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Fig. 204 The ecliptic, the path of the Sun on the celestial sphere.
Fig. 205 The maximum and minimum declinations of the Moon.
Fig. 206 The path of the Moon on the celestial sphere, in relation to the ecliptic.
Fig. 207 The variation in lunar declination over one cycle of the nodes (approximately 18.6 years).
Fig. 208 The angle of rising or setting of the Sun or Moon.
Fig. 209 Extreme values on the graph of the Moon’s declination for a typical series of lunations around major northern and southern standstills.
Fig. 210 A star map for the latitude of Stonehenge for 3000 BC, including stars brighter than magnitude 4.5.
Fig. 211 Maximum declinations of the planet Venus in excess of 25° during the 36th century BC.
Fig. 212 Maximum declinations of Venus in a single family of maxima (see the previous figure) over a long period of time.
GLOSSARY (#ulink_cab67c02-b809-5b83-b77b-e32cf49d4b2e)
acronycal rising The last visible rising (in the course of the year) of a star at evening twilight. See Appendix 4.
alignment An arrangement in which three or more objects (strictly points on objects) are in a straight line. The word is often used of prehistoric rows of stones, but is here almost always used where one of the points is a rising or setting star, or a point on the Sun or Moon, on the horizon.
altitude Angle above a level plane, sometimes called elevation.
anthropomorphic In human form (to be interpreted generously). Neolithic slabs, often a metre or so across, are often carved in low relief with a face and other human characteristics. Archaeologists, however, cannot always agree on what these characteristics were meant to be.
architrave The main beam that rests on the plate (abacus) topping the capital of a column, as in Greek temple architecture.
ard A primitive plough with a ploughshare of stone or hard wood, and no mouldboard to turn the soil (and so create a furrow).
azimuth A direction in the horizontal plane, usually specified in degrees or as a compass bearing. Any clearly understood conventions for the starting point and direction of increase are acceptable, but star azimuths are commonly measured from north, increasing in a clockwise (eastwards) direction. East is then equivalent to an azimuth of 90°, south 180°, west 270°, and north 0°.
barrow A mound, deliberately erected out of earth and other materials (such as chalk, stone, or wood, depending on time and region), and having a conscious architectural structure. Usually, but not always, built for burial purposes. Long barrows, often but not always chambered, are typical of the Neolithic period, and round barrows of the Bronze Age and later. For various forms of round barrow, see Plate 2.
BC and bc (dates before the Christian era) are distinguished to indicate between ordinary calendar dates and uncorrected dates arrived at from radiocarbon methods. See Appendix 1.
beaker Drinking vessel with the profile of its side S-shaped profile, and often decorated with impressions made by a chord, bone or other tool. The general style seems to have arrived in Britain from the Rhine area in the mid third millennium BC. Many variations of shape are distinguished. Bell beakers look like an inverted bell or cloche hat. They carried incised decoration in horizontal bands round the body and seem to have begun as a regional variant (lower Rhine delta) of Corded Ware beakers. Like the latter they were often placed in single male burials, with weapons.
Belgae A population taking its name from Caesar’s references to a group in Gaul occupying lands to the north of the Seine and Marne. (Certain of their tribes, he said, settled in Britain.) Archaeologists apply the name to earlier cultures in the same general area.
bell barrow See barrow.
Beltane A Celtic feast, in celebration of the beginning of summer, but at a time of year roughly corresponding to our beginning of May. Approximately mid-way between vernal equinox and summer solstice. The festival was associated with fire.
bluestone A name given to some of the stones at Stonehenge, on account of their colour. They are in fact of several rock types (rhyolites, dolerite, volcanic, and some sandstones).
berm The level area usually left between a ditch and its adjacent bank or mound.
Bronze Age The period during which copper and its alloys were first used in significant quantities. The dating of the period depends on the place and culture. For Britain, various definitions have been offered, such as 2500–1800 BC for the early bronze age, 1800–1300 BC for the middle, and up to 700 BC for the later period.
cairn A mound of stones, often erected as a covering for a tomb. A form of barrow.
capstone Stone forming the roof of a burial chamber.
causewayed enclosure Any area enclosed by a system of rings of ditches and banks through which an entrance passage has been left.
Celts A name used by ancient writers of a population group occupying much of Europe and now distinguished by a common language (dialects of which are still found in Brittany, Wales, Ireland and Scotland) and artistic tradition (characteristic is the Swiss La Tène style). Celtic culture seems to derive from a Bronze Age urnfield culture of the upper Danube region of the mid second millennium BC. They might have arrived in Britain by the eighth century BC.
chamber passage The entrance passage in a chamber tomb.
chamber tomb Any tomb with a chamber, usually of stone, and usually with the evident intention of adding successive interments over long periods of time. The word is not usually applied to tombs with only a cist or coffin within them. In the Severn–Cotswold type (Neolithic period) the mortuary chamber was covered by a long barrow in the form of a mound of earth or stones. The chamber was often at the high end of the barrow. When the chamber was reached from the side, there was often a false doorway (false portal) at the high end, with horn-like protrusions to the barrow creating a forecourt (in some cases paved) in which ritual involving fire took place. Cairns with burial chambers are common in Ireland, northern Britain, and Brittany, but not in southern Britain (but there are some in the Scilly Isles, Cornwall and Anglesey).
