The house of the dead

There is evidence of human burial in the earliest prehistoric times, the Old and Middle Stone Ages, but the first tombs date from the New Stone Age, after 4000 BC. These tombs are the oldest prehistoric monuments to survive in Britain. It has been suggested that the design for burial structures was derived from house designs, and even that some round barrows might have been built over the remains of circular huts. There is no doubt that great care was taken in housing the dead, and that over the centuries many thousands of tombs, some very elaborate, were constructed in Britain and Ireland.

The form they take varies according to the area where they were built, and the time when they were built. 'I'he most impressive to visit today are the chambered barrows and chambered cairns, mounds of earth or stones containing a burial chamber made of large stones. It is quite an experience to enter one of these with its roof in place - such as West Kennet long barrow' (Wiltshire), or Stoney Littleton long barrow (Avon), or Bryn-Celli-Ddu (Anglesey), and there are a number of others not included in our ‘Places to Visit’ such as Maes Howe (Orkney), The Grey Cairns of Camster (Caithness), Hetty Pegler’s Tump (Gloucestershire), and the passage-tombs in the prehistoric cemetery at the Bend of the Boyne (County Meath) which in addition to the famous Newgrange contains at least twenty-five tombs of this kind.

Sometimes the roof is missing and the stone passage is open to the sky, as at Capel Garmon (Gwynedd); sometimes the surrounding mound of earth has disappeared leaving a dramatic dolmen or cromlech, massive upright stones supporting a capstone so big and heavy that it is difficult to comprehend how’ it was ever raised up there. The capstone of Lligwy cromlech (Anglesey) weighs about 28 tons. But not all the stone tombs are well preserved. All that remains in many cases is a pile of tumbled stones, meaning nothing to the layman and only revealing something of its history to the archaeologist after long

Although the tomb is uou' reduced to a feu - scattered boulders, Iaeri Pebyll near Xebo (Guynedd) shou's the typical open upland situation zcith fine vistas chosen by prehistoric tomb-builders.

And careful examination. Most commonly seen are the grassv mounds called round barrows or tumuli, and the piles of small stones called cairns. 'Fhey were built later than the bigger tombs and did not usually contain a separate stone burial chamber, though they might contain a stone box or cist. 'Fhere are thought to be between 30,000 and 40,000 tumuli and cairns still surviving.

Even though many tombs have been robbed of their contents in previous centuries, archaeologists have recovered much in the way of skeletons and ‘grave-goods’, and these finds have added considerably to our knowledge of life in the Neolithic/ New Stone. Age (when long barrows were built) and the Bronze .Age (when round barrows were built). In the earlier tombs, flint implements were found, beads of bone, shell and stone, and potterv beakers, whereas in the later Bronze. Age barrows

Sometimes large stone cists uere used to hold burials, as shou n here at Ri Cruin cairn (Argyll! Strathclyde Region). On the end ivall, carvings of axe-heads can just be discerned.

The finds were richer - bronze daggers, axe-hammers and other masculine items of fine quality.

Although the emphasis so far has been on burial, it would be wrong to think that when the chief of a tribe died (for these elaborate tombs were surely only constructed for the aristocracy of the time), the workmen raised up a huge tomb, the corpse was buried with some personal belongings, and then the tomb was closed and left untouched for ever afterwards. There is clear evidence that the older tombs were in use for long periods of time. West Kennet long barrow, for instance, was used for around 1,000 years, many people being buried there at different times. W’e can compare such tombs to our o, wn churches and cathedrals, which contain burials of many ages but are also used for other purposes. Rituals and ceremonies were doubtless performed at the tombs, some intended to assist the departing spirit on its journey into the next world and possibly some to commemorate and aid those who had died in earlier times, perhaps in battle.

Although there are no written records telling us what our ancestors thought about death, and whether they believed in an afterlife, there are some tantalising hints that they did not accept death as final. In some Neolithic chambered tombs bowls have been found which may have contained food offerings, while vessels found in Bronze. Age barrows did originally contain food, as some remains of it were found, including animal bones. .Apart from such practical considerations as providing the dead with food and drink, there is also some evidence that prehistoric men believed that the pattern of life, death and rebirth was linked to the rhythms of the sun and moon, which brings us back to the possible use of stone circles as astronomical observatories which we discussed in the previous chapter. As will be seen in Chapter 18, where traditional customs are described, midwinter is the time of death followed by rebirth and renewal, and this belief in the natural cycle stretches back in time, at least to the Neolithic tomb-builders and probably long before them. I'he builders of Newgrange, which is the most impressive chambered tomb in Europe, incorporated their beliefs into this monument. Some of them are in the form of carvings which cannot yet be positively interpreted, but there is one construction of unmistakable purpose. Above the entrance an aperture was made between two stone slabs, and just after sunrise at the winter solstice (21 December), and at no other time, a beam of sunlight shines through the aperture and down the passageway of the tomb. The light reaches to the burial chamber at the far end of the long passage, about 80 feet in all, and touches the edge of a basin, which once probably contained the cremated remains of the dead. This event lasts for around fifteen minutes, and then as the earth turns the sun leaves the inner tomb which remains in darkness for another twelve months.

That this strange and eerie happening is unlikely to be a result of chance is shown by the fact that at Maes Howe tomb (Orkney) a similar aperture has been found at the entrance to the passage. Maes Howe was built about 500 years later than Newgrange, around 2500 BC. The construction of only a small aperture to allow the sun to enter suggests that this was intended as a private event, to be experienced by the dead alone, and just as the midwinter sun marked the return of vitality to all forms of life, so its entry into these tombs could have symbolised the continuance of life for those who had died. Symbols probably meant to represent the sun were carved on a stone on the outside of the passage grave at Dowth, near Newgrange, but the many other carvings at burial sites, especially in Ireland, are not so easy of interpretation (see Chapter 6). It is likely that if only they could be read, they would have much to tell us about life and death as seen through the eyes of prehistoric man.