The Significance of Monuments: On the Shaping of Human Experience in Neolithic and Bronze Age Europe

by Bradley,Richard

• ISBN13: 9780415152044
• ISBN10: 0415152046
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 1998-03-20
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

The Neolithic period, when agriculture began and many monuments - including Stonehenge - were constructed, is an era fraught with paradoxes and ambiguities. Starting in the Mesolithic and carrying his analysis through to the Late Bronze Age, Richard Bradley sheds light on this complex period and the changing consciousness of these prehistoric peoples.The Significance of Monuments studies the importance of monuments tracing their history from their first creation over six thousand years later. Part One discusses how monuments first developed and their role in developing a new sense of time and space among the inhabitants of prehistoric Europe. Other features of the prehistoric landscape - such as mounds and enclosures - across Continental Europe are also examined. Part Two studies how such monuments were modified and reinterpreted to suit the changing needs of society through a series of detailed case studies.The Significance of Monuments is an indispensable text for all students of European prehistory. It is also an enlightening read for professional archaeologists and all those interested in this fascinating period.

Author Biography

Richard Bradley is Professor of Archaeology at Reading University.

Table of Contents

List of Figures Preface

From the House of the Dead

Structures of Sand: Settlements, Monuments and the Nature of the Neolithic

Thinking the Neolithic: the Mesolithic World View and its Transformation

The Death of the House: the Origins of Long Mounds and Neolithic Enclosures

Another Time: Architecure, Ancestry and the Development of Chambered Tombs

Small Worlds: Causewayed Enclosures and their Transformations

Describing a Circle

The Persistence of Memory: Ritual, Time and the History of Ceremonial Monuments

The Public Interest: Ritual and Ceremonial, from Passage Graves to Henges

Theatre in the Round: Henge Monuments, Stone Circles and their Integration with the Landscape

Closed Circles: the Changing Character of Monuments, from Enclosures to Cemeteries

An Agricultural Revolution: the Domestication of Ritual Life during later Prehistory

References

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