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prehistoric

Dating back to before written historical records begin. In Europe this includes the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age. In North America prehistory is usually taken to refer any ...

Landscape History: The Countryside

Landscape History: The Countryside   Quick reference

H. S. A. Fox

The Oxford Companion to Local and Family History (2 ed.)

Reference type:
Subject Reference
Current Version:
2009
Subject:
History, Local and Family History
Length:
6,175 words
Publisher:
Oxford University Press

...and by Archbishop Pecham ( c. 1230–1292 ), in a report to Edward I. If archaeologists could be persuaded to move away from a preoccupation with deserted sites and to incorporate living farms into their surveys, it may yet be shown that some of these farms have ancient, even prehistoric origins. By far the best guide to the problems and techniques of distinguishing between the two types—and the most ambitious and sustained essay in early landscape history to appear recently—is Alan Everitt , Continuity and Colonization: The Evolution of Kentish Settlement ...

Popular Culture

Popular Culture   Quick reference

Charles Phythian-Adams

The Oxford Companion to Local and Family History (2 ed.)

Reference type:
Subject Reference
Current Version:
2009
Subject:
History, Local and Family History
Length:
6,654 words
Publisher:
Oxford University Press

...Probably every township , for example, had some particularized sense of its own past: a myth of origin (usually associated specifically with either Britons, or Anglo‐Saxons, or Scandinavians) or even a prehistoric landmark around which had gathered some legendary or superstitious association (see L. V. Grinsall , The Folklore of Prehistoric Sites in Britain (1976) ). Each local community, moreover, boasted its own annual cycle of calendar customs ( see folklore, customs, and civic ritual ) that owed as much to cultural variables (like the earlier...

Local and Regional History: Modern Approaches

Local and Regional History: Modern Approaches   Quick reference

David Hey

The Oxford Companion to Local and Family History (2 ed.)

Reference type:
Subject Reference
Current Version:
2009
Subject:
History, Local and Family History
Length:
4,365 words
Publisher:
Oxford University Press

...Claire Jarvis , ‘ The Reconstitution of Nineteenth‐Century Rural Communities ’, Local Population Studies , 51 (1993) . In 1956 Finberg gathered a group of scholars to launch The Agrarian History of England and Wales ( AHEW ), a multi‐volume treatment of the subject from prehistoric times to the present day. In 1967 volume iv, covering the period 1500–1640 , appeared under the editorship of Joan Thirsk. In her occasional paper Fenland Farming in the Sixteenth Century ( 1953 ), and her essay ‘Industries in the Countryside’ in F. J. Fisher (ed.), ...

Place-Names

Place-Names   Quick reference

Margaret Gelling

The Oxford Companion to Local and Family History (2 ed.)

Reference type:
Subject Reference
Current Version:
2009
Subject:
History, Local and Family History
Length:
5,757 words
Publisher:
Oxford University Press

...are not recorded until after the Norman Conquest, it is frequently apparent from the vocabulary that they must have been coined in the Anglo‐Saxon period. As regards Welsh, Cornish, and Gaelic names, however, there is no automatic terminus post quem , as the languages are of prehistoric antiquity in Britain, and there are not so many obsolete words. The structure of names of the ‘phrase’ type (e.g. Ardnamurchan, Pontardulais, and numerous Manx names like Cronk ny Arrhee Laa) must be relatively late, but there may be older names underlying them which have been...

Domestic Buildings

Domestic Buildings   Quick reference

Malcolm Airs

The Oxford Companion to Local and Family History (2 ed.)

Reference type:
Subject Reference
Current Version:
2009
Subject:
History, Local and Family History
Length:
6,135 words
Publisher:
Oxford University Press

...Buildings Shelter is a fundamental requirement of human beings and the archaeological evidence for the ways by which this basic need has been met extend far back into the prehistoric period. However, it is only in the centuries following the Norman Conquest that the house as a standing structure survives in sufficient numbers to enable its three‐dimensional history to be written. Wealth and social rank are the major distinguishing features which have shaped the architectural forms taken by buildings with a predominantly domestic function, and these...

Historic Churches

Historic Churches   Quick reference

David Hey

The Oxford Companion to Local and Family History (2 ed.)

Reference type:
Subject Reference
Current Version:
2009
Subject:
History, Local and Family History
Length:
5,420 words
Publisher:
Oxford University Press

...was laid out at the centre of the new town at the end of the 12th century. However, some churches occupy what now appear to be strange positions because the early Christians took over pagan sites and adapted them for their own purposes. At All Saints, Rudston (Yorkshire), a prehistoric monolith, which dates from the late Neolithic or Bronze Age , stands over 25 feet high in the churchyard, 10 metres from the chancel. The place‐name has led to the suggestion that a Christian cross, or rood , was attached to the top of the stone. A local legend maintained...

Folklore, Customs, and Civic Ritual

Folklore, Customs, and Civic Ritual   Quick reference

Charles Phythian-Adams

The Oxford Companion to Local and Family History (2 ed.)

