Monumentalizing Life In Neolithic Europe

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.

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.

The complex of megaliths near Tustrup is a prime example of the megalithic sites used by early farming communities in Stone Age Europe. Excavated in the 1950s by Moesgaard Museum, the site continues to hold great contemporary and scientific value. Its significance relates primarily to the unusual find of a ritual complex connected to two dolmens and passage grave. The question of why monumental sites played such an important role for early farming communities is currently the focus of several international studies. In Denmark, which boasts one of the world’s largest concentrations of megalithic monuments as well as a strong tradition for research in the area, archaeologists have had a longstanding wish to contribute to this discussion with a comprehensive publication about the unique complex of megaliths near Tustrup. Experts have researched the finds and meticulously analysed the site and its artefacts. These detailed studies have led to surprising and well-documented interpretations of the megalithic tombs, the construction history of the ritual site and their function, along with the inter-relationship between the monuments.

Proceedings of the Broadening Horizons 6 conference (2019): Volume 1 presents 17 papers from Session 1: Entanglement. Material Culture and Written Sources in Dialogue; Session 2: Integrating Sciences in Historical and Archaeological Research; and Session 5: Which Continuity? Evaluating Stability, Transformation, and Change in Transitional Periods.

This fascinating study explores how our prehistoric ancestors developed rituals from everyday life and domestic activities. Richard Bradley contends that for much of the prehistoric period, ritual was not a distinct sphere of activity. Rather it was the way in which different features of the domestic world were played out until they took on qualities of theatrical performance. With extensive illustrated case-studies, this book examines farming, craft production and the occupation of houses, all of which were ritualized in prehistoric Europe. Successive chapters discuss the ways in which ritual has been studied, drawing on a series of examples that range from Greece to Norway and from Romania to Portugal. They consider practices that extend from the Mesolithic period to the Early Middle Ages and discuss the ways in which ritual and domestic life were intertwined.

Dr. Whittle reviews the latest archaeological evidence on Neolithic Europe from 7000 to 2500 BC. Describing important areas, sites and problems, he addresses the major themes that have engaged the attention of scholars: the transition from a forager lifestyle; the rate and dynamics of change; and the nature of Neolithic society. He challenges conventional views, arguing that Neolithic society was rooted in the values and practices of its forager, predecessors right across the continent. The processes of settling down and adopting farming were piecemeal and slow. Only gradually did new attitudes emerge, to time and the past, to the sacred realms of ancestors and the dead, to nature and to the concept of community. Unique in its broad and up-to-date coverage of long-term processes of change on a continental scale, this completely rewritten and revised version of Whittle's Neolithic Europe: a survey reflects radical changes in the evidence and in interpretative approaches over the past decade.

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.