Neolithic Scotland

Neolithic Scotland PDF Author: Gordon Noble
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 0748626980
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
This is an account of the Neolithic period in Scotland from its earliest traces around 4000 BC to the transformation of Neolithic society in the Early Bronze Age fifteen hundred years later. Gordon Noble inteprets Scottish material in the context of debates and issues in European archaeology, comparing sites and practices identified in Scotland to those found elsewhere in Britain and beyond. He considers the nature and effects of memory, sea and land travel, ritualisation, island identities, mortuary practice, symbolism and environmental impact. He synthesises excavations and research conducted over the last century and more, bringing together the evidence for understanding what happened in Scotland during this long period. His long-term and regionally based analysis suggests new directions for the interpretation of the Neolithic more generally. After outlining the chronology of the Neolithic in Europe Dr Noble considers its origins in Scotland. He investigates why the Earlier Neolithic in Scotland is characterised by regionally-distinct monumental traditions and asks if these reflect different conceptions of the world. He uses a long-term perspective to explain the nature of monumental landscapes in the Later Neolithic and considers whether Neolithic society as a whole might have been created and maintained through interactions at places where large-scale monuments were built. He ends by considering how the Neolithic was transformed in the Early Bronze Age through the manipulation of the material remains of the past. Neolithic Scotland provides a comprehensive, approachable and up-to-date account of the Scottish Neolithic. Such a book has not been available for many years. It will be widely welcomed.

Neolithic Scotland

Neolithic Scotland PDF Author: Gordon Noble
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 0748626980
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 320

Get Book

Book Description
This is an account of the Neolithic period in Scotland from its earliest traces around 4000 BC to the transformation of Neolithic society in the Early Bronze Age fifteen hundred years later. Gordon Noble inteprets Scottish material in the context of debates and issues in European archaeology, comparing sites and practices identified in Scotland to those found elsewhere in Britain and beyond. He considers the nature and effects of memory, sea and land travel, ritualisation, island identities, mortuary practice, symbolism and environmental impact. He synthesises excavations and research conducted over the last century and more, bringing together the evidence for understanding what happened in Scotland during this long period. His long-term and regionally based analysis suggests new directions for the interpretation of the Neolithic more generally. After outlining the chronology of the Neolithic in Europe Dr Noble considers its origins in Scotland. He investigates why the Earlier Neolithic in Scotland is characterised by regionally-distinct monumental traditions and asks if these reflect different conceptions of the world. He uses a long-term perspective to explain the nature of monumental landscapes in the Later Neolithic and considers whether Neolithic society as a whole might have been created and maintained through interactions at places where large-scale monuments were built. He ends by considering how the Neolithic was transformed in the Early Bronze Age through the manipulation of the material remains of the past. Neolithic Scotland provides a comprehensive, approachable and up-to-date account of the Scottish Neolithic. Such a book has not been available for many years. It will be widely welcomed.

Neolithic of Mainland Scotland

Neolithic of Mainland Scotland PDF Author: Kenneth Brophy
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 074868574X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
Archaeologists show us how the Neolithic human lived in mainland ScotlandWhat was life like in Scotland between 4000 and 2000BC? Where were people living? How did they treat their dead? Why did they spend so much time building extravagant ritual monuments? What was special about the relationship people had with trees and holes in the ground? What can we say about how people lived in the Neolithic and early Bronze Age of mainland Scotland where much of the evidence we have lies beneath the ploughsoil, or survives as slumped banks and ditches, or ruinous megaliths?Each contribution to this volume presents fresh research and radical new interpretations of the pits, postholes, ditches, rubbish dumps, human remains and broken potsherds left behind by our Neolithic forebears.From the APFWhat was life like in Scotland between 4000 and 2000BC? Where were people living? How did they treat their dead? Why did they spend so much time building extravagant ritual monuments? What was special about the relationship people had with trees? Why was so much time and effort spent digging holes and filling them back up again? What can we say about how people lived in the Neolithic and early Bronze Age of mainland Scotland where much of the evidence we have lies beneath the plough soil, or survives as slumped banks and filled ditches, or ruinous megaliths?This book will draw together leading experts and young researchers to present fresh research and outline radical new interpretations of the pits, postholes, ditches, rubbish dumps, human remains and broken potsherds left behind by our Neolithic forebears. Much of this evidence has come to light in the past few decades, putting the emphasis very much lowland, mainland Scotland as opposed to more famous Orcadian Neolithic sites. Inspired by the work of Gordon Barclay, the leading scholars of Scotland's Neolithic in the last 40 years, the chapters in this book offer a wide-ranging analysis of the evidence we have for the first farmers in Scotland.

