Neolithic Ceremonial and Funerary Structures

During the Early Neolithic most people were burying their dead in tombs which today appear as elongated earthern mounds, known as lobg barrows, in Yorkshire, Perth and Angus the tombs are round, the biggest differences is in the material that is used, in Highlands and Islands they are stone built tombs whilst in England they are timber

Cursus monuments are similar in shape to long barrows but are much bigger as the resemble Roman chariot racing tracks, 30 cursus monuments have been discovered in Scotland 

In England cursus monuments are long, rectangular enclosures defined by an interior bank and an exterior ditch, the longest being the Dorset cursus 

The Scottish cursus that now only survive as crop marks appear to have been of two types, some are defined by ditches and the others by parrallel lones of pits 

In bothe Scottosh and English examples contemporary internal features are rare

Cleaven Dyke - only cursus monument in Scotland that does not survive only as a crop mark, the central part survives as a visible earthwork, it was constructed in five main sections, separated by breaks in the bank and ditches and subdivided, within the sections into about 34 segments, its construction has been dated to 3300BC and it is believed that it was built in several stages probaly over a long period of time, the building of the dyke seems to have started at the north-west end with the construction of an oval burial mound, a long tail was added to this,

Often alligned on existing features, both natural and also other barrows and tombs and traditionally cursus monuments have been interpreted as processional routes, other interpretations have suggested they were used in rituals conected with ancestor worship, or that they were representations of rivers which allowed Neolithic people to mediate between nature and culture, in the Highlands and Islands a large number of drystone built cairns and tombs survive that date from both the early and late Neolithic  

The earliest tombs are rectilinear in shape…