Round Mounds and Monumentality in the British Neolithic and Beyond

Round Mounds and Monumentality in the British Neolithic and Beyond
Author: Jim Leary
Publisher: Oxbow Books Limited
Total Pages: 284
Release: 2010
Genre: History
ISBN:

Design, geometry, and the metamorphosis of monuments / David Field -- " --a place where they tried their criminals" : Neolithic round mounds in Perth and Kinross / Kenneth Brophy -- Scotland's Neolithic non-megalithic round mounds : new dates, problems, and potential / Alison Sheridan -- Tynwald Hill and the round mounds of the Isle of Man / Timothy Darvill -- Recent work on the Neolithic round barrows of the upper Great Wold Valley, Yorkshire / Alex Gibson and Alex Bayliss -- "One of the most interesting barrows ever examined" : Liffs Low revisited / Roy Loveday and Alistair Barclay -- Neolithic round barrows on the Cotswolds / Timothy Darvill -- Silbury Hill : a monument in motion / Jim Leary -- The brood of Silbury? : a remote look at some other sizeable Wessex mounds / Martyn Barber [and others] -- The mystery of the hill / Jonathan Last -- The formative henge : speculations drawn from the circular traditions of Wales and adjacent counties / Steve Burrow -- Monumentality and inclusion in the Boyne Valley, County Meath, Ireland / Geraldine Stout -- Round mounds containing portal tombs / Tatjana Kytmannow -- Native American mound building traditions / Peter Topping -- The round mound is not a monument / Tim Ingold.

Giants in the Landscape: Monumentality and Territories in the European Neolithic

Giants in the Landscape: Monumentality and Territories in the European Neolithic
Author: Vincent Ard
Publisher: Archaeopress Publishing Ltd
Total Pages: 105
Release: 2016-02-08
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1784912867

Proceedings from the session held at the XVII World UISPP Congress, Burgos, 2014. The session considered the various manifestations of the relationship between Neolithic enclosures and tombs in different contexts of Europe, notably through spatial analysis.

Ancient DNA and the European Neolithic

Ancient DNA and the European Neolithic
Author: Alasdair Whittle
Publisher: Oxbow Books
Total Pages: 358
Release: 2023-01-24
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1789259118

The current paradigm-changing ancient DNA revolution is offering unparalleled insights into central problems within archaeology relating to the movement of populations and individuals, patterns of descent, relationships and aspects of identity – at many scales and of many different kinds. The impact of recent ancient DNA results can be seen particularly clearly in studies of the European Neolithic, the subject of contributions presented in this volume. We now have new evidence for the movement and mixture of people at the start of the Neolithic, as farming spread from the east, and at its end, when the first metals as well as novel styles of pottery and burial practices arrived in the Chalcolithic. In addition, there has been a wealth of new data to inform complex questions of identities and relationships. The terms of archaeological debate for this period have been permanently altered, leaving us with many issues. This volume stems from the online day conference of the Neolithic Studies Group held in November 2021, which aimed to bring geneticists and archaeologists together in the same forum, and to enable critical but constructive inter-disciplinary debate about key themes arising from the application of advanced ancient DNA analysis to the study of the European Neolithic. The resulting papers gathered here are by both geneticists and archaeologists. Individually, they form a series of significant, up-to-date, period and regional syntheses of various manifestations of the Neolithic across the Near East and Europe, including particularly Britain and Ireland. Together, they offer wide-ranging reflections on the progress of ancient DNA studies, and on their future reach and character.

Orientation of Prehistoric Monuments in Britain: A Reassessment

Orientation of Prehistoric Monuments in Britain: A Reassessment
Author: Alistair Marshall
Publisher: Archaeopress Publishing Ltd
Total Pages: 704
Release: 2021-07-08
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1789697069

Reassesses major axial alignment at many megalithic ritual and funerary monuments (Neolithic to Bronze Age) in Britain and Ireland, not in terms of abstract astronomical concerns, but as an expression of repeated seasonal propitiation involving community, agrarian economy and ancestry in an attempt to mitigate variable environmental conditions.

The Birth of Neolithic Britain

The Birth of Neolithic Britain
Author: Julian Thomas
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 521
Release: 2013-11-28
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0191504645

The beginning of the Neolithic in Britain is a topic of perennial interest in archaeology, marking the end of a hunter-gatherer way of life with the introduction of domesticated plants and animals, pottery, polished stone tools, and a range of new kinds of monuments, including earthen long barrows and megalithic tombs. Every year, numerous new articles are published on different aspects of the topic, ranging from diet and subsistence economy to population movement, architecture, and seafaring. Thomas offers a treatment that synthesizes all of this material, presenting a coherent argument to explain the process of transition between the Mesolithic-Neolithic periods. Necessarily, the developments in Britain are put into the context of broader debates about the origins of agriculture in Europe, and the diversity of processes of change in different parts of the continent are explored. These are followed by a historiographic treatment of debates on the transition in Britain. Chapters cover the Mesolithic background, processes of contact and interaction, monumental architecture and timber halls, portable artefacts, and plants and animals. The concluding argument is that developments in the economy and material culture must be understood as being related to fundamental social transformations.

The Prehistory of Britain and Ireland

The Prehistory of Britain and Ireland
Author: Richard Bradley
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 391
Release: 2019-05-16
Genre: History
ISBN: 1108419925

Highlights the achievements of prehistoric people in Britain and Ireland over a 5,000 year period.

Deer and People

Deer and People
Author: Naomi Sykes
Publisher: Windgather Press
Total Pages: 297
Release: 2014-09-30
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1909686549

Deer have been central to human cultures throughout time and space: whether as staples to hunter-gatherers, icons of Empire, or the focus of sport. Their social and economic importance has seen some species transported across continents, transforming landscape as they went with the establishment of menageries and park. The fortunes of other species have been less auspicious, some becoming extirpated, or being in threat of extinction, due to pressures of over-hunting and/or human-instigated environmental change. In spite of their diverse, deep-rooted and long standing relations with human societies, no multi-disciplinary volume of research on cervids has until now been produced. This volume draws together research on deer from wide-ranging disciplines and in so doing substantially advances our broader understanding of human-deer relationships in the past and the present. Themes include species dispersal, exploitation patterns, symbolic significance, material culture and art, effects on the landscape and management. The temporal span of research ranges from the Pleistocene to the modern day and covers Europe, North America and Asia. Papers derived from international conferences held at the University of Lincoln and in Paris.

The Oxford Handbook of Neolithic Europe

The Oxford Handbook of Neolithic Europe
Author: Chris Fowler
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 856
Release: 2015-03-26
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0191666890

The Neolithic —a period in which the first sedentary agrarian communities were established across much of Europe—has been a key topic of archaeological research for over a century. However, the variety of evidence across Europe, the range of languages in which research is carried out, and the way research traditions in different countries have developed makes it very difficult for both students and specialists to gain an overview of continent-wide trends. The Oxford Handbook of Neolithic Europe provides the first comprehensive, geographically extensive, thematic overview of the European Neolithic —from Iberia to Russia and from Norway to Malta —offering both a general introduction and a clear exploration of key issues and current debates surrounding evidence and interpretation. Chapters written by leading experts in the field examine topics such as the movement of plants, animals, ideas, and people (including recent trends in the application of genetics and isotope analyses); cultural change (from the first appearance of farming to the first metal artefacts); domestic architecture; subsistence; material culture; monuments; and burial and other treatments of the dead. In doing so, the volume also considers the history of research and sets out agendas and themes for future work in the field.

Anthropomorphism, Anthropogenesis, Cognition

Anthropomorphism, Anthropogenesis, Cognition
Author: Dragoş Gheorghiu
Publisher: Archaeopress Publishing Ltd
Total Pages: 218
Release: 2024-06-27
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1789695007

Anthropomorphism could be described as a production of analogies generated by human cognition. It is present in the imaginary, mythologies, religions, and material culture of all ages. This book approaches anthropomorphism from the moment of anthropogenesis, tracing its presence in nature and material culture in prehistory and Antiquity.

Preserved in the Peat

Preserved in the Peat
Author: Andy M. Jones
Publisher: Oxbow Books
Total Pages: 674
Release: 2016-11-30
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1785702610

Excavation of a Scheduled burial mound on Whitehorse Hill, Dartmoor revealed an unexpected, intact burial deposit of Early Bronze Age date associated with an unparalleled range of artefacts. The cremated remains of a young person had been placed within a bearskin pelt and provided with a basketry container, from which a braided band with tin studs had spilled out. Within the container were beads of shale, amber, clay and tin; two pairs of turned wooden studs and a worked flint flake. A unique item, possibly a sash or band, made from textile and animal skin was found beneath the container. Beneath this, the basal stone of the cist had been covered by a layer purple moor grass which had been collected in summer. Analysis of environmental material from the site has revealed important insights into the pyre material used to burn the body, as well as providing important information about the environment in which the cist was constructed. The unparalleled assemblage of organic objects has yielded insights into a range of materials which have not survived from the earlier Bronze Age elsewhere in southern Britain.