Causewayed enclosure at Great Shelford

Summary

Early Neolithic causewayed enclosure.

Reasons for Designation

The causewayed enclosure at Great Shelford is scheduled for the following principal reasons:

Archaeological interest:

Period: As a good example of one of the earliest field monuments surviving in the modern landscape;

Survival: As a well preserved example in an arable environment;

Archaeological potential: For its considerable potential to contain archaeological deposits relating to the early Neolithic, the former land surface and later periods;

Group value: As a major component and focal point of a multi-period landscape.

History

Causewayed enclosures, also known as ‘causewayed camps’ or ‘interrupted-ditch enclosures’, are of great importance in European and British prehistory. They represent the earliest known examples of the enclosure of open space. They date to the early Neolithic (4,000 BC – 3,300 BC), which also saw the introduction of agriculture and the domestication of animals, the manufacture of pottery, the first mining of flint and quarrying of other forms of stone for the production of axes, and the construction of longhouses and ceremonial or ritual monuments including cursus monuments and long barrows.

Causewayed enclosures are earthwork sites where circuits of interrupted banks and ditches enclose an area or cut off a promontory. There may be up to three concentric circuits which when ploughed out survive as crop marks. Segments of ditches and banks are usually about 20 metres long, though smaller and longer examples are known; it is often suggested that small social groups (possibly families) constructed individual segments at these communal monuments. The areas enclosed range from less than 1 hectare to over 8 hectares. Over 70 certain or probable examples are known in England, mostly south of a line between the Wash and the Severn estuary, though examples are known from Staffordshire and Cumbria, as well as Wales and Ireland. Extensively excavated enclosures include those at Windmill Hill, Wiltshire; Hambledon Hill, Dorset; and Crickley Hill, Gloucestershire. Excavations within the interiors and in the ditches at these and other sites have produced a wide range of finds indicative of domestic activity or large-scale feasting, including food debris and pottery. However, the frequent presence of human remains and other apparently placed deposits, often in what appear to be significant depositional contexts such as ditch terminals, suggests that this activity also had a ritual element. The favoured interpretation of these sites is that they functioned as central places to which dispersed groups would come episodically to reaffirm their sense of community through a range of activities including feasting, trade and rituals associated with death. Recent research has shown that many causewayed enclosures in the British Isles were constructed within a relatively short period of only 250 - 300 years, between about 3,800 and 3,500 BC, and although some were used for several centuries many of them were rather short-lived.

The construction of an artificial boundary around an area, creating a distinction between ‘inside’ and ‘outside’, private and public, human and wild, and perhaps sacred and profane, was to prove a profound social and architectural development. Indeed, some scholars believe that the act of enclosure was the primary function of the monument, the process of construction more important than the activities that took place in the interior.
The existence of a causewayed enclosure at Great Shelford was unknown until it was discovered by aerial reconnaissance in 2013. The site was positively identified following further aerial photography sorties in 2015.

Details

PRINCIPAL ELEMENTS: The causewayed enclosure has three arcs of interrupted ditches across the western and northern arcs of the enclosure. All three circuits extend towards a single line of segmented ditches which forms a straight north-eastern side. The eastern and southern arcs are not visible.

DESCRIPTION: The enclosure sits on the south facing slope of Stone Hill, on a terrace above the River Cam. Assuming that a completely enclosed circuit may once have existed, the cropmarks represent the northern part of a large sub-circular enclosure – perhaps between a third and a half of a site measuring up to 300m by 250m. Within and around all three circuits are faint traces of irregular linear marks and pits. Although less well defined, they are similar to the geological markings visible to the west of the main enclosure, and so many are likely to be geological in origin.

The eastern side of the enclosure lies in the field to the east. The southern boundary of the enclosure may have been formed by the river terrace, or may be obscured by the southern boundary of the field (which lies along the line of the terrace).

The causewayed enclosure forms part of a complex of cropmarks, including several ring ditches, possible later prehistoric or Romano-British remains, a number of trackways and a medieval plough headland.

Sources

Books and journals
Oswald, A, Dyer, C, Barber, M, The Creation of Monuments: Neolithic Causewayed Enclosures in the British Isles, (2001)
Albrecht, B, A Study of Activity at Neolithic Causewayed Enclosures within the British Isles, (2014)

Websites
Small, F (2017) Great Shelford Neolithic Causewayed Enclosure Historic England Research Report 23-2017, accessed 7 December 2017 from http://research.historicengland.org.uk/Report.aspx?i=15576&ru=%2fResults.aspx%3fp%3d1%26n%3d10%26t%3dGreat%2520Shelford%2520Neolithic%2520Causewayed%2520Enclosure%26ns%3d1

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