Download or read book The Evolution of Neolithic and Bronze Age Landscapes written by Alex Carnes and published by Archaeopress Publishing Ltd. This book was released on 2014-07-18 with total page 174 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the heart of this book is a comparative study of the stone rows of Dartmoor and northern Scotland, a rare, putatively Bronze Age megalithic typology that has mystified archaeologists for over a century.

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 976 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. This second volume of the Raunds Area Project, published as a CD, comprises the detailed reports on the environmental archaeology, artefact studies, geophysics and chronology.

Download or read book Beyond Barrows written by David R. Fontijn and published by Sidestone Press. This book was released on 2013 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Europe is dotted with tens of thousands of prehistoric barrows. In spite of their ubiquity, little is known on the role they had in pre- and protohistoric landscapes. In 2010, an international group of archaeologists came together at the conference of the European Association of Archaeologists in The Hague to discuss and review current research on this topic. This book presents the proceedings of that session. The focus is on the prehistory of Scandinavia and the Low Countries, but also includes an excursion to huge prehistoric mounds in the southeast of North America. One contribution presents new evidence on how the immediate environment of Neolithic Funnel Beaker (TRB) culture megaliths was ordered, another one discusses the role of remarkable single and double post alignments around Bronze and Iron Age burial mounds. Zooming out, several chapters deal with the place of barrows in the broader landscape. The significance of humanly-managed heath in relation to barrow groups is discussed, and one contribution emphasizes how barrow orderings not only reflect spatial organization, but are also important as conceptual anchors structuring prehistoric perception. Other authors, dealing with Early Neolithic persistent places and with Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age urnfields, argue that we should also look beyond monumentality in order to understand long-term use of "ritual landscapes". The book contains an important contribution by the well-known Swedish archaeologist Tore Artelius on how Bronze Age barrows were structurally re-used by pre-Christian Vikings. This is his last article, written briefly before his death. This book is dedicated to his memory. This publication is part of the Ancestral Mounds Research Project of the University of Leiden.

Download or read book A Bronze Age Landscape in the Russian Steppes written by David W. Anthony and published by Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press. This book was released on 2016-12-31 with total page 537 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first English-language monograph that describes seasonal and permanent Late Bronze Age settlements in the Russian steppes, this is the final report of the Samara Valley Project, a US-Russian archaeological investigation conducted between 1995 and 2002. It explores the changing organization and subsistence resources of pastoral steppe economies from the Eneolithic (4500 BC) through the Late Bronze Age (1900-1200 BC) across a steppe-and-river valley landscape in the middle Volga region, with particular attention to the role of agriculture during the unusual episode of sedentary, settled pastoralism that spread across the Eurasian steppes with the Srubnaya and Andronovo cultures (1900-1200 BC). Three astonishing discoveries were made by the SVP archaeologists: agriculture played no role in the LBA diet across the region, a surprise given the settled residential pattern; a unique winter ritual was practiced at Krasnosamarskoe involving dog and wolf sacrifices, possibly related to male initiation ceremonies; and overlapping spheres of obligation, cooperation, and affiliation operated at different scales to integrate groups defined by politics, economics, and ritual behaviors.

Download or read book Past Landscapes written by Annette Haug and published by . This book was released on 2018-12-14 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Past Landscapes presents theoretical and practical attempts of scholars and scientists, who were and are active within the Kiel Graduate School "Human Development in Landscapes" (GSHDL), in order to disentangle a wide scope of research efforts on past landscapes. Landscapes are understood as products of human-environmental interaction. At the same time, they are arenas, in which societal and cultural activities as well as receptions of environments and human developments take place. Thus, environmental processes are interwoven into human constraints and advances. This book presents theories, concepts, approaches and case studies dealing with human development in landscapes. On the one hand, it becomes evident that only an interdisciplinary approach can cover the manifold aspects of the topic. On the other hand, this also implies that the very different approaches cannot be reduced to a simplistic uniform definition of landscape. This shortcoming proves nevertheless to be an important strength. The umbrella term 'landscape' proves to be highly stimulating for a large variety of different approaches. The first part of our book deals with a number of theories and concepts, the second part is concerned with approaches to landscapes, whereas the third part introduces case studies for human development in landscapes. As intended by the GSHDL, the reader might follow our approach to delve into the multi-faceted theories, concepts and practices on past landscapes: from events, processes and structures in environmental and produced spaces to theories, concepts and practices concerning past societies.

