What are the tombs where ancient people who lived in roundhouses buried their dead called?
Okay, let's talk about those ancient roundhouses and where the people who lived in them buried their dead. We're going way back to the Bronze Age and early Iron Age, roughly from around 2500 BC to 800 BC. During this time, people in Britain lived in roundhouses, which were exactly what they sound like: circular homes made of wood, thatch, and sometimes stone. Now, when these people died, they were often buried in what we call "round barrows." Think of a barrow as an ancient burial mound. The key thing here is the shape. These barrows were deliberately built to be round, mirroring the shape of the roundhouses where these people lived. This wasn't just a coincidence; it likely had symbolic significance, perhaps reflecting a belief in the cyclical nature of life and death. So, while other types of barrows exist, like long barrows, the round ones are specifically associated with these roundhouse-dwelling communities. It's a nice visual connection to remember: round houses, round burial mounds.
Imagine a round house standing next to a round burial mound, they both share the same shape.