Court cairns, passage graves and social change in Ireland.

Journal: Man

Volume: 14

Issue: 2

Pages: 311-327

DOI: 10.2307/2801570

Abstract:

The recent development of spatial analysis aids the understanding of social and ritual organisation in prehistoric societies, in this case Irish megalithic 'tombs'. The Court cairns can be shown to have been succeeded by the Passage graves, and to have different spatial distributions. It is proposed that these changes can be related to changes in social organisation and in particular the ritual patterning of the society can be reconstructed from the spatial pattern of the megalithic 'tombs' on the landscape today. From this it seems that a segmentary society changed into a chiefdom society in the middle to late neolithic. It can be further shown that within the ritual sub-system of the society there would seem to have been a more pronounced hierarchical structure. -Author

Source: Scopus