Download or read book Mapping Ancient Landscapes in Northamptonshire written by Alison Deegan and published by English Heritage. This book was released on 2013-02-15 with total page 179 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A record of the National Mapping Programme project in Northamptonshire. It recovered and mapped archaeological evidence from field systems, through settlement remains, to funerary monuments, and ranges from the Neolithic to the 20th century.

Download or read book Communities Landscapes and Interaction in Neolithic Greece written by Apostolos Sarris and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2018-08-17 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The last three decades have witnessed a period of growing archaeological activity in Greece that have enhanced our awareness of the diversity and variability of ancient communities. New sites offer rich datasets from many aspects of material culture that challenge traditional perceptions and suggest complex interpretations of the past. This volume provides a synthetic overview of recent developments in the study of Neolithic Greece and reconsiders the dynamics of human-environment interactions while recording the growing diversity in layers of social organization. It fills an essential lacuna in contemporary literature and enhances our understanding of the Neolithic communities in the Greek Peninsula.

Download or read book Chalk Hill written by Peter Clark and published by . This book was released on 2019-03-30 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excavations at Chalk Hill, Ramsgate in south-eastern Britain were primarily aimed at investigating the remains of a possible early Neolithic causewayed enclosure visible on aerial photographs. However, the monument could not in fact be categorized as a causewayed enclosure, but instead represented a type of early Neolithic ritual monument unique to the British Isles. The earliest significant features recorded on the site dated to the early Neolithic (roughly 3700-3600 cal BC). They took the form of three concentric arcs of intercutting pit clusters forming discrete 'segments,' the fills of which produced rich assemblages of pottery, flintwork, animal bone and other material. Much of this material appeared to have been deliberately placed in the pits rather than representing casual disposal of refuse. There are indications that material placed in different pits at different times may have derived from the same source, a 'midden' or some such which was not located during the excavations. The pit clusters appeared to have resulted from repeated pit-digging in the same location over an extended period of time. The site therefore contributes a more nuanced understanding of the heterogeneity of monumental architecture in the early Neolithic of the British Isles. This report is therefore critical for understanding the early Neolithization of southern Britain, the relations between Neolithic incomers and indigenous Mesolithic hunter-gatherers, the potential creolization of different cultural groups and cross-Channel relations in the early 4th Millennium BC. The site probably went out of use in around 3600 cal BC, and subsequent use of the landscape in the Bronze Age and later periods is evocative of the perception of 'special places' in the landscape long after they were abandoned. With contributions by Enid Allison, Alex Bayliss, Robin Bendrey, Christopher Bronk Ramsey, Kate Clark, Alex Gibson, Chris Green, Louise Harrison, Frances Healy, Linda Hurcombe, Rob Ixer, Jacqueline McKinley, Barbara McNee, Ruth Pelling, Nicola Powell, Louise Rayner, Paula Reimer, Johannes van der Plicht, Alasdair Whittle and Tania Wilson

Download or read book The Evolution of Neolithic and Bronze Age Landscapes written by Alexander Carnes and published by Archaeopress Archaeology. This book was released on 2014 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the heart of this book is a comparative study of the stone rows of Dartmoor and northern Scotland, a rare, putatively Bronze Age megalithic typology that has mystified archaeologists for over a century. It is argued that these are 'symbols' of Neolithic long mounds, a circumstance that accounts for the interregional similarities; other aspects of their semantic structures are also analysed using rigorous semiotic theory. The research presented here takes an evolutionary approach, drawing on biological theory to explain the active role of these monuments in social evolution and to investigate the processes at work in the development of prehistoric landscapes. New theory is developed for analysing such archaeological sequences, and for understanding and explaining material culture more generally. The local sequences are contextualised by examining European megalithic origins, tracing the long mound concept back to the LBK longhouses. It is argued that all of these related forms - longhouses, long mounds, and stone rows - are implicated in a process of competitively asserting ancestral affinities, which explains the constraint on cultural variation, and thus the formation of remarkably stable monument traditions, that led to the convergence between Dartmoor and northern Scotland in the Early Bronze Age.

Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of the European Bronze Age written by Harry Fokkens and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013-06-27 with total page 1012 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Oxford Handbook of the European Bronze Age is a wide-ranging survey of a crucial period in prehistory during which many social, economic, and technological changes took place. Written by expert specialists in the field, the book provides coverage both of the themes that characterize the period, and of the specific developments that took place in the various countries of Europe. After an introduction and a discussion of chronology, successive chapters deal with settlement studies, burial analysis, hoards and hoarding, monumentality, rock art, cosmology, gender, and trade, as well as a series of articles on specific technologies and crafts (such as transport, metals, glass, salt, textiles, and weighing). The second half of the book covers each country in turn. From Ireland to Russia, Scandinavia to Sicily, every area is considered, and up to date information on important recent finds is discussed in detail. The book is the first to consider the whole of the European Bronze Age in both geographical and thematic terms, and will be the standard book on the subject for the foreseeable future.

Download or read book Landscapes of Neolithic Ireland written by Gabriel Cooney and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Landscapes of Neolithic Ireland is the first volume to be devoted solely to the Irish Neolithic, using an innovative landscape and anthropological perspective to provide significant new insights on the period. Gabriel Cooney argues that the archaeological evidence demonstrates a much more complex picture than the current orthodoxy on Neolithic Europe, with its assumption of mobile lifestyles, suggests. He integrates the study of landscape, settlement, agriculture, material culture and burial practice to offer a rounded, realistic picture of the complexities and the realities of Neolithic lives and societies in Ireland.

Download or read book Woodland in the Neolithic of Northern Europe written by Gordon Noble and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-02-15 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A detailed consideration of the ways in which human-environment relations altered with the beginnings of agriculture in the Neolithic of northern Europe.

Download or read book Landscapes of Neolithic Brittany written by Chris Scarre and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2011-02-24 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fully illustrated study of the Neolithic monuments of Brittany which investigates how and by whom they were built, using the latest research and field studies. The emphasis is on the landscape setting of these monuments, and how that landscape may have influenced or inspired their construction.

Download or read book The First Farmers of Europe written by Stephen Shennan and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-05-03 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Knowledge of the origin and spread of farming has been revolutionised in recent years by the application of new scientific techniques, especially the analysis of ancient DNA from human genomes. In this book, Stephen Shennan presents the latest research on the spread of farming by archaeologists, geneticists and other archaeological scientists. He shows that it resulted from a population expansion from present-day Turkey. Using ideas from the disciplines of human behavioural ecology and cultural evolution, he explains how this process took place. The expansion was not the result of 'population pressure' but of the opportunities for increased fertility by colonising new regions that farming offered. The knowledge and resources for the farming 'niche' were passed on from parents to their children. However, Shennan demonstrates that the demographic patterns associated with the spread of farming resulted in population booms and busts, not continuous expansion.

