Neolithic Causewayed Enclosures and Later Prehistoric Farming: Duality, Imposition and the Role of Predecessors at Kingsborough, Isle of Sheppey, Kent, UK

摘要

Developer-funded archaeology on the Isle of Sheppey resulted in the discovery of not one but two Neolithiccausewayed enclosures on the same hilltop in very close (c. 300 m) proximity. In the later Bronze Ageenclosures and cremation cemeteries were constructed immediately to the east, followed by Iron Age enclosuresand, ultimately, field systems dating to the later Iron Age onwards. A radiocarbon programme enabled the chronological sequence and hiatus between all of these events to bediscerned, but the majority of this paper explores the physical, chronological, and social relationship betweenthe two Neolithic causewayed enclosures. These were of different forms and, although on the same hilltop, theyeach seem to have had distinctly different viewsheds over the Thames and the Swale respectively. There aresubtle, but potentially significant, differences in the material culture and deposition which allow exploration ofthe possible functions and role(s) of the two largely contemporaneous sites. Questions may be addressed suchas whether they performed the same functions for two communities or had separate and distinct roles for asingle community. Beyond the Neolithic, the paper also explores the nature of the later use of the hilltop. TheBronze Age enclosures, though agricultural in function, clearly seem to respect their Neolithic predecessorsinvoking a remembrance of space, which is lost by the Iron Age. The shift away from the special function ofthis landscape in the Neolithic to a subsequent agricultural use is explored, as is the hiatus in use andsubsequent re-use of the area.