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40-584: The word henge is a backformation from Stonehenge , the famous monument in Wiltshire . Stonehenge is not a true henge, as its ditch runs outside its bank, although there is a small extant external bank as well. The term was first coined in 1932 by Thomas Kendrick , who later became the Keeper of British Antiquities at the British Museum . A broader usage of henge to refer to standing-stone monuments

80-593: A European tradition that included a variety of ditched enclosures. He notes that henges and the grooved ware pottery often found at them are two examples of the British Neolithic not found on the Continent. Caroline Malone (2001) also says that henges were not built in the rest of Western Europe, but they developed from a broader tradition of enclosure to become "a phenomenon of the British Isles,

120-433: A coherent tradition. They seem to take the concept of creating a space separate from the outside world one step further than the causewayed enclosure , and they focus attention on an internal point. In some cases, the construction of the bank and ditch was a stage that followed other activity on the site. At Balfarg , North Mains , and Cairnpapple , for example, earlier cremations and deliberate smashing of pottery predate

160-476: A native tradition with sophisticated architecture and calendrical functions." Henges may have been used for rituals or astronomical observation rather than day-to-day activity. That their ditches are located inside their banks indicates that they were not used for defence, and that the barrier of the earthworks was more likely symbolic than functional. Following arguments presented for Irish Iron Age enclosures, Barclay suggested that they are 'defensive': that

200-402: A number are placed at a latitude of 55 degrees north, where the same two markers can indicate the rising and setting sun for both the spring and autumn equinoxes. But as henges are present from the extreme north to the extreme south of Britain, their latitude could not have been of great importance. Formalisation is commonly attributed to henges: indications of the builders' concerns to control

240-483: A slight tendency to have an entrance set in the north or north-east quarter. Class II henges generally have their axes aligned approximately south-east to north-west or north-east to south-west. It has been suggested that the stone and timber structures sometimes built inside henges were used as solar declinometers to measure the position of the rising or setting sun. These structures do not appear in all henges; and when they do, often they are considerably more recent than

280-540: A stone circle within it, as henges and stone circles can exist together or separately. At Arbor Low in Derbyshire , all the stones except one are laid flat and do not seem to have been erected, as no stone holes have been found. Elsewhere, often only the stone holes remain to indicate a former circle. Some of the best-known henges are at: Henges sometimes formed part of a ritual landscape or complex, with other Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments inside and outside

320-500: Is a back-formation from translation , which is from Latin trāns + lāt- + -tio . Lāt- is from the very irregular ( suppletive ) verb ferō 'to carry.' Trānslāt- in Latin was merely a semi-adjectival form of trānsferō meaning '[something] having been carried across [into a new language]' (cf. transfer ). The result of the action trānsferō textum 'to translate a text' was a textus trānslātus 'a text that has been translated.' Thus

360-422: Is approx. 7 metres wide and 80 cm high. The ditch has an upper width of 5–6 metres and is approx. 80 cm deep. In the interior one can find a roughly circular leveled platform, which is about elevated by about 1 metre. The platform has been created based on piled gravelled rock and has a diameter of 95 metres. Remnants of a 50 cm thick wooden post with an estimated height of 8–12 metres were excavated in

400-514: Is centered on Durrington Walls henge. Later monuments added after the henge was built might include Bronze Age cairns as at Arbor Low . Examples of such ritual landscapes are: Burials have been recorded at a number of excavated henges, both pre-dating the henge and as a result of secondary reuse. For example: Efforts to delineate a direct lineage for the henge from earlier enclosures have not been conclusive. Their chronological overlap with older structures makes it difficult to classify them as

440-699: Is named after the town of Chelmsford ( Chelmeresford ) which is derived from the Saxon personal name Cēolmǣr . Back-formation in Israeli Hebrew often violates the prescriptive rules of the Academy of the Hebrew Language . For example: Goloring The Goloring is an ancient earthworks monument located near Koblenz , Germany . It was created in the Bronze Age era, which dates back to

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480-574: Is still generally considered nonstandard. The Latin preposition versus , meaning against, has frequently been mistaken by children and teenagers as the present tense of a verb "to verse." A reference to a school sports competition "the Sharks versus the Jets" might be interpreted as "the Sharks are versing the Jets." While this use of the verb has been reported in North America and Australia since

520-404: Is the process or result of creating a new word via morphology , typically by removing or substituting actual or supposed affixes from a lexical item , in a way that expands the number of lexemes associated with the corresponding root word . James Murray coined the term back-formation in 1889. ( Oxford English Dictionary Online preserves its first use of 'back-formation' from 1889 in

560-531: The Urnfield culture (1200–800 BCE .). During this time a widespread solar cult is believed to have existed in Central Europe . The Goloring consists of a circular ditch of 175 metres in diameter with an outside embankment extending to 190 metres. Technically this makes the structure a henge monument, although the use of the term henge outside of Britain is sometimes disputed. The outside embankment

