Download or read book Archaeoastronomy in the Old World written by D. C. Heggie and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1982-08-05 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The papers in this book, summarising the proceedings of a conference at the University of Oxford in September 1981, are concerned with shedding light on a controversial aspect of European prehistory: was astronomy practised in the late Neolithic and bronze ages? This volume will be of interest to prehistorians, professionals with pure and applied sciences background and statisticians.
Download or read book Archaeoastronomy written by and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 524 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Orientation of Prehistoric Monuments in Britain A Reassessment written by Alistair Marshall and published by Archaeopress Publishing Ltd. This book was released on 2021-07-08 with total page 704 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Making Places In The Prehistoric World written by Joanna Bruck and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-04-28 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 1999. This groundbreaking volume addresses issues central to the study of prehistoric settlement including group memory, the transmission of ideology and the impact of mobility and seasonality on the construction of social identity. Building on these themes, the contributors point to new ways of understanding the relationship between settlement and landscape by replacing Capitalist models of spatial relations with more intimate histories of place.
Download or read book Interpretative Archaeology written by Christopher Tilley and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-05-26 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This fascinating volume integrates recent developments in anthropological and sociological theory with a series of detailed studies of prehistoric material culture. The authors explore the manner in which semiotic, hermeneutic, Marxist, and post-structuralist approaches radically alter our understanding of the past, and provide a series of innovative studies of key areas of interest to archaeologists and anthropologists.
Download or read book Early Man and the Cosmos written by Evan Hadingham and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 1985 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An examination of ancient astronomy looks at the myths and beliefs about the heavens that influenced everyday life in these primitive cultures
Download or read book Encyclopedia of Time written by Samuel L. Macey and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-04-11 with total page 706 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this encyclopedia, some 200 international scholars in 360 articles explore subjects such as physics, archeostronomy, astronomy, mathematics, time's measurements and divisions, as well as covering other scientific and interdisciplinary areas: biology, economics and political science, horology, history, medicine, geography, geology and telecommunications.
Download or read book Stone Circles written by Colin Richards and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2024-08-27 with total page 719 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The definitive guide to the stone circles of Britain and Ireland From Stonehenge and the Ring of Brogdar to the Rollright Stones and Avebury, the British and Irish Isles are scattered with the stone circles of our prehistoric ancestors. Although there have been many theories to explain them, to this day there is no consensus about their purpose. Colin Richards and Vicki Cummings provide a clear and illuminating field guide to 424 key stone circle sites in Britain and Ireland. Organised by region, this handy volume sets out the features of these megalithic monuments, including their landscape position, construction, and physical properties. The authors take stock of cutting-edge research and recent excavations stone circles that were previously lost to time. They present new insights on the chronology, composition, and roles of different circles to transform our understanding the sites. Beautifully illustrated with photographs, maps, and plans, this is an essential guide to Britain and Ireland’s most mysterious prehistoric monuments.
Download or read book Monumental Times written by Richard Bradley and published by Oxbow Books. This book was released on 2024-01-31 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Richard Bradley's latest thought provoking re-examination of familiar monumental archaeology drawing on latest discussions of multi-temporality and the implications of new levels of analysis afforded by developments in archaeological sciences such as DNA, radiocarbon dating and isotopes. This book is concerned with the origins, uses and subsequent histories of monuments. It emphasises the time scales illustrated by these structures, and their implications for archaeological research. It is concerned with the archaeology of Western and Northern Europe, with an emphasis on structures in Britain and Ireland, and the period between the Mesolithic and the Viking Age. It begins with two famous groups of monuments and introduces the problem of multiple time scales. It also considers how they influence the display of those sites today – they belong to both the present and the past. Monuments played a role from the moment they were created, but approaches to their archaeology led in opposite directions. They might have been directed to a future that their builders could not control. These structures could be adapted, destroyed, or left to decay once their significance was lost. Another perspective was to claim them as relics of a forgotten past. In that case they had to be reinterpreted. The first part of this book considers the rarity of monumental structures among hunter-gatherers, and the choice of building materials for Neolithic houses and tombs. It emphasises the difference between structures whose erection ended the use of significant places, and those whose histories could extend into the future. It also discusses ‘megalithic astronomy’ and ancient notions of time. Part Two is concerned with the reuse of ancient monuments and asks whether they really were expressions of social memory. Did links with an ‘ancestral past’ have much factual basis? It contrasts developments during the Beaker phase with those of the early medieval period. The development of monumental architecture is compared with the composition of oral literature.
Download or read book Echoes of the Ancient Skies written by E. C. Krupp and published by Courier Corporation. This book was released on 2012-03-15 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Popular, authoritative look at the world of archaeoastronomy, the study of ancient peoples' observation of the skies and its role in their cultural evolution. 208 illustrations.
