Download or read book Megalithic Monuments and Social Structures written by Maria Wunderlich and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Megalith building constitutes not only a past, but also a recent phenomenon, which is still practised today. The documentation and interpretation of recent megalith building traditions is offering potential aid in the interpretation of prehistoric monuments. Fieldwork in Sumba and Nagaland set up a frame to answer questions such as: Who is buried in the megalithic tombs and what kind of commemoration is connected to megalithic monuments? How are socioeconomic characteristics of the associated households and societies reflected in the megaliths?0'Megalithic monuments and social structures' includes various archaeological and ethnoarchaeological case studies on social implications of megalith building activities from a comparative perspective. The case studies presented include recent megalith building traditions in Sumba, Indonesia, Nagaland, North-East India, as well as Neolithic Funnel Beaker communities in today's Northern Germany and Southern Sweden.0This book presents a rich body of new data. By taking into account recent examples of megalithic construction, knowledge on important and influential ways of acting within societal contexts was expanded, whereby above all decentralised and communally-designed mechanisms are important. The case studies presented here clearly demonstrate the importance of cooperative and competitive structures and their effect on feasting activities and megalith building. Additionally, megalithic monuments represent a way of expressing and materialising economic inequality and social prestige. These mechanism and aspects also represent interpretations regarding Funnel Beaker societies, which can supplement the existing ideas of megalithic construction in Neolithic Northern Europe.0.
Download or read book The Megalithic Monuments of Britain and Ireland written by Christopher Scarre and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Stonehenge to Newgrange, one of the richest arrays of megalithic monuments in Europe is found in Britain and Ireland. Using massive stone blocks, timber posts and mounds of earth or chalk, the people of these islands built great monuments from the beginning of the Neolithic and the arrival of pottery and farming some 6000 years ago down into the Bronze Age. The number and sheer diversity of these structures is astonishing. Stone circles and chambered tombs, burial mounds and earthwork enclosures, henges and cursus monuments, all belong to the same general category of monumental prehistoric architecture. Tombs, sanctuaries, places of cult and of memory: these Neolithic monuments had numerous functions in prehistoric societies. Transforming the lanscape, such grand structures must have represented for their communities a particular way of responding to changing social and symbolic needs, whether processing the dead, gathering for ceremonies, or embellishing locations that were of sacred significance. Organized by geographical area this authoritative overview is ideal for traveller and student alike.
Download or read book The Megalithic Architectures of Europe written by Luc Laporte and published by Oxbow Books Limited. This book was released on 2022-06-15 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First major synthesis by leading regional specialists in English of recent excavation results and new approaches to the study of megalithic monuments and their individual histories across Europe.
Download or read book Indonesian Megaliths A Forgotten Cultural Heritage written by Tara Steimer-Herbet and published by Archaeopress Publishing Ltd. This book was released on 2018-09-30 with total page 117 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An exploration of Indonesian megaliths based on scientific documents and field visits, this work highlights misunderstood—and sometimes threatened by destruction—aspects of Indonesian cultural heritage and offers a unique perspective on megalithic monuments abandoned for several centuries in the archipelago.
Download or read book Statements in Stone written by Mark Patton and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2002-11-01 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The megalithic monuments of Western Europe cover a period of over 2,000 years, from the earliest neolithic to the beginning of the Bronze Age, and have excited the popular imagination for centuries. Based on the evidence of recent excavations, and the most up-to-date and controversial theoretical perspectives of archaeology, Statements in Stone is the first account to put the megalithic traditions of Brittany in a social context and to develop a social model to account for their emergence and development.
Download or read book The Archaeology of Malta written by Claudia Sagona and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-08-25 with total page 471 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book synthesizes the archaeology of the Maltese archipelago from the first human colonization c. 5000 BC through the Roman period (c. 400 AD). Claudia Sagona interprets the archaeological record to explain changing social and political structures, intriguing ritual practices, and cultural contact through several millennia.
