The Significance of Monuments

The Significance of Monuments: On the Shaping of Human Experience in Neolithic and Bronze Age Europe
	The first English-language edition of the book, featuring a photomontage artwork by Mark Johnston.
Author	Richard Bradley
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Subject	Archaeology
Publisher	Routledge
Publication date	1998
Media type	Print (Hardback and paperback)
Pages	179
ISBN	0-415-15204-6

Last updated February 28, 2019

The Significance of Monuments: On the Shaping of Human Experience in Neolithic and Bronze Age Europe is an archaeological book authored by the English academic Richard Bradley of the University of Reading. It was first published by Routledge in 1998.

Archaeology, or archeology, is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts and cultural landscapes. Archaeology can be considered both a social science and a branch of the humanities. In North America archaeology is a sub-field of anthropology, while in Europe it is often viewed as either a discipline in its own right or a sub-field of other disciplines.

Richard John Bradley, is a British archaeologist and academic. He specialises in the study of European prehistory, and in particular Prehistoric Britain. From 1987 to 2013, he was Professor of Archaeology at the University of Reading; he is now Emeritus Professor. He is also the author of a number of books on the subject of archaeology and prehistory.

The University of Reading is a public university located in Reading, Berkshire, England. It was founded as a University of Oxford extension college in 1892 as University College, Reading. The institution received the power to grant its own degrees in 1926 by Royal Charter from King George V and was the only university to receive such a charter between the two world wars. The university is usually categorised as a red brick university, reflecting its original foundation in the 19th century.

Adopting a chronological approach from the Mesolithic through the Neolithic and into the Early Bronze Age, Bradley discusses the various different types of monuments that were constructed in Europe during this period, from the passage tombs and causewayed enclosures to the later stone circles. Throughout, he offers new interpretations of the evidence, often criticising older viewpoints.

In Old World archaeology, Mesolithic is the period between the Upper Paleolithic and the Neolithic. The term Epipaleolithic is often used synonymously, especially for outside northern Europe, and for the corresponding period in the Levant and Caucasus. The Mesolithic has different time spans in different parts of Eurasia. It refers to the final period of hunter-gatherer cultures in Europe and Western Asia, between the end of the Last Glacial Maximum and the Neolithic Revolution. In Europe it spans roughly 15,000 to 5,000 BP; in Southwest Asia roughly 20,000 to 8,000 BP. The term is less used of areas further east, and not at all beyond Eurasia and North Africa.

The Neolithic, the final division of the Stone Age, began about 12,000 years ago when the first development of farming appeared in the Epipalaeolithic Near East, and later in other parts of the world. The division lasted until the transitional period of the Chalcolithic from about 6,500 years ago, marked by the development of metallurgy, leading up to the Bronze Age and Iron Age. In Northern Europe, the Neolithic lasted until about 1700 BC, while in China it extended until 1200 BC. Other parts of the world remained broadly in the Neolithic stage of development, although this term may not be used, until European contact.

The Bronze Age is a historical period characterized by the use of bronze, and in some areas proto-writing, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second principal period of the three-age Stone-Bronze-Iron system, as proposed in modern times by Christian Jürgensen Thomsen, for classifying and studying ancient societies.

Synopsis

Chapter one, "Structures of Sand", introduces the themes that Bradley explores in the book, and outlines prior archaeological approaches to understanding the Neolithic.^[1] In the second chapter, "Thinking the Neolithic", Bradley argues that Mesolithic European worldviews centred on fertility and regeneration, with no distinction made between humans and the natural world.^[2] In the third chapter, "The death of the house", Bradley suggests that the Early Neolithic long mounds, which were used as burial monuments, had their symbolic origins in decaying and collapsing longhouses, postulating a relation between the "houses of the living" and the "houses of the dead".^[3] Chapter four, "Another Time" argues against prior suggestions that Early Neolithic burial mounds represent a focus on the ancestors. Instead he suggests that it was the passage tombs that held such an ancestor-focus, because they permitted the living to enter into the tomb, where the dead were stored.^[4] The fifth chapter, "Small Worlds", examines the causewayed enclosures, arguing that these earthworks established a new sense of place and sacred geography in Neolithic Europe.^[5]

A causewayed enclosure is a type of large prehistoric earthwork common to the early Neolithic in Europe. More than 100 examples are recorded in France and 70 in England, while further sites are known in Scandinavia, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Ireland and Slovakia.

Part Two, "Describing a circle", opens with chapter six, "The persistence of memory", in which Bradley argues that ritual employs a distinctive notion of time that differs from everyday time, and he turns to Stonehenge in order to further this point.^[6] Chapter seven, "The public interest", debates why the monuments of the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age British Isles were based on a circular archetype, suggesting that they reflect a cosmological worldview and create a theatre for public participation in cultic behaviour; throughout, he uses Newgrange in Ireland as an example.^[7] In the eighth chapter, "Theatre in the Round," Bradley studies the stone circles in the British Isles and Brittany, arguing that they were constructed with explicit links to the wider landscape, in contrast to the earlier henges, which restricted visibility to the surrounding area.^[8] In the penultimate chapter, "Closed Circles", Bradley examines how the stone circles were converted into cemeteries during the Early Bronze Age.^[9] Chapter ten, "An agricultural revolution," looks at the transition to agriculture at prehistoric monuments in the mid-second millennium BCE, suggesting that many of the features of the "Neolithic Revolution" only occurred at this time.^[10]

Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument in Wiltshire, England, two miles (3 km) west of Amesbury. It consists of a ring of standing stones, with each standing stone around 13 feet (4.0 m) high, seven feet (2.1 m) wide and weighing around 25 tons. The stones are set within earthworks in the middle of the most dense complex of Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments in England, including several hundred burial mounds.

Newgrange is a prehistoric monument in County Meath, Ireland, located 8 kilometres (5.0 mi) west of Drogheda on the north side of the River Boyne. It is an exceptionally grand passage tomb built during the Neolithic period, around 3200 BC, making it older than Stonehenge and the Egyptian pyramids.

The stone circles in the British Isles and Brittany are a megalithic tradition of monuments consisting of standing stones arranged in rings. These were constructed from 3300 to 900 BCE in Britain, Ireland and Brittany. It has been estimated that around 4,000 of these monuments were originally constructed in this part of north-western Europe during this period. Around 1,300 of them are recorded, the others having been destroyed.

Reviews

Caroline Malone of Queen's University, Belfast reviewed Bradley's tome for the Antiquity journal alongside his earlier publication, Rock Art and the Prehistory of Atlantic Europe . Noting that many books on landscape archaeology were far-fetched, she thanked Bradley for producing such "sane" yet "deeply perceptive" volumes on the subject, stating that his use of language was didactic and "beautifully written". Believing it to be a useful source to learn about current debates in the field, she concludes that the book would be indispensable to archaeologists and scholars, if not students looking for a textbook on later prehistory.^[11]

Caroline Malone is a British academic and archaeologist, currently Professor of Prehistory at Queen's University, Belfast School of Natural and Built Environment http://www.qub.ac.uk/schools/nbe/, and formerly Senior Tutor of Hughes Hall, Cambridge, UK. Prior to this she was editor of Antiquity and Keeper of the Department of Prehistory and Early Europe at the British Museum. She began her career as curator at the Alexander Keillor Museum at Avebury.

Antiquity is an academic journal dedicated to the subject of archaeology. It publishes six issues a year, covering topics worldwide from all periods. Its current editor is Robert Witcher, Associate Professor of Archaeology at the University of Durham. Since 2015, the journal has been published by Cambridge University Press.

<i>Rock Art and the Prehistory of Atlantic Europe</i> Book by Richard Bradley

Rock Art and the Prehistory of Atlantic Europe: Signing the Land is an archaeological book authored by the English academic Richard Bradley of the University of Reading. It was first published by Routledge in 1997.

In Past, the newsletter of The Prehistoric Society, Rob Young of the University of Leicester praised the book as "another richly flavoured offering". Thinking it represented "Bradley at his best", he encouraged students, professional archaeologists and interested lay people to read it.^[12]

The Prehistoric Society is an international learned society devoted to the study of the human past from the earliest times until the emergence of written history.

University of Leicester university in England, United Kingdom

The University of Leicester is a public research university based in Leicester, England. The main campus is south of the city centre, adjacent to Victoria Park. In 1957, the university's predecessor gained university status.

Related Research Articles

There are three related types of Neolithic earthwork that are all sometimes loosely called henges. The essential characteristic of all three is that they feature a ring-shaped bank and ditch, with the ditch inside the bank. Because the internal ditches would have served defensive purposes poorly, henges are not considered to have been defensive constructions. The three henge types are as follows, with the figure in brackets being the approximate diameter of the central flat area:

Henge (> 20 m). The word henge refers to a particular type of earthwork of the Neolithic period, typically consisting of a roughly circular or oval-shaped bank with an internal ditch surrounding a central flat area of more than 20 m (66 ft) in diameter. There is typically little if any evidence of occupation in a henge, although they may contain ritual structures such as stone circles, timber circles and coves. Henge monument is sometimes used as a synonym for henge. Henges sometimes, but by no means always, featured stone or timber circles, and circle henge is sometimes used to describe these structures. The three largest stone circles in Britain are each in a henge. Examples of henges without significant internal monuments are the three henges of Thornborough Henges. Although having given its name to the word henge, Stonehenge is atypical in that the ditch is outside the main earthwork bank.
Hengiform monument (5 – 20 m). Like an ordinary henge except the central flat area is between 5 and 20 m (16–66 ft) in diameter, they comprise a modest earthwork with a fairly wide outer bank. Mini henge or Dorchester henge are sometimes used as synonyms for hengiform monument. An example is the Neolithic site at Wormy Hillock Henge.
Henge enclosure (> 300 m). A Neolithic ring earthwork with the ditch inside the bank, with the central flat area having abundant evidence of occupation and usually being more than 300 m (980 ft) in diameter. Some true henges are as large as this, but lack evidence of domestic occupation. Super henge is sometimes used as a synonym for a henge enclosure. However, sometimes Super henge is used to indicate size alone rather than use, e.g. "Marden henge ... is the least understood of the four British 'superhenges' (the others being Avebury, Durrington Walls and Mount Pleasant Henge".

Avebury is a Neolithic henge monument containing three stone circles, around the village of Avebury in Wiltshire, in southwest England. One of the best known prehistoric sites in Britain, it contains the largest megalithic stone circle in the world. It is both a tourist attraction and a place of religious importance to contemporary pagans.

The Cotswold-Severn Group are a series of long barrows erected in an area of western Britain during the Early Neolithic. Around 200 known examples of long barrows are known from the Cotswold-Severn region, although an unknown number of others were likely destroyed prior to being recorded.

The Medway Megaliths, sometimes termed the Kentish Megaliths, are a group of Early Neolithic chambered long barrows and other megalithic monuments located in the lower valley of the River Medway in Kent, South-East England. Constructed from local sarsen stone and soil between the 4th and 3rd millennia BCE, they represent the only known prehistoric megalithic group in eastern England and the most south-easterly group in Britain.

The Chestnuts Long Barrow, also known as Stony or Long Warren, is a chambered long barrow located near to the village of Addington in the southeastern English county of Kent. Constructed circa 4000 BCE, during the Early Neolithic period of British prehistory, today it survives only in a ruined state.

Addington Long Barrow is a chambered long barrow located near to the village of Addington in the southeastern English county of Kent. Constructed during Britain's Early Neolithic period, today it survives only in a ruined state. Built out of earth and around fifty local sarsen megaliths, the long barrow consisted of a sub-rectangular earthen tumulus enclosed by kerb-stones. Collapsed stones on the northeastern end of the chamber probably represented a stone chamber in which human remains might have been deposited; none, however, have been discovered.

The Rollright Stones is a complex of three Neolithic and Bronze Age megalithic monuments near the village of Long Compton, on the borders of Oxfordshire and Warwickshire. Constructed from local oolitic limestone, the three monuments now known as the King's Men and the Whispering Knights in Oxfordshire and the King Stone in Warwickshire, are distinct in their design and purpose, and were built at different periods in late prehistory. The stretch of time during which the three monuments were erected bears witness to a continuous tradition of ritual behaviour on sacred ground, from the 4th to the 2nd millennium BCE.

Julliberrie's Grave, also known as The Giant's Grave or The Grave, is an unchambered long barrow located near to the village of Chilham in the south-eastern English county of Kent. Probably constructed in the fourth millennium BCE, during Britain's Early Neolithic period, today it survives only in a state of ruin.

Carrowmore is a large group of megalithic tombs on the Cúil Irra peninsula near Sligo, Ireland. They were built in the 4th millennium BCE, during the Neolithic era. There are thirty surviving tombs, the earliest dating to around 3700 BCE, making Carrowmore the largest and among the oldest cemeteries of megalithic tombs in Ireland. It is considered one of the 'big four' along with Carrowkeel, Loughcrew and Brú na Bóinne. Carrowmore is the heart of an ancient ritual landscape which is dominated by the mountain of Knocknarea to the west. It is a protected National Monument.

The prehistory of Ireland has been pieced together from archaeological evidence, which has grown at an increasing rate over the last decades. It begins with the first evidence of humans in Ireland around 10,500 BC, and finishes with the start of the historical record around 400 AD. Both of these dates are later than for much of Europe and all of the Near East. The prehistoric period covers the Palaeolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic, Bronze Age and Iron Age societies of Ireland. For much of Europe, the historical record begins when the Romans invaded; as Ireland was not invaded by the Romans its historical record starts later, with the coming of Christianity.

This timeline of prehistoric Scotland is a chronologically ordered list of important archaeological sites in Scotland and of major events affecting Scotland's human inhabitants and culture during the prehistoric period. The period of prehistory prior to occupation by the genus Homo is part of the geology of Scotland. Prehistory in Scotland ends with the arrival of the Romans in southern Scotland in the 1st century AD and the beginning of written records. The archaeological sites and events listed are the earliest examples or among the most notable of their type.

Julian Stewart Thomas is a British archaeologist, publishing on the Neolithic and Bronze Age prehistory of Britain and north-west Europe. Thomas has been vice president of the Royal Anthropological Institute since 2007, is a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London, has been professor of archaeology at the University of Manchester since 2000, and is former secretary of the World Archaeological Congress. Thomas is perhaps best known as the author of the academic publication Understanding the Neolithic in particular, and for his work with the Stonehenge Riverside Project.

The Neolithic British Isles refers to the period of British, Irish and Manx history that spanned from circa 4000 to circa 2,500 BCE. The final part of the Stone Age in the British Isles, it was a part of the greater Neolithic, or "New Stone Age", across Europe.

Symbols of Power: At the Time of Stonehenge is a book dealing with the archaeology of hierarchical symbols in the British Isles during the Neolithic and Early Bronze Ages. Co-written by the archaeologists D.V. Clarke, T.G. Cowie and Andrew Foxon, it also contained additional contributions from other authors including John C. Barrett and Joan Taylor. Published by the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland in 1985, it was designed to accompany an exhibition on the same subject that was held that year in Edinburgh, Scotland.

<i>Rites of the Gods</i> Book by Aubrey Burl

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Neolithic and Bronze Age rock art in the British Isles

In the Neolithic and Bronze Age British Isles, rock art was produced across various parts of the islands. Petroglyphic in nature, the majority of such carvings are abstract in design, usually cup and ring marks, although examples of spirals or figurative depictions of weaponry are also known. Only one form of rock art in Europe, this late prehistoric tradition had connections with others along Atlantic Europe, particularly in Galicia.

Shrub's Wood Long Barrow is an unchambered long barrow located near to the village of Elmsted in the south-eastern English county of Kent. It was probably constructed in the fourth millennium BCE, during Britain's Early Neolithic period. Built out of earth, the long barrow consists of an sub-trapezoidal tumulus flanked by side ditches.

Jacket's Field Long Barrow is an unchambered long barrow located near to the village of Boughton Aluph in the south-eastern English county of Kent. It was probably constructed in the fourth millennium BCE, during Britain's Early Neolithic period. Built out of earth, the long barrow consists of an sub-trapezoidal tumulus flanked by side ditches.

References

Footnotes

↑ Bradley 1998, pp. 3–19.
↑ Bradley 1998, pp. 20–35.
↑ Bradley 1998, pp. 36–50.
↑ Bradley 1998, pp. 51–67.
↑ Bradley 1998, pp. 68–82.
↑ Bradley 1998, pp. 85–100.
↑ Bradley 1998, pp. 101–115.
↑ Bradley 1998, pp. 117–131.
↑ Bradley 1998, pp. 132–146.
↑ Bradley 1998, pp. 147–164.
↑ Malone 1999, pp. 460–462.
↑ Young 1999.

Bibliography

Bradley, Richard (1998). The Significance of Monuments: On the Shaping of Human Experience in Neolithic and Bronze Age Europe. London and New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-15204-6.

Malone, Caroline (1999). "Landscape: Gleaning the Meaning". Antiquity. 73: 460–462.

Young, Rob (1999). "Of Artefacts and Monuments..." Past: The Newsletter of the Prehistoric Society. 31.

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[FOOTNOTEBradley19983&ndash;19-1] Bradley 1998, pp. 3–19.

[FOOTNOTEBradley199820&ndash;35-2] Bradley 1998, pp. 20–35.

[FOOTNOTEBradley199836&ndash;50-3] Bradley 1998, pp. 36–50.

[FOOTNOTEBradley199851&ndash;67-4] Bradley 1998, pp. 51–67.

[FOOTNOTEBradley199868&ndash;82-5] Bradley 1998, pp. 68–82.

[FOOTNOTEBradley199885&ndash;100-6] Bradley 1998, pp. 85–100.

[FOOTNOTEBradley1998101&ndash;115-7] Bradley 1998, pp. 101–115.

[FOOTNOTEBradley1998117&ndash;131-8] Bradley 1998, pp. 117–131.

[FOOTNOTEBradley1998132&ndash;146-9] Bradley 1998, pp. 132–146.

[FOOTNOTEBradley1998147&ndash;164-10] Bradley 1998, pp. 147–164.

[FOOTNOTEMalone1999460&ndash;462-11] Malone 1999, pp. 460–462.

[FOOTNOTEYoung1999-12] Young 1999.