ABSTRACT
In Chapter 3 I suggested that two major traditions of prehistoric monuments developed out of the distinctive practices found on settlements of the Linear Pottery Culture. Long mounds were not only copies of an earlier tradition of longhouses; their creation recalled the way in which apparently serviceable buildings had been abandoned on the death of the occupants. I applied a similar argument to the first enclosures too, for there are a number of cases in which these earthworks were built after similar houses had gone out of use. At KolnLindenthal it even seemed likely that they surrounded the houses of the dead as well as those of the living. If the long mounds recalled the significance of individual longhouses, might some of these ditched enclosures have symbolised the past importance of entire settlements?
