found off Pinesfield Lane in Trottiscliffe. The village of Addington

26226-414: The neurologically generated tiered cosmos", a cosmos mediated by a system of symbols. They suggested that the entrances to the chambers were viewed as transitional zones where sacrificial rituals took place, and that they were possibly spaces for the transformation of the dead using fire. A second explanation is that these long barrows were intrinsically connected to the transition to farming, representing

26412-432: The next year, noting that the brushwood had since been cut away to reveal the megaliths. In his 1893 book Collectanea Cantiana , Payne noted that although it had first been described in print in 1844, "since that time no one seems to have taken the trouble to properly record them or make a plan", an unusual claim given that a copy of Petrie's published plan existed in his library. For this reason, after gaining permission from

26598-496: The norm until the late neolithic". Comparatively rarely, grave goods have been found interred alongside human bone inside the long barrows. Where these have been found, archaeologists have typically interpreted them as the remains of funerary ceremonies or of feasts. The choice of grave goods included reflects regional variation. In the Cotswold-Severn Group in southwestern England, cattle bones were commonly found within

26784-423: The only statistically significant factor to impact hunter-gatherer tool kits. Using temperature as a proxy for risk, Collard et al.'s results suggest that environments with extreme temperatures pose a threat to hunter-gatherer systems significant enough to warrant increased variability of tools. These results support Torrence's (1989) theory that the risk of failure is indeed the most important factor in determining

26970-625: The peasantry that a continuous line of stones ran from Coldrum direct to the well-known monument called Kit's Cotty [sic] House", attributing this belief to various megaliths scattered throughout the landscape. In 1857, the antiquarian J. M. Kemble excavated at the site with the help of the Reverend Larking, providing a report of their findings to the Central Committee of the British Archaeological Association . Describing

27156-471: The physical remains of the dead within their chamber. Individuals were rarely buried alone in the Early Neolithic, instead being interred in collective burials with other members of their community. These chambered tombs were built all along the Western European seaboard during the Early Neolithic, from southeastern Spain up to southern Sweden, taking in most of the British Isles; the architectural tradition

27342-574: The plan behind the Medway Megaliths had originated in the area around the Low Countries , while fellow archaeologist Glyn Daniel instead believed that the same evidence showed an influence from Scandinavia. John H. Evans instead suggested an origin in Germany, and Ronald F. Jessup thought that their origins could be seen in the Cotswold-Severn megalithic group. Ashbee noted that their close clustering in

27528-427: The remains of up to fifty people. Early 20th-century archaeologists began to call these monuments chambered tombs . The archaeologists Roy and Lesley Adkins referred to these monuments as megalithic long barrows . In most cases, local stone was used where it was available. The decision as to whether a long barrow used wood or stone appears to have been based largely on the availability of resources. The style of

27714-660: The researchers agreed that hunter-gatherers were more egalitarian than modern societies, prior characterisations of them living in a state of egalitarian primitive communism were inaccurate and misleading. This study, however, exclusively examined modern hunter-gatherer communities, offering limited insight into the exact nature of social structures that existed prior to the Neolithic Revolution. Alain Testart and others have said that anthropologists should be careful when using research on current hunter-gatherer societies to determine

27900-429: The same area was reminiscent of the megalithic tomb-shrine traditions of continental Northern Europe, and emphasised that the Medway Megaliths were a regional manifestation of a tradition widespread across Early Neolithic Europe. He nevertheless stressed that a precise place of origin was "impossible to indicate" with the available evidence. The Coldrum Long Barrow originally consisted of a sarsen stone chamber, covered by

28086-452: The same camp. The systems of kinship and descent among human hunter-gatherers were relatively flexible, although there is evidence that early human kinship in general tended to be matrilineal . The conventional assumption has been that women did most of the gathering, while men concentrated on big game hunting. An illustrative account is Megan Biesele's study of the southern African Ju/'hoan, 'Women Like Meat'. A recent study suggests that

28272-646: The same direction...their analysis does not contradict the wide body of empirical evidence for gendered divisions of labor in foraging societies". Only a few contemporary societies of uncontacted people are still classified as hunter-gatherers, and many supplement their foraging activity with horticulture or pastoralism . Hunting and gathering was presumably the subsistence strategy employed by human societies beginning some 1.8 million years ago, by Homo erectus , and from its appearance some 200,000 years ago by Homo sapiens . Prehistoric hunter-gatherers lived in groups that consisted of several families resulting in

