Theoretical Structural Archaeology

Structural archaeologist Geoff Carter's radical view of building in the ancient world, especially the archaeology of the lost timber built environment of Southern England. It is new research into of prehistory of architecture, available in a series of articles that are designed to be read in order, and to be accessible to the non-specialist - and there is even some humour

Showing posts with label Postholes. Show all posts

Showing posts with label Postholes. Show all posts

03 March, 2017

Systematic Irregularity; hidden in plain sight

W hen you start an excavation, or make an original observation, it may become your responsibility to give things a name, which is not as ea...

26 April, 2016

Reverse engineering the past

It is spring, the swallows have returned to the farm, so it is time for a mission statement, or an explanation what after 8 years on the ...

10 February, 2015

Where is the woodshed?

Much of the material culture of past was fabricated from timber, and, just as significantly, fuelled by wood, a material that is usually i...

20 January, 2015

The Northern Frontier; lilies, Latin, and illiteracy

Some readers, new to archaeology, particularly students like those on MOOC courses, discover that the evidence based arguments about R...

28 December, 2014

De-turfing Hadrian’s Wall

I have argued the postholes found on the berm of Hadrian’s Wall are the remains of the a timber rampart, which together with the Turf Wa...

26 October, 2014

Posthole Archaeology; Function, Form and Fighting

In the previous post I posed the question what buildings does a moderately complex hierarchical agricultural society require , looking at ...

26 September, 2014

Posthole archaeology; function, form and farming

By the Bronze Age in British Isles, and certainly in terms of the proto-historic Late Iron Age, we have what historians might call petty...

31 August, 2014

Roundhouse Psychosis

In the previous post I explained why the large Wessex style “roundhouse” as illustrated and rebuilt is a fiction which is not supported by ...

08 October, 2013

Understanding more about Stonehenge as a Building

As the New Stonehenge interpretation centre nears completion at a cost of £27 million *, I thought I should go a a little more detail a...

27 February, 2013

Understanding the Neolithic Longhouse

Archaeology is recorded in diagrams All pictures of a Neolithic Longhouse are imaginary; generally, all that remains are the archae...

23 March, 2012

Twelve reasons why Stonehenge was a building

Stonehenge was a building. That’s it, no mystery. If it was a rectangle this would not be an issue, but British Prehistoric building...

21 December, 2011

The construction of Hadrian's First Wall

It is now over two years since I published the analyses of the three lines of double postholes found on the berm north of Hadrian...

01 January, 2010

37. Upstairs in the Neolithic

In the last article, we looked at prehistoric architects. However, the reason this is theoretical structural archaeology, is that we have n...

26 November, 2009

36. Being on the level about Prehistoric Masons.

I am going to tell you a secret. It is older, deeper, and infinitely more real than anything dreamt up by Dan Brown. Granted, it involves m...

26 July, 2009

32. Hadrian's Timber Wall

The latest research on this topic is presented here. Between Hadrian’s Wall and the ditch to north, archaeologists have found three line...

05 July, 2009

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 Hadr...

15 June, 2009

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 be...

29 March, 2009

25. A world of Invisible Walls

How to account for things that are invisible is always tricky, as priests would no doubt testify, and in some respects archaeologists have ...

21 February, 2009

23.Uncovered; Prehistoric Building Regulations

I want to show you something quite remarkable about prehistoric buildings that nobody ever noticed before, so you are going to be the fir...

19 February, 2009

22. Iron Age Graphs; an important discovery

To be a theoretical structural archaeologist, you are going to have to understand (or at least believe in) Pythagoras, the sine rule, and...

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T. S. A. is written & Illustrated by Geoff Carter, And was Edited on line By Martha Murphy

Geoff Carter

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