The Archaeology of Britain: An introduction from ... - waughfamily.ca

The Neolithic period
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Figure 4.4 Reconstructions of two phases of the Street House long barrow, Cleveland.
Source: Vyner 1984
longhouses of the continental LBK; the huge, elongated shell middens of Late Mesolithic southern
Scandinavia and elsewhere, scene of communal gatherings, feastings and burial; and the tents
and other dwellings of the insular Late Mesolithic and Early Neolithic. If so, they presented and
represented a concept of the past, of an ancestral social order fixed for all time. Their construction
brought numbers of people together, and the results were not only highly visible, but enduring.
Their locales commemorated and sanctified places perhaps already of long significance, providing
conspicuous points of reference in the landscape.
Such powerful symbols were open to contestation. Some dismantlings, burnings and
rebuildings could result from hostile activity. Some monuments may have been the focus for