Download or read book Ancestral Heaths written by Marieke Doorenbosch and published by Sidestone Press. This book was released on 2013-11-21 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Barrows, i.e. burial mounds, are amongst the most important of Europe’s prehistoric monuments. Across the continent, barrows still figure as prominent elements in the landscape. Many of these mounds have been excavated, revealing much about what was buried inside these intriguing monuments. Surprisingly, little is known about the landscape in which the barrows were situated and what role they played in their environment. Palynological data, carrying important clues on the barrow environment, are available for hundreds of excavated mounds in the Netherlands. However, while local vegetation reconstructions from these barrows exist, a reconstruction of the broader landscape around the barrows has yet to be made. This makes it difficult to understand their role in the prehistoric cultural landscape. In this book a detailed vegetation history of the landscape around burial mounds is presented. Newly obtained and extant data derived from palynological analyses taken from barrow sites are (re-)analysed. Methods in barrow palynology are discussed and further developed when necessary. Newly developed techniques are applied in order to get a better impression of the role barrows played in their environment. It is argued in this book that barrows were built on existing heaths, which had been and continued to be maintained for many generations by so-called heath communities. These heaths, therefore, can be considered as ‘ancestral heaths’. The barrow landscape was part of the economic zone of farming communities, while the heath areas were used as grazing grounds. The ancestral heaths were very stable elements in the landscape and were kept in existence for thousands of years. In fact, it is argued that these ancestral heaths were the most important factor in structuring the barrow landscape.

Download or read book Bronze Age Landscapes written by Joanna Bruck and published by Oxbow Books. This book was released on 2002-02-01 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume is a collection of essays, which exemplify the range and diversity of work currently being undertaken on the regional landscapes of the British Bronze Age and the progress which has been made in both theoretical and interpretive debate. Together these papers reflect the vibrancy of current research and promote a closer marriage of landscape, site and material culture studies. CONTENTS: Settlement in Scotland during the Second Millennium BC (P Ashmore) ; Place and Space in the Cambridgeshire Bronze Age (T Malim) ; Exploring Bronze Age Norfolk: Longham and Bittering (T Ashwin) ; Ritual Activity at the Foot of the Gog Magog Hills, Cambridge (M Hinman) ; The Bronze Age of Manchester Airport: Runway 2 (D Garner) ; Place and Memory in Bronze Age Wessex (D Field) ; Bronze Age Agricultural Intensification in the Thames Valley and Estuary (D Yates) ; The 'Community of Builders': The Barleycroft Post Alignments (C Evans and M Knight) ; 'Breaking New Ground': Land Tenure and Fieldstone Clearance during the Bronze Age (R Johnston) ; Tenure and Territoriality in the British Bronze Age: A Question of Varying Social and Geographical Scales (W Kitchen) ; A Later Bronze Age Landscape on the Avon Levels: Settlement: Settlement, Shelters and Saltmarsh at Cabot Park (M Locock) ; Reading Business Park: The Results of Phases 1 and 2 (A Brossler) ; Leaving Home in the Cornish Bronze Age: Insights into Planned Abandonment Processes (J A Nowakowski) ; Body Metaphors and Technologies of Transformation in the English Middle and Late Bronze Age (J Bruck) ; A Time and a Place for Bronze (M Barber) ; Firstly, Let's get Rid of Ritual (C Pendleton) ; Mining and Prospection for Metals in Early Bronze Age Britain - Making Claims within the Archaeological Landscape (S Timberlake) ; The Times, They are a Changin': Experiencing Continuity and Development in the Early Bronze Age Funerary Rituals of Southwestern Britain (M A Owoc) ; Round Barrows in a Circular World: Monumentalising Landscapes in Early Bronze Age Wessex (A Watson) ; Enduring Images? Image Production and Memory in Earlier Bronze Age Scotland (A Jones) ; Afterward: Back to the Bronze Age

Download or read book Bronze Age Settlements in the Low Countries written by Harry Fokkens and published by Oxbow Books. This book was released on 2008-06-04 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Low Countries around the deltas of the river Rhine, Meuse and Scheldt have a long tradition in large scale archaeological research. This book brings together research from thirteen of the largest Bronze Age settlements described by their original excavators. These contributions are preceded by two introductory chapters written by the editors, providing a full overview of the state of Dutch Bronze Age settlement research, the key sites and the explanatory models current within it. Standards have been developed for the analysis of Bronze Age house plans and settlement sites and new models for the reading of the settled landscape. The rich data of the Low Countries also incorporate burial areas and deposition places. The findings presented can be seen to reflect the situation over a large area of lands bordering the North Sea.