author : Richard Bradley

The main body of the book consists of a series of chapters, chronologically arranged, each of which examines one of the main phases of British prehistory through detailed discussion of a key theme. There arc five such themes: the importance of ancestry among the earliest farmers; the production and exchange of fine artefacts before the adoption of metals; the importance of elaborate monuments and burials during the Neolithic and Bronze Age periods; the use and deposition of rich metalwork; and, finally, the changing scale of political relations during the late prehistoric period. These thematic chapters are followed by a discussion which draws these separate strands together in an account of our prehistory as a whole. Throughout, Richard Bradley’s emphasis is on the development and maintenance of power. This is an important development in the study of prehistory, since modern archaeologists have been extremely wary of addressing themselves to the social implications of their data. Indeed this is one of the first books to be concerned specifically with the character of prehistoric society in Britain. Yet the issues which Mr Bradley examines systematically here are the very issues which must have mattered most to the people archaeologists are studying.

The Neolithic period, when agriculture began and many monuments were constructed, is an era fraught with paradoxes and ambiguities. Students of prehistory have long found the highly theoretical interpretations of the period perplexing and contradictory. 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 the people who lived at the time.

The book studies the importance of monuments, tracing their history for nearly three millennia from their first creation over six thousand years ago. Part One discusses how monuments first developed and their role in forming a new sense of time and space among the inhabitants of prehistoric Europe. Such features of the landscape as mounds and enclosures are also examined in detail. Part Two takes the form of a series of detailed case studies to consider how monuments were modified and reinterpreted to suit the changing needs of society.

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.

In studying settlements and monuments, archaeologists have learnt a great deal about the ways in which these sites were used during prehistory. But such studies have often been limited, for their main sources of evidence were purposefully created. Little has been said about the special importance to prehistoric people of unaltered features of the landscape.

This volume explores why natural places such as caves, mountains, springs and rivers assumed a sacred character in European prehistory, and how the evidence for this can be analysed in the field. It shows how established research on votive deposits, rock art and production sites can contribute to a more imaginative approach to the prehistoric landscape, and can even shed light on the origins of monumental architecture. The discussion is illustrated through a wide range of European examples, and three extended case studies.

An Archaeology of Natural Places extends the range of landscape studies and makes the results of modern research accessible to a wider audience, including students and academics, field archaeologists, and those working in heritage management.

Richard Bradley argues 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 with added emphasis until they took on some of the qualities of theatrical performance. Farming, craft production and the occupation of houses are all examples of this ritualising process.

Successive chapters discuss the ways in which ritual has been studied and presented, drawing on a series of examples ranging from Greece to Norway and from Romania to Portugal. They consider practices that extended from the Mesolithic period to the Early Middle Ages and offer a series of studies of the ways in which ritual and domestic life were intertwined.

This edition has been thoroughly revised and updated. The text takes account of recent developments in archaeological science, such as isotopic analyses of human and animal bone, recovery of ancient DNA, and more subtle and precise methods of radiocarbon dating.

This study focuses on the monumental buildings of Northern and Northwestern Europe, but draws on structures over a wide area, extending from Anatolia as far as Brittany and Norway. It employs ethnography as a source of ideas and discusses the concept of the House Society and its usefulness in archaeology. The main examples are taken from the Neolithic and Iron Age periods, but this account also draws on the archaeology of the first millennium AD. The book emphasises the importance of comparing archaeological sequences with one another rather than identifying ideal social types. In doing so, it features a range of famous and less famous sites, from Stonehenge to the Hill of Tara, and from Old Uppsala to Yeavering.

The book considers the evidence for travel by sea between the settlement of the earliest farmers and the long-distance movement of metalwork. It emphasises the distinctive archaeology of a series of coastal locations. Little of the information is familiar and some of the most useful evidence was recorded many years ago. It is supplemented by new studies of these places and the artefacts found there, as well as reconstructions of the prehistoric coastline. The book emphasises the important role of ‘enclosed estuaries’, which were both sheltered harbours and special places where artefacts were introduced by sea. Other items were made there and exchanged with local communities. It considers the role played by these places in the wider pattern of settlement and their relationship to major monuments. The book describes how the character of coastal sites changed in parallel with developments in maritime technology and trade.

The main emphasis is on Neolithic and Early Bronze Age uses of the seashore, but the archaeology of the Middle and Later Bronze Ages provides a source of comparison.

The book begins with two famous groups of monuments and introduces the problem of multiple time scales. It also considers how they influence the display of those sites today – they belong to both the present and the past. Monuments played a role from the moment they were created, but approaches to their archaeology led in opposite directions. They might have been directed to a future that their builders could not control. These structures could be adapted, destroyed, or left to decay once their significance was lost. Another perspective was to claim them as relics of a forgotten past. In that case they had to be reinterpreted.

The first part of this book investigates the rarity of monumental structures among hunter-gatherers, and the choice of building materials for Neolithic houses and tombs. It emphasises the difference between structures whose erection ended the use of significant places, and those whose histories could extend into the future. It also discusses ‘megalithic astronomy’ and ancient notions of time. Part Two is concerned with the reuse of ancient monuments and asks whether they really were expressions of social memory. Did links with an ‘ancestral past’ have much factual basis? It contrasts developments during the Beaker phase with those of the early medieval period. The development of monumental architecture is compared with the composition of oral literature.