TY - JOUR
T1 - Gouk stones and other cuckoo place-names
T2 - prehistoric cult sites
AU - Nance, David Alexander
PY - 2019
Y1 - 2019
N2 - The common cuckoo was a pre-Christian symbol of male fertility across Eurasia, associated with several European fertility goddesses. Some standing-stones are named after it as cuckoo (coucou is Old-French) or gowk (Anglo-Saxon). Gouk and cuckoo stones can only have been so named from the fifth and eleventh centuries respectively but at least one stone was erected in the third millennium BC. It was not known if the naming was recent or if the stones had been associated with the cuckoo since prehistory and through subsequent language transitions. Previous authors thought some cuckoo place-names were places of seasonal ritual associated with specific natural and cultural features. Traditional toponymic methods cannot test these hypotheses being temporally limited by linguistic and textual constraints. A wider study of all known cuckoo place-names in Britain was undertaken using cartographic and statistical analysis independent of language transitions and textual evidence. Several natural and cultural features were very statistically significantly associated with both cuckoo stones and other cuckoo place-names indicating the association with the bird originated in prehistory. GIS geoprocessing also confirmed that early Roman structures were very significantly associated with cuckoo place-names indicating that they were cult-centres targeted for psychological advantage during the conquest period.
AB - The common cuckoo was a pre-Christian symbol of male fertility across Eurasia, associated with several European fertility goddesses. Some standing-stones are named after it as cuckoo (coucou is Old-French) or gowk (Anglo-Saxon). Gouk and cuckoo stones can only have been so named from the fifth and eleventh centuries respectively but at least one stone was erected in the third millennium BC. It was not known if the naming was recent or if the stones had been associated with the cuckoo since prehistory and through subsequent language transitions. Previous authors thought some cuckoo place-names were places of seasonal ritual associated with specific natural and cultural features. Traditional toponymic methods cannot test these hypotheses being temporally limited by linguistic and textual constraints. A wider study of all known cuckoo place-names in Britain was undertaken using cartographic and statistical analysis independent of language transitions and textual evidence. Several natural and cultural features were very statistically significantly associated with both cuckoo stones and other cuckoo place-names indicating the association with the bird originated in prehistory. GIS geoprocessing also confirmed that early Roman structures were very significantly associated with cuckoo place-names indicating that they were cult-centres targeted for psychological advantage during the conquest period.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85068677059&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/14702541.2019.1635265
DO - 10.1080/14702541.2019.1635265
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85068677059
SN - 1470-2541
VL - 135
SP - 98
EP - 122
JO - Scottish Geographical Journal
JF - Scottish Geographical Journal
IS - 1-2
ER -