Dating Briar Hill: Interpreting Controversial Radiocarbon Results from the Neolithic Causewayed Enclosure at Briar Hill, Northamptonshire

Author(s): John Meadows

The Neolithic causewayed enclosure at Briar Hill, Northamptonshire, excavated in the mid-1970s, became the subject of controversy when radiocarbon dating appeared to show that it had been constructed in the fifth millennium cal BC, and maintained for about a thousand years (Bamford 1985). If true, this interpretation made Briar Hill the earliest known causewayed enclosure in Europe, and Britain's earliest agricultural site (Kinnes and Thorpe 1986). Doubts were raised about the contextual reliability of the radiocarbon samples, given the artefactual evidence, which only indicated occupation from the later fourth millennium cal BC onwards (ibid). This report assesses the usefulness of each radiocarbon result, and the plausibility of the various interpretationa of these results, against criteria that were accepted at the time of the controversy. The results and interpretations are then reassessed, using new techniques of radiocarbon date calibration and chronology modelling. The report finds that only the final phase of maintenance of the enclosure can be confidently dated, to the later fourth millennium cal BC, and that the original interpretation depends entirely on the contextual reliability of two samples. It cannot be proved that these samples were residual, but are reasons to suspect that they were, in addition to the artefactual evidence. This conclusion can be tested by dating the surviving remains of some samples.

Report Number:
64/2003
Series:
CfA Reports
Pages:
53
Keywords:
Radiocarbon Dating

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