In this article, we wish to return to the suggestion made by Sarah Tarlow a decade ago about the importance of understanding emotions in archaeology as a central facet of human being and human actions. We suggest a further expansion of this that focuses exclusively on the relationship between material culture and emotions (as opposed to textually, verbally or iconographically informed approaches), and offer a vocabulary that may better equip archaeologists to incorporate emotions into their interpretations. We attempt to show the implications of such a vocabulary in a specific British Neolithic case study at the henge monument of Mount Pleasant.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S1380203810000206

Rethinking Emotion and Material Culture

Dairying in antiquity. III. Evidence from absorbed lipid residues dating to the British Neolithic

Britain BeginsStories of Ireland's PastIrelandLandscape Archaeology in IrelandThe early prehistory in the west of Ireland: Investigations into the social archaeology of the Mesolithic, west of the Shannon, IrelandBurials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age IrelandThe Prehistory of Britain and IrelandIreland's Ancient EastThe Archaeology of Mediterranean PrehistoryHistorical Archaeology of the Irish DiasporaThe Prehistoric Archaeology of IrelandIrish Cave ArchaeologyIreland in PrehistoryThe Archaeology of Prehistoric Burnt Mounds in IrelandEnvironmental Archaeology in IrelandThe Prehistory of Britain and IrelandPrehistoric Archaeology of IrelandPrehistory Without BordersRock Art and the Prehistory of Atlantic EuropeSettlement in the Irish NeolithicPast PerceptionsThe Bronze Age Burials of IrelandThe Origins of the IrishThe Archaeology of Caves in IrelandThe Archaeology of IrelandThe Archaeology of Europe's Drowned LandscapesA History of Settlement in IrelandPersonifying PrehistoryPrehistoric MaterialitiesIreland's First SettlersA New History of Ireland: Prehistoric and early IrelandIn Search of Ancient IrelandThe Archaeology of DarknessThe Archaeology of Celtic Britain and IrelandThe Neolithic of Britain and IrelandArchaeological Excavations in Moneen Cave, the Burren, Co. ClareThe Origins of the IrishThe Prehistory of Britain and IrelandIverniIreland in Prehistory Ireland’s First Settlers tells the story of the archaeology and history of the first continuous phase of Ireland’s human settlement. It combines centuries of search and speculation about human antiquity in Ireland with a review of what is known today about the Irish Mesolithic. This is, in part, provided in the context of the author’s 50 years of personal experience searching to make sense of what initially appeared to be little more than a collection of beach rolled and battered flint tools. The story is embedded in how the island of Ireland, its position, distinct landscape and ecology impacted on when and how Ireland was colonized. It also explores how these first settlers evolved their technologies and lifeways to suit the narrow range of abundant resources that were available. The volume concludes with discussions on how the landscape should be searched for the often ephemeral traces of these early settlers and how sites should be excavated. It asks what we really know about the thoughts and life of the people themselves and what happened to them as farming began to be introduced.This open access volume provides for the first time a comprehensive description and scientific evaluation of underwater archaeological finds referring to human occupation of the continental shelf around the coastlines of Europe and the Mediterranean when sea levels were lower than present. These are the largest body of underwater finds worldwide, amounting to over 2500 find spots, ranging from individual stone tools to underwater villages with unique conditions of preservation. The material reviewed here ranges in date from the Lower Palaeolithic period to the Bronze Age and covers 20 countries bordering all the major marine basins from the Atlantic coasts of Ireland and Norway to the Black Sea, and from the western Baltic to the eastern Mediterranean. The finds from each country are presented in their archaeological context, with information on the history of discovery, conditions of preservation and visibility, their relationship to regional changes in sea-level and coastal geomorphology, and the institutional arrangements for their investigation and protection. Editorial introductions summarise the findings from each of the major marine basins. There is also a final section with extensive discussion of the historical background and the legal and regulatory frameworks that inform the management of the underwater cultural heritage and collaboration between offshore industries, archaeologists and government agencies. The volume is based on the work of COST Action TD0902 SPLASHCOS, a multi-disciplinary and multi-national research network supported by the EU-funded COST organisation (European Cooperation in Science and Technology). The primary readership is research and professional archaeologists, marine and Quaternary scientists, culturalheritage managers, commercial and governmental organisations, policy makers, and all those with an interest in the sea floor of the continental shelf and the human impact of changes in climate, sea-level and coastal geomorphology.Along the Atlantic seaboard, from Scotland to Spain, are numerous rock carvings made four to five thousand years ago, whose interpretation poses a major challenge to the archaeologist. In the first fulllength treatment of the subject, based largely on new fieldwork, Richard Bradley argues that these carvings should be interpreted as a series of symbolic messages that are shared between monuments, artefacts and natural places in the landscape. He discusses the cultural setting of the rock carvings and the ways in which they can be interpreted in relation to ancient land use, the creation of ritual monuments and the burial of the dead. Integrating this fascinating yet little-known material into the mainstream of prehistoric studies, Richard Bradley demonstrates that these carvings played a fundamental role in the organization of the prehistoric landscape.A History of Settlement in Ireland provides a stimulating and thought-provoking overview of the settlement history of Ireland from prehistory to the present day. Particular attention is paid to the issues of settlement change and distribution within the contexts of: * environment * demography * culture. The collection goes further by setting the agenda for future research in this rapidly expanding area of academic interest. This volume will be essential reading for all those with an interest in the archaeology, history and social geography of Ireland.This volume focuses on the analysis of materials, from the Neolithic and Early Bronze Age periods of Britain and Ireland, in the study of prehistoric artefacts. Challenging the assumption that materials are inert and shaped by past societies, it argues that it is rather the materials which shaped the societies.Sited at the furthest limits of the Neolithic revolution and standing at the confluence of the two great sea routes of prehistory, Britain and Ireland are distinct from continental Europe for much of the prehistoric sequence. In this landmark 2007 study the first significant survey of the archaeology of Britain and Ireland for twenty years Richard Bradley offers an interpretation of the unique archaeological record of these islands based on a wealth of current and largely unpublished data. Bradley surveys the entire archaeological sequence over a 4,000 year period, from the adoption of agriculture in the Neolithic period to the discovery of Britain and Ireland by travellers from the Mediterranean during the later pre-Roman Iron Age. Significantly, this is the first modern account to treat Britain and Ireland on equal terms, offering a detailed interpretation of the prehistory of both islands.The Neolithic of Britain and Ireland provides a synthesis of this dynamic period of prehistory from the end of the Mesolithic through to the early Beaker period. Drawing on new excavations and the application of new scientific approaches to data from this period, this book considers both life and death in the Neolithic. It offers a clear and concise introduction to this period but with an emphasis on the wider and on-going research questions. It is an important text for students new to the study of this period of prehistory as well as acting as a reference for students and scholars already researching this area. The book begins by considering the Mesolithic prelude, specifically the millennium prior to the start of the Neolithic in

