Northwest Europe, 5C ENGLAND (Britannia): Neolithic Monuments

Causewayed enclosures (3800-3500 BC) are subcircular areas enclosed by one or more concentric ditches with banks on their inner sides. The ditches were dug in a series of elongated pits separated by the undug gaps (causeways), the debris from the ditches being thrown up to form the banks.

Burials were covered by single mounds of earth or stone are known as barrows or cairns respectively. Long barrows are long mounds, typically between twenty and seventy metres in length.  Long barrows covering stone mortuary chambers are called chambered (megalithic) long barrows. Long barrows not having chambers inside of them (wood could have been used if stone was not available) are called unchambered (non-megalithic) or earthen long barrows.

There are several types of megalithic structure: the portal tomb/dolmen (a burial chamber), the passage tomb (a burial chamber with narrow passage leading to the exterior), the gallery tomb (a long chamber divided into compartments) and the menhir/orthostat (a single upright stone, or a group of similar stones). Dolmens and passage tombs are normally under round barrows, while gallery tombs are often covered by long barrows.

A cursus is long narrow enclosure usually under a hundred metres wide, but can be up to ten kilometres long, bounded on along its length by a bank and an external ditch with banks at the terminal ends completing the cursus. Their use is debated.

Henges have a circular ditch with an external bank having a single entrance or two opposing entrances. The name ‘henge’ is derived from Stonehenge, famous for its summer solstice alignment. The ditch at Stonehenge, however, is outside the earthwork bank (similar to the causewayed camps), i.e. not defensive but rather to enclose a private (sacred) place.