Combinations of Neolithic ditches, palisades and banks

Photo of the combination of bank, ditch and palisade at the reconstructed Circular Ditched Enclosure at Goseck (Saxony-Anhalt, Germany). A great example of the possible combinations of Neolithic ditches, palisades and banks.
Combination of bank, ditch and palisade at the reconstructed Circular Ditched Enclosure at Goseck (Saxony-Anhalt, Germany). Copyright © J.L. Caro Herrero 2015 – Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).

As shown in the preceding sections, Neolithic ditched enclosures of Europe commonly consist of a combination of banks, ditches, palisades, stones and others. These components are arranged in unique ways at particular sites. This makes every site special. Some regularities can be perceived across space and time in the way these entities are combined, nonetheless. These and other patterns have traditionally allowed for the classification of ditched enclosures into several types or groups.

Aerial photo of Ditch, bank and megaliths at Stonehenge. A great example of possible combinations of Neolithic ditches, palisades and banks
Ditch, bank and megaliths at Stonehenge. Cropped. Copyright © Mark Philpott 2012 – Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC)

Ditches + banks

All the potential combinations of Neolithic ditches, palisades and banks are worthy of attention. However, some have been the focus of archaeologists for a long time. That is the case of the interplay between banks and ditches. This has served, for example, to distinguish between the so-called ’causewayed enclosures’ and the ‘henges’ in the Neolithic of Britain: henges tend to have an inner ditch and an outer bank, while causewayed enclosures are more likely to have ditched circuits on the outside of the rings defined by the banks. Regardless of their specific arrangement, ditches and, where detected, banks and palisades, are normally concentric and parallel.

Drawing of Some of the possible combinations of ditch and bank at Neolithic ditched enclosures: a) an external ditch with an inner bank; b) internal ditch and external bank; c)  two parallel ditches with a bank between them; d) two parallel ditches with internal banks.
Some of the possible combinations of ditch and bank at Neolithic ditched enclosures: a) an external ditch with an inner bank; b) internal ditch and external bank; c) two parallel ditches with a bank between them; d) two parallel ditches with internal banks. Copyright © Victor Jimenez Jaimez 2015 – Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).

Banks + palisades

The relationship in space between banks and palisades, where these existed, is usually more difficult for archaeologists to determine because traces of palisades are less likely to have survived from the Neolithic to nowadays.

Drawing of Some of the possible combinations of ditch, palisade and bank at Neolithic ditched enclosures: a) an external ditch with an inner palisade, no bank; b) the bank is supported and reinforced by the palisade; c) the palisade is supported by the bank on both sides; d) the bank functions as a platform from where to look at the outside over the palisade.
Some of the possible combinations of ditch, palisade and bank at Neolithic ditched enclosures: a) an external ditch with an inner palisade, no bank; b) the bank is supported and reinforced by the palisade; c) the palisade is supported by the bank on both sides; d) the bank functions as a platform from where to look at the outside over the palisade. Copyright © Victor Jimenez Jaimez 2015 – Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).
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