Science Fair Project Encyclopedia
Kerb
In archaeology, a kerb or peristalith is the name for a stone ring built to enclose and sometimes revet the cairn or barrow built over a chamber tomb.
European dolmens especially hunebed and dyss burials often provide examples of the use of kerbs in megalithic architecture but they were also added to other kinds of chamber tomb. Kerbs may be built in a dry stone wall method employing small blocks or using larger stones set in the ground. When larger stones are employed, peristalith is the term more properly used.
In the British Isles, the enclosing nature of kerbs has been suggested to be analogous to Neolithic and Bronze Age stone circles and henges which also demonstrate an attempt to demarcate a distinct, round area for ritual or funerary purposes.
Kerb is also the Commonwealth English spelling for curb in the sense of a stone surround such as a roadside edge.
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