Pitt Rivers 2024: Housing the future dead

Housing the future dead: the new British wave of long barrow construction

By Dr Kenny Brophy (University of Glasgow)

Tuesday 29 October 2024

7:00pm (Displays and networking from 6:30pm)

This free public lecture will be delivered live in the Fusion Building, Talbot Campus, Bournemouth University, BH12 5BB, and will also be available via Zoom.

For further details, registration, and updates please visit the Eventbrite page at:

Exactly 120 years after Pitt Rivers was undertaking his seminal excavation and dismantlement of Wor Barrow, a new long barrow was built in Wessex. Located at All Cannings, not far from West Kennet, The Long Barrow (as this site is known) is a columbarium, that is, a megalithic structure built to store cremated human remains in a variety of receptacles, stored on stone shelves called niches. This Neo-neolithic initiative inspired a relative boom in new barrows being constructed across the UK, with six barrow columbaria now open in England, and others being constructed, including the first one in Scotland. These contain grave goods, a few have solstice alignments, and most have their own standing stones or earthworks. In this lecture I will explore this new phase of barrow construction based on visits, interviews, and documentary research. To what extent are these monuments and associated practices inspired by Neolithic monuments, and why is the barrow such a resilient concept?

Kenny Brophy is a Senior Lecturer in archaeology at the University of Glasgow. He has almost three decades of experience of researching various aspects of the British Neolithic with a particular focus on mainland Scotland and cursus monuments. Researching and blogging as the Urban Prehistorian, for the last decade he has focused increasingly on the contemporary relevance and resilience of prehistory, including the ways that prehistoric architecture, practices, and material culture continue to be replicated today. Follow the link for further details: University of Glasgow - Schools - School of Humanities | Sgoil nan Daonnachdan - Our staff - Dr Kenneth Brophy

The lecture is presented by the Department of Archaeology and Anthropology in association with the Prehistoric Society

The annual Pitt Rivers Lecture was established in 2017 as part of the celebrations marking 50 years of archaeological and anthropological teaching and research at Bournemouth University and its predecessor institutions. It is organized by staff and students, and presented in association with the Prehistoric Society. The lecture celebrates the achievements of General Pitt Rivers (1827–1900), a distinguished Dorset-based archaeologist and anthropologist whose descendants still live in the area and have close connections with Bournemouth University.

Previous Pitt Rivers Lectures:

2017 - Richard Bradley (University of Reading) “Pitt Rivers as pioneer”

2018 - Alison Sheridan (National Museums Scotland) “Long before Brexit….”

2019 - Ruth Tringham (University of California, Berkeley, USA) “Fire: Friend or fiend?”

2020 - Chris Stringer (Natural History Museum) “The origins of our species”

2021 - Sue Hamilton (UCL Institute of Archaeology) “Rapa Nui: Myths and realities of an iconic past”

2022 – Christopher Evans (University of Cambridge) “Excavation as experiment”

2023 – Amy Bogaard (University of Oxford) “The science of early farming in Europe”

You can watch recordings of some previous Pitt Rivers lectures at:

Pitt Rivers lectures - YouTube

For further information on this event please contact Professor Timothy Darvill, [email protected]

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