The prehistoric archaeology of Ireland

An archaeology of aesthetics can be more than a study of past artistic evaluation. It can be extended to encompass an understanding of styles of action considered proper and efficacious, and which drew in a knowledgeable and skilful fashion on specific understandings of the world and the order of things. Through the detail of selected depositional contexts in the British Neolithic, it is shown how the deliberate burial of artefacts and other materials was undertaken with such forms of aesthetic value in mind. In an 'aesthetics of deposition', a perception of effectiveness was intimately related to the effort and care expended upon the appropriate selection, arrangement and burial of things. While individual objects may not in themselves have been ascribed an aesthetic quality, their bringing together and arrangement in burial did serve to create aesthetic effects. In a post-Duchampian tradition they could even be seen as artworks.

The aesthetics of depositional practice

‘It is the slippery assemblages and the social traditions they represent, that we are trying to precipitate from the mass of beaker data’. Clarke 1970, 33The pottery we collectively call ‘Beakers’ is united by the thread of a potting and style tradition, Wrapped up in that tradition are also expressions concerning what such a pot is for and who it may represent. Both style and those embedded meanings mutate through the long currency of British Beakers. Indeed, the newly emerging chronology for Beaker grave groups suggests that there was one critical point of rapid mutation in both pot form and associated artefacts. This phase is referred to as a fission horizon, c. 2250–2150 cal BC, and it underlines the difficulties that past schemes of steady evolution have run into.In reviewing the continental background for Beaker-carrying cultures, a corridor of Bell Beaker/Corded Ware fusion is perceived along the southern flanks of the Channel. This created a modified spectrum of Beaker culture which stands at the head of the insular phenomenon. The long ensuing currency of Beaker pottery and Beaker graves in Britain does not hold up as a unified, steadily evolving entity. Instead, three ‘phases of meaning’ can be suggested: 1) Beaker as circumscribed, exclusive culture; 2) Beaker as instituted culture; 3) Beaker as past reference. The fission horizon initiates phase 2.

Transforming Beaker Culture in North-West Europe; Processes of Fusion and Fission

Settlement patterns in the Oxford region : excavations at the Abingdon causewayed enclosure and other sites

Taking grave and non-grave pottery together, five summary regional groups of beaker pottery are proposed for Britain and Ireland: Group A, Ireland; Group B, north Britain and eventually widespread; Group C, north and to some extent south Britain; Group D, south Britain; and Group E, East Anglia and south-east England. It is anticipated that further discoveries and research will enable these groups to be refined regionally.These groups are set in a quarter-millennium calendrical chronology, which suggests that they may all have appeared around or near the mid-3rd millennium BC, and that many of their aspects were long enduring, some surviving to the 2nd quarter of the 2nd millennium BC.Decorative features especially are related to bell-beaker pottery in western Europe, to Single Grave pottery across the North Sea, and to native Late Neolithic pottery. In presenting the chronology of these relationships, it is argued that a widely held view that bell-beaker pottery evolved in north-west Europe requires modification.

Beakers: Deconstruction and After

A recent stimulating paper on radiocarbon dating has drawn attention to the variety and richness of Irish Neolithic material-culture and to the great span of years it appears to cover, and thus to the possibility of arranging it in a convincing sequence. In order to achieve this by archaeological method, the material must be classified and the classes regionally determined; but compared with the care which has been given to classifying megalithic monuments and seeking their distributions, little detailed attention has so far been given to the pottery which they are generally found to contain.

Irish Neolithic Pottery: Distribution and Sequence

The situation of the Neolithic Causewayed camp at Abingdon, discovered by the Rev. Charles Overy and made famous by the late Mr. E. T. Leeds, is well known and only requires summarizing. It lies on a spur bounded by the valleys of two brooks at the south edge of an expanse of Summertown-Radley terrace gravel, three-quarters of a mile north of the Thames. The two concentric ditches, to which reference is made below, lay between the brooks; a third similar ditch, of which pit A was possibly a section, may have lain to the south. The site was at its highest (about 202 ft. O.D.) at about the centre of arc of the outer ditch, whence there was a gentle southerly slope. The expanses of Summertown-Radley gravel in the Oxford region have been found rich in prehistoric finds, that between Radley and Abingdon being no exception.

Humphrey Case

Papers

Settlement patterns in the Oxford region : excavations at the Abingdon causewayed enclosure and other sites

Beakers: Deconstruction and After

Irish Neolithic Pottery: Distribution and Sequence

The Neolithic causewayed camp at Abingdon, Berks.

The Early Neolithic Pottery and Fired Clay