cursūs

Fig. 89 Distribution of barrow cemeteries around Stonehenge and other Neolithic monuments: 1. round barrows, 2. long barrows, C. the Cursus, LC. Lesser Cursus, S. Stonehenge, A. Avenue, DW. Durrington Walls, W. Woodhenge. […] Cursūs, 89

1979, J[ohn] M[orton] Coles, A[nthony] F[ilmer] Harding, The Bronze Age in Europe: An Introduction to the Prehistory of Europe, c.2000-700 bc, London: Methuen & Co Ltd, →ISBN, pages 254 and 562

Thus the building of long tombs and causewayed enclosures ceased and the emphasis switched to round burial mounds, such as passage graves, and new ‘public’ monuments, including enclosures, cursūs, henges and stone circles. […] Further north the vast field systems of the Fen Edge in eastern England imply great order and organization, and here, too, there are causewayed enclosures, henges and cursūs, and now the rich grave group from Barnack. […] The function of the Avenue is as obscure as that of the cursūs, and although it looks very much like a processional way, it would be very difficult to prove this. […] Some cursūs pass by or incorporate round barrows in much the same way, as at Aston-on-Trent, Derbyshire, or have round barrows at their ends, as at Scorton in north Yorkshire, but these relationships cannot be worked out as easily. […] Among the earlier cursūs may be that at Maxey, which was earlier than circles of pits producing Fourth Millennium pottery of Mildenhall style; […] It may be that these avenues took over some of the functions of the cursūs.

1980, Colin Burgess, The Age of Stonehenge (History in the Landscape series), London: J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd, →ISBN, pages 23, 170, 332, 339, and 344

If one interprets the cursūs at Stonehenge (and elsewhere in England) within Indo-European heritage (see e.g. Stover & Kraig 1978:89-90, 164, 169), there is concrete evidence for an early importance of sports, funeral or otherwise.

2000, Raimo Anttila, Greek and Indo-European Etymology in Action: Proto-Indo-European *aǵ- (Current Issues in Linguistic Theory; 200), Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, →ISBN, pages 21–22

cursus (pl. cursūs) [MC]. A kind of Neolithic ceremonial monument comprising a rectangular enclosure defined by a bank with external ditches. The longest example is the pair of end-to-end joined cursūs known as the Dorset Cursus on Cranborne Chase, Dorset, which together run for more than 10 km across the grain of the landscape. More typically, cursūs are between 500 m and 3 km long and up to 80 m wide.

2002, Timothy Darvill, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology, Oxford, Oxon: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 111, column 1

Notable examples of ritual landscapes in Britain include Stonehenge and its environs, its barrows and cursūs clustered in expanding ripples about the earthen and stone circles of the central monument, and the associated earthwork of Durrington Walls.

2010, David Ride, The Ancient Symbolic Landscape of Wessex, Stroud, Glos.: Amberley Publishing, →ISBN, page 12