ABSTRACT

The interpretation of enclosures as circuits of defences relies heavily on those few sites with evidence for substantial settlement, and on examples overlain by later hillforts. Evidence for attacks at sites such as Carn Brea and Crickley Hill lend support to the suggestion that the end of the earlier Neolithic witnessed changes in the nature and scale of conflict, at least in certain regions. The idea of enclosures as texts to be read has a considerable - if varied - pedigree within archaeology. One could argue that the vast majority of models of the Neolithic contain the implicit assumption that monuments possessed some form of metaphoric or mnemonic content. The dual nature of ditches as both boundaries and thresholds is to some extent illustrated by the causeways which separate the different sections. Funerary ritual is perhaps the most common context in which archaeologists have made use of the concept of rites of passage.