Investigations in Orkney

Investigations in Orkney PDF Author: Colin Renfrew
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 314

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Book Description

Investigations in Orkney

Investigations in Orkney PDF Author: Colin Renfrew
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 314

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Book Description


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 : 593

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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.

Investigations in Sanday, Orkney: Excavations at Pool, Sanday : a multi-period settlement from Neolithic to late Norse times

Investigations in Sanday, Orkney: Excavations at Pool, Sanday : a multi-period settlement from Neolithic to late Norse times PDF Author: John Hunter
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Excavations (Archaeology)
Languages : en
Pages : 616

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Investigations in Sanday, Orkney

Investigations in Sanday, Orkney PDF Author: Stephen J. Dockrill
Publisher: Ocarina Books
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 442

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Book Description
Tofts Ness is a peninsula at the north end of the Orcadian island of Sanday where mounds and banks represent a domestic landscape, marginal even in island terms, together with a funerary landscape. A combination of selective excavation and geophysical survey during 1985-8 revealed settlement and cultivation spanning Neolithic to Early Iron Age times, including burnt mounds and traces of plough cultivation. The Neolithic inhabitants of Tofts Ness appear not to have used either Grooved Ware or Unstan Ware, and it is suggested that this reflects a lack of status compared to the settlement at Pool. Instead, the pottery shares important links to contemporary assemblages from West Mainland Shetland, and this is echoed by the steatite artefacts. The link with Shetland remains visible into the Late Bronze Age. The upper levels of the main settlement mound contained the remains of stone-built roundhouses of the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age, of which the last survived to a height of 1.5m. A lack of personal items amongst the artefact assemblage again indicates the low status of the inhabitants. The economic evidence for all periods shows a mixed subsistence economy based on animal husbandry and barley cultivation, together with fishing, fowling and the exploitation of wild plants both terrestrial and marine. Important studies on the farming methods employed on Tofts Ness reveal a manuring strategy in managing small fields that was more akin to intensive gardening than field cultivation and a deliberate policy of harvesting the barley crop whilst under-ripe.

Art and Architecture in Neolithic Orkney

Art and Architecture in Neolithic Orkney PDF Author: Antonia Thomas
Publisher: Archaeopress Publishing Ltd
ISBN: 1784914347
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
This book offers a groundbreaking analysis of Neolithic art and architecture in Orkney, focussing upon the incredible collection of hundreds of decorated stones being revealed by the current excavations at the Ness of Brodgar.

Orcadia

Orcadia PDF Author: Mark Edmonds
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1788543432
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 327

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Book Description
The Orcadian archipelago is a museum of archaeological wonders. The Orcadian Neolithic is home to some of the best-preserved Neolithic sites in Europe: here we can find evidence of a dynamic society with connections binding Orkney to Ireland, to southern Britain and to continental Europe. Yet there is much that remains unknown about the societies that created these sites. In Orcadia, Mark Edmonds traces the development of the Orcadian Neolithic from the early fourth millennium BC through to the end of the period nearly two thousand years later, using artefacts, architecture and the wider landscape to recreate the lives of Neolithic communities across the region.

The Ness of Brodgar

The Ness of Brodgar PDF Author: Roy Towers
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780993275715
Category : Excavations (Archaeology)
Languages : en
Pages : 39

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Book Description


Archaeological Theory and Scientific Practice

Archaeological Theory and Scientific Practice PDF Author: Andrew Jones
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139432044
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 226

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Book Description
Is archaeology an art or a science? This question has been hotly debated over the last few decades with the rise of archaeological science. At the same time, archaeologists have seen a change in the intellectual character of their discipline, as many writers have adopted approaches influenced by social theory. The discipline now encompasses both archaeological scientists and archaeological theorists, and discussion regarding the status of archaeology remains polarised. In this 2001 book, Andrew Jones argues that we need to analyse the practice of archaeology. Through an analysis of archaeological practice, influenced by recent developments in the field of science studies, and with the aid of extensive case studies, he develops a new framework which allows the interpretative and methodological components of the discipline to work in tandem. His reassessment of the status and character of archaeology will be of interest to students, scholars and professionals.

Landscapes Revealed

Landscapes Revealed PDF Author: Amanda Brend
Publisher: Oxbow Books
ISBN: 1789255074
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 514

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Book Description
Winner, Current Archaeology 2023 Book of the Year 2023 This volume brings together several years of work devoted to the wider landscape of the Heart of Neolithic Orkney World Heritage Site. It documents the results of a program of geophysical and related survey across an area of c. 285 hectares between Skara Brae on the west Orkney coast and Maeshowe, by the Loch of Stenness. The project has made it possible to talk for the first time about the landscape context of some of the most remarkable and renowned prehistoric monuments in Western Europe. The aims are to synthesize the data from different forms of survey and to document the changing character and development of this landscape over time. The results are genuinely remarkable are presented in a manner which makes the material of interest and value to a relatively wide readership, with an array of images which fully document and interpret the evidence. Survey work at a landscape scale tends to deal with palimpsests. Here descriptive sections are set within a thematic structure designed to explore the changing use and significance of different areas over time. The results shed important new light on the character and extent of known prehistoric sites and ceremonial monuments. But they also document the afterlives of these and other places and their relation to the lived landscapes of the historic and more recent past. In tracing the changing configuration of the World Heritage Area, we can begin appreciate this landscape as an artifact of several millennia of dwelling, working land, attending to wider worlds and to the past itself.

Between the Wind and the Water

Between the Wind and the Water PDF Author: Caroline Wickham-Jones
Publisher: Windgather Press
ISBN: 1909686530
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 178

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Book Description
The archaeological sites of Orkney give us an unparalleled glimpse into prehistory. Inscribed as the 'Heart of Neolithic Orkney' World Heritage Site in 1999, four great monuments - the village of Skara Brae, the Ring of Brodgar, the Stones of Stenness and the burial mound of Maeshowe - are also at the center of the archipelago's story. This book looks at what makes these monuments so special. Caroline Wickham-Jones explores the Neolithic world in which they were built, how they came to be a focus through the ages, and what they mean today. Picts, saints, Vikings, antiquarians and tourists populate Orkney's past: a history which is channeled through these 'dances of stones'. This new second edition replaces the highly successful and widely used first edition, which sold over 1,000 copies. The text has been fully updated to take account of recent discoveries and research including the now world famous site Ness of Brodgar. In addition there are over thirty new images including stunning photographs of Orkney's archaeology and landscape.