28458-503: The sexual division of labor was the fundamental organizational innovation that gave Homo sapiens the edge over the Neanderthals, allowing our ancestors to migrate from Africa and spread across the globe. A 1986 study found most hunter-gatherers have a symbolically structured sexual division of labor. However, it is true that in a small minority of cases, women hunted the same kind of quarry as men, sometimes doing so alongside men. Among

28644-475: The shape of an oval, he instead described them as forming "a rectilinear enclosure" around the chamber. He then included a small, basic plan of the monument. In August 1889, two amateur archaeologists, George Payne and A. A. Arnold, came across the monument, which they noted was known among locals as the "Coldrum Stones" and "Druid Temple"; according to Payne, "the huge stones were so overgrown with brambles and brushwood that they could not be discerned". He returned

28830-443: The sharpening of tools has been found at West Kennet Long Barrow, as well as later prehistoric monuments such as Stonehenge . Britain's Early Neolithic communities placed greater emphasis on the ritual burial of the dead than their Mesolithic forebears. Archaeologists have suggested that this is because Early Neolithic Britons adhered to an ancestor cult that venerated the spirits of the dead, believing that they could intercede with

29016-412: The side of the barrow having fallen to the bottom of the slope. Conversely, it is possible that the sarsens at the bottom of the slope were not part of the original monument, but were stones found in nearby fields which were deposited there by farmers. Excavation of Chestnuts Long Barrow revealed that it had been systematically destroyed in one event, and Ashbee suggested that the same may have happened to

29202-542: The site alone or in pairs, there to meditate , pray , or perform rituals, and some have reported experiencing visions there. A modern Druidic group known as Roharn's Grove hold regular rites at the site, particularly during the eight festivals that make up the Pagan Wheel of the Year . The Coldrums have also witnessed Pagan rites of passage ; circa 2000, a handfasting —or Wiccan marriage ceremony—was held there. One member of

29388-424: The site at dawn every May Day in order to "sing up the sun". This consists of dances performed within the stones on top of the barrow, followed by a song performed at the base of the monument. The trees overhanging the Coldrum Stones on its northern side have become rag trees , with hundreds of ribbons in various colours having been tied to their branches. This is a folk custom that some Pagans engage in, although it

29574-439: The site to be protected under the Ancient Monuments Protection Act 1900 . In that same issue, Lewis included an added note in which he rejected the idea that the monument had once been covered by an earthen tumulus because he could see "no evidence that anything of that kind ever existed", and instead he interpreted the site as a stone circle, comparing it to the examples at Avebury , Arbor Low , and Stanton Drew , suggesting that

29760-541: The site's stones since at least the 1960s, while at the Coldrum Long Barrow in Kent, a rag tree has been established overhanging the barrow. Many modern Pagans view West Kennet Long Barrow as a "temple" and use it for their rituals. Some see it as a place of the ancestors where they can engage in " vision quests " and other neo-shamanic practices. Others have seen it as a womb of the Great Goddess, and as

29946-447: The site, guided by the antiquary Charles Roach Smith . That year, the monument was described in a copy of Gentleman's Magazine by Yorkshire antiquary Charles Moore Jessop, who believed it to be a " Celtic " stone circle. In 1869, the antiquarian A. L. Lewis first visited the site, and was informed by locals that several years previously a skull had been uncovered from inside or near to the chamber, but that they believed it to be that of

30132-534: The sites were once chambered tombs, and thus held the remains of the dead, who themselves may have been perceived as ancestors. On this latter point, Pagan perspectives on these sites are shaped by older archaeological interpretations. The Pagans also cited the Megaliths as spots marking sources of "earth energy", often aligned on ley lines , an idea probably derived ultimately from the publications of Earth Mysteries proponents like John Michell . Pagans sometimes visit

30318-414: The south and east of Britain these long barrows are typically made of earth. Many were altered and restyled over their long period of use. Ascertaining at what date a long barrow was constructed is difficult for archaeologists as a result of the various modifications that were made to the monument during the Early Neolithic. Similarly, both modifications and later damage can make it difficult to determine

