As with much of north-west Europe, the British Isles are littered with evidence of Human society dating back many thousands of years. From the readily available evidence of everyday practicalities, in the form of wasted and discarded flint tools, to the structures requiring great municipal organisation and effort, the true functions of which we can not even begin to understand.
There is some suggestion that the stone temples/ tombs/ meeting places/ civil centres (or whatever interpretation is used), were based upon existing natural features with importance to the people of the late mesolithic or early neolithic. With natural shapes like the Cheesering occurring, it is easy to find this proposition convincing:
The Cheesering, Bodmin Moor, Cornwall.
The barrows, cairns, howes and quoits are some of the oldest remaining structures in Britain. They arrive with the new ideas of farming and possibly a more settled way of life - having stores of food and easily accessible sources of meat allowed time to think on metaphysical matters more than ever before. The structures are generally thought to be places of the dead although not in the sense of modern burial sites. The evidence hints at a continual encroachment of these spaces by the living. Excarnation (de-fleshing) of bodies, either by natural decomposition, stripping by birds and animals, or direct human intervention, is thought to precede a systematic deconstruction of body parts, which were then ordered in specific areas within these tombs. Although not to rest, but to be removed, possibly for purposes of ritual or ceremony, and re-ordered over time. It is possible that this action represented a de-personalisation of the remains, consigning them to an amalgamated ancestral whole. The tombs were used over many years and typically were eventually sealed up by large blocking stones, or filled with rubble and earth.
Coldrum Long Barrow in Kent. Possibly one of the earliest Neolithic tombs.
Kits Coty House, Kent.
Lanyon Quoit, Cornwall.
Lanyon Quoit, Cornwall.
Chun Quoit, Cornwall
Mostly left without their resplendent earth and turf covering, and colourful painted stones, what we see now is often just a pile or stack of stones. The sites retain some hints at their once majestic splendour though. It is suggested that they occupy sites of importance that pre-date the tombs themselves by thousands of years, and the surrounding landscapes seem to reflect this somehow. They have to be seen in their context in order to be fully appreciated.
Following the time of tombs, prehistoric britain saw the emergence of structures with much less obvious function. The circles of stone will never be fully understood, although new indications are being discovered all the time. It is generally thought that many exist in much larger 'ritual landscapes' and interact with other structures in the area. There is nothing to suggest that the large circles in the South have anything to do with the smaller circles in the West, or the recumbent circles of the north, but their similar age and purported solar alignments hint at some kind of uniform origins and purpose.
Standing stone, West Kennet Avenue, Avebury, Wiltshire
The Hurlers, Bodmin Moor, Cornwall
The Hurlers, Bodmin Moor, Cornwall
Duddo 5 Stones, Northumberland
Boscawen Un, Cornwall
Men An Tol, Cornwall
Merry Maidens, Cornwall
Merry Maidens, Cornwall
Bryn Cader Faner, Wales.
The photographs in this brief essay represent how humans in Britain learned to manipulate their surroundings for more than mere practical reasons. The sites themselves hold new meanings for each generation, with sometimes wild explanations for their purpose and functions from new age mysticism and modern pagan ritual to the academic musings of populist tv experts. The truth is, save the invention of a time machine, we will never know the whys, hows and wherefores that explain the enigma. The people who built these tombs were the same as modern humans in a biological sense - they may not have the benefit (or hinderance) of our modern specialities and depth of knowledge, but they had the same instincts that we all respond to. I think it is enough to know these sites were made by us, for ourselves, and in order to make sense of our surroundings in much the same way as we continue to do five thousand years on.
