| Popis: |
The popular perception of prehistoric buildings, a simple-ring roundhouse with central post, is represented in later Bronze Age settlements, surviving occasionally into the Iron Age. But the classic Wessex large roundhouses are characterized by double rings that commonly display axial symmetry in plan and a particular radial ratio that distributes the weight of the roof over the main supporting ring-beam. Where the outer wall does not survive, a mass-wall or stake-wall may be inferred, often aligned on the inner of a double pair of door posts. Apart from hearths, internal fittings seldom survive, except in wetland conditions, as at Black Loch of Myrton, Wigtownshire. An alternative elevation of large timber roundhouses may have been built around a central tower, circular or four-post, with split roof and clerestory light. Multi-ringed houses are comparatively rare, and may indicate an alternative form of roof, made of turf, at a lower pitch. Houses formerly styled ‘ring-ditch houses’ may have confused several different phenomena. They may have been byre-houses, houses with underfloor cellarage or proto-souterrains, or houses with sunken floors for increased peripheral head height. ‘Special roundhouses’ are discussed as those in which community ritual was prioritized over domestic activities. |