600-458: The American sitcom Scrubs told another character, "I don't disdain you! It's quite the opposite – I dain you." As it happens, gruntle and dain are both attested much earlier, but not as antonyms of the longer forms. Back-formations frequently begin in colloquial use and only gradually become accepted. For example, enthuse (from enthusiasm ) is gaining popularity, though today it

640-407: The British Isles." Although still with a multiple-causewayed ditch and entrances at cardinal points, the roundels are described by John Hodgson (2003) as not being positioned with defensive aims in mind. The largest, at Kothingeichendorf, appeared to be "midway between a henge and a causewayed enclosure". Alasdair Whittle (2005) also views the development of the henge as a regional variation within

680-592: The English language . A butler is often described as "one who buttles," a verb which remains non-standard. Back-formations are frequent amongst river names in the England due to a number of reasons. Place names of Brittonic origin are especially susceptible to Folk Etymology and back-formations due to language and knowledge of the place names dying out with the arrival and settlement of Anglo-Saxon tribes . Frequently river names are derived from nearby settlements with

720-539: The Koberner Forrest . He believed that the central post could be aligned with a nearby volcano to determine certain dates in February, May, August and November each year. These times will have been important for crop farming, and also coincide with Celtic festivals. This may indicate Goloring's use as a calendar, in a similar vein to Stonehenge , Pömmelte and Goseck . It is located within the boundaries of

760-403: The arrival at, entrance into, and movement within the enclosures. This was achieved by placing flanking stones or avenues at the entrances of some henges, or by dividing the internal space with timber circles . While some henges were the first monuments to be built in their areas, others were added to already important landscapes, especially the larger examples. The concentric nature of many of

800-430: The definition of to burgle ; from burglar .) For example, the noun resurrection was borrowed from Latin , and the verb resurrect was then back-formed hundreds of years later from it by removing the -ion suffix . This segmentation of resurrection into resurrect + ion was possible because English had examples of Latin words in the form of verb and verb+ -ion pairs, such as opine/opinion . These became

840-413: The ditch and bank face something 'dangerous' inside the enclosure. He has also suggested that the considerable range of elements surrounded by the earthworks, and the very long date range, are because henges were designed mainly to enclose pre-existing ceremonial sites that were seen as 'ritually charged' and therefore dangerous to people. It has been conjectured that whatever took place inside the enclosures

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880-531: The early 1980s, very few dictionaries have accepted it as standard. The immense celebrations in Britain at the news of the relief of the Siege of Mafeking briefly created the verb to maffick , meaning to celebrate both extravagantly and publicly. "Maffick" is a back-formation from Mafeking , a place-name that was treated humorously as a gerund or participle . There are many other examples of back-formations in

920-839: The editors of the 1982 edition of the Penguin Dictionary of Archaeology (Bray and Trump, 1982), have claimed that henges are unique to the British Isles . They state that similar, much earlier, circles on the European continent, such as Goseck circle (which has no bank), and later ones such as Goloring are not proper "henges". But The Penguin Archaeological Guide (Bahn, 2001) does not comment on geographical locations for henges. Julian Cope , in The Megalithic European , proposes that

960-430: The enclosure. Concentrations of henges occur over much of Britain. Orkney (Cunliffe 2001) and Wessex (Burl 1969) have both been suggested as the original provenance of the monument type; however, others remain unconvinced (Barclay 2005). Unlike earlier enclosure monuments, henges were not usually built on hilltops but on low-lying ground, often close to watercourses and good agricultural land. Some scholars, such as

1000-552: The henge was a regional development from the Europe-wide causewayed enclosure . He notes it appeared following a cultural upheaval in around 3000 BC, which inspired the peoples of Neolithic Europe to develop more independently. He notes the rondel enclosures of Bavaria 's Isar Valley , which according to investigations by the German archaeologist R. A. Maier, "drew comparisons with the henge monuments and causewayed enclosures of

1040-474: The henge. Earlier monuments associated with a later henge might include Neolithic monuments such as a cursus (e.g., at Thornborough Henges the central henge overlies the cursus), or a long barrow, such as the West Kennet Long Barrow at Avebury, Wiltshire , or, as in the case of Stonehenge, Mesolithic post holes. A circle of large pits c. 2 km ( 1 + 1 ⁄ 4  mi) across

1080-639: The henges. Thus, they are not necessarily connected with the henge's original function. It has been conjectured that the henges would have been used to synchronize a calendar to the solar cycle for purposes of planting crops or timing religious rituals. Some henges have poles, stones or entrances that indicate the position of the rising or setting sun during the equinoxes and solstices , while others appear to frame certain constellations. Additionally, many are placed so that nearby hills either mark or do not interfere with such observations. Finally, some henges appear to be placed at particular latitudes. For example,

1120-759: The internal features, such as the five rings of postholes at Balfarg or the six at Woodhenge, may represent a finer distinction than the inside-out differences suggested by henge earthworks. The ordering of space and the circular movement suggested by the sometimes densely packed internal features indicates a sophisticated degree of spatial understanding. Hengiform monuments, or mini henges, are distributed throughout England and mainland Scotland (with examples as far north as Caithness), though no examples have been found in Wales. Pits, cremations , postholes , stone-sockets, and graves have been found within them, and postholes and cremation pits have also been found to be present close to

1160-571: The middle of this platform. The design of the ditch is unique in Germany, and makes the earthworks similar to many British monuments of the same era. It is often compared to Stonehenge in England, which has similar diametric proportions. Dr. Josef Röder investigated the Goloring between 1940–48 and detailed his findings in his book The Goloring: An iron-temporal sanctum of the Henge character in

1200-804: The nautical sense) was first a noun and later was used as a verb). That process is called conversion or zero-derivation. Like back-formation, it can produce a new noun or a new verb, but it involves no back-forming. Back-formation may be particularly common in English given that many English words are borrowed from Latin, French and Greek, which together provide English a large range of common affixes. Many words with affixes have entered English, such as dismantle and dishevelled , so it may be easy to believe that these are formed from roots such as mantle (assumed to mean "to put something together") and shevelled (assumed to mean "well-dressed"), although these words with those meanings have no history of existing in English. Many words came into English by this route: pease

1240-416: The pattern for many more such pairs, where a verb derived from a Latin supine stem and a noun ending in ion entered the language together, such as insert/insertion , project/projection , etc. Back-formation may be similar to the reanalyses or folk etymologies when it rests on an erroneous understanding of the morphology of the longer word. For example, the singular noun asset is a back-formation from

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1280-524: The plural assets . However, assets was not originally a plural; it is a loanword from Anglo-Norman asetz (modern French assez ). The -s was reanalyzed as a plural suffix. Back-formation varies from clipping  – back-formation may change the word's class or meaning, whereas clipping creates shortened words from longer words but does not change the class or meaning of the word. Words can sometimes acquire new lexical categories without any derivational change in form (for example, ship (in

1320-423: The pottery of this period: Grooved Ware, Impressed Wares (formerly known as Peterborough Ware), and Beakers. Sites such as Stonehenge also provide evidence of activity from the later Bronze Age Wessex culture . Henges often contain evidence of a variety of internal features, including timber or stone circles, pits, or burials , which may pre- or post-date the henge enclosure. A henge should not be confused with

1360-551: The site in some cases. They typically have either one entrance or two opposing entrances. In plan, a mini henge can be mistaken for a ploughed-out round barrow , although the former tend to be slightly larger and their earthworks more substantial. As with ordinary henges, they are thought to have served ritual purposes and are thought to be of late Neolithic date. Henge enclosures often contain or lie close to one or more ordinary henges. Finds of animal bone, grooved ware pottery, and evidence of dwellings have been found and coupled with

1400-629: The suffix -ford. Typically because it is assumed that the first half of the name is in reference to the river or stream. Below are some examples of these -ford back-formations . River Alre The river Alre in Hampshire, was named due to a false assumption that the nearby village Alresford was named after the river which it was located near. In reality its name comes from the Old English alor . River Chelmer The River Chelmer in Essex

1440-549: The time and energy needed to build them, it is considered that they must have been important social centres analogous to tribal capitals. Two or four evenly spaced entrances lead through the earthwork to the centre. A henge monument was restored at the Devil's Quoits in Oxfordshire between 2002 and 2008. In modern times a number of henge type monuments have been built, examples include: Backformation Back-formation

1480-414: The verb in English is really from a (semi-)adjectival form in Latin. Even though many English words are formed this way, new coinages may sound strange, and are often used for humorous effect. For example, gruntled (from disgruntled ) is used only in humorous contexts, as when P. G. Wodehouse wrote, "I could see that, if not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled", or the character Turk in

1520-423: Was intended to be separate from the outside world and perhaps known only to select individuals or groups. The alignment of henges is a contentious issue. Popular belief is that their entrances point towards certain heavenly bodies. But henge orientation is highly variable and may have been determined more by local topography than by desire for symbolic orientation. Statistical analysis showed that Class I henges have

1560-514: Was once a mass noun (as in " pease pudding "), but was reinterpreted as a plural , leading to the back-formation pea . The noun statistic was likewise a back-formation from the field of study statistics . In Britain, the verb burgle came into use in the nineteenth century as a back-formation from burglar (which can be compared to the North American verb burglarize formed by suffixation). Other examples are The verb translate

1600-542: Was recorded in Yorkshire in 1740, from Old English usage dating to at least the 10th century, with a root of either hencg ' hinge ' , or hen(c)en ' to hang , to suspend ' . Henges may be classified as follows: Sub groups exist for these when two or three internal ditches are present rather than one. Henges are usually associated with the Late Neolithic or Early Bronze Age, and especially with

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