Prehistoric Linear Earthworks Reconsidered (original) (raw)

Extensive fieldwork on the Pewsey Downs of Wiltshire in central southern England has challenged prior classifications and interpretations of linear earthworks. A novel classification of linear earthworks is offered, and their place in the social structure and subsidence system of first millennium BC prehistoric society considered. It is suggested that linear earthworks were complex, long-term structures that changed meaning over time and that simple explanations of their nature, chronology and meaning are insufficient. Consideration is also given to the role of linear earthworks in the creation of special places, particularly the partition of burial mounds from the everyday landscape, and the place of linear earthworks in the origin of Iron Age hillforts.