Roots of Nationhood: The Archaeology and History of Scotland

Roots of Nationhood: The Archaeology and History of Scotland PDF Author: Louisa Campbell
Publisher: Archaeopress Publishing Ltd
ISBN: 1784919837
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 216

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Book Description
12 papers from specialists covering a wide array of time periods and subject areas, this volume explores the links between identity and nationhood throughout the history of Scotland from the prehistory of northern Britain to the more recent heralding of Scottish identity as a multi-ethnic construction and the possibility of Scottish independence.

Reading Between the Lines

Reading Between the Lines PDF Author: Kenneth Brophy
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317430018
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 316

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Book Description
Reading Between the Lines: The Neolithic Cursus Monuments of Scotland is the first systematic analysis of Scotland’s cursus monuments and is written by one of the foremost scholars of the Neolithic in Scotland. Drawing on fifteen years of experience of cropmark interpretation, as well as his involvement in several excavations of cursus monuments and contemporary sites, Kenneth Brophy uncovers some of the secrets of the Neolithic landscape. While outlining the physical characteristics of the cursus, this book also addresses the limitations of this kind of typological description when applied to monuments which varied so remarkably in terms of materiality and size. Moving beyond a morphological account, Brophy considers what can be said of this diverse group of sites, and how they were actually built and used in prehistory, in light of several decades of aerial reconnaissance and excavation in Scotland. Through a close study of the differences, as well as the similarities, between these structures, this book offers a nuanced account of cursus monuments, finally allowing this important monument type to be better understood and placed alongside others of the period. Offering exciting new ways of thinking about these enigmatic yet important monuments, Reading Between the Lines: The Neolithic Cursus Monuments of Scotland is an essential resource for students and specialists in British prehistory, providing an introduction to the Early Neolithic archaeology of lowland Scotland as well as a meditation on broader aspects of monumentality and architecture.

Stone Age Farmers Beside the Sea

Stone Age Farmers Beside the Sea PDF Author: Caroline Arnold
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 9780395776018
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 60

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Book Description
Describes the Stone Age settlement preserved in the sand dunes on one of Scotland's Orkney Islands, telling how it was discovered and what it reveals about life in prehistoric times.

Farmers, Temples and Tombs

Farmers, Temples and Tombs PDF Author: Gordon Barclay
Publisher: Birlinn Publishers
ISBN:
Category : Bronze age
Languages : en
Pages : 72

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Book Description
For too long the story of this exciting period has been told using the same stone-built suites, mainly in the North and on Orkney. It tells the story using evidence from all over Scotland, from simple settlements as well as the great monuments, tombs and mysterious standing stones that are still such a notable feature of today's landscape. Designed throughout with colourful and detailed illustrations, "Farmers, Temples and Tombs" outlines in a clear and understandable way the Neolithic and Early Bronze Age in Scotland. It contains in-depth features on important Neolithic sites and emphasizes that what are now archaeological sites were once places where normal people lived. Included in the book are specially commissioned illustrations which show how different sites might have looked, as well as a list of Neolithic sites that can be visited across Scotland. This book is part of a newly updated edition of the acclaimed Making of Scotland series produced by Historic Scotland and Birlinn which provides lively, accessible and up-to-date introductions to key themes and periods in Scottish history and prehistory.