Download or read book Megalithism written by Alberto Pozzi and published by Universal-Publishers. This book was released on 2014-09-23 with total page 403 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Megalithism, or the art of using huge boulders to create sacred, pagan monuments and sites, still fascinates us today. How did Prehistoric man cut, transport, and place such enormous stones, some weighing up to 200 metric tons, without bulldozers, drills, and cranes? Yet primitive man, without the written word or wheel, created structures which still stupefy us in the 21st century, both due to their components and the precision used in positioning them. This book takes us back in time to the 5th-2nd millennia B.C. and helps us visualise the Stone Age world and its constructions - menhirs, dolmens, rows and circles of standing stones. Undoubtedly they were sacred places, used for pagan rituals and funerary purposes, but the author also gives us details of their astronomic and physical alignment, which clearly demonstrates the knowledge of the heavens these ancestors had and how they applied it without slide-rules, set squares, and theodolites. The high priests of ancient times could calculate when the solstices and equinoxes would occur and thus regulate the seasons for sowing and reaping. The author's careful and updated identification of all such structures leads us through 'Ancient European Megalithism' complete with the religious and social aspects of it and its pagan legacies. He does not neglect forms of 'sub-actual' megalithism either - the use of massive stones by peoples described as primitive but with a relatively advanced culture who lived in times closer to our own in Africa, Asia, and South America. The myths and legends arising from the megalithic structures are recounted here in detail; the author also describes megalithic art in the form of statue-stele and menhir statues, as well as the often intricate decoration carved on single stones and in construction such as dolmens, funerary mounds, astronomic observatories, and temples. He also describes studies and experiments on the methods of transport and construction used by Prehistoric peoples, together with conflicting opinions and theories. Amply illustrated with photographs and drawings, Megalithism guides the reader through every part of the megalithic world with smooth-flowing text that will be accessible to specialists and interested general public alike.
Download or read book Monumentalising Life in the Neolithic written by Anne Birgitte Gebaer and published by Oxbow Books. This book was released on 2020-09-30 with total page 710 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the principal characteristics of the European Neolithic is the development of monumentality in association with innovations in material culture and changes in subsistence from hunting and gathering to farming and pastoralism. The papers in this volume discuss the latest insights into why monumental architecture became an integral part of early farming societies in Europe and beyond. One of the topics is how we define monuments and how our arguments and recent research on temporality impacts on our interpretation of the Neolithic period. Different interpretations of Göbekli Tepe are examples of this discussion as well as our understanding of special landmarks such as flint mines. The latest evidence on the economic and paleoenvironmental context, carbon 14 dates as well as analytical methods are employed in illuminating the emergence of monumentalism in Neolithic Europe. Studies are taking place on a macro and micro scale in areas as diverse as Great Britain, Denmark, Sweden, Poland, Germany, the Dutch wetlands, Portugal and Malta involving a range of monuments from long barrows and megalithic tombs to roundels and enclosures. Transformation from a natural to a built environment by monumentalizing part of the landscape is discussed as well as changes in megalithic architecture in relation to shifts in the social structure. An ethnographic study of megaliths in Nagaland discuss monument building as an act of social construction. Other studies look into the role of monuments as expressions of cosmology and active loci of ceremonial performances. Also, a couple of papers analyse the social processes in the transformation of society in the aftermath of the initial boom in monument construction and the related changes in subsistence and social structure in northern Europe. The aim of the publication is to explore different theories about the relationship between monumentality and the Neolithic way of life through these studies encompassing a wide range of types of monuments over vast areas of Europe and beyond.
Download or read book The Megalithic Culture of Indonesia written by William James Perry and published by . This book was released on 1918 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Lives of Prehistoric Monuments in Iron Age Roman and Medieval Europe written by Marta Díaz-Guardamino and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2015-10-01 with total page 375 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume explores the pervasive influence exerted by some prehistoric monuments on European social life over thousands of years, and reveals how they can act as a node linking people through time, possessing huge ideological and political significance. Through the advancement of theoretical approaches and scientific methodologies, archaeologists have been able to investigate how some of these monuments provide resources to negotiate memories, identities, and power and social relations throughout European history. The essays in this collection examine the life-histories of carefully chosen megalithic monuments, stelae and statue-menhirs, and rock art sites of various European and Mediterranean regions during the Iron Age and Roman and Medieval times. By focusing on the concrete interaction between people, monuments, and places, the volume offers an innovative outlook on a variety of debated issues. Prominent among these is the role of ancient remains in the creation, institutionalization, contestation, and negotiation of social identities and memories, as well as their relationship with political economy in early historic European societies. By contributing to current theoretical debates on materiality, landscape, and place-making, The Lives of Prehistoric Monuments in Iron Age, Roman, and Medieval Europe seeks to overcome disciplinary boundaries between prehistory and history, and highlight the long-term, genealogical nature of our engagement with the world.
