Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology (457 page)

A type of Neolithic
PASSAGE GRAVE
found along the Atlantic coastlands of northwest Europe which comprises two or more chambers set within a single mound. Dating mainly to the 4th and 3rd millennia
bc
, these structures are mainly elaborations of the
SIMPLE PASSAGE GRAVE
tradition, although a few are so large as to be regarded as variations of the
DEVELOPED PASSAGE GRAVE
tradition. Multiple passage graves typically comprise a large round or rectangular mound of earth and stone, within which there is a series of stone-built chambers each being accessible for the outside of the mound via a narrow passage. The chambers are usually round, square, rectangular, or polygonal in plan. In some cases the passages open only from one side of the mound, in other cases the openings are on opposite sides, or, more rarely, from all around the circumference of the mound. Burials either by inhumation or cremation were made in the chambers. One of the best-known examples is at
BARNENEZ
in Brittany.

 
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See
HOMO SAPIENS
.

 
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In studies of material culture, the ability of a single item to represent more than one thing at once.

 
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A hillfort or enclosure that has more than one rampart or defensive circuit.

 
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A statistical study of the relationships between three or more variables.

 
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Literally, ‘many voices’; an approach to archaeological reasoning, explanation, and understanding that accepts a high degree of relativism and thus encourages the contemporaneous articulation of numerous different narratives or parallel discourses. Thus different groups will adopt different positions in relation to their interpretation of the past, and the meanings that they attach to physical remains. While respecting the right of any group or individual to develop and expound a particular interpretation of some aspect of the past there is some debate as to whether all such parallel positions should be treated as equally acceptable, especially where a particular position is being overtly used, or misused, as a political tool. Ian Hodder has argued (2000) that the misuse of the past can only be evaluated socially and ethically, while most archaeologists, however relativist, would accept that archaeological interpretation should be grounded in, and somehow answerable to, data of some kind.

 
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