No Stone Unturned

No Stone Unturned PDF Author: Robert Dodgshon
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 1474403514
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
A survey of how Highland society organised its farming communities, exploited its resource base and interacted with its environment from prehistory to 1914There has long been a view that the farming communities to be found in the Highlands prior to the Clearances were archaic forms. The way in which they were organised, the way in which they farmed the land and the technologies which they employed were all seen as taking shape during prehistory and then surviving relatively unchanged. Such a view first emerged first during the late nineteenth century and found repeated expression through a number of studies thereafter. However, its entrenchment in the literature was despite the fact that many ongoing studies have highlighted aspects of how the region changed from prehistory onwards. This study confronts this conflict over the question of continuity/discontinuity debate through an analysis of the cultural landscape. Starting with prehistory, it examines the way in which the farming community was organised: its institutional basis, its strategies of resource use and how these impacted on landscape, and the way in which it interacted with the challenges of its environment. It carries these themes forward through the medieval and early modern periods, rounding off the discussion with a substantive review of the gradual spread of commercial sheep farming and the emergence of the crofting townships over the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Throughout, it draws out what changed and what was carried forward from each period so that we have a better understanding of the region's dynamic history, as opposed to the ahistorical views that inevitably flow from a stress on cultural inertia. Key Features:The book provides a one-stop text for the long-term history of the Highland countryside, one nuanced in ways that address topical themes like landscape and environmental change.It synthesises a great deal of work on the Highland farming community during the medieval and early modern periods in terms of its institutional organisation, resource exploitation, landscape impacts and interactions with environment so as to produce an overall review from prehistory down to 1914. Introduces new ideas and arguments that have not been treated or previewed in other published work, such as in chapter 6.Provides the most substantive review of the continuity/discontinuity debate in the Highland landscape currently available

Scotland in Ancient Europe

Scotland in Ancient Europe PDF Author: Ian Shepherd
Publisher: Society Antiquaries Scotland
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 356

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Book Description
And conclusion / Roger J. Mercer -- The bronze doors of No. 9, Millbank, London, with a note on the architect and sculptor associated with Imperial Chemical Industries House and their contribution to the heritage / Roger J. Mercer.

The Prehistoric Peoples of Scotland

The Prehistoric Peoples of Scotland PDF Author: Stuart Piggott
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317600452
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 182

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Book Description
Based on lectures given at the Conference of the British Summer School of Archaeology at Edinburgh in 1954, this book, published in 1962, surveys the general field of pre-historic Scotland, five archaeologists each contributing chapters discussing the main aspects and problems that have presented themselves in specialised research areas. From the first peopling of the area by human communities with hunting and food-gathering economies, to field antiquities and the introduction of copper and bronze metallurgy and on to the first settlement by Celtic speakers and the links to the first historically documented Scotland. Contributors: R.J.C. Atkinson, G.E. Daniel, T.G.E. Powell and C.A.R. Radford.

The Development of Neolithic House Societies in Orkney

The Development of Neolithic House Societies in Orkney PDF Author: Colin Richards
Publisher: Windgather Press
ISBN: 1909686921
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 512

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Book Description
Considering that Orkney is a group of relatively small islands lying off the northeast coast of the Scottish mainland, its wealth of Neolithic archaeology is truly extraordinary. An assortment of houses, chambered cairns, stone circles, standing stones and passage graves provides an unusually comprehensive range of archaeological and architectural contexts. Yet, in the early 1990s, there was a noticeable imbalance between 4th and 3rd millennium cal BC evidence, with house structures, and ‘villages’ being well represented in the latter but minimally in the former. As elsewhere in the British Isles, the archaeological visibility of the 4th millennium cal BC in Orkney tends to be dominated by the monumental presence of chambered cairns or tombs. In the 1970s Claude Lévi-Strauss conceived of a form of social organization based upon the ‘house’ – sociétés à maisons – in order to provide a classification for social groups that appeared not to conform to established anthropological kinship structures. In this approach, the anchor point is the ‘house’, understood as a conceptual resource that is a consequence of a strategy of constructing and legitimizing identities under ever shifting social conditions. Drawing on the results of an extensive program of fieldwork in the Bay of Firth, Mainland Orkney, the text explores the idea that the physical appearance of the house is a potent resource for materializing the dichotomous alliance and descent principles apparent in the archaeological evidence for the early and later Neolithic of Orkney. It argues that some of the insights made by Lévi-Strauss in his basic formulation of sociétés à maisons are extremely relevant to interpreting the archaeological evidence and providing the parameters for a ‘social’ narrative of the material changes occurring in Orkney between the 4th and 2nd millennia cal BC. The major excavations undertaken during the Cuween-Wideford Landscape Project provided an unprecedented depth and variety of evidence for Neolithic occupation, bridging the gap between domestic and ceremonial architecture and form, exploring the transition from wood to stone and relationships between the living and the dead and the role of material culture. The results are described and discussed in detail here, enabling tracing of the development and fragmentation of sociétés à maisons over a 1500 year period of Northern Isles prehistory.