Charon See obol.
cinerary urn An urn in which the ashes of the dead are placed after cremation.
circle A loose description of a roughly circular arrangement of standing stones or posts, whether or not surrounded by a ditch and/or bank. The word is often used by those at pains to prove that prehistoric people were unable to draw circles.
cist box, usually applied to a box of stone slabs used for burial purposes.
combe or coomb A hollow or valley, especially on the flank of a hill, dry during most of the year.
conjunction An alignment of two celestial bodies (say the Sun and Moon) and the observer, so that the two appear to be together in the sky; or, more generally, appear to be at the same ecliptic longitude. (The latter qualification is added since objects on separate paths may pass close, but not strictly meet.)
constellation A conspicuous grouping or pattern of bright stars, named on the basis of things the shape seems to resemble, or on the basis of an important star in the group. The Greek astronomer Ptolemy named 48 constellations, many traceable to earlier Mesopotamia. Astronomers now accept 88, strictly defined with reference to convenient boundaries (so that all the sky is covered) rather than shapes.
cosmical settings The first visible setting (in the course of the year) of a star or planet at dawn. See Appendix 4.
cove Three or possibly more upright stones, often in a U-shaped arrangement at the centre of a stone circle or henge.
cremation The burning of the dead.
cromlech A stone slab supported on blocks (a Welsh word for a dolmen). The word has occasionally been used for the circle formed by blocks of stone surrounding a barrow (in the form of a peristyle), and past writers have applied it even to Stonehenge and Avebury.
cropmark An evident variation in crop colour, usually visible only from the air, caused for example by variations in soil chemistry, water distribution, or very local weather patterns.
culmination The highest point reached by any heavenly body (Sun, Moon, star, planet, etc.) in the course of the daily rotation when it crosses the meridian.
culture A homogeneous grouping of material effects (tools, weapons, ornaments, pottery, burial paraphernalia, houses, and so forth) and physical and mental habits. In prehistory the latter is almost always inferred from the former.
cup and ring decoration A form of incised or pecked design found on stones, which may be parts of a monument or outlying crops of rock that have never been deliberately moved. The ‘cup’ is a hollow of say 5 cm diameter, and it is surrounded by incised rings, spirals, or other intricate shapes.
cursus Literally a course, as for a race, but applied now by archaeologists to a type of monument where a strip of land is enclosed between long parallel banks and adjoining ditches to the inside or outside of them. Long barrows may be built into cursus. (The plural of this Latin word is also cursus, but some treat the word as English and use the plural cursusses.) See Chapter 3 (#u2e8d0974-69f2-5c00-9020-08a8f037f0e9).
declination The angle between a star (or of a point of the Sun or Moon, or other heavenly body) and the celestial equator. This coordinate is paired with right ascension. See Appendix 2 for more details.
disc barrow See barrow.
divination Foretelling the future by some sort of hidden, magical or supernatural means.
dolerite A basic igneous rock, resembling basalt, but coarser grained.
dolmen A Welsh, Cornish and Breton term (due allowance being made for spelling) for a stone table, in prehistory usually comprising upright unhewn stones supporting a large and relatively flat stone. The whole was usually originally covered with stones or earth and functioned as a burial chamber.
druid A priest of the Celtic people who spread across northern Europe and into the British Isles a few centuries BC. Archaeological artefacts excepted, most of what is known about them and their religion comes from classical Greek and Latin authors.
drystone (walling) Stone built up without mortar.
dyke or dike A ditch (occasionally to conduct water) or an embankment to keep water off land. The ambiguity stems from the fact that the two usually go together, for obvious reasons.
ecliptic The (mean) apparent path of the Sun through the stars, covered in the course of a year. The constellations through which the ecliptic passes define the traditional zodiac, but most of the familiar constellations in that band are of Middle Eastern origin, and are probably not prehistoric.
equator (celestial) The great circle in the heavens midway between the celestial poles. Poles and equator are determined by the Earth’s rotation, and the terrestrial equator is in the same plane as the celestial. See also equinox.
equinoctial See equinox.
equinox Loosely speaking, the time of year (spring or vernal equinox, autumnal equinox) when day and night are of equal length. These are the times when the Sun is on (or nearly on) the celestial equator, which is therefore sometimes called the equinoctial.
extinction altitude The altitude of a star below which it is invisible. This depends on various factors such as the brightness (magnitude) of the star and atmospheric conditions.
false portal See chamber tomb.
fiducial Regarded as a fixed basis of comparison (said of a line, point, or other marker).
flint A hard stone, usually steely grey or brown in colour, found in pebbles or nodules within a white incrustation. A relatively pure native form of silica, if suitably struck (knapped) it flakes so as to form (or leave) a sharp cutting instrument. Used for arrowheads, blades, scrapers, adzes, etc.
forecourt See chamber tomb.
gallery grave A chambered tomb in which the entrance passage, running into the burial chamber, is hardly (or not at all) distinguishable from it. There may be side chambers (as in the Severn–Cotswold type).