Reference type:
Subject Reference
Current Version:
2009
Subject:
History, Local and Family History
Length:
6,037 words
Publisher:
Oxford University Press

...(or nowadays ‘non‐’) scientific beliefs through which humanity seeks to explain (and, when need arises, to exploit) its place in relation to the forces of nature and the supernatural. The antiquity of such beliefs is not in doubt, but it is difficult precisely to prove their prehistoric origins in the way so much beloved of the earlier folklorists, beyond acknowledging the probability that belief in the existence of planetary influences and the worship of trees and wells antedated the conversion to Christianity. What matters more to the historian, however, is...

Industrial History

Industrial History   Quick reference

David Hey

The Oxford Companion to Local and Family History (2 ed.)

Reference type:
Subject Reference
Current Version:
2009
Subject:
History, Local and Family History
Length:
4,499 words
Publisher:
Oxford University Press

...Review , founded in 1976 , endorsed this view, but Arthur Raistrick , Industrial Archaeology ( 1972 ), argued against the emphasis on the Industrial Revolution and promoted the idea that the subject should include all aspects of industrial history, stretching back to prehistoric times. Another influential publication in the development of the subject was R. A. Buchanan , Industrial Archaeology in Britain (1972) . The standard work is now Marilyn Palmer and Peter Neaverson , Industrial Archaeology: Principles and Practice ( 1998 ). The rapidly...

tumulus

tumulus   Reference library

The Oxford Dictionary of Local and Family History

Reference type:
Subject Reference
Current Version:
2003
Subject:
History, Local and Family History
Length:
13 words

.... A term, favoured by the Ordnance Survey , for a prehistoric burial...

ridgeway

ridgeway   Reference library

The Oxford Dictionary of Local and Family History

Reference type:
Subject Reference
Current Version:
2003
Subject:
History, Local and Family History
Length:
15 words

.... Ancient upland routes of prehistoric origin. Most of their present names are modern...

ridgeway

ridgeway   Quick reference

The Oxford Companion to Local and Family History (2 ed.)

Reference type:
Subject Reference
Current Version:
2009
Subject:
History, Local and Family History
Length:
15 words

...Ancient upland routes of prehistoric origin. Most of their present names are modern...

hut circle

hut circle   Quick reference

The Oxford Companion to Local and Family History (2 ed.)

Reference type:
Subject Reference
Current Version:
2009
Subject:
History, Local and Family History
Length:
12 words

...circle Bronze Age or early Iron Age remains of prehistoric...

tumulus

tumulus   Quick reference

The Oxford Companion to Local and Family History (2 ed.)

Reference type:
Subject Reference
Current Version:
2009
Subject:
History, Local and Family History
Length:
13 words

...A term, favoured by the Ordnance Survey , for a prehistoric burial...

Celtic fields

Celtic fields   Reference library

The Oxford Dictionary of Local and Family History

Reference type:
Subject Reference
Current Version:
2003
Subject:
History, Local and Family History
Length:
22 words

...fields . The name given to prehistoric fields whose outline is preserved on the ground or can be seen from aerial...

Bronze Age

Bronze Age   Reference library

The Oxford Dictionary of Local and Family History

Reference type:
Subject Reference
Current Version:
2003
Subject:
History, Local and Family History
Length:
29 words

...Age . The prehistoric era between the Stone Age and the Iron Age , lasting from c. 2,500 bc to c. 800 bc . This was the era of the great henge ...

tin

tin   Reference library

The Oxford Dictionary of Local and Family History

Reference type:
Subject Reference
Current Version:
2003
Subject:
History, Local and Family History
Length:
35 words

...was produced in Devon and Cornwall from prehistoric times in its alloy, bronze, and since at least Roman times in its alloy, pewter . The industry came to an end in the late 20th...

Iron Age

Iron Age   Reference library

The Oxford Dictionary of Local and Family History

Reference type:
Subject Reference
Current Version:
2003
Subject:
History, Local and Family History
Length:
43 words

...Age . The last of the prehistoric periods, from c. 800 bc to the Roman invasion of ad 43 , characterized by the use of iron tools and weapons, hill forts, and farmhouses of roughly circular plan whose outlines are often revealed by aerial...

Bronze Age

Bronze Age   Quick reference

The Oxford Companion to Local and Family History (2 ed.)

Reference type:
Subject Reference
Current Version:
2009
Subject:
History, Local and Family History
Length:
39 words

...Age The prehistoric era between the Stone Age and the Iron Age , lasting from c .2500 bc to c .800 bc . This was the era of the great henge monuments. See Michael Parker Pearson , Bronze Age Britain ...

lynchet

lynchet   Reference library

The Oxford Dictionary of Local and Family History

Reference type:
Subject Reference
Current Version:
2003
Subject:
History, Local and Family History
Length:
49 words

.... A landscape feature that is particularly noticeable on pasture land in limestone districts. Fields formed on slopes tended to have their upper and lower limits defined by scarps (lynchets) formed by the build-up of soil from ploughing. Some are prehistoric, but the type known as strip-lynchet is...

barrow

barrow   Quick reference

The Oxford Companion to Local and Family History (2 ed.)

Reference type:
Subject Reference
Current Version:
2009
Subject:
History, Local and Family History
Length:
53 words

...A prehistoric burial mound, found in many parts of Britain, dating from the Neolithic period and the Bronze Age . The earliest are the long barrows of Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, and Dorset. The round barrows of the Bronze Age are more widespread. Some can now be identified only as crop marks on aerial ...

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