Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T15:59:03.846Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Prehistoric Roads and Tracks in Somerset, England: I. Neolithic1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 May 2014

John M. Coles  and
F. Alan Hibbert
John M. Coles
Affiliation:
Faculty of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge
F. Alan Hibbert
Affiliation:
Sub-Department of Quaternary Research, University of Cambridge
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The peat deposits in the Somerset Levels have yielded many finds of prehistoric and early historic age, ranging from flint and metal artefacts to roadways and other structures. These finds have been a source of interest to archaeologists for many years, and the work here described represents only one aspect of the early occupation of the region. The Levels themselves lie between the major uplands of the Quantock Hills and the Mendip Hills (fig. 1), but within the Levels are extensive ridges of limestone (including the Polden Hills and the Wedmore Ridge), smaller and lower areas of limestone (such as Westhay and Meare), and patches of sands (Burtle Beds) all of which provided dry ground for occupation or other activities. We are concerned in this paper with the earliest wooden roads and tracks of Neolithic age which were built to allow communication between the Westhay ridge and the largest Burtle Bed north of the Polden Hills (pl. XIV).

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society , Volume 34 , February 1969 , pp. 238 - 258
Copyright
Copyright © The Prehistoric Society 1969

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Bulleid, A., 1933. ‘Ancient Trackway in Meare Heath, Somerset’, Proc. Somerset Arch. & Nat. Hist. Soc., LXXIX, 20.Google Scholar
Clapham, A. R. and Godwin, H., 1948. ‘Studies of the Post-glacial history of British vegetation. VIII. Swamping surfaces in peats of the Somerset Levels. IX. Prehistoric trackways in the Somerset Levels’, Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc., 233, B599, 233.Google Scholar
Clark, J. G. D. 1963. ‘Neolithic Bows from Somerset, England, and the Prehistory of Archery in North-West Europe’, P.P.S. XXIX, 50.Google Scholar
Coles, J., 1968. ‘A Neolithic God-dolly from Somerset, England’, Antiquity, XLII, 275.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dewar, H. S. L. and Godwin, H., 1963. ‘Archaeological Discoveries in the raised bogs of the Somerset Levels’, P.P.S. XXIX, 17.Google Scholar
Dymond, C. W., 1880. ‘The Abbot's Way’, Proc. Somerset Arch. and Nat. Hist. Soc., XXVI, 107.Google Scholar
Godwin, H., 1960. ‘Prehistoric wooden trackways of the Somerset Levels: their construction, age and relation to climatic change’, P.P.S., XXVI, 1.Google Scholar
Godwin, H. and Willis, E. H., 1959. ‘Cambridge University Natural Radiocarbon Measurements I’, Amer. J. Sci.: Radiocarbon Supplement, 1, 63.Google Scholar
Godwin, H. and Willis, E. H., 1960. ‘Cambridge University Natural Radiocarbon Measurements II’. Amer. J. Sci.: Radiocarbon Supplement, 2, 62.Google Scholar