30504-674: The southern edge of the ditch around the long barrow. The barrow at Wayland's Smithy in Oxfordshire, also in southeast England, saw a cemetery established around the long barrow, with at least 46 skeletons buried in 42 graves, many having been decapitated. 17 Romano-British burials were discovered at Wor Barrow in Dorset, eight of which were missing their heads. The deposition of coins around long barrows also appears to have been quite common in Roman Britain, and these may have been placed by these monuments as offerings. A hoard of Constantinian coins

30690-642: The stone circle of Stonehenge in Wiltshire, although in an early 17th-century document it was applied to The Hurlers , a set of three stone circles in Cornwall . Later records reveal that it had gained widespread distribution in England, as well as a single occurrence each in Wales and Ireland. The folklorist S. P. Menefee suggested that it could be attributed to an animistic understanding that these megaliths had lives of their own. Several modern Pagan religions are practiced at

30876-403: The structure of hunter-gatherer toolkits. One way to divide hunter-gatherer groups is by their return systems. James Woodburn uses the categories "immediate return" hunter-gatherers for egalitarianism and "delayed return" for nonegalitarian. Immediate return foragers consume their food within a day or two after they procure it. Delayed return foragers store the surplus food. Hunting-gathering

31062-765: The structure of societies in the paleolithic era, emphasising cross-cultural influences, progress and development that such societies have undergone in the past 10,000 years. As one moves away from the equator , the importance of plant food decreases and the importance of aquatic food increases. In cold and heavily forested environments, edible plant foods and large game are less abundant and hunter-gatherers may turn to aquatic resources to compensate. Hunter-gatherers in cold climates also rely more on stored food than those in warm climates. However, aquatic resources tend to be costly, requiring boats and fishing technology, and this may have impeded their intensive use in prehistory. Marine food probably did not start becoming prominent in

31248-401: The tales of battles taking place at this site and at other Medway Megaliths had not developed independently among the local population but had "percolated down from the theories of antiquaries" who believed that the fifth-century Battle of Aylesford , which was recorded in the ninth-century Anglo-Saxon Chronicle , took place in the area. Evans also recorded a local folk belief applied to all

31434-492: The tomb display some patterning; those on the northern side are mostly rectilinear, while those on the southern side are smaller and largely irregular in shape. It is probable that there was an ancillary dry-stone wall constructed using blocks of ironstone from the geological Folkestone beds , as is evident at Chestnuts Long Barrow. Given that such blocks of stone rarely occur naturally, it may have been quarried. A concave line of abrasion and polishing can be found both on one of

31620-438: The tomb is now visible only as an undulation approximately 0.46 metres (1 ft 6 in) in height. In the 19th century, the mound was higher on the western end of the tomb, although during the 1920s this was removed by excavation to reveal the sarsens beneath. It is probable that in the Early Neolithic, the mound had a quarry ditch surrounding it, and it is inside this ditch that the kerb-stones now sit. The kerb-stones around

31806-694: The various different languages of this region. The term barrow is a southern English dialect word for an earthen tumulus, and was adopted as a scholarly term for such monuments by the 17th-century English antiquarian John Aubrey . Synonyms found in other parts of Britain included low in Cheshire , Staffordshire , and Derbyshire , tump in Gloucestershire and Hereford , howe in Northern England and Scotland, and cairn in Scotland. Another term to have achieved international usage has been dolmen ,

31992-813: The viability of hunting and gathering in the 21st century. One such group is the Pila Nguru (Spinifex people) of Western Australia , whose land in the Great Victoria Desert has proved unsuitable for European agriculture (and even pastoralism). Another are the Sentinelese of the Andaman Islands in the Indian Ocean , who live on North Sentinel Island and to date have maintained their independent existence, repelling attempts to engage with and contact them. The Savanna Pumé of Venezuela also live in an area that

32178-432: The wider architectural tradition. From this decade onward, the meticulous excavation of various long barrows also led to the widespread recognition that long barrows were often multi-phase monuments which had been changed over time. Up until the 1970s, archaeologists widely believed that the long barrows of Western Europe were based on Near Eastern models. Archaeological investigation of long barrows has been hindered by

32364-427: The world. Across Western Eurasia, it was not until approximately 4,000 BC that farming and metallurgical societies completely replaced hunter-gatherers. These technologically advanced societies expanded faster in areas with less forest, pushing hunter-gatherers into denser woodlands. Only the middle-late Bronze Age and Iron Age societies were able to fully replace hunter-gatherers in their final stronghold located in