glaciation An Ice Age, the condition of being covered with an ice sheet or glaciers.
gnomon An upright (for example a stone or post, or later of finely contrived metal) from whose shadow time is estimated. Hence gnomonics, the science of calculating sun-dials.
gnomonics See gnomon.
grooved ware See Rinyo–Clacton.
heliacal rising/setting The rising of a star or group of stars just before sunrise, or the setting of the same just after sunset. See Appendix 4.
henge Circular banked enclosure with internal or external ditch and often one or more internal rings of timbers or stones. (This generic term is used in different ways by different writers, but ultimately derives by analogy with the name of Stonehenge.)
hillfort Hilltop defended by walls of stone, banks of earth, palisades of timber, ditches, or a mixture of these. Whether Neolithic causewayed camps had a defensive function is a moot point, but hillforts are usually taken to have been a late Bronze Age development, and most known examples date from the Iron Age.
hippodrome A course or circuit for horse-races or chariot-races.
Iron Age The period from say 700 BC onwards (the date varying from region to region) when iron had become the chief metal used for tools and weapons. (Bronze and flint continued in use, however.)
kerb Piled up stones forming a retaining wall around a mound. Kerbs may be internal or external and visible.
kist See cist.
leptolith Literally a slender stone. The word is used of slender flint cutting tools.
ley The name given by A. Watkins (around 1921) and his followers to certain alignments of natural and man-made objects that many of them believe follow the lines of certain unspecified kinds of force or energy emanating from the terrain. Their leys typically take in prehistoric, medieval, and even much more recent sites. An interest in leys was revived with the UFO craze in the 1960s.
libation The pouring out of wine or other liquid, whether or not conceived as a drink, in honour of a god or ancestor.
limb (of the Sun or Moon) The edge of the apparent disc of the Sun or Moon.
lintel A horizontal stone or timber, placed across the top of two uprights, as in a door frame.
long barrow See barrow
lozenge A rhomb, a geometrical figure in the shape of the ‘diamonds’ on playing cards.
lynchet A terrace cut into the slope of a (usually chalk) down, intended for cultivation.
magnetic flux A measure of the magnetism crossing a surface. More precisely: the surface integral of the product of the permeability of the medium and the magnetic field intensity perpendicular to the surface.
magnetometer An instrument for measuring the strength and direction of a magnetic field, in archaeology usually the Earth’s.
magnitude (of a star) A measure of the brightness of a star or planet. The Greek astronomer Hipparchus (second century BC) grouped stars on a scale from first (brightest) to sixth magnitude (barely detectable). It was eventually realized that the physiology of the eye is such that each step corresponds to a roughly similar brightness ratio. In 1856 N. R. Pogson established a standard scheme in which a difference of 5 in magnitude corresponds to a brightness ratio of 100 to 1. A difference of 1 in magnitude then corresponds to a brightness ratio of 2.512 to 1. The only magnitudes relevant to this book are magnitudes apparent to the eye. (Other definitions relate to the intrinsic luminosities of stars and to the type of radiation received by the detector.) marl A soil comprising a mixture of clay and lime.
megalith A large stone (by implication, one that is thought to have had a monumental use). (From Greek mega, large, and lithos, stone.)
Megalithic Yard (MY) A unit of length (0.829 m or 2.72 ft) that was used, according to Alexander Thom, in the construction of stone rings and other megalithic monuments.
menhir A single standing stone of appreciable height (a Breton word, said to be from men, stone, and hir, long). The word occurs in many Breton place names, but seems to have entered archaeology only in the eighteenth century.
meridian The plane containing the northernmost and southernmost points of the horizon, the north celestail pole, and the zenith overhead; or that part of the great circle on the celestial sphere through the last three points. (From the Latin meridies, midday, when the Sun crosses the meridian.) The word is also used of the terrestrial counterpart of this, namely a line of longitude on the Earth, as in ‘the meridian of Greenwich’. See culmination.
Mesolithic The period between the end of the last Ice Age (say 8000 BC) and the introduction of farming and pottery making (in Britain around 4500 BC).
Metonic cycle The cycle of 19 years or 235 months (these being approximately equal) that brings the Moon back in step with the Sun, so that new and full moons repeat on the same dates. From Meton, a Greek astronomer of the fifth century BC.)
mica A mineral (often aluminium silicate) occurring as small glinting flakes in granite and other rocks.
micaceous Containing mica.
microlith A very small stone tool, in some instances meant as part of a larger tool (for example as a blade fitted in a haft).
midden In general use now a dunghill, but in archaeological use a rubbish dump, often containing bones, shells, and charcoal.
Minoan The name applied by Sir Arthur Evans to the Bronze Age civilization of Crete (3000 to 1000 BC, divided by him into three periods, Early, Middle and Late).
mortise A cavity cut into wood or stone into which fits the end (or some part) of another piece of wood or stone (this being called a tenon) so forming a joint. The Stonehenge lintels had mortises into which fitted tenons at the tops of the uprights. This was obviously copied from earlier practice with timbers.