Download or read book Rude Stone Monuments in All Countries written by James Fergusson and published by London : J. Murray. This book was released on 1872 with total page 590 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Megalithic Architectures of Europe written by Luc Laporte and published by Oxbow Books. This book was released on 2015-12-31 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Megalithic monuments are among the most striking remains of the Neolithic period of northern and western Europe and are scattered across landscapes from Pomerania to Portugal. Antiquarians and archaeologists early recognized the family resemblance of the different groups of tombs, attributing them to maritime peoples moving along the western seaways. More recent research sees them rather as the product of established early farming communities in their individual regions. Yet the diversity of the tombs, their chronologies and their varied cultural contexts complicates any straightforward understanding of their origins and distribution. Megalithic Architectures provides new insight by focusing on the construction and design of European megalithic tombs – on the tomb as an architectural project. It shows how much is to be learned from detailed attention to the stages and the techniques through which tombs were built, modified and enlarged, and often intentionally dismantled or decommissioned. The large slabs that were employed, often unshaped, may suggest an opportunistic approach by the Neolithic builders, but this was clearly far from the case. Each building project was unique, and detailed study of individual sites exposes the way in which tombs were built as architectural, social and symbolic undertakings. Alongside the manner in which the materials were used, it reveals a store of knowledge that sometimes differed considerably from one structure to another, even between contemporary monuments within a single region. The volume brings together regional specialists from Scandinavia, Germany, Britain, France, Belgium and Iberia to offer a series of uniquely authoritative studies. Results of recent fieldwork are fully incorporated and much of the material is published here for the first time in English. It provides an invaluable overview of the current state of research on European megalithic tombs.
Download or read book Temples of Stone written by Carleton Jones and published by Collins Press. This book was released on 2013-03 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The essential book on Ireland's megaliths; lavishly illustrated.
Download or read book Megaliths of the World written by Luc Laporte and published by Archaeopress Publishing Ltd. This book was released on 2022-08-22 with total page 1436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bringing together the latest research on megalithic monuments throughout the world, 150 researchers offer 72 articles, providing a region-by region account in their specialist areas, and a summary of the current state of knowledge. Highlighting salient themes, the book is vital to anyone interested in the phenomenon of megalithic monumentality.
Download or read book The Megaliths of Northern Europe written by Magdalena Midgley and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2008-07 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The North European megaliths are among the most enduring structures built in prehistory; they are imbued with symbolic meanings which embody physical and conceptual ideas about the nature of the world inhabited by the first Northern farmers. The Megaliths of Northern Europe provides a much needed up-to-date synthesis of the material available on these monuments, incorporating the results of recent research in Holland, Germany, Denmark and Sweden. This research has brought to light new data on the construction of the megaliths and their role in the cultural landscape, and Magdalena Midgley offers a fascinating interpretation of the symbolism of megalithic tombs within the context of early farming communities. This wealth of new evidence suggests the Northern European megaliths were important foci in the wider north-west European context. The construction of dolmens and passage graves, using huge glacial boulders, demanded both great communal effort and considerable skill. In addition to this technical expertise the master builders also made use of their esoteric knowledge of rituals. This was expressed in the use of exotic building materials and special architectural features, and in the placement of tombs within the natural and cultural landscapes, creating new metaphors and images. Fully illustrated, this book will be of interest to both undergraduate and postgraduate students of European Prehistory, Archaeology and Prehistoric Anthropology, as well as architects who study ancient architecture and social anthropologists who study modern megaliths.
Download or read book Rough Stone Monuments and Their Builders written by Thomas Eric Peet and published by IndyPublish.com. This book was released on 1912 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of Death and Burial written by Sarah Tarlow and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2013-06-06 with total page 872 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of Death and Burial reviews the current state of mortuary archaeology and its practice, highlighting its often contentious place in the modern socio-politics of archaeology. It contains forty-four chapters which focus on the history of the discipline and its current scientific techniques and methods. Written by leading, international scholars in the field, it derives its examples and case studies from a wide range of time periods, such as the middle palaeolithic to the twentieth century, and geographical areas which include Europe, North and South America, Africa, and Asia. Combining up-to-date knowledge of relevant archaeological research with critical assessments of the theme and an evaluation of future research trajectories, it draws attention to the social, symbolic, and theoretical aspects of interpreting mortuary archaeology. The volume is well-illustrated with maps, plans, photographs, and illustrations and is ideally suited for students and researchers.