32550-465: Was a facade in front of the chamber, as is evident at other chambered tombs in Britain, such as West Kennet Long Barrow and Wayland's Smithy . It is also possible that there was a portal stone atop the chamber, as was apparent at Kit's Coty House and Lower Kit's Coty House. Many of the larger slabs of stone that have fallen down the slope on the eastern end of the monument may have been parts of this facade or portal. The earthen mound that once covered

32736-459: Was believed to be the remains of twenty-two humans. These remains were examined by Sir Arthur Keith, the conservator of the museum at the Royal College of Surgeons . He published his results in 1913, in a paper largely concerned with discerning racial characteristics of the bodies . He ended his paper with the conclusion that "the people of pre-Christian Kent were physically not very different from

32922-457: Was built by pastoralist communities shortly after the introduction of agriculture to Britain from continental Europe. Part of an architectural tradition of long barrow building that was widespread across Neolithic Europe, the Coldrum Stones belong to a localised regional variant of barrows produced in the vicinity of the River Medway , now known as the Medway Megaliths . Of these, it is in

33108-451: Was for instance placed in a pot around Julliberrie's Grave. A solitary coin from the reign of Allectus was found in the ditch around the long barrow at Skendleby I. The first serious study of chambered long barrows took place in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when the mounds that covered chambers were removed by agriculture. By the nineteenth century, antiquarians and archaeologists had come to recognise this style of monument as

33294-405: Was introduced to Britain from continental Europe in the first half of the fourth millennium BCE. Although there are stone buildings—like Göbekli Tepe in modern Turkey—which predate them, the chambered long barrows constitute humanity's first widespread tradition of construction using stone. Although now all in a ruinous state and not retaining their original appearance, at the time of construction

33480-541: Was located nearby; a razed, elongated earthen mound with an east–west orientation is located in a hollow at the foot of the downs just under a quarter of a mile north of the Coldrum Stones. It may be that this represents the remnants of another such monument which has had its stones removed or buried. Several large sarsens south of the Coldrums might represent the remnants of a further such tomb, since destroyed. The inner chamber measures 4.0 metres (13 ft) in length, and 1.68 metres (5 ft 6 in) in width, although it

33666-404: Was often connected to the idea that they were the holy sites of a new religion spread by either settlers or missionaries. This explanation has been less popular with archaeologists since the 1970s. Adopting an approach based in cognitive archaeology , Lewis-Williams and Pearce argued that the chambered long barrows "reflected and at the same time constituted... a culturally specific expression of

33852-429: Was one of several central characteristics of nomadic hunting and gathering societies because mobility requires minimization of material possessions throughout a population. Therefore, no surplus of resources can be accumulated by any single member. Other characteristics Lee and DeVore proposed were flux in territorial boundaries as well as in demographic composition. At the same conference, Marshall Sahlins presented

34038-473: Was potentially much larger when originally constructed. The chamber's internal height would have been at least 1.98 metres (6 ft 6 in). In its current state, the northern side of the chamber is made up of two slabs. One is 2.4 metres (8 ft) long, 2.29 metres (7 ft 6 in) deep, and 0.53 metres (1 ft 9 in) thick; the other is 1.5 metres (5 ft) long, nearly 1.8 metres (6 ft) deep, and 0.61 metres (2 ft) thick. Conversely,

34224-459: Was the common human mode of subsistence throughout the Paleolithic , but the observation of current-day hunters and gatherers does not necessarily reflect Paleolithic societies; the hunter-gatherer cultures examined today have had much contact with modern civilization and do not represent "pristine" conditions found in uncontacted peoples . The transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture

34410-427: Was therefore seen by Early Neolithic Europeans as an ordeal to be overcome or an honourable job to be selected for. In some chambers, human remains were arranged and organised according to the type of bone or the age and sex of the individual that they came from, factors that determined which chamber they were placed in. Lynch noted that "the bulk of our surviving evidence suggests that collectivity became and remained

34596-586: Was undoubtedly "of sepulchral origin, belonging to a period anterior to the Roman domination of Britain." Payne also noted a folk tradition that there were stone avenues connecting Coldrum to the Addington Long Barrow, but added that he was unable to discover any physical evidence of this feature. In 1904, George Clinch published a note on the Medway Megaliths in the Royal Anthropological Institute's journal, Man , in which he referred to

#677322