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Earthen barrows; Looking at Martin Green's book on that area, he describes them as 'empty' barrows but which have recently been recognised as belonging to a type known as 'bayed' longbarrows.... the mounds have a stake fence built down the long axis, with intervals of shorter fences at right angles, gving the bayed effect, or the division of labour maybe over a period of time.... as they have no burials, could have been a marking of land/territory - following that, and this is pure speculation, given the Dorset cursus and the dykes in that area, continuing right down to the saxons, could land have been split up territorially over such a long time period I wonder...

moss wrote:
Earthen barrows; Looking at Martin Green's book on that area, he describes them as 'empty' barrows but which have recently been recognised as belonging to a type known as 'bayed' longbarrows.... the mounds have a stake fence built down the long axis, with intervals of shorter fences at right angles, gving the bayed effect, or the division of labour maybe over a period of time.... as they have no burials, could have been a marking of land/territory - following that, and this is pure speculation, given the Dorset cursus and the dykes in that area, continuing right down to the saxons, could land have been split up territorially over such a long time period I wonder...
That bayed effect sounds like the construction of a few monuments like cursus, mounds , long barrows ,henges etc usually taking a few years possibly generations to complete .it may have been the opposite of territorial in that it brought various clans together to do their bit in a" bay" .

Was land split up - territorially - such a long time ago ? Yes - definitely.