Whitehawk Camp
Whitehawk Camp is the remains of a causewayed enclosure on Whitehawk Hill near Brighton, East Sussex, England. Causewayed enclosures are a form of early Neolithic earthwork that were built in England from shortly before 3700 BC until at least 3500 BC, characterized by the full or partial enclosure of an area with ditches that are interrupted by gaps, or causeways. Their purpose is not known; they may have been settlements, or meeting places, or ritual sites. The Whitehawk site consists of four roughly concentric circular ditches, with banks of earth along the interior of the ditches evident in some places. There may have been a timber palisade on top of the banks. Outside the outermost circuit there are at least two more ditches, one of which is thought from radiocarbon evidence to date to the Bronze Age, about two thousand years after the earliest dated activity at the site.
Whitehawk was first excavated by R. P. Ross Williamson and E. Cecil Curwen in 1929 in response to a plan to lay out football pitches on the site. Brighton Racecourse overlaps Whitehawk Camp, and when an expansion of the course's pulling-up ground affected part of the site, Curwen led another rescue dig in the winter of 1932–1933; similarly in 1935 the area to be crossed by a new road was excavated, again by Curwen. In 1991, during the construction of a housing development near the site, one of the ditches outside the outermost circuit was uncovered, and the construction was paused to allow an excavation, run by Miles Russell. In 2011, the Gathering Time project published an analysis of radiocarbon dates from almost forty British causewayed enclosures, including several from Whitehawk Camp. The conclusion was that the Neolithic part of the site was probably constructed between 3650 and 3500 BC, and probably went out of use some time between 3500 and 3400 BC. The site was designated as a scheduled monument in 1923.
Background
Whitehawk Camp is a causewayed enclosure, a form of earthwork that was built in northwestern Europe, including the southern British Isles in the early Neolithic from shortly before 3700 BC until about 3300 BC. Causewayed enclosures are areas that are fully or partially enclosed by ditches interrupted by gaps, or causeways, of unexcavated ground, often with earthworks and palisades in some combination. The use to which these enclosures were put has long been a matter of debate, and many suggestions have been made by researchers. They were previously known as "causewayed camps", since it was thought they were used as settlements: early investigators suggested that the inhabitants lived in the ditches, but this idea was later abandoned, in favour of any settlement being within the enclosure boundaries.The causeways were difficult to explain in military terms, though it was suggested they could have been sally ports for defenders to emerge from and attack a besieging force; evidence of attacks at some sites provided support for the idea that the enclosures were fortified settlements. They may have been seasonal meeting places, used for trading cattle or other goods such as pottery, and if they were a focus for the local people, they may have been evidence of a local hierarchy with a tribal chief. There is also evidence that they played a role in funeral rites: material such as food, pottery, and human remains was deliberately deposited in the ditches. They were constructed in a short time, which implies significant organization since substantial labour would have been required, for clearing the land, preparing trees for use as posts or palisades, and digging the ditches.
In 1930, the archaeologist E. Cecil Curwen identified sixteen sites that were definitely or probably Neolithic causewayed enclosures. Excavations at five of these had already confirmed them as Neolithic, and another four of Curwen's sites are now agreed to be Neolithic. A few more were found over the succeeding decades, and the list of known sites was significantly expanded with the use of aerial photography in the 1960s and early 1970s.
The sites found earlier were mostly on chalk uplands, but many of the ones discovered from the air were on lower-lying ground. Over seventy are known in the British Isles, and they are one of the most common types of early Neolithic site in western Europe. About a thousand are known in all. They began to appear at different times in different parts of Europe: dates range from before 4000 BC in northern France, to shortly before 3000 BC in northern Germany, Denmark, and Poland. The enclosures in southern Britain continued to be built for at least 200 years. In a few cases enclosures that had already been built continued to be used as late as 3300 to 3200 BC.
Site and interpretation
Description
Whitehawk Camp lies on the Upper Chalk, to the east of central Brighton, on a saddle between two slight rises. The site is about. It is a little over from the coast, a distance that is probably unchanged since Neolithic times. The site consists of four circuits of ditches, and two ditches that touch the outermost circuit from outside, in the same way a tangent touches a circle. These tangent ditches lie on opposite sides of the circuits: one is at the northeastern edge of the site, and one at the southwestern edge. There are also traces of additional ditches. The four circuits of ditches were dug in the early Neolithic.At one time there were Neolithic round barrows on the site, but these were destroyed no later than 1822, when Brighton Racecourse, which partly overlaps the site, was modified. The site is also crossed by Manor Hill Road, built in 1935; Whitehawk Hill Road, which joins Manor Hill Road in the centre of the site, and used to follow the same path as Manor Hill Road from there to the northwest, is visible on older plans. There may also have been a long barrow on the site at one time, perhaps preceding the ditches. Molluscs found in the Neolithic layers of the excavated ditches were shade-loving species, implying a woodland environment at the time the ditches were dug. The site was one of the first to be confirmed as a causewayed enclosure by excavation; the other four known by 1930 were the Trundle, Knap Hill, Windmill Hill and Abingdon.
Almost all the finds at Whitehawk Camp were recovered from three digs between 1929 and 1935, each of which investigated parts of the Neolithic camp. The investigators, Curwen and R. P. Ross Williamson, concluded that the ditches had originally all been accompanied by banks on their interior, built up from the material removed from the ditches. Some evidence of external banks in some places has since been found, and a 2016 re-evaluation by archaeologist Jon Sygrave suggested that these might be evidence of a more complex layout, or of later construction modifying the original site. There may also have been a timber palisade along some of the circuits; Curwen suggested that some of the postholes found were part of a palisade, but Sygrave considers this unproven. A causeway at the southern edge of the third ditch has large postholes on either side and four more postholes delineate a path through the bank; this is thought to indicate an entranceway. Another probable entrance is through the north-western part of the first ditch, where there is a gap in the ditch and bank and no evidence of a palisade. Four postholes on the western side of the outermost ditch may also indicate an entrance.
The northeastern tangent ditch has never been excavated and is of unknown date, but the southwestern tangent ditch was excavated in 1991 by Miles Russell. It was found to date to the Bronze Age, though Russell suggested it might have been originally cut as part of the Neolithic site, and later recut and extended. Russell recovered some flints and a few pottery sherds/shards from the ditch. Mollusc samples recovered by Russell implied an open grassland environment at the time the ditch was dug, in contrast to the shade-loving species found in the Neolithic ditches.
Pottery from the Neolithic site
Most of the prehistoric pottery found at Whitehawk Camp is of the plain bowl or decorated bowl types; these are the earliest forms of Neolithic pottery found in England, and the style found in southern England is known as "Whitehawk style" pottery. These are considered to be contemporary with the main period of use of the enclosure. The high volume of pottery of this type found supports the conclusion that the site was heavily used or visited during this period. Whitehawk style was followed by Ebbsfleet ware, which appeared around 3500 BC; a few sherds of Ebbsfleet ware were found in upper strata. Some Bronze Age sherds from Beaker pottery were found as well, mostly from the third ditch; Beaker pottery does not appear in Britain before about 2250 BC, and since these sherds are characteristic of middle or later Beaker ware they probably date to no earlier than 2150 BC. Since there is also no evidence of Neolithic pottery types later than the Ebbsfleet ware, there was probably a long gap in occupation of the site from the late 4th millennium to at least the late 3rd millennium BC. Some late Iron Age and early Roman pottery was also found in the outermost ditch.Interpretation of other finds from the Neolithic site
The flints found at the site were probably largely contemporary with the Neolithic use of the site, though it is possible some of the flints are of Mesolithic origin and predate the ditch construction, and a few flints may post-date the Neolithic usage. Bone and antler finds include both cattle bone and red deer antler remains that were worked with flint to create splinters: these splinters could be used to create tools such as projectile points. Antlers were also used as picks to break the chalk when digging ditches, and several bone awls were found. Almost a thousand animal bone fragments were found, most coming from cattle, pigs, sheep, goats, and deer; each of these groups included some bones with marks indicating butchery.Chalk artefacts include a cup, some blocks and pieces with holes drilled through them, and a piece measuring that was covered by regular grooves, intersecting in a grid. The piece was described by Curwen as a "chessboard", and its purpose is not known. Human bones from at least six individuals were found, though as many of the bones were found in different locations across the site the finds may well have come from many more than six people.