31. Primitive Rituals

I hope you read article no. 30. That’s where I let slip that ‘timber circles’ were buildings, some roundhouses were multi-storey, and Hadrian had a timber wall for while -- so you know I’m not here for the beer. But I wish we both down the pub; we could have a chat about all this, a dialogue where we could respond to each other. It would be good: I like you a lot already; you have had the good sense, taste, and intellectual interest to invest your hard won browsing time in reading this blog.

Speaking of beer, back in some golden summer of British archaeology, before the invention of health and safety, when the only unit of alcohol of note was a pint, muddy people would sit in pubs and have conversations about what they had just dug up, and what it all meant. If it was not obvious, at some point someone would say “it must be ritual then,” and we would all laugh, and then someone would be sent for to the bar for some more inspiration.

30. Not going with the flow

I studied philosophy, so I know you are reading this, or at least you think you are, but I don’t know why, or whether you have done it before, and if so, how often. If you have read none of the proceeding 42,000 words, what I am about to discuss may seem a little unexpected, but I am trying not to repeat myself, and besides, those who have bravely trudged through it all deserve some reward, so I am going to give a brief glimpse of what's coming up in the next 30 posts, because from now on it’s going to get ‘interesting’. In terms of ‘why I blog’, this is my belated contribution to an interesting Internet discussion.[1] It also reflects my concerns about how I blog.
So, before we go any further, it's important we have a heart to heart about what’s going on here. We are meeting in rather unusual circumstances; my concern is what is going on in your mind when you read this, and you may be beginning to wonder about what’s going on in mine.

9. Building - it's just not that simple

Archaeology is based on the understanding that artifacts can tell you much about the culture and individuals that created them. We don't have buildings to study, but the simple models and realisations of the prehistoric built environment, and the visual information they convey, are entirely at odds with the evidence from the study of other key technologies.


Building is a key technology; the traditional sedentary mixed farming model of the rural economy is possible only with the appropriate built environment. Southern England can provide abundant good quality timber for building, and, historically at least, building has been an important method by which society, or individuals, express themselves. Buildings protect people, activities, processes, and materials from the environment, including other people. If individuals or groups in a society gain disproportionate control over these resources, they will require a larger built environment.

6. Little Woodbury’s bastard children

Roundhouses were real buildings, and the plans of their foundations are characterised by the geometry and accuracy that any large timber frame structure requires. The obligatory search for circles in posthole palimpsests has inevitably thrown up other slightly oval and irregular patterns that are still interpreted as ‘roundhouses’.
I will illustrate this difficult point with examples produced by former colleagues in Essex. At least they were aware of my views, and so have had some chance to defend themselves. For the record, I will offer an alternative view of what they found in a later blog.