Download or read book Stonehenge written by Clive Ruggles and published by Liverpool University Press. This book was released on 2024-04-03 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Stonehenge is one of the most famous ancient monuments in the world and its solar alignment is one of its most important features. Yet although archaeologists have learned a huge amount about this iconic monument and its development, a sense of mystery continues about its purpose. This helps fuel numerous theories and common misconceptions, particularly concerning its relationship to the sky and the heavenly bodies. A desire to cut through this confusion was the inspiration for this book, and it fills a gaping hole in the existing literature. The book provides both an introduction to Stonehenge and its landscape and an introduction to archaeoastronomy—the study of how ancient peoples understood phenomena in the sky, and what role the sky played in their cultures. Archaeoastronomy is a specialism critical to explaining the relationship of Stonehenge and nearby monuments to the heavens, but interpreting archaeoastronomical evidence has often proved highly controversial in the past. Stonehenge: Sighting the Sun explains why. It makes clear which ideas about Stonehenge are generally accepted and which are not, with clear graphics to explain complicated concepts. This beautifully illustrated book shines new light on this most famous of ancient monuments, and is the first in-depth study of this fascinating topic suitable both for specialists and for anyone with a general interest.
Download or read book A Neolithic and Bronze Age Landscape in Northamptonshire written by Jan Harding and published by English Heritage. This book was released on 2013-01-15 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Raunds Area Project investigated more than 20 Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments in the Nene Valley. From c 5000 BC to the early 1st millennium cal BC a succession of ritual mounds and burial mounds were built as settlement along the valley sides increased and woodland was cleared. Starting as a regular stopping-place for flint knapping and domestic tasks, first the Long Mound, and then Long Barrow, the north part of the Turf Mound and the Avenue were built in the 5th millennium BC. With the addition of the Long Enclosure, the Causewayed Ring Ditch, and the Southern Enclosure, there was a chain of five or six diverse monuments stretched along the river bank by c 3000 cal BC. Later, a timber platform, the Riverside Structure, was built and the focus of ceremonial activity shifted to the Cotton 'Henge', two concentric ditches on the occupied valley side. From c 2200 cal BC monument building accelerated and included the Segmented Ditch Circle and at least 20 round barrows, almost all containing burials, at first inhumations, then cremations down to c 1000 cal BC, by which time two overlapping systems of paddocks and droveways had been laid out. Finally, the terrace began to be settled when these had gone out of use, in the early 1st millennium cal BC.
Download or read book Paganism in Arthurian Romance written by John Darrah and published by Boydell & Brewer. This book was released on 1997 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "His most original contribution to an unravelling of a pagan Arthurian past lies in his appropriation of the fascinating evidence of standing stones and pagan cultic sites. The magical attributes of stones are exemplified in prehistoric standing stones, the real counterparts of the perrons of the French romances. This is dark and difficult territory, but certain events in the Arthurian cycle, which take place on and around Salisbury Plain, have correspondences with known prehistoric events. Building on these elusive clues, and tracing a range of sites around the river Severn and south Wales, John Darrah has added a significant new dimension to the search for the sources of England's great epic, the legends of Arthur and his court."--Jacket.
Download or read book Wessex to 1000 AD written by Barry Cunliffe and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-07-01 with total page 444 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Wessex -- the ancient counties of Dorset, Somerset, Wiltshire, Hampshire and Berkshire -- is remarkable for its economic and social cohesion as a region, and for the extraordinary wealth of its ancient remains. In this authoritative survey, Barry Cunliffe sets the great monuments and famous sites in their full cultural context. His chief concern, however, is to interpret the landscape of the region, and the people who over so many centuries created it. In his hands it becomes an archaeological artefact as eloquent as Avebury and Stonehenge themselves.
Download or read book Astronomies and Cultures in Early Medieval Europe written by Stephen C. McCluskey and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2000-11-20 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides an overview of the astronomical practices that continued through the so-called "Dark Ages." Like the astronomies of traditional societies, early medieval astronomies established a religious framework of sacred time and ritual calender; here Christian feasts tied to a pre-Christian ritual solar calender, the date of Easter tied to the Hebrew lunar calender; and the timing of monastic prayers in terms of the course of the stars. Coupled with the remnants of ancient geometrical astronomy, these provided the framework for the rebirth of astronomy with the rise of the medieval universities.
Download or read book Ideology Power and Prehistory written by Theoretical Archaeology Group (England). Conference and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1984-05-03 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book starts from the premise that methodology has always dominated archaeology to the detriment of broader social theory.
Download or read book Atlantis of the West written by Paul Dunbavin and published by Third Millennium Publishing. This book was released on 2003-01-01 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1995 the author first published his theory that Plato’s Atlantis myth remembers the submergence of a Neolithic civilisation around the shores of the British Isles. He argues that this cataclysm resulted from a change in the Earth’s axis consequent upon a comet impact around 3100 BC The Middle-Neolithic period around 5,000 years ago was a time of dramatic climate and sea level changes all around the world. Welsh legends remember lost cities beneath the Irish Sea; and Irish myths recall an ‘otherworld’, a golden age when the eastern Irish Sea was a flowery plain inhabited by a golden-haired race of men. The author argues that Plato’s Atlantis is the same place that is remembered in these Celtic myths; and in Ancient Egyptian and Greek myths of an underworld known as the Elysian Fields. Bringing together modern scientific evidence and a pattern of ancient myths the author presents a multidisciplinary case for Atlantis as just one among many views of the submerged Neolithic civilisation of the Megalith Builders. Atlantis of the West is an updated second edition of The Atlantis Researches, with an appendix of further evidences and extended notes and